Emerson Process Management, a division of Emerson Electric Company, has secured a contract to upgrade operator interface stations at the Barking power plant in the United Kingdom.
Under the contract, the firm will supply an Ovation expert control system to replace the ABB Bailey Operator Interface Stations connected to the Bailey INFI 90 system. The interface between the new system and existing proprietary controllers and other third-party products would either be through a direct mechanism or through the Object Linking and Embedding technology for Process Control.
As part of the contract, Emerson will install and commission the new equipment and will also provide graphics and database conversion services. It will also supply its SureService program, which offers a range of support services aimed at minimizing operating and maintenance costs while ensuring peak performance of the systems.
The planned migration to the Ovation system is a flexible and low-cost alternative to total control systems replacement. By using the latest technologies, the migration enables communication between the Ovation system and Bailey Command, and the Network 90 and INFI 90 systems, enabling users of existing systems to benefit from the new digital bus technologies without having to incur the initial cost of entirely replacing the control equipment.
The project plan does not require the power plant to be shut down for installation of the new systems and will allow for parallel operation during the migration. Emerson will ensure full integration between the Ovation workstations and the existing Bailey controllers and will also oversee alignment of the new systems with other information technology functions in the power plant. The solution, which is totally customizable to match plant architecture, will give the plant a flexible alternative to its aging Bailey systems.
Emerson Process Management is a world leader in the automation of production, processing and distribution processes in the power, water, wastewater, mining, oil, gas and other sectors. The Ovation system, developed by the firm specifically for the power generation industry, has been installed in power plants in Nebraska, India and Thailand. It is an integral component in Emerson's PlantWeb digital plant architecture, which relies on a network of predictive intelligence to forecast process and equipment problems before they occur.
The Ovation system consists of commercially available hardware components, operating systems and network architecture, and includes a number of advanced technologies. Benefits at project level include faster start-up, lower cost and reduced risks. At the operational level, it offers improved availability and reliability by integrating data obtained from thousands of instruments located throughout the plant to detect and predict conditions that could lead to process or equipment failure. The system also facilitates future automation upgrades, as its components allow for easy integration with other systems and software.
The Barking power station was constructed between 1992 and 1995 at Dagenham, Essex, and is one of the largest privately owned power stations in the U.K. It utilizes the combined-cycle gas turbine technology to operate five gas turbines and two steam turbines at more than 50% thermal efficiency with low levels of emissions. It has a power generation capacity of 1,000 megawatts that amounts to nearly 2% of the peak power demand in England and Wales.
Manitoba Hydro Rate Increase sets electricity rates up 2.5% annually for three years via Bill 35, bypassing PUB hearings, citing Crown utility debt and pandemic impacts, with legislature debate and a multi-year regulatory review ahead.
Key Points
A government plan to lift electricity rates 2.5% annually over three years via Bill 35, bypassing PUB hearings.
✅ 2.5% annual hikes for three years set in legislation
✅ Bypasses PUB rate hearings during pandemic recovery
The Manitoba government is planning to raise electricity rates, with Manitoba Hydro scaling back next year, by 2.5 per cent a year over the next three years.
Finance Minister Scott Fielding says the increases, to be presented in a bill before the legislature, are the lowest in a decade and will help keep rates among the lowest in Canada, even as SaskPower's 8% hike draws scrutiny in a neighbouring province.
Crown-owned Manitoba Hydro had asked for a 3.5 per cent increase this year, similar to BC Hydro's 3% rise, to help pay off billions of dollars in debt.
“The way we figured this out, we looked at the rate increases that were approved by PUB (Public Utilities Board) over the last ten years, (and) we went to 75 per cent of that,” Fielding said during a Thursday morning press conference.
“It’s a pandemic, we know that there’s a lot of people that are unemployed, that are struggling, we know that businesses need to recharge after the business (sic), so this will provide them an appropriate break.”
Electricity rates are normally set by the Public Utilities Board, a regulatory body that holds rate hearings and examines the Crown corporation’s finances.
