Known as Spherical tokamak for energy production (STEP), the United Kingdom today embarked on a step towards building the world's first nuclear fusion power station, launching a search for a site of more than 100 hectares where it can be connected to the electricity grid.
However, there are still big hurdles to overcome before it can start generating power. No fusion reactor has so far produced more energy than it consumed. That could change in 2025, when the world's largest fusion project, ITER in France, turns on.
Master Upgrade
Master Upgrade (Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak) will use an innovative design known as a spherical tokamak and could remove some of the obstacles to delivering clean, unlimited power to the grid. Most tokamaks are donut shaped. But in Mast Upgrade, the size of the nut hole has been reduced as much as possible, giving the plasma a nearly spherical profile.
STEP's energy production target is more modest (a net gain of 100MW) but, unlike ITER, it will be connected to the ordinary electrical grid to understand how a fusion plant operates day in and day out.
The plant is being presented as an important platform in efforts to reach the UK's target of net zero emissions by 2050. The UK is not the only country aiming to build a commercial fusion reactor. A Chinese proposal, the Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR), could come into operation in 2035. And DEMO, the European successor to ITER, is planned for the 2050s.
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), the government body that oversees STEP, hopes construction can begin around 2030, with the plant operational as early as 2040.
The tokamak is a fusion device that uses magnetic fields to confine plasma (hot ionized gas) within a container. This plasma allows light elements to fuse and produce energy.
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The news
UK takes step towards world's first fusion nuclear power plant
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.