You Ask, We Answer
The following questions have been gathered from our STEP community events, which take place at locations close to West Burton such as Sturton-Le-Steeple, Retford and Gainsborough.
If you have a question to ask about STEP, please attend our next event or send an email to: communications@step.ukaea.uk.
Fusion Energy
It’s clear we must make significant changes to address the effects of climate change. Fusion energy has great potential to deliver safe, sustainable, low carbon energy for generations to come. It is sometimes described as the ultimate energy source, based on the same processes that power the Sun and stars and will complement renewable and other low carbon energy sources.
Fusion energy is carbon-free at the point of generation. The process itself produces no carbon emissions. The waste product from the fusion process is helium, which does not contribute to global warming. As with most other industries, there is a focus on reducing the carbon used to manufacture the components and buildings, and to start up the plant.
STEP
STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) is a major technology and infrastructure programme to deliver the UK’s prototype fusion energy plant, targeting 2040, and a path to the commercial viability of fusion.
STEP will be built at West Burton, which is a former coal-fired power station site and sits within the district of Bassetlaw in Nottinghamshire. It neighbours West Lindsey District in Lincolnshire. The nearest towns are Retford, Gainsborough and Worksop. The area is part of the new East Midlands Combined County Authority with Claire Ward elected as First Mayor of East Midlands.
The STEP Programme is divided into three phases (we call them tranches). In the first phase, up to March 2024, we’ve focused on key activities to establish the foundations of the programme. These include maturing the concept design, development of the organisation to enable us to deliver a major technology and infrastructure programme, selection of a site, and getting the right regulatory framework in place. Tranche 1 ended on 31 March 2024 and we are now in a Transition Year (FY 2024-25) during which we will implement major changes to how STEP is delivered, start formal engagement with industry to seek strategic partners and seek government approval for Tranche 2a, which commences in April 2025.
We are working towards getting permissions and consents in place for construction to start in the early 2030s. The prototype powerplant is targeted to commence first operations in the early 2040s. As operations progress, STEP aims to demonstrate net energy from fusion and further demonstrate the path to commercialisation of fusion energy.
West Burton and Local Area
Finding a home for STEP was one of the key objectives of the first phase of the programme and an open call for sites was launched at the end of 2020. Following an extensive siting process which included community and stakeholder engagement as well as technical and socio-economic assessments, the West Burton site was selected by the Secretary of State.
West Burton is a natural fit for the STEP programme with a rich industrial heritage now being developed and repurposed for a low carbon future. STEP provides an enormous opportunity for new growth and regeneration in the region. For more information about the siting process, please take a look at: https://step.ukaea.uk/step-siting
The West Burton site is still currently owned by EDF. The site has moved into the decommissioning phase with Brown and Mason delivering this work on behalf of EDF.
STEP has an established relationship with local councils and work closely with them in order to keep them well informed of developments at site.
The old coal station was built in the 1960s, the site owner (currently EDF) is returning the site to brownfield, ground level site. The demolition work, which we understand includes the cooling towers, is being carried out by Brown and Mason on behalf of EDF, which will be completed before the site is fully handed over to STEP for development.
The long-term risks associated with changing water levels is one of the important factors which will influence design development and site layout. A lot more work is required to develop the maturity of understanding and this work will take place over the coming years. For more information on how the site will evolve, please refer to the West Burton site vision https://step.ukaea.uk/vision-for-step/
Early works are underway to develop a better understanding if the existing transport networks, their opportunities and their constraints including river, rail, road and overground (bridges) and underground (tunnel) options. This will influence thinking on design development and site layout. The site is fortunate to have a local connection to the rail network, the use of which is being fully explored. More work is needed to understand how much material needs to be moved on and off site and what the best options are to mitigate any impacts.