The Progressive Conservative government has temporarily suspended the regulatory process and has set rates itself, while Ontario rate legislation to lower rates moved forward in its jurisdiction.
Manitoba Liberal leader Dougald Lamont was quick to condemn the move, noting parallels to Ontario price concerns before saying in a news release the PCs “are abusing their power and putting Hydro’s financial future at risk by fixing prices in the hope of buying some political popularity.”
“Hydro’s rates should be set by the PUB after public hearings, not figured out on the back of a napkin in the Premier’s office,” Lamont wrote.
Fielding noted the increase would appear as an amendment to Bill 35, which will appear in the legislature this fall, as BC Hydro plans multi-year increases proceed elsewhere.
“All members of the legislative assembly will vote and debate this rate increase on Bill 35,” Fielding said.
“This will give the PUB time to implement reforms, and allow the utilities to prepare a more rigorous, multi-year review application process.”
UK Net Zero Policy Delay shifts EV sales ban to 2035, eases boiler phase-outs, keeps ZEV mandate, backs North Sea oil and gas, accelerates onshore wind and grid upgrades while targeting 2050 emissions goals.
Key Points
Delay moves EV and heating targets to 2035, tweaks mandates, and shifts energy policy, keeping the 2050 net zero goal.
✅ EV sales ban shifts to 2035; ZEV mandate trajectory unchanged
✅ Heat pump grants rise to £7,500; boiler phase-out eased
✅ North Sea oil, onshore wind, grid and nuclear plans advance
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he would delay targets for changing cars and domestic heating to maintain the consent of the British people in the switch to net zero as part of the global energy transition under way.
Sunak said Britain was still committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, similar to Canada's race to net zero goals, and denied watering down its climate targets.
Here are some of the current emissions targets for Britain's top polluting sectors and how the announcement impacts them.
TRANSPORTATION Transport accounts for more than a third (34%) of Britain's total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the most of any sector.
Sunak announced a delay to introducing a ban on new petrol and diesel cars and vans. It will now come into force in 2035 rather than in 2030.
There were more than 1.1 million electric cars in use on UK roads as of April - up by more than half from the previous year to account for roughly one in every 32 cars, according to the country's auto industry trade body.
The current 2030 target was introduced in November 2020 as a central part of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson's plans for a "green revolution". As recently as Monday, transport minister Mark Harper restated government support for the policy.
Britain’s independent climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee, estimated a 2030 phase out of petrol, diesel and hybrid vehicles could save up to 110 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions compared with a 2035 phase out.
ohnson's policy already allowed for the continued sale of hybrid cars and vans that can drive long stretches without emitting carbon until 2035.
The transition is governed by a zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, a shift echoed by New Zealand's electricity transition debates, which means manufacturers must ensure an increasing proportion of the vehicles they sell in the UK are electric.
The current proposal is for 22% of a car manufacturer's sales to be electric in 2024, rising incrementally each year to 100% in 2035.
The government said on Wednesday that all sales of new cars from 2035 would still be zero emission.
Sunak said that proposals that would govern how many passengers people should have in a car, or proposals for new taxes to discourage flying, would be scrapped.
RESIDENTIAL Residential emissions, the bulk of which come from heating, make up around 17% of the country's CO2 emissions.
The government has a target to reduce Britain's energy consumption from buildings and industry by 15% by 2030, and had set a target to phase out installing new and replacement gas boilers from 2035, as the UK moves towards heat pumps, amid an IEA report on Canada's power needs noting more electricity will be required.
Sunak said people would have more time to transition, and the government said that off-gas-grid homes could continue to install oil and liquefied petroleum gas boilers until 2035, rather than being phased out from 2026.
However, his announcements that the government would not force anyone to rip out an existing boiler and that people would only have to make the switch when replacing one from 2035 restated existing policy.
