The UK Will Invest Billions to Build a Nuclear Fusion Industry (thetimes.com) 74
The UK's science minister is announcing details of a five-year, £2.5 billion investment in nuclear fusion, reports the Times of London, "including building one of the world's first prototype fusion power plants in Nottinghamshire and developing a UK sector projected to employ 10,000 people by 2030."
Despite the potentially transformative impact of fusion, which in theory could provide limitless clean energy and create a £12 trillion global market, no country has managed to use this fledgling technology to generate useable electricity... [T]he UK is backing a spherical tokamak design... investing an initial £1.3 billion into a prototype fusion power plant called Step (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) on the site of a decommissioned coal-fired power station at West Burton in Nottinghamshire. Paul Methven, chief executive of the government-owned UK Industrial Fusion Solutions, which is delivering the Step project, said the aim is to get the reactor operating early in the 2040s. "It's quite an aggressive programme," he said. "We need to show that we can achieve genuine 'wall socket' energy — which has not been done before."
On Monday, [science minister] Vallance will also announce £180 million for a facility in Culham, Oxfordshire, to manufacture tritium fuel and £50 million for training 2,000 scientists and engineers in fusion-related disciplines. The government is also buying a £45 million fusion-dedicated AI supercomputer called Sunrise to model plasma physics. Scientists at the UK Atomic Energy Authority last year developed an AI model that can rapidly simulate how the ultra-hot fuel in a fusion power plant will behave, cutting calculations that previously took days down to seconds...
Vallance will also announce new support and collaboration for the many fusion, robotics, engineering and AI start-ups working in Britain, to develop a strong supply chain for a new fusion sector. One of those companies, Tokamak Energy, which spun out from the UK Atomic Energy Authority in 2009, has already built a smaller reactor that has informed the Step design. In March 2022, it became the first private organisation in the world to surpass 100 million degrees Celsius in its reactor.
On Monday, [science minister] Vallance will also announce £180 million for a facility in Culham, Oxfordshire, to manufacture tritium fuel and £50 million for training 2,000 scientists and engineers in fusion-related disciplines. The government is also buying a £45 million fusion-dedicated AI supercomputer called Sunrise to model plasma physics. Scientists at the UK Atomic Energy Authority last year developed an AI model that can rapidly simulate how the ultra-hot fuel in a fusion power plant will behave, cutting calculations that previously took days down to seconds...
Vallance will also announce new support and collaboration for the many fusion, robotics, engineering and AI start-ups working in Britain, to develop a strong supply chain for a new fusion sector. One of those companies, Tokamak Energy, which spun out from the UK Atomic Energy Authority in 2009, has already built a smaller reactor that has informed the Step design. In March 2022, it became the first private organisation in the world to surpass 100 million degrees Celsius in its reactor.
Fusion in five years (Score:2)
for £2.5 billion. What a rip-off. (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats only 3 days of War...
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Over in one hour, with fission. Dammit, off-topic!
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Re:for £2.5 billion. What a rip-off. (Score:4, Funny)
The last two at least produce something. But what is war good for? Absolutely nothing!
But what is war good for? (Score:2)
Keeping Bibi out of jail.
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Yes, but that's not "good" in my book.
Re: good luck with that (Score:4, Interesting)
No, what was needed was the discovery of rare earth, barium copper oxide superconductors, and the necessary research to figure out how to build large magnets with them. Thatâ(TM)s why commonwealth fusion systems in the US is also predicting the same timeline.
For what itâ(TM)s worth, the UK has pretty much always been on or near the cutting edge of fusion research. Itâ(TM)s in no way surprising that theyâ(TM)re one of the first to be saying âoeyeh, we think we can actually build a working reactor nowâ.
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Yeah, £2.5 Billion to be spent on consultants, inquiries, and management bonuses. I predict not a single MW of power will come from this.
Imagine if they spent that £2.5 Billion on a scheme for residential solar or on energy storage using technology we know works.
But it seems most western governments can't handle doing actual work, all they can do is throw massive amounts of money at companies to get very little back.
Re: good luck with that (Score:2)
God was saving it for them, their only redemption for bringing fossil fuel motors to the world.
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Part of the push for fusion is to keep the AI bubble afloat.
So what? (Score:3)
We're building flying cars.
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Two financial failures in one, whadda bahgin!
I hope at least one gets lucky, but I won't put stock in them myself.
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No, you're not. Some are building oversized quadcopters, but with more propellers that can do 15 to 20 minutes in the air.
That's about it.
Re:If only.. (Score:5, Insightful)
If only God had put fusion reactor up in the sky available for use on average 12 hours a day any place on Earth.
Instead of squirrelling away all that past sunlight underground?