At this stage of the powerplant and supporting buildings design, everything is on the table with regards to whether it would be a flagship build or opportunity to use screening designs. For more information, please refer to the local site vision https://step.ukaea.uk/vision-for-step/
One of the most important parts of what we will do is benefit the region around West Burton. We are already engaged with Nottinghamshire County Council, Bassetlaw District Council, Lincolnshire County Council, West Lindsey District Council, Midlands Engine and other local networks. We are all working together to ensure STEP is a catalyst for regional development that fits with the longer-term planning in the area and we are committed to supporting regional leaders to ensure collective opportunities are realised to deliver that social and economic impact. We are very proud of the relationships already built, and the support that we have been given by local champions.
STEP is the only prototype fusion energy powerplant that will built at West Burton.
Jobs, Education and Regional Benefits
STEP will provide thousands of jobs during construction phase and a pipeline of long-term highly skilled jobs during operations. There will be a wide range of jobs created from engineers and plant operators through to catering and site security. Over the coming months and years, we will be looking for people to join the programme with a wide range of skills and experience.
We anticipate the region will become a global hub for a wide range of technological and scientific expertise, leading to massive economic opportunities. The development of our vision for the West Burton site to 2050 and the critical role that STEP has to play in levelling up is fundamental to the success of the programme. The energy transition can make a real difference to individuals as well as the global climate challenge.
Please visit https://careers.ukaea.uk/current-vacancies/ to find out about the latest STEP vacancies.
The development of fusion skills will be a lasting legacy of STEP. Children currently at primary schools will be our future STEP team. Outreach activities are already underway with visits to local science festivals, schools, careers fairs and STEP community engagement events. The Outreach team is also collaborating with universities across the region and work with a network of post-graduate, Masters and PhD students to help create further opportunities and a fusion force for good.
STEP provides an enormous opportunity as a catalyst for growth and regeneration in the region. We anticipate the region will become a global hub for a wide range of technological and scientific expertise, leading to massive economic opportunities.
In collaboration with our local authority partners, we have commissioned a report to investigate the full economic benefits of STEP – it will be published in the summer. We are committed to supporting regional leaders to ensure collective opportunities are realised to deliver maximum social and economic impact.
STEP’s Technology
STEP will heat a gas (comprising fusion fuels, deuterium and tritium – two heavy forms of hydrogen) to around 150 million degrees centigrade, 10 times hotter than the core of the Sun. This will enable the nuclei to fuse together and create a plasma. We hold this hot plasma using strong magnets in machine called a ‘tokamak’. The powerful magnetic fields are used to control and confine the plasma.
The fusion of deuterium and tritium creates very high energy neutrons – which contain the excess energy produced from fusion. These neutrons will be captured and ‘slowed down’ or ‘cooled’ in a blanket around the plasma, producing heat; this heat will be used to create steam to turn a turbine, generating electricity, just as in any conventional powerplant.
As the STEP design is at an early-stage, one of the opportunities we have is to make decisions now that minimise our reliance on other materials that could be difficult to obtain in the future.
STEP will use deuterium and tritium as its two fusion fuels. When we mix and heat deuterium and tritium to form a plasma at extreme temperatures (10 times hotter than the core of the Sun) they fuse together to create helium and release huge amounts of energy.
Deuterium can be found in seawater, but tritium does not occur naturally in large quantities. STEP will be designed to self-produce tritium.
Yes, supercomputers and artificial intelligence are set to play a key role in STEP. It will allow our scientists and engineers to test digital versions of STEP’s engineering design and technology.
STEP’s technical team will have access to Dawn – a UK supercomputer developed by the University of Cambridge, Intel and Dell, that will speed-up modelling capabilities. More information about Dawn’s involvement in fusion, can be found in an article by the University of Cambridge.
Since the UK announced STEP, several other countries have announced similar government funded programmes, and there is also a growing number of private fusion companies with a range of approaches to fusion – it is not clear whether all approaches will succeed. Achieving sustainable fusion energy is extremely difficult. It is one of the great scientific and engineering challenges of our time.
