"The first phase of the programme is to produce a concept design by 2024. It will be a spherical tokamak, connected to the National Grid and producing net energy, although it is not expected to be a commercially operating plant at this stage."

"Will" and not "might"? I didn't know it was that far along.

It'll definitely be a spherical tokamak.

It'll definitely be connected to the National Grid, since they'll want heating and lights in the offices.

The producing net energy bit? I remain skeptical but excited.

.... that commercial fusion was always 10 years away. Now they're telling me that it's 18 years away.

Soon someone will be telling me that it's 90 million miles away!

Do you need to ask? ------------>

Now, now sun...

The Register spoke to Richard Dinan, CEO of Pulsar Fusion, who told us "2040 sounds about right" once one considers the infrastructure and sign-offs needed to build a power station.

"That's what's taking the time," he said, "it's not the fusion."

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, but it does suggest we're closing in on fusion reaching the business-as-usual state and getting bogged down the same way as other infrastructure changes do.

Recent experience with Covid vaccination and treatments has shown that if the pressure is there it's possible to restructure the processes and shorten the overall time. Parallel processing can be fast; who knew!

I grow old … I grow old …

The first announcement of successful fusion(*) came when my age could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Now I do not expect to see continuously operating fusion reactors, never mind commercial ones, before I die.

(*) It wasn't.

Fusion has been successful for decades, and was first demonstrated in 1932.

It's had commercial use for a lot of that time in all sorts of ways...

Power generation however is not one of those uses, yet!

Main uses - something for phd wielding institutionalised dolts to waste time and money on…

Fusion is the easy part

Holding a plasma for meaningful periods is the hard part. 15 minutes is the record

Achieving unity is another target which has only been beaten for a few seconds at a time and only at chamber energy in/out levels - not gross energy in/recoverable work. What's needed isn't unity in the chamber but 100k:1 to 1M:1 ratios and for sustained periods (hours, not minutes)

History is littered with promising technology which never made it out of the laboratory and internal combustion engines which only made barely enough power to spin themselves

Every "failure" is a learning experience (something accountants and politicians fail to grasp), but I think commercial fusion power is still 60+ years away from being a reality. In the meantime China and others are forging ahead with SAFE fission power systems such as molten Salt technology (Wuwei and others)

(Anyone who thinks molten sodium is safe needs to have their head examined. That's the technology that actually has the "cracking pipes" and serious corrosion issues erronously attributed to salt tech and a coolant which explodes if it contacts water/burns furiously in contact with air isn't a bright idea even in the non-nuclear side of the equation - as they found out at ~Monju. Nuclear proponents need to learn the mantra of "Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD" and take chemical safety into consaideration)

I don't know, the pace really seems to have picked up in recent years, with so many different entities working on far more practical designs than the likes of ITER (which is basically obsolete), and huge amounts of investment. The 2040 timeframe actually seems unambitious, compared to some projects out there.

Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) is a spherical tokamak fusion plant concept proposed by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and funded by UK government.[1][2][3] The project is a proposed DEMO-class successor device to the ITER tokamak proof-of-concept of a fusion plant, the most advanced tokamak fusion reactor to date, which is scheduled to achieve a 'burning plasma' in 2035. STEP aims to produce net electricity from fusion on a timescale of 2040. The UK government is presently searching for a suitable site.

DEMO refers to a proposed class of nuclear fusion experimental reactors that are intended to demonstrate the net production of electric power from nuclear fusion. Most of the ITER partners have plans for their own DEMO-class reactors. With the possible exception of the EU and Japan, there are no plans for international collaboration as there was with ITER.[1] [2]

Plans for DEMO-class reactors are intended to build upon the ITER experimental nuclear fusion reactor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fusion_experiments#Tokamak

Until we are self dependant for Energy we are really exposed as a country.

I prefer well managed nuclear to fracking.

Quite frankly I'd prefer panda nuclear to russian gas if we really had to make that choice

China's been the world's production/technology house for 3500 years. They'd rather sell you stuff than invade you

FWIW, a large part of the reason the USA is scared of China and is waving the military boogeyman around is because China owns enough of the USA to invoke "Pax Morporkia"

"If you fight, we'll call in your mortgages. And incidentally that's my pike you're pointing at me. I paid for that shield you're holding. And take my helmet off when you speak to me, you horrible little debtor."

On top of that, moving to a nuclear world (less oil dependent) makes the world less likely to continue using USD for international trade and once a hegmonic currency loses that position, any accruded debt becomes a liability for the host country (this is what happened to britain aftare WW2, quite apart from the lend lease debt) - the USA has stacked up _quadrillions_ of dollars of debt and may not be able to repay it all of that happens

That more or less sums up exactly what’s going on

Harwell isn't on the list?

*sigh*

Are we still deluding ourselves that fusion is anything other than a joyful toy for bored physicists to play with ?

Vast swathes of key building blocks for meaningful, useful and viable fusion power are still missing, not researched.

All the gleeful phd dolts who get all fired up for plasma containment seem unconcerned about how we produce fuel, how we extract useable heat…. And all that money could of been actually used to produce real world fission electrical generation.

Mark my words in 40 years time we’ll still be 20 years away..

Hmm I wonder if I mark your words now, will I still be able to find them in 40 years to check?

This shows what a mockery our government's commitment to climate change is. ITER needs a kick up the arse or we need to go our own way and accelerate STEPS.

We need a Manhattan project for a working commercial fusion reactor and should have started about 10 years ago.

>We need a Manhattan project for a working commercial fusion reactor and should have started about 10 years ago.

We sort of did with ITER. But that was more like asking the USAF, the Royal Navy the USMC and the French resistance to all design the bits of the bomb they wanted and come together to deliver it at the target

As someone who lives near Ardeer, I am all for putting it there. Two reasons: (1) there's a lot of unemployment and (2) a massive uncontrolled explosion would significant improve the area.

*Jumping up & down, waving arms franticly, screaming enthusiasticly* HELL YES! Gimmiegimmiegimmie GIMMIE!

In fact, if there's enough room, I'll take two! =-D

I don't have a positive view of STEPS that topped the chart - their lawyers pressured the children's charity STEPS (for lower limb abnormalities) into surrendering their steps.org domain name which they had held for ages, and to which they were not entitled to anyway given the .org definition.