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That "reactor" is too far away to be of much use on earth: it's why only a miniscule fraction of that reactor's power is actually usable here. Other reason to want fusion power is that hydrogen is far more available than fissile elements like Uranium, Plutonium, Thorium, Radium,.....
You're right. The UK gov will now invest in a dyson sphere.
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That "reactor" is too far away to be of much use on earth
For something that's too far away to be of much use, it sure is getting a lot of use [globalcapital.com].
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Maybe, but only a miniscule fraction of its energy is getting used, as I pointed out above
True, but I don't see how that's a problem for anyone.
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Only a problem in that it doesn't come close in meeting the requirements of anyone who needs the scale of power that one gets from fossil fuels. A fusion plant would, but if it is several thousand miles away from this planet
May The Fog Be With You. Always. (Score:2)
If only God had put fusion reactor up in the sky available for use on average 12 hours a day any place on Earth.
Uh huh. Tell me again how you haven't lived in that particular part of the world yet.
I remember those UK sunny days during the summer months. All three of them.
London Fog, isn't just the feeling the company founder got when pissed on Beefeeter.
Would be way too expensive. (Score:1)
Re: Would be way too expensive. (Score:1)
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You are talking out of your backside. Nobody knows what economic profile fusion will have.
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I'm not sure about the cost. I believe the main reason why nuclear fission reactors are so expensive is the risk of catastrophic meltdown and costs of building all the safety features needed to mitigate that risk, as well as costs of dealing with legal challenges etc. Fusion would not have that problem. For comparison, the cost of construction of UK's Hinkley Point C nuclear reactor is projected to reach £33 billon - see here [britainremade.co.uk]. £2.5 billion is relative peanuts by comparison.
As far as I'm able t
Re: Would be way too expensive. (Score:2)
From my background as a nutty conspiracy theorist and UAP researcher, I think it will work.
My research indicates UK is a UAP producing country. This means they have the classified tech to bend spacetime. This would the secret sauce for making confinement fusion work, both magnetic and inertial, you induce small but intense spacetime curvature near the target point.
I believe itâ(TM)s been known for ages, but secret. I also believe there has been a debate in the black projects area about the value of kee
ITER (Score:3)
Why don't they invest more in ITER instead? They should get ITER up faster. If they can show it works, the money will flow. I feel like they are spreading resources too thin and then nothing will work and fusion will be set back yet again decades.
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Indeed! Share the costs and risks. It's not like UK is flush with cash of late.
I'd rather see work on a stellerator, though. They seem more promising and mechanically simpler in the long run. Computer control will improve over time.
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ITER is running well behind private sector competition. Allegedly.
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What "private sector competition"? There are two or three projects worldwide that have produced something in the field and all are government-sponsored.
The "startup" cottage industry around them are mostly subcontractors that feed on the crumbs of the large projects.
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I don't know the whole field, but this one is local-ish to me: https://www.openstar.tech/ [openstar.tech]
Has gained some government funding recently, but I wouldn't call it government-sponsored.
I don't know whether it's 'ahead' of IETR, but it is a different technology path from the others. Which path will eventually win the race to working at useful energy surplus levels, it's too soon to say. There may even be several successful designs, like there are with fision reactors.
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ITER is a boondoggle that has absorbed massive amounts of money and produced little in the way of useful results. It may be interesting from a scientific perspective, but in general, it's a lesson in how not to conduct research with the goal of future practical applications.
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It shouldn't produce any results, it is still in construction.
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Levitated dipole was proposed IIRC in the late 80s, there were one or two experiments funded by the US NSF or DoE IIRC. The one at MIT was wound down because it turned out to be worse than the tokamak. I see that the MIT guy is on the team, so the startup is basically a direct descent of that US DoE funded project.
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Commonwealth, Helion, and others.
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ITER is running well behind private sector competition. Allegedly.
Allegedly, sure. Because most of those startups tend to have pretty websites, ask for loads of money, and don't make much sense in the way of science and technology. If I were in risky investments, my BS detector would scream "don't touch this". There are very few startups that have even a small area of expertise where they might actually have something, but they remain very far from an actual power plant.
My bet would be to continue with the more promising magnetic confinement research projects, which are S
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Perhaps you should once visit once of those web sites instead of being derogative about them?
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Since ITER began construction (many years ago), one significant change is that new types of superconducting magnets have been developed. So, one primary reason not to follow in the path of ITER, or invest in it, is that the technology is now somewhat outdated.
For instance, Commonwealth Fusion is using a new type of superconducting magnet that can generate approximately 20 Tesla (https://news.mit.edu/2024/tests-show-high-temperature-superconducting-magnets-fusion-ready-0304). In comparison, ITER is using a m
Re: ITER (Score:2)
Because ITER is a boondoggle thatâ(TM)s outdated before itâ(TM)s even finished. Small high temperature superconductor reactors like the ones the UK are planning are far more feasible to build, smaller, cheaper, easier to iterate on, and much further inside the area of the graph where fusion works.
