UK dumps £2.5 billion into fusion pipe dream that's already cost millions
- Reference: 1749796027
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/06/13/uk_dumps_25_billion_into/
- Source link:
The bundle of cash ($3.4bn) will go towards the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production ( [1]STEP ) project planned for construction at West Burton in Nottinghamshire, the government [2]announced Thursday.
[3]Tokamaks heat gases until they become plasma, then use powerful magnets to confine that super-hot soup. Many experimental machines take the form of a torus – a cylinder with a central axis – and create a donut-shaped plasma loop of plasma to induce a fusion reaction. Spherical tokamaks produce a narrower ring of plasma, more sphere-like than donut. They are apparently more efficient and stable than toroid tokamaks.
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Tokamaks are of interest because fusion reactions produce a lot of energy – they literally make the sun shine – and could potentially deliver a non-stop stream of clean power.
[5]
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Thursday's announcement marks the second cash injection the UK government has made in STEP - the first coming in 2022 along with the [7]choice of Nottinghamshire to host the facility.
That first lot of funding saw the UK government allot £220 million to the project, meaning this latest investment is a 1,036 percent increase from that first bit of backing.
[8]
As for what STEP has done to encourage that added investment, that's anyone's guess - by all accounts it doesn't seem like a lot has happened with the project of late.
STEP's [9]website describes its plans as being divided into three phases: The first, which involves concept design, [10]organizational development , site selection, and regulatory approval.
"We now have a concept design for the powerplant," the STEP team noted on its website. "We also have a site."
[11]
Phase one was supposed to wrap up last year, with phase two involving securing planning consent and permission as well as program development, technology demonstrations and component manufacturing.
A couple of recent news items on STEP's press page indicate it's in the process of [12]selecting industry partners for engineering and construction, and has begun collaboration with Seoul National University on the development of high-temperature superconducting magnet cables.
Phase three isn't scheduled to begin until the 2030s and will see construction of the actual STEP plant. The project's goal is to have the facility operational in 2040 "with at least 100MW of net energy demonstrated as soon as practicable," per STEP's website.
Fusion? Future.
"We are now within grasping distance of unlocking the power of the sun and providing families with secure, clean, unlimited energy," UK energy secretary Ed Miliband said during a recent visit to the UK Fusion Research Campus.
Grasping distance, maybe, but holding on is proving to be difficult.
[13]Viable fusion power in a decade? Tokamak Energy dares to dream
[14]Fusion eggheads claim modeling fix for particle escape - at least in stellarators
[15]UK's dream of fusion power by 2040s will need GPUs
[16]Helion bags $425M in fresh funding despite fusion power still being a distant dream
The only known facility to achieve fusion ignition - the point at which the fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining - is the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California. The NIF has achieved ignition multiple times since [17]first achieving it in 2022, and technically exceeded the amount of energy that went into the reaction chamber (2.04 megajoules from 192 lasers) by producing 3.15 megajoules of energy as a result. Unfortunately, powering those 192 lasers required 322 megajoules, meaning the reaction still didn't make up for the energy required to get it going.
Chinese researchers also [18]reported a fusion breakthrough in early 2025 with nearly 18 minutes of plasma confinement in a tokamak - quite the achievement, but the researchers made no mention of how hot it was (fusion reactions don't start under 100 million degrees Celsius), whether there was a net energy gain, or anything else specific. European researchers later Indeed, [19]extended China’s tokamak runtime world record by four minutes.
In other words, the UK's latest investment in the fusion dream is still betting on just that - a dream. We may be making advances toward fusion energy, but £2.5 billion is a big ask for a country buried in debt and a Chancellor of the Exchequer [20]struggling to justify spending. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/26/uk_step_fusion_site/
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/25-billion-for-world-first-prototype-fusion-energy-plant
[3] https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainstokamaks
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aEv2t2bFpHz7u5rqzY--IQAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aEv2t2bFpHz7u5rqzY--IQAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aEv2t2bFpHz7u5rqzY--IQAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/05/reesmogg_proposes_site_for_prototype/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aEv2t2bFpHz7u5rqzY--IQAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://step.ukaea.uk/what-is-step/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/06/step_fusion_private_firm/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aEv2t2bFpHz7u5rqzY--IQAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] http://step.ukaea.uk/shortlist-announced-for-steps-industry-partners/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/16/tokamak_fusion_pilot/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/12/modeling_fix_for_fusion_particle_escape/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/29/uk_fusion_intel_cambridge/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/29/helion_funding/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/14/nuclear_fusion_doe/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/22/china_tokamak_plasma_record_claim/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/20/france_tops_chinas_tokamak_record/
[20] https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/rachel-reeves-spending-review-cash-025glp2k2
[21] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
I know the joke is that fusion energy is *always* 10 or 20 years away from becoming reality, but that shouldn't stop us.