He also said there would be an exemption so some households would never have to switch, but the government would increase an upgrade scheme that gives people cash to replace their boilers by 50% to 7,500 pounds ($9,296.25).
Currently almost 80% of British homes are heated by gas boilers. In 2022, 72,000 heat pumps were installed. The government had set a target of 600,000 heat pump installations per year by 2028.
A study for Scottish Power and WWF UK in June found that 6 million homes would need to be better insulated by 2030 to meet the government's target to reduce household energy consumption, but current policies are only expected to deliver 1.1 million.
The study, conducted by Frontier Economics, added that 1.5 million new homes would still need heat pumps installed by 2030.
Sunak said that the government would subsidise people who wanted to make their homes energy efficient but never force a household to do it.
The government also said it was scrapping policies that would force landlords to upgrade the energy efficiency of their properties.
ENERGY The energy sector itself is a big emitter of greenhouse gases, contributing around a quarter of Britain's emissions, though the UK carbon tax on coal has driven substantial cuts in coal-fired electricity in recent years.
In July, Britain committed to granting hundreds of licences for North Sea oil and gas extraction as part of efforts to become more energy independent.
Sunak said he would not ban new oil and gas in the North Sea, and that future carbon budgets for governments would have to be considered alongside the plans to meet them.
He said the government would shortly bring forward new plans for energy infrastructure to improve Britain's grid, including the UK energy plan, while speeding up planning.
Offshore wind power developers warned earlier this month that Britain's climate goals could be at risk, even as efforts like cleaning up Canada's electricity highlight the importance of power-sector decarbonization, after a subsidy auction for new renewable energy projects did not attract any investment in those planned off British coasts.
Britain is aiming to develop 50 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind capacity by 2030, up from around 14 GW now.
Sunak highlighted that Britain is lifting a ban on onshore wind, investing in carbon capture and building new nuclear power stations.
Advanced Nuclear Reactors drive U.S. clean energy with small modular reactors, a new test facility at Idaho National Laboratory, and public-private partnerships accelerating nuclear innovation, safety, and cost reductions through DOE-backed programs and university simulators.
Key Points
Advanced nuclear reactors are next-gen designs, including SMRs, offering safer, cheaper, low-carbon power.
✅ DOE test facility at Idaho National Laboratory
✅ Small modular reactors with passive safety systems
✅ University simulators train next-gen nuclear operators
Energy Secretary Rick Perry is advancing plans to shift the United States towards next-gen nuclear power reactors.
The Energy Department announced this week it has launched a new test facility at the Idaho National Laboratory where private companies can work on advanced nuclear technologies, as the first new U.S. reactor in nearly seven years starts up, to avoid the high costs and waste and safety concerns facing traditional nuclear power plants.
“[The National Reactor Innovation Center] will enable the demonstration and deployment of advanced reactors that will define the future of nuclear energy,” Perry said.
With climate change concerns growing and net-zero emissions targets emerging, some Republicans and Democrats are arguing for the need for more nuclear reactors to feed the nation’s electricity demand. But despite nuclear plants’ absence of carbon emissions, the high cost of construction, questions around what to do with the spent nuclear rods and the possibility of meltdown have stymied efforts.
A new generation of firms, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ Terra Power venture, are working on developing smaller, less expensive reactors that do not carry a risk of meltdown.
“The U.S. is on the verge of commercializing groundbreaking nuclear innovation, and we must keep advancing the public-private partnerships needed to traverse the dreaded valley of death that all too often stifles progress,” said Rich Powell, executive director of ClearPath, a non-profit advocating for clean energy and green industrial strategies worldwide.
The new Idaho facility is budgeted at $5 million under next year’s federal budget, even as the cost of U.S. nuclear generation has fallen to a ten-year low, which remains under negotiation in Congress.
On Thursday another advanced nuclear developer working on small modular systems, Oregon-based NuScale Power, announced it was building three virtual nuclear control rooms at Texas A&M University, Oregon State University and the University of Idaho, with funding from the Energy Department.
