South Gloucestershire has been named on the shortlist to be home to the world’s first working nuclear fusion plant, which would make power the same way as the sun.
The Government today (Thursday, October 14) announced that the Severn Edge bid to develop a prototype reactor that will ultimately generate almost endless clean energy has made it through to the final five sites in the UK.
If it is given the go-ahead by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy by the end of next year, the revolutionary plant will be built at the decommissioned nuclear power stations at Oldbury in South Glos and nearby Berkeley in Gloucestershire, creating thousands of highly skilled jobs.
READ MORE: South Gloucestershire could be home to world's first nuclear fusion plant
British scientists are getting closer to harnessing the power of stars by copying their processes in a super-heated chamber on earth, where atoms are fused to release energy, creating nearly four-million times more power per kilo of fuel than by burning coal or gas.
The Government has so far invested £222milllion into STEP – Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production – an ambitious UK Atomic Energy Authority programme to design and build a cutting-edge prototype and pave the way to solving the world’s energy problems by commercialising nuclear fusion.
It hopes to begin operations in the early 2040s, having put out an open call for sites between December last year and March 2021, with 15 locations making the long-list. Now those have been boiled down to the final five, with Oldbury/Berkeley in the running against Ardeer in Scotland, Goole in East Riding of Yorkshire, Moorside in Cumbria and Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire.
The winning site will also have research and development, businesses and training facilities and support a vast supply chain across a wide region.
South Gloucestershire Council leader Cllr Toby Savage said: “I am delighted to see the Severn Edge nomination shortlisted in this ongoing process.
“The Oldbury site is a large site offering maximum flexibility but also a skilled, knowledgeable and supportive local community.
“I hope that the opportunity to combine with the site at Berkeley and the strength of our supply chains continues to present a compelling case to the UKAEA and a long-term investment in safe, renewable energy in South Gloucestershire.”
Gloucestershire County Council leader Cllr Mark Hawthorne said: “It’s fantastic news that the Severn Edge nomination has made the shortlist, which has put us a step closer to being at the forefront of the green industrial revolution.
“Reaching the final five is a great achievement and I hope the strong case we have put forward means we can go on to secure this investment for our region.”
The STEP Tokamak works by heating atoms to 10 times hotter than the centre of the sun forming a plasma in which they smash together – the process of nuclear fusion – to produce heavier atoms.
This releases a huge amount of energy which is converted to power a turbine and generate electricity, like a regular power station.
Giant magnets keep the super-heated plasma away from the Tokamak’s edges, which is why it doesn’t melt, and the system is said to be fail-safe.
Fusion is different from fission, which is used in traditional nuclear power stations where atoms are split apart to release energy instead of being fused together.
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