People once thought it was crazy to go to space or Mars, to collide atoms at immense speeds, to decode the human DNA, or indeed to mess around with atomic bombs.
We should explore, research and reach out for these new scientific frontiers.
Or as a famous person once said, we should do it not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
This will be like other UK projects. We’ll pour eye watering sums of money into it, get it close to working, and then abandon it.
Reaction Engines
Bloodhound
TSR2
APT
HS2 North (the bit what was actually needed)
Lorenzo Project
London Ringways
…and more besides. Just one more to add to the list.
....and of course, this time being Labour, it will benefit the working man in the street - - - NOT.
But it will knock 300 quid off of your energy bills. Sometime in about 2525....
And the M25/A3 interchange will re-open for atomic cars.
If man is still alive...
It will be nothing like the other projects. It will never be moth-balled. It will continue to virtually exist ad infinitum blood-sucking money from successive generations at an exponential rate.
Eight out of 11 constituencies in Nottinghamshire have majorities under 10k.
Just saying.
Seoul National University ... high-temperature superconducting magnet cables
Why didn't they go to [1]the UK's own Tokamak Energy , who have already developed superconducting magnets [2]that are ready for commercial deployment ?
[1] https://tokamakenergy.com
[2] https://tokamakenergy.com/2024/11/20/tokamak-energy-raises-125m-to-commercialise-transformative-fusion-and-magnet-technologies/
Electricity from fusion is basically fake
Apart from energy from the sun, of course.
The first reaction a fusion company tries is Deuterium and Tritium. Tritium has a half-life of 12 years, meaning there's none in nature. You have to produce it from Lithium. An isotope of lithium. Isn't lithium difficult to buy?
Then all the beginner reactions, including he3, produce fast neutrons - about an order of magnitude faster than the neutrons produced when you split Uranium. Its tough to produce electricity from these. Its tough to step these things damaging your building!
A possible future fusion reaction is Hydrogen + Boron, producing 3 He nucleii - since they're charged you can probably directly get your electricity from them. Also its fission?
There is 0 chance of a fusion being used in a power generator over the next generation.
So this is a bribe, or the promise of a bribe.
Corrupt politics.
Corrupt politics
Aren't they all?
Re: Isn't lithium difficult to buy?
Just looked up the price: £6.27/kg (was about double that last year). So convert that to tritium and then pretend for a moment 100% conversion to electricity then the retail price of that electricity is £16.5 million. We could drop that conversion efficiency to 0.1% and the price of lithium would not have any significant impact. Fusion has a huge list of hard problems but sourcing lithium is not one of them.
exceeded the amount of energy that went into the reaction chamber
But not, as pointed out, the energy required in total, by a factor of a hundred and fifty or so. And I suspect that it ignored the practicality of collecting that energy efficiently so that something could be done with it.
Which is a shame. I'd like a Mr Fusion in my garden shed.
Re: exceeded the amount of energy that went into the reaction chamber
You have just (inadvertently?) pointed out the problem here: this money is all going into the STEP machine but not a single word about the proper housing for the device: I want to see the plans for the shed it is going into. You can't expect proper British innovation unless the sides are shingled and no two planks match, none of this pre-planed butt joints nonsense.
And what about the jam jar of random screws? Above the door or tucked in a cobwebby corner? These things are important (puts "Land of Hope and Glory" onto Victrola and stands at attention).
Re: exceeded the amount of energy that went into the reaction chamber
"Land of Hope and Glory" onto Victrola and stands at attention.
[] Thine equal laws, by Freedom gained
[] Have ruled thee well and long;
[] By Freedom gained, by Truth maintained
[] Thine Empire shall be strong
Sorry Elgar, I cannot say any of those boxes could be ticked.
Two and half billion quid could actually make a real difference to people's lives if it were wisely invested in any number of areas.
Rewrite needed
Could you get this article rewritten by a reporter who actually understands fusion please. STEP is considerably more advanced than implied in this report. And losing some of the Leningrad/MAGA trolls along the way wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Enough with the laser fusion hyperbole
The laser based system has not achieved sustainable fusion and never will. The National Ignition Facility is funded because it provides data for thermonuclear weapon development.
For each firing there is a small metal sphere filled with deuterium/tritium which is blasted by the laser system. Those fuel spheres are hand-made and require careful positioning. On top of that, those super-powerful lasers operate one-shot at a time (a few picoseconds per pulse) and dump so much energy into the steering mirrors and other optical gubbins that it takes hours for them to be ready for the next pulse.
Now, will the magnetic systems produce useful amounts of energy? Possibly, but it is increasingly unlikely that it will be in my lifetime
A waste of a lot of money
I’m not anti science by any margin, it’s a lot of money but nowhere near enough to make any meaningful impact on the search for fusion.
I think investing that amount with someone like Copenhagen Atomics would yield a higher probably of getting some returns on the money.
Ps: No affiliation whatsoever with the company, just mentioned them as they are Europe based.
Just another ten years to go.