Nuclear Fusion

Posted: 28th June 2021

 Nuclear fusion is being talked up as the next big energy
thing- although it remains some way off and there are many technical and
economic question marks. But Boris Johnson is evidently a fan. The UK
government, keen to maintain headway in this field after the UK’s exit
from Euratom, has set aside £222m for the development of new fusion
technology. It has also asked local authorities to nominate potential sites
for a prototype fusion plant, based on the MAST Tokamak developed at Culham
in Oxfordshire. The Atomic Energy Authority will assess the sites before
making recommendation to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and
Industrial Strategy. Candidate sites for the ‘Spherical Tokamak for
Energy Production’ (STEP) project include Ratcliffe-on-Soar power
station, Nottinghamshire and Aberthaw Power Station, near Barry, in Wales.
With there being concerns about local job as coal plants close, new
projects like this are obviously attractive, but the STEP programme is
fairly leisurely, with a commercial-scale plant not being expected until
2040. It is very early days for these novel technologies, but there have
been assessments made of health and safety risk factors in relation to
ITER-type reactors, a key one being the creation of X and gamma ray
activated containment materials from the powerful internal radiation
fluxes. So, as a Nature paper explained, even though they will be shorter
lived than the waste produced by fission reactors, ITER-type plants will
produce wastes that have to be dealt with, and will need shielding and
careful access control to protect workers and the public. All of which will
add to the cost. Why bother with the huge effort to get fusion plants
running on earth? We have the sun, a free fusion reactor in the sky, that
delivers all the energy we could ever need, without charge. And the
technology needed to use it is available now, not, at the very best for
fusion, in a decade or two, and more likely not until 40 years on…

 Renew Extra Weekly 26th June 2021

 https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2021/06/fusion-next-steps-for-uk.html