The simulators will be open to researchers and students, to train on the operation of smaller, modular reactors, as well as the general public.
NuScale CEO John Hopkins said the simulators would “help ensure that we educate future generations about the important role nuclear power and small modular reactor technology will play in attaining a safe, clean and secure energy future for our country.”
Electric power market crisis highlights grid reliability risks as coal and nuclear retire amid subsidies, mandates, and cheap natural gas; intermittent wind and solar raise blackout concerns, resilience costs, and pricing distortions across regulated markets.
Key Points
Reliability and cost risks as coal and nuclear retire; subsidies distort prices; intermittent renewables strain grid.
✅ Coal and nuclear retirements reduce baseload capacity
✅ Subsidies and mandates distort market pricing signals
✅ Intermittent renewables increase blackout and grid risk
Is anyone paying any attention to the crisis that is going on in our electric power markets?
Over the past six months at least four major nuclear power plants have been slated for shutdown, including the last one in operation in California. Meanwhile, dozens of coal plants have been shuttered as well — despite low prices and cleaner coal. Some of our major coal companies may go into bankruptcy.
This is a dangerous game we are playing here with our most valuable resource — outside of clean air and water. Traditionally, we've received almost half our electric power nationwide from coal and nuclear power, and for good reason. They are cheap sources of power and they are highly resilient and reliable.
The disruption to coal and nuclear power wouldn't be disturbing if this were happening as a result of market forces. That's only partially the case.
#google#
The amazing shale oil and gas revolution is providing Americans with cheap gas for home heating and power generation. Hooray. The price of natural gas has fallen by nearly two-thirds over the last decade and this has put enormous price pressure on other forms of power generation.
But this is not a free-market story of Schumpeterian creative destruction. If it were, then wind and solar power would have been shutdown years ago. They can't possibly compete on a level playing field with $3 natural gas.
In most markets solar and wind power survive purely because the states mandate that as much as 30 percent of residential and commercial power come from these sources. The utilities have to buy it regardless of price, even as electricity demand is flat in many regions. What a sweet deal. The California state legislature just mandated that every new home spend $10,000 on solar panels on the roof.
Well over $100 billion of subsidies to big wind and big solar were doled out over the last decade, and even with the avalanche of taxpayer subsidies and bailout funds many of these companies like Solyndra (which received $500 million in handouts) failed, underscoring why a green revolution hasn't materialized as promised.
These industries are not anywhere close to self sufficiency. In 2017 amid utility trends to watch the wind industry admitted that without a continuation of a multi-billion tax credit, the wind turbines would stop turning.
This combines with the left's war on coal through regulations that have destroyed coal plants in many areas. (Thank goodness for the exports of coal or the industry would be in much bigger trouble.)
Bottom line: Our power market is a Soviet central planner's dream come true and it is extinguishing our coal and nuclear industries.
Why should anyone care?
First, because government subsidies, regulations and mandates make electric power more expensive. Natural gas prices have fallen by two-thirds, but electric power costs have still risen in most areas — thanks to the renewable mandates.
More importantly, the electric power market isn't accurately pricing in the value of resilience and reliability. What is the value of making sure the lights don't go off? What is the cost to the economy and human health if we have rolling brownouts and blackouts because the aging U.S. grid doesn't have enough juice during peak demand.
Politicians, utilities and federal regulators are shortsightedly killing our coal and nuclear capacities without considering the risk of future energy shortages and power disruptions. Once a nuclear plant is shutdown, you can't just fire it back up again when you need it.
Wind and solar are notoriously unreliable. Most places where wind power is used, coal plants are needed to back up the system during peak energy use and when the wind isn't blowing.
The first choice to fix energy markets is to finally end the tangled web of layers and layers of taxpayer subsidies and mandates and let the market choose. Alas, that's nearly impossible given the political clout of big wind and solar.
The second best solution is for the regulators and utilities to take into account the grid reliability and safety of our energy. Would people be willing to pay a little more for their power to ensure against brownouts? I sure would. The cost of having too little energy far exceeds the cost of having too much.
A glass of water costs pennies, but if you're in a desert dying of thirst, that water may be worth thousands of dollars.
I'll admit I'm not sure what the best solution is to the power plant closures. But if we have major towns and cities in the country without electric power for stretches of time because of green energy fixation, Americans are going to be mighty angry and our economy will take a major hit.
When our manufacturers, schools, hospitals, the internet and iPhones shut down, we're not going to think wind and solar power are so chic.
If the lights start to go out five or 10 years from now, we will look back at what is happening today and wonder how we could have been so darn stupid.
Site C Dam Controversy highlights Peace River risks, BC Hydro claims, Indigenous rights under Treaty 8, environmental assessment findings, and potential impacts to agriculture and the Peace-Athabasca Delta across Alberta and the Northwest Territories.
Key Points
Debate over BC Hydro's Site C dam: clean energy vs Indigenous rights, Peace-Athabasca Delta impacts, and agriculture.
✅ Potential drying of Peace-Athabasca Delta and wildlife habitat
✅ Treaty 8 rights and First Nations legal challenges
✅ Loss of prime Peace Valley farmland; alternatives in renewables
One of the leading opponents of the Site C dam in northeastern B.C. is sharing her concerns with northerners this week.
Proponents of the Site C dam say it will be a cost-effective source of clean electricity, even as a major Alberta wind farm was scrapped elsewhere in Canada, and that it will be able to produce enough energy to power the equivalent of 450,000 homes per year in B.C. But a number of Indigenous groups and environmentalists are against the project.
Wendy Holm is an economist and agronomist who did an environmental assessment of the dam focusing on its potential impacts on agriculture.
On Tuesday she spoke at a town hall presentation in Fort Smith, N.W.T., organized by the Slave River Coalition. She is also speaking at an event in Yellowknife on Friday, as small modular reactors in Yukon receive study as a potential long-term option.
Worried about downstream impacts, Northern leaders urge action on Site C dam
"I learned that people outside of British Columbia are as concerned with this dam as we are," Holm said.
"There's just a lot of concern with what's happening on the Peace River and this dam and the implications for Alberta, where hydro's share has diminished in recent decades, and the Northwest Territories."
If completed, BC Hydro's Site C energy project will be the third dam on the Peace River in northeast B.C. and the largest public works project in B.C. history. The $10.7-billion project was approved by both the provincial and federal governments as B.C. moves to streamline clean energy permitting for future projects.
Amy Lusk, co-ordinator of the Slave River Coalition, said many issues were discussed at the town hall, but she also left with a sense of hope.
"I think sometimes in our little corner of the world, we are up against so much when it comes to industrial development and threats to our water," she said.
"To kind of take away that message of, this is not a done deal, and that we do have a few options in place to try and stop this and not to lose hope, I think was a very important message for the community."
Drying of the Peace-Athabasca Delta
Holm said her main concern for the Northwest Territories is how it could affect the Peace-Athabasca Delta. She said the two dams already on the river are responsible for two-thirds of the drying that's happening in the delta.
"These are very real issues and very present in the minds of northerners who want to stay connected to a traditional lifestyle, want to have access to those wild foods," she said.
Lusk said northerners are fed up with defending waters "time after time after time."
BC Hydro, however, said studies commissioned during the environmental assessment of Site C show the project will have no measurable effect on the delta, which is located 1,100 kilometres away.
Holm said the fight against the Site C dam is also important when it comes to First Nations treaty rights.
The West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations applied for an injunction to halt construction on Site C, as well as a treaty infringement lawsuit against the B.C. government. They argue the dam would cause irreparable harm to their territories and way of life, which are rights protected under Treaty 8.
Agricultural land
While the project is located in B.C., Holm said its impacts on prime horticulture land would also affect northerners, something that's important given issues of food security and nutrition.