STEP is a vital and exciting opportunity for the UK to lead and deliver a new solution for the climate and to help keep the UK at the forefront of the commercial delivery of fusion. STEP is not a science experiment and aims to demonstrate net energy from the prototype fusion plant – many other fusion programmes still have scientific aims.
Once proven, fusion needs to be deployed at scale to provide a low carbon source of power, addressing global demand. The truth is that we need all the sources of low carbon energy production we have currently and more. We believe that fusion will play a vital role in the second half of this century.
Health, Safety & Environment
There is zero chance of a ‘runaway reaction’ in a fusion device – the challenge with fusion is in sustaining it, not containing it. Fusion energy is safe, reliable and predictable. We are committed to building public trust in fusion, by continuing to host regular community events to talk, listen and explain how fusion energy is different to what is sometimes referred to as ‘traditional nuclear’ or ‘nuclear fission’.
The Energy Act 2023 confirmed that fusion plants and facilities, such as STEP at West Burton, will be regulated by the Environment Agency and Health and Safety Executive. Regulation of fusion energy in the UK is different to traditional nuclear in recognition of fusion’s intrinsically lower hazards.
The fusion process is easy to stop because if the power supply is cut the plasma the fusion processes immediately cease.
Plasma, considered the fourth state of matter, corresponds to the point where gas atoms have been heated to such a high temperature that the electrons become free from their nuclei, creating a sea of charged particles. To restore the gas phase, the temperature just needs to be lowered, reducing the energy and allowing the electrons and nuclei to recombine back into gas atoms. This is achieved through natural energy loss and, on STEP, by lowering the heating power to the plasma.
Yes. The peak magnetic field within STEP is ~400,000 times that of the Earth’s magnetic field, or ~7 times that of an MRI scanner. While the magnetic field strength is large, it is constrained to the centre of the fusion machine (called a tokamak) and falls off rapidly with distance.
We have the opportunity to design STEP’s systems with the aim of minimising waste, which will be carefully managed under fusion regulation. The Energy Act 2023 confirmed that fusion plants and facilities will be regulated by the Environment Agency and Health and Safety Executive – this is the same as conventional non-nuclear industries and facilities and different to ‘nuclear fission’ / traditional nuclear power stations.
Waste material from a fusion powerplant is expected to be classified as no more than ‘intermediate level waste’ at the point of disposal, with no ‘high-level waste’. Producing energy using neutrons from fusion fuel, tritium, will make some of the materials inside the heart of the fusion plant, radioactive. Tritium-contaminated material in safe storage reduces by around half every 12 years. If stored for 100 years, there would be less than half a percent left.
UKAEA is currently undertaking a number of research studies in ‘detritiation’ and waste characterisation to inform STEP’s design, maintenance and eventual decommissioning. It is expected that most of the tritium can be removed from materials before disposal, and recycled via a process called ‘de-tritiation.’
Supply Chain
In June 2023, we hosted our first Whole Plant Partner (WPP) supplier event at the Sheffield United Conference Centre, with 40 organisations and over 170 participants. The feedback was very positive, emphasising the genuine value participants found in attending.
A significant milestone awaits with the launch of our Whole Plant Partner (WPP) procurement process to find our long-term engineering and construction partners to work alongside UKAEA as our fusion partner. Our industrial model will combine the best of the public and private sectors to form an integrated alliance to design and build STEP.
Following the appointment of these strategic partners, will flow a vast range of other opportunities for the broader supply chain, details of this will unfold in due course.
We know that suppliers may wish to collaborate to enable expertise to be built and shared and we are open to working with any combination of suppliers in the way the market decides. We’re keen to facilitate the development of these relationships and will work with businesses, big and small, to enable this.
STEP will need a wide range of systems partners in the coming years, as the design matures. These will come from a range of sectors and specialisms.
As the programme evolves, we will increase communications and events to raise awareness of supplier opportunities. Please sign up via our website to be kept up to date with the programme https://step.ukaea.uk/sign-up/.
