Industrial applications could boost fusion energy research

There’s a small part of Oxfordshire where you can go from archetypal rural idyll to the heat of the heart of a star within 10 minutes. Thatched cottages, tranquil streams and signs to the World Poohsticks Championship give way to security barriers, utilitarian buildings and a towering fortress-like structure: the Culham Innovation Centre, one of the world’s leading centres for nuclear fusion research.

The fortress contains JET, the Joint European Torus, one of the few places on the planet capable of carrying out nuclear fusion. JET is the model for ITER, the much larger toroidal reactor whose construction is in its early stages in southern France and that, in 10 years, may point the way to one of science and engineering’s most promising but elusive goals: generating clean energy from nuclear fusion.

But energy isn’t the only product of the process that takes place inside fusion reactors; the joining together of two forms of hydrogen to make helium. This releases a burst of energy, but it also releases two high-energy neutrons. For energy research, this causes problems: the high volume of fast-travelling neutrons, known as a neutron flux, bombards the walls of the reactor, requiring the careful choice of materials; the particles need to be slowed down to remove their energy; and thick concrete shielding is needed to protect humans from the radiation they produce.