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Utility of the Future: climate change 12 | 20TH - 26TH SEPTEMBER 2019 | UTILITY WEEK Nuclear fusion create the conditions required for fusion than is released by the reaction itself. The most e ciency that has been recorded so far at Culham was achieved by JET, when 25MW of energy was inputted and nearly 17MW generated from the subsequent reaction. This is where the National Fusion Tech- nology Platform (NFTP) comes in. The NFTP has two main objectives: identifying suitable reactor materials that can stand up to the heat and radiation; and identifying a pro- cess to produce one of the fuels for fusion, tritium, in the reaction itself. Announced at the start of the year, the platform is set to open in 2020, having secured £86 million in funding from UKAEA (the UK Atomic Energy Authority). Like most government-funded fusion research, the work of the NFTP will stream into the greater current of the Interna- tional Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). ITER is a multinational mega-project, with 35 nations who have come together to build the world's largest fusion reactor, in France. It is set to cost more than €20 billion and has a completion date of 2025. The NFTP is particularly concerned with preparing UK industry to win contracts with ITER. Colin Walters, the director of NFTP, says he wants to "make sure we're doing everything we can with UKAEA to enable UK industry to play as big a part as possible". UK businesses have already been awarded contracts to the tune of £500 million, with the current target being a further billion. The road to commercial fusion is still a hard one. Currently, much of the research in the UK is carried out with ITER in mind. According to the o cial timeline, ITER should be completed by 2025 and run until 2050. In this time, the construction of DEMO will begin, which will serve as the ž rst reac- tor designed with the intention of generating power for the grid. It appears therefore that commercialised fusion power is, at least according to the public timeline, indeed still 30 years away. The UK needs a renewable overhaul sooner continued from previous page continued on p14 "If human kind took the challenge a little bit like the Apollo programme, then you could fast track things, but in the normal state of affairs, it's going to be several decades yet." COLIN WALTERS, THE DIRECTOR OF NFTP The Culham Centre for Fusion Energy's Joint European Torus device