Nuclear fusion breakthrough at UK Atomic Energy Authority

You may have seen in the news last week, scientists at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) have announced some incredible results in the search for sustainable nuclear fusion energy.

We spoke to Prospect rep Toby James at UKAEA about the latest development. 

What is nuclear fusion? 

Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the sun. Light elements, like hydrogen, are heated to super high temperatures and collide, fusing to form heavier elements. In doing so, energy is released. It would be a near-unlimited, low-carbon, safe energy source.  

Its relationship to traditional nuclear energy – fission – is really in name only. Both are attempting to get at the energy in the nuclei of atoms. But where fission focuses on splitting heavy atoms, fusion seeks to stick light elements together. The two are, in a sense, opposites.  

What’s the news?

JET – one of our reactors – has smashed its own 25-year-old world record for energy produced through nuclear fusion. 59 megajoules over five seconds – enough to boil about 60 kettles – may not seem like a lot, but this is a really significant result. 

For these experiments, JET has been set up similarly to a future, larger reactor – ITER – being built in France. Its success justifies design decisions taken in ITER’s construction and shows the promise in the path being taken. 

Why do we need this? 

Nuclear fusion would be a safe source of energy without the carbon footprint of fossil fuels. Its raw materials can be gathered from seawater, and it doesn’t produce long-term radioactive waste. So the obvious application is the climate crisis. And it would be immensely useful. But its real utility will come once we’ve sorted that out. 

Make no mistake: climate change is an existential threat. It has to be solved. And once it is, we will need to plot a path to a post-carbon future. A future where we don’t need to fall back onto dirty fossil fuels to generate energy. Fusion can be a huge part of this. 

What’s the significance to Prospect? 

Here at UKAEA, Prospect is our recognised trade union. These results are testament to the amazing work undertaken by all the staff here. They show the power of public sector science.  

We are not constrained by profit motive, and the freedom for innovation and creativity this affords us is invaluable. The public sector still leads science, and these JET results are only the latest in a long chain of amazing achievements.