Commonwealth Fusion Systems and United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Establish Fusion Energy Cooperative Agreement

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) announced a collaborative agreement to advance commercial fusion energy. This new five-year Collaboration Framework Agreement establishes the terms under which a series of work projects between CFS and UKAEA will be executed to support the development of fusion energy and related technologies. This agreement is the result of a shared mission of both organizations to leverage innovative fusion energy research and the speed of the private sector to support the fastest path to clean commercial fusion energy to combat climate change.

"CFS and UKAEA have a mutual interest and strong belief that public private collaborations such as this represent a way to accelerate advances in commercial fusion energy technology and support CFS' plans to deliver commercial fusion power as fast as possible," said CFS CEO Bob Mumgaard. "UKAEA is a leader in fusion energy research and CFS plans to establish a UK presence as we leