Amanda Levete presents the unusual design of the UK’s first inertial fusion power plant.
The plant will be built on the UK Atomic Energy Authority campus in Culham, near Oxford.
The reactor’s special design is intended to make nuclear energy, which is difficult for many people to grasp, more accessible, more fun and less opaque.
Amanda Levete project designer
This is a prototype of the first nuclear fusion reactor, designed by architect Amanda Levete.
Her company, A_LA, has stated that it will be the first power plant of its kind to be operational by 2025.
It’s a feat of which the Group is proud, and whose success hinges on collaboration with the General Fusion Group.
In October 2020, General Fusion CEO Christopher Mowry lamented the lack of emotional connection between humans and fusion.
For him, this is where the real gap comes from, which justifies the lack of proper appreciation of the project.
For Mowry, we need to move beyond seeing fusion as a possibility, and see it as the future.
Democratizing the energy sector
To achieve this ideal, which Christopher Mowry advocates, the connection with fusion energy can only be made by proving the technology.
For him, fusion needs to be introduced to the public, made understandable to create sustainable energy for the future.
With this in mind, architect Amanda Levete designed her building.
The idea behind the building is to break away from the old models that hid the reactors, making them almost secret, even mysterious.
The visuals provided show an airy design, with the reactor at the heart of a circular building bathed in light.
Educational areas and meeting rooms for visitors and scientists surround the reactor, making it more tangible.
An astral-inspired reactor
The idea for General Fusion came from Michel Laberge, who sought to replicate the way in which stars produce energy.
Traditionally, nuclear power plants use fission as a process, i.e. splitting a uranium atom in two.
Here, however, we’re talking about magnetic confinement fusion (MCF).
MCF is a process that involves injecting plasma hydrogen into a sphere of liquid lithium surrounded by pistons.
The pistons compress the hydrogen until the atoms are destroyed and fuse to produce helium.
This process produces heat, the steam from which activates a turbine to generate electricity.
A prototype for a more environmentally-friendly future
This prototype is a declaration of belief in a more environmentally-friendly future.
The essence of the building lies not just in its efficiency, but in its optimism for fusion as a relief to energy problems.
Through this building and this reactor, we want to send a message of confidence in the future and in the potential of this technology.
For A_LA, this project is a true statement of confidence in technology and science and its role in shaping the future.
Herein lay the real challenge for General Fusion, which benefited from this alliance to prove its worth.
If this project is a success, A_LA is already open to future collaboration with General Fusion and UKAKEA.
However, it should be noted that the plant is 70% the size of a commercial power station, so it will not be used to generate electricity.
The question then is whether a future collaboration for a power plant beyond the prototype stage will see the light of day.