"This is some of the best agriculture land in all of Canada," she said of the Peace Valley.
According to BC Hydro, around 2.6 million hectares of land in the Peace agricultural region would remain available for agricultural production while 3,800 hectares would be unavailable. It has also proposed a number of mitigation efforts, including a $20-million agricultural compensation fund.
Holm said renewable energy, including tidal energy for remote communities, will be cheaper and less destructive than the dam, and there's a connection between the dams on the Peace River and water sharing with the U.S.
"When you run out of water there's nothing else you can use. You can't use orange juice to irrigate your fields or to run your industries or to power your homes," she said.
ITER Nuclear Fusion advances tokamak magnetic confinement, heating deuterium-tritium plasma with superconducting magnets, targeting net energy gain, tritium breeding, and steam-turbine power, while complementing laser inertial confinement milestones for grid-scale electricity and 2025 startup goals.
Key Points
ITER Nuclear Fusion is a tokamak project confining D-T plasma with magnets to achieve net energy gain and clean power.
✅ Tokamak magnetic confinement with high-temp superconducting coils
✅ Deuterium-tritium fuel cycle with on-site tritium breeding
✅ Targets net energy gain and grid-scale, low-carbon electricity
It sounds like the stuff of dreams: a virtually limitless source of energy that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. That’s the promise of nuclear fusion, often described as the holy grail of clean energy by proponents, which for decades has been nothing more than a fantasy due to insurmountable technical challenges. But things are heating up in what has turned into a race to create what amounts to an artificial sun here on Earth, one that can provide power for our kettles, cars and light bulbs.
Today’s nuclear power plants create electricity through nuclear fission, in which atoms are split, with next-gen nuclear power exploring smaller, cheaper, safer designs that remain distinct from fusion. Nuclear fusion however, involves combining atomic nuclei to release energy. It’s the same reaction that’s taking place at the Sun’s core. But overcoming the natural repulsion between atomic nuclei and maintaining the right conditions for fusion to occur isn’t straightforward. And doing so in a way that produces more energy than the reaction consumes has been beyond the grasp of the finest minds in physics for decades.
But perhaps not for much longer. Some major technical challenges have been overcome in the past few years and governments around the world have been pouring money into fusion power research as part of a broader green industrial revolution under way in several regions. There are also over 20 private ventures in the UK, US, Europe, China and Australia vying to be the first to make fusion energy production a reality.
“People are saying, ‘If it really is the ultimate solution, let’s find out whether it works or not,’” says Dr Tim Luce, head of science and operation at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), being built in southeast France. ITER is the biggest throw of the fusion dice yet.
Its $22bn (£15.9bn) build cost is being met by the governments of two-thirds of the world’s population, including the EU, the US, China and Russia, at a time when Europe is losing nuclear power and needs energy, and when it’s fired up in 2025 it’ll be the world’s largest fusion reactor. If it works, ITER will transform fusion power from being the stuff of dreams into a viable energy source.
Constructing a nuclear fusion reactor ITER will be a tokamak reactor – thought to be the best hope for fusion power. Inside a tokamak, a gas, often a hydrogen isotope called deuterium, is subjected to intense heat and pressure, forcing electrons out of the atoms. This creates a plasma – a superheated, ionised gas – that has to be contained by intense magnetic fields.
The containment is vital, as no material on Earth could withstand the intense heat (100,000,000°C and above) that the plasma has to reach so that fusion can begin. It’s close to 10 times the heat at the Sun’s core, and temperatures like that are needed in a tokamak because the gravitational pressure within the Sun can’t be recreated.
When atomic nuclei do start to fuse, vast amounts of energy are released. While the experimental reactors currently in operation release that energy as heat, in a fusion reactor power plant, the heat would be used to produce steam that would drive turbines to generate electricity, even as some envision nuclear beyond electricity for industrial heat and fuels.
