Bezos-backed startup to build nuclear fusion demonstration plant in UK

General Fusion plant is expected to be fully operational as early as 2025

General Fusion, a Canadian startup backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has announced plans to build its first pilot nuclear fusion plant in Oxfordshire.

The new facility, dubbed the Fusion Demonstration Plant (FDP), will be about 70 per cent of the size of a commercial reactor and will allow General Fusion to verify whether its magnetised target fusion (MTF) technology can help create conditions for fusion energy production in a realistic and profitable manner.

According to the BBC, the firm will enter into a long-term lease with the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) following the construction of the facility at Culham campus, which is home of the country's fusion research programme.

The construction will start next year and the facility is expected to be fully operational as early as 2025.

The construction cost of the plant is estimated at around $400 million (£288 million).

In its last funding round, General Fusion raised $100 million, and it is now planning to raise more funds to demonstrate that its technology can be successfully scaled up.

General Fusion's proprietary MTF technology involves injecting super-heated plasma into a cylinder that is surrounded by a wall of liquid metal. The injected plasma is compressed using hundreds of pneumatic pistons until the fusion process starts, generating massive amounts of heat. Then, the heat can be transferred using the liquid metal to generate steam and run a turbine.

Culham campus, where General Fusion will build the new fusion plant, is also the location of the world's largest working fusion reactor, Joint European Torus (Jet), as well as the UK's Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak Upgrade (MAST-U) reactor.

"Coming to Culham gives us the opportunity to benefit from UKAEA's expertise," said Christofer Mowry, the chief executive of General Fusion.

"By locating at this campus, General Fusion expands our market presence beyond North America into Europe, broadening our global network of government, institutional, and industrial partners."

The news follows the British government's announcement last month that it would begin work to create a regulatory framework for supporting new research in nuclear fusion technology to enable the delivery of safe and clean energy.

The UKAEA is also building a prototype fusion power plant, dubbed the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP), which is expected to operational by 2040.

Last month, researchers at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) released the first results from the MAST-U nuclear fusion experiment, claiming that they have developed an exhaust system that can deal with the immense temperatures generated during the fusion process and reduce the exhaust heat load by ten-fold.

The team says the new exhaust system could allow components in future tokamaks to last for much longer, increasing availability of the power plant while also reducing the cost of fusion electricity.

So far, the biggest project aiming to recreate the nuclear fusion reaction is $20 billion ITER project in France, which is expected to begin operation in 2035, after a series of delays.