UK Atomic Energy Authority

We've been busy.... If you only watch one video on LinkedIn, make it this one! We've put together highlights from what has been a very exciting 12 months for the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and fusion energy in this inspirational video. One year on from COP26 and our landmark panel discussion; 'Looking to the Future with Fusion Energy', and as COP27 draws to a close, now is the best time to find out about all the great work undertaken by UKAEA, and our plans for the future. ✅ Visit https://ccfe.ukaea.uk #FusionEnergy #FusionIsComing Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), EUROfusion, UN Climate Change #COP27

Fusion startups, large scale AI data centres and supercomputing are proposed for the UKAEA Culham Campus following the closure of JET (Joint European Torus) project. Read more about this exciting development, in Power Engineering International... https://lnkd.in/eMNRcVtp

'Discoveries made in pursuit of fusion have potentially huge practical applications in everything from curing cancer to superior batteries for EVs...' - The Guardian https://lnkd.in/e25HzPmp

We’ve been enjoying the Team GB British Cycling at the Olympics, and noticed something about the design of the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome. All the way around the central area of the track there’s a bright pink line. It got us thinking about the time JET broke the world-record for fusion energy - 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy! Did you know the toroidal rotation is around 270 km/s in the core of the plasma – and can even peak at 380. A guaranteed gold medal! 🥇 To learn more fusion energy, robotics, and all things UKAEA, follow our account. #Paris2024 #Olympics #Cycling #OlympicGames

We are pleased to announce the appointment of John Norton as Director of LIBRTI at UKAEA. LIBRTI is the acronym for ‘Lithium Breeding Tritium Innovation’... LIBRTI is part of Fusion Futures, the UK's alternative programme to associating to Euratom R&T, and is a new flagship programme to create a fusion fuel capability for the UK. The programme involves the build of a new facility and the experimental research that will take place within it. Fusion power plants that use deuterium and tritium as fuel will need to produce their own tritium in the future. A promising way is to use a lithium blanket to make tritium. But there's much we need to discover about how this process works – see diagram! The aim of LIBRTI is to research how much tritium fuel can be produced and how to achieve this in a reproducible and predictable way. Over the next four years, the facility and accompanying industrial-scale experimental offering will take shape on the Culham Campus in Oxfordshire. Norton, a Chartered Mechanical Engineer, has spent the past 30 years working on nuclear fission and has a breadth of experience in the design, build, operation and decommissioning of defence and civil installations. He was previously Head of Technical Strategy and Innovation at Nuclear Restoration Services Ltd., and led the Magnox collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Verification. Norton is currently Chair of the Nuclear Institute’s Digital Special Interest Group.

If you attended FUSION24, you may have seen Rebecca Osborne -Graphic Recorder/Illustration/Animation developing a piece of art to represent the event. A video of the finished piece can be found in the post, below...

KEY MILESTONE ACHIEVED. Our Remote Applications in Challenging Environments (RACE) team has achieved a key milestone of our work for the European Spallation Source ERIC (ESS). RACE is the systems integrator for the ESS’s Active Cells Facility. The ESS is a multi-disciplinary research facility in Lund, Sweden and will be the world’s most powerful neutron source, enabling research in materials, energy, health and the environment. We have successfully delivered the ESS Radiological Safety System Site Acceptance Test, which supports the ESS operational safety case to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority. This represents eight years of hard work and overcoming challenges; growing through engaging and learning from industry, self-delivery learning and training. RACE now has a Functional Safety Group of seven people who support ESS, RACE and wider programmes. Radiological Safety System Facts & Figures 🔵30,000hrs of resource time 🔵£1m hardware procured, manufacture, installed and commissioning at ESS site 🔵Contract management with a Functional Safety consulting company 🔵30 substantiation documents (2000+ pages) 🔵1000 pages of drawings 🔵20 cubicles 🔵12km cabling 🔵2km of cable managements systems 🔵4000 components 🔵10000 electrical connections All the above have passed through the ESS and UKAEA’s quality assurance requirements. This shows the power of collective thinking and collaborative working. Our functional safety capability can be applied in fusion, fission and Big Science areas. If you are looking to enhance this capability for your work, please send an email to contactus@race.ukaea.uk or find out more by visiting https://lnkd.in/eHFwpjiU We will be happy to discuss and share our knowledge.

We've been amazed by the fantastic gymnastics at the Olympics. The balance, the poise, and the ability to remain clam under so much pressure. It took us back to when MASCOT - a Jenga-playing robot with a human touch used to maintain a fusion energy machine – was reunited with its identical superhero twin. In a result that shocked absolutely no one, MASCOT won the gold and silver medal! 🏅🥈 Find out more about robotics at UKAEA: https://race.ukaea.uk/ #OlympicGames #Paris2024 #Olympics

We were delighted to welcome Kerry McCarthy MP, Minister for Climate at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, to Culham Campus for a tour of our facilities… During the visit Minister McCarthy met with UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Tim Bestwick (Deputy CEO) for an overview of fusion energy, following which there was a meeting with Paul Methven CB (UKIFS CEO) about the STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production - STEPtoFusion) programme. This was followed by a tour of JET with Joe Milnes (Executive Director for Engineering, Computing and STEP Partner) and a meeting with Paula Barham (Director of Procurement). Later in the day there were tours of MAST Upgrade led by Fulvio Militello (Director of Tokamak Science and MAST Upgrade), our Materials Research Facility with Prof Amy Gandy (Head of Programme – Materials Science and Engineering), and the RACE robotics facility with Nick Sykes (RACE Director). Minister McCarthy also took in a tour of the Oxfordshire Advanced Skills apprenticeship centre, led by Emma Johnstone (Operations Manager), finally meeting with Nick Walkden (Head of Fusion Skills) and Justin Kingsford (UKAEA Chief Operating Officer). As part of the days events the Minister also took part in an industry roundtable. Tim Bestwick said: “We were delighted to host Minister McCarthy at UKAEA’s Culham Campus today to share with her the latest developments in the rapidly developing world of fusion. Today’s visit was a great opportunity to demonstrate how fusion can help sustain a low-carbon future as well as the enormous growth opportunity fusion presents for the UK.” We would like to thank Minister McCarthy for taking the time to visit UKAEA.

Congratulations to Celestine Cheong, UKAEA's Head of External Communications, and the England Women's 40 Touch Rugby team on achieving a bronze medal at the 2024 Touch Rugby World Cup. You can read about Celestine's experience by going to the post, below.