Tokamaks aren’t the only fusion reactors being tried. Another type of reactor uses lasers to heat and compress a hydrogen fuel to initiate fusion. In August 2021, one such device at the National Ignition Facility, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, generated 1.35 megajoules of energy. This record-breaking figure brings fusion power a step closer to net energy gain, but most hopes are still pinned on tokamak reactors rather than lasers.
In June 2021, China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor maintained a plasma for 101 seconds at 120,000,000°C. Before that, the record was 20 seconds. Ultimately, a fusion reactor would need to sustain the plasma indefinitely – or at least for eight-hour ‘pulses’ during periods of peak electricity demand.
A real game-changer for tokamaks has been the magnets used to produce the magnetic field. “We know how to make magnets that generate a very high magnetic field from copper or other kinds of metal, but you would pay a fortune for the electricity. It wouldn’t be a net energy gain from the plant,” says Luce.
One route for nuclear fusion is to use atoms of deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen. They fuse under incredible heat and pressure, and the resulting products release energy as heat
The solution is to use high-temperature, superconducting magnets made from superconducting wire, or ‘tape’, that has no electrical resistance. These magnets can create intense magnetic fields and don’t lose energy as heat.
“High temperature superconductivity has been known about for 35 years. But the manufacturing capability to make tape in the lengths that would be required to make a reasonable fusion coil has just recently been developed,” says Luce. One of ITER’s magnets, the central solenoid, will produce a field of 13 tesla – 280,000 times Earth’s magnetic field.
The inner walls of ITER’s vacuum vessel, where the fusion will occur, will be lined with beryllium, a metal that won’t contaminate the plasma much if they touch. At the bottom is the divertor that will keep the temperature inside the reactor under control.
“The heat load on the divertor can be as large as in a rocket nozzle,” says Luce. “Rocket nozzles work because you can get into orbit within minutes and in space it’s really cold.” In a fusion reactor, a divertor would need to withstand this heat indefinitely and at ITER they’ll be testing one made out of tungsten.
Meanwhile, in the US, the National Spherical Torus Experiment – Upgrade (NSTX-U) fusion reactor will be fired up in the autumn of 2022, while efforts in advanced fission such as a mini-reactor design are also progressing. One of its priorities will be to see whether lining the reactor with lithium helps to keep the plasma stable.
Choosing a fuel Instead of just using deuterium as the fusion fuel, ITER will use deuterium mixed with tritium, another hydrogen isotope. The deuterium-tritium blend offers the best chance of getting significantly more power out than is put in. Proponents of fusion power say one reason the technology is safe is that the fuel needs to be constantly fed into the reactor to keep fusion happening, making a runaway reaction impossible.
Deuterium can be extracted from seawater, so there’s a virtually limitless supply of it. But only 20kg of tritium are thought to exist worldwide, so fusion power plants will have to produce it (ITER will develop technology to ‘breed’ tritium). While some radioactive waste will be produced in a fusion plant, it’ll have a lifetime of around 100 years, rather than the thousands of years from fission.
At the time of writing in September, researchers at the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion reactor in Oxfordshire were due to start their deuterium-tritium fusion reactions. “JET will help ITER prepare a choice of machine parameters to optimise the fusion power,” says Dr Joelle Mailloux, one of the scientific programme leaders at JET. These parameters will include finding the best combination of deuterium and tritium, and establishing how the current is increased in the magnets before fusion starts.
The groundwork laid down at JET should accelerate ITER’s efforts to accomplish net energy gain. ITER will produce ‘first plasma’ in December 2025 and be cranked up to full power over the following decade. Its plasma temperature will reach 150,000,000°C and its target is to produce 500 megawatts of fusion power for every 50 megawatts of input heating power.
“If ITER is successful, it’ll eliminate most, if not all, doubts about the science and liberate money for technology development,” says Luce. That technology development will be demonstration fusion power plants that actually produce electricity, where advanced reactors can build on decades of expertise. “ITER is opening the door and saying, yeah, this works – the science is there.”
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