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All the essential components on the £55m UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) machine – the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak Upgrade – worked together simultaneously for the first time, following a seven-year build.
“Mast Upgrade will take us closer to delivering sustainable, clean fusion energy,” said UKAEA CEO, Professor Ian Chapman. “This experiment will break new ground and test technology that has never been tried before. It will be a vital testing facility on our journey to delivering the Step fusion power plant.”
Fusion energy offers the potential of an abundant, safe low-carbon electricity supply, with raw materials found in seawater and the Earth’s crust. It involves fusing hydrogen particles in a plasma to unlock large amounts of energy.
Operating fusion technologies requires a careful balancing act of controlling extreme heat, gas and powerful magnetic fields, amongst other complex systems.
One of the biggest challenges in fusion research has been to extract the amount of excess heat from the plasma. UKAEA scientists now plan to test a new exhaust system called the ‘Super-X divertor’ at Mast Upgrade. The system is designed to channel plasma out of the machine at temperatures low enough for its materials to withstand – meaning components can last much longer. The approximate tenfold reduction in heat arriving at the internal surfaces of the machine could be a “game-changer for the long-term viability of future fusion power stations,” a press release said.
The £55m project was funded by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council, part of UK Research & Innovation and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.
Science minister Amanda Solloway said: “We want the UK to be a world leader in fusion energy and to capitalise on its amazing potential as a clean energy source that could last for hundreds of years.
“Backed by £55m of government funding, powering up the Mast Upgrade device is a landmark moment for this national fusion experiment and takes us another step closer towards our goal of building the UK’s first fusion power plant by 2040.”
Mast Upgrade will be the forerunner of the UK’s prototype fusion power plant, Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (Step), due for completion by 2040.
Step – which UKAEA is designing in an initial £220m programme funded by the UK government – will be based on Mast Upgrade’s ‘spherical tokamak’ fusion concept. The spherical tokamak could offer a route to a compact fusion power plant. The success of Mast Upgrade is another step along the way to designing future fusion power facilities, which could have an important role in a future low-carbon energy system.
The Mast Upgrade device will also aid preparations for Iter in the South of France, the world’s largest science ‘megaproject’ that intends to demonstrate fusion power on an industrial scale.
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