Two UK companies leading efforts to reproduce the way the sun makes energy are both on the way to hitting significant milestones in their attempts to commercialise nuclear fusion by the 2030s.
On 25 March, Oxfordshire-based Tokamak Energy made its first plasma, the state hydrogen reaches when heated to very high temperatures, after a 拢25 million upgrade to its tokamak, the machines used to create fusion reactions. Meanwhile, rival firm First Light Fusion, also in Oxfordshire, has entered the final days of assembling a new 22-metre-long 鈥済un鈥� for use in what it calls 鈥減rojectile fusion鈥�.
The two companies are among trying to crack the challenge of getting more energy out of a fusion reactor than goes in 鈥� and commercialise the technology fast enough to provide a steady source of low-carbon power to tackle climate change.
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Most fusion research, from JET in the UK聽to the ITER project being built in southern France, is undertaken with billions of pounds worth of public funding through countries鈥� joint efforts.
David Kingham at Tokamak Energy says nuclear fusion businesses typically have a different focus to that of these public efforts. 鈥淭he private sector brings this focus on innovation and rapid development of prototypes and devices,鈥� he says. 鈥淕overnment laboratories tend to be very keen on the science and scientific understanding of the plasmas. It sets a different pace of things.鈥�
Both Tokamak Energy and First Light Fusion have ambitious targets to have a first fusion power station running in the 2030s. By comparison, the UK government鈥檚 goal is to have one by 2040, while one spun off from ITER isn鈥檛 planned until the second half of the century 鈥� too late to contribute to current efforts to halt global warming.
Tokamak Energy鈥檚 upgraded spherical tokamak includes a new device to better handle the heat from making a plasma. The upgrade also allows the copper magnets that control the plasma to be cooled with liquid nitrogen, meaning more current can be run to generate a stronger magnetic field. That will be crucial to jump from the 15 million 掳C plasma the firm has achieved so far, to the 100 million 掳C one it hopes to create later this year.
Nick Hawker at First Light Fusion is taking a very different tack. The firm is using a new method it hopes will be an affordable way to solve inertial confinement fusion, which generates huge pressure to compress hydrogen fuel and start fusion.
For the past two years, the company has operated a machine launching projectiles flying 20 kilometres a second at a target using electromagnetic force. Its new device, housed in an armoured bunker dubbed the Citadel, is a 25-tonne 鈥渂ig gun鈥� that uses gunpowder and hydrogen gas to launch larger but slower projectiles at about 6.5 kilometres per second.
It remains unclear whether inertial confinement fusion will ever work. The National Ignition Facility in California, a huge laser and the world鈥檚 biggest experiment of this kind, has struggled since it was completed in 2009, being beset by . First Light Fusion鈥檚 gun cost about 拢1 million, while the National Ignition Facility cost the equivalent of several billion pounds although it聽delivers far higher power. As Hawker says: 鈥淲e definitely have a cheaper way. The question is 鈥� can we make it work?鈥�
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