The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) will open a new £22m fusion research centre in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, in 2020.
Located in the town’s Advanced Manufacturing Park, the facility’s core role will be to develop and test joining technologies for fusion materials and components, including novel metals and ceramics. These will then be tested and evaluated under conditions simulating the inside of a fusion reactor such as high-heat flux, vacuum and in strong magnetic fields. Funding will come primarily from the Government’s Nuclear Sector Deal, with an additional £2m being provided via Sheffield City Region’s Local Growth Fund.
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“Momentum is growing in fusion research and we believe the opening of this facility in South Yorkshire represents a practical step towards developing power plants,” said Colin Walters, director of the National Fusion Technology Platform at UKAEA.
“This facility will provide fantastic opportunities for UK businesses to win contracts and put UKAEA in a great position to help deliver the necessary expertise for the first nuclear fusion power stations.”
According to the UKAEA, those opportunities include competing for contracts at the ITER fusion project in southern France. The organisation claims that the 25,000 square foot Rotherham facility will support 40 high-skilled jobs directly as well as supporting the supply chain of specialist materials providers. Collaboration with research bodies including the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) and the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (NAMRC) will also be a focus.
“We’re delighted to welcome UKAEA to the Advanced Manufacturing Park, and to the Sheffield region’s world-leading cluster of applied innovation,” said Andrew Storer, chief executive of the Nuclear AMRC. “We look forward to working with UKAEA at their new facility to develop manufacturing techniques for fusion power plants and help UK manufacturers win work in this growing global market.”
“This development has the potential to create many jobs in the local supply chain as fusion technology matures. This is a huge deal for Sheffield and the North, and we are really pleased to have played a part in this and to be working with UKAEA.”
Great news, we need to continue our involvement with ITER irrespective of brexit. The projects at ITER are serious money projects and the UK is much better at cryogenics and electrical engineering than France, so we should have a chance. I think that English is the main working language for the project also, so that will reduce the hurdles a bit.
3000 tonnes of nuclear waste has been made at the fusion research centre in Oxfordshire …Now they plan a new fusion centre in South Yorkśhire ??…Money is the oxygen fuelling this nuclear fire …lots of public money. Why do they keep on with fusion, ??? It requires fission reactors to provide the tritium ..but is described as “green”..
Not strictly true. The 3000 tonnes figure is an estimate by the lab that runs the facility of the quantity of radioactive waste that would be created when it is eventually decommissioned. The fusion reaction itself is an inherently “clean” process
Marianne, the neutrons produced during the fusion process will induce some, usually relatively short lived, radioactivity in the confinement vessel. This is very different from the radioactive fission products produced by a fission reactor.
The 3000 tonnes mentioned is probaly the complete containment vessel. Not all of it will have induced radioactivity and it is a one off for the life of the reactor unlike a fission reactor where radioactive material is continuously produced.
Interestingly you can reach an equilibrium condition even with fission reactors where the stored fission by products are decaying away as fast as they are produced.
Best regards
Roger