An ambitious bid for South Gloucestershire to be home to the world’s first prototype working nuclear fusion plant has fallen at the last hurdle – but hopes are high for the site’s future. The Severn Edge project would have seen the cutting-edge facility, which aims to recreate the processes inside the sun to provide limitless clean energy, located at two decommissioned nuclear power stations at Oldbury and nearby Berkeley in Gloucestershire.
It reached the final shortlist of five locations around the country, but Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg announced during a speech to the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham on Monday evening that the Government had instead chosen West Burton A in Nottinghamshire. Leaders of the Western Gateway economic partnership, which led the Severn Edge bid, say this is “not the end of the road” for the two sites on the Severn Estuary.
And the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), which is responsible for delivering the £220million fusion programme, said it was confident that Oldbury and Berkeley could play an “important role for critical infrastructure in the future”. South Gloucestershire Council leader and Western Gateway vice-chairman Cllr Toby Savage said: “It’s been great to see the community unite behind our bid with support from businesses, industry, universities and politicians making clear the strengths our communities in England and Wales have to deliver at this scale.
Read more: South Gloucestershire nuclear fusion plant bid reaches final five
“While we are disappointed by this decision, I am looking forward to finding new ways of adapting these promising sites to create low-carbon energy, creating new opportunities for local people and decarbonising the nation’s economy." Gloucestershire County Council leader Cllr Mark Hawthorne said: “Clearly this is very disappointing news for the Severn Edge STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) bid.
“We will continue to look at options for these sites and while we have not been successful, we have established a strong case to be the home of green technology in the future.” Western Gateway chairwoman Katherine Bennett said: “This is not the end of discussions with UKAEA about a role for the Western Gateway and Severn Edge in supporting fusion and related technology.
“The Severn Edge site continues to be perfectly placed to benefit communities in England and Wales while also tapping into world leading expertise and supply chains. This is by no means the end of the road for this project, I look forward to where Severn Edge goes next.”
A UKAEA spokesperson said: “We can confirm the Severn Edge site has not been selected for the STEP prototype fusion energy plant. We understand this decision will be disappointing for the communities close to the Severn Edge site, however we are confident the site could play an important role for critical infrastructure in the future.”
STEP is the national project to develop a prototype energy plant to prove the commercial viability of fusion, which creates enormous energy by forcing atoms together, as opposed to standard fission reactors which split them apart. The STEP Tokamak works by heating atoms to 10 times hotter than the centre of the sun forming a plasma in which they smash together – the process of nuclear fusion – to produce heavier atoms.
The energy released is converted to power a turbine and generate electricity, like a regular power station. Giant magnets, strong enough to lift an aircraft carrier, keep the super-heated plasma away from the Tokamak’s edges, which is why it doesn’t melt, and the system is said to be fail-safe. Critics have long said fusion is always 20 years away. The Tokamak will be operational by the early 2040s.
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