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a) because the plans for ITER are settled, and the investment as well
b) ITER is meanwhile clearly not a way to sustainable (electric) power generating fusion. It is a plasma research project, that includes fusion.
There are plenty of start ups that do "modern fusion" without the overhead of super complex ITER (power) plant constructions.
Google for instance https://www.helionenergy.com/ [helionenergy.com]
And the we have the Vasimir program at JPL, they are about to transform the plasma engine into a fusion/plasma engine.
People
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Nobody has "working" fusion. Nobody has shown break-even, or even beaten the Tokamak in any demo. The closest has been the NIF, which showed "scientific breakeven" whatever the F that means.
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Many have working fusion.
Also break even.
However none has a reactor that generates electricity at all.
I think you are years out of the loop, and did not even notice the /. articles about fusion in the recent 3 or 4 months.
Re: ITER (Score:2)
Who has breakeven? give me the link.
Lets build fusion reactors on the Moon (Score:1)
Questions about the investment (Score:4, Informative)
Have a casual interest in modeling plasma (it's a long story why). Because of this interest, have specific questions about the investment (that weren't answered in the article):
* Why (only) a tokamak design? There are two primary types of fusion reactors, magnetic and inertial confinement. There are also hybrid approaches, such as what Helion Energy is using, a magneto-inertial fusion. So, my question, why choose only this approach? If you're going to make a large investment, why not invest in the many types of approaches to make a fusion reactor?
* Is the investment going to include investing in private companies? And, if so, will that include investments in companies outside of the UK?
* The reason for the investment in a supercomputer is because of plasma tearing instability (I assume). That is, the plasma has to stay hot enough and for a long enough time to generate fusion. Both, generating the plasma and the process of fusion, is probabilistic. In other words, there are many instabilities that occur and that cause the plasma to cool (from the temperature needed for fusion). So, my question, what exactly would an investment in a supercomputer provide? Typically, investment in a supercomputer means that a problem can be linearly divided into smaller subproblems that are easier to compute. Would be interested to know what specific methods are going to be used to model the plasma.
* Finally -- and this isn't a question -- modeling plasma is complex. It's one of the most complex mathematical models that I've learned and attempted to make. If you're interested, this introductory video is excellent. Although it's from about 10 years ago (I think), the problems with understanding the physics of plasma in a fusion reactor are still relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: Questions about the investment (Score:2)
- Why a tokamak? Two reasons. One is that the UK has been on the cutting edge of tokamak research for years, so itâ(TM)s what they know and can contribute to most. Two, because itâ(TM)s the safe bet. High temperature superconductor based reactors are at a point where itâ(TM)s all but certain that theyâ(TM)ll produce power in the next few years. Other approaches like helionâ(TM)s are far less certain, and a whole new research avenue.
- why a supercomputer? Because while plasma c
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If you're going to make a large investment, why not invest in the many types of approaches to make a fusion reactor?
That questions answers itself. Distributing your investment into multiple projects likely to fail is less efficient than putting that investment in a single project that many people determined the most likely to succeed. Also why would you invest in something that a foreign company is currently the main researcher of? This is a government investment so it makes sense to invest in what is being done locally. Such as this program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Flying car moonshot (Score:2)
Dandy (Score:2)
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Mullahs with nuclear fusion. What could go wrong?
What mullahs are you referring to?
Is this a racist dig at Nottinghamshire?
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Mullahs with nuclear fusion. What could go wrong?
I think you're confusing fusion with fission. A Mullah (or any irresponsible person, for those who prefer not to sound like a bigot) who has access to grossly abuse a fusion reactor might at worse damage the reactor and sprinkle a trace amount of radiation around. They certainly wouldn't be able to make any kind of weapon out of it.
We are slowly getting prototypes. Good. (Score:2)
This will still take 20 years or so to meaningful power generation, but if the Tokamak is ready for a prototype and the Stellerator is close to that, then we will likely get there. Now we need to hope that these will work economically.
Earth already HAS the best fusion reactor (Score:2)
It's about 8 light-minutes away.
In all seriousness, the combination of (solar + wind + hydro), battery storage, and long-distance grid connections is all we will need. It's cost-competitive with fossil fuels today and it's only getting more attractive as tech improves.
The best place for fusion is in the Sun's core, where any stray neutrons it generates are intercepted before reaching anything we humans care about. This fusion powers solar, wind, and hydro energy Earth-wide.
The cost of renewably generating
Peanuts (Score:2)
Dismantling Sellafield is projected to cost £136 billion (about $184 billion) over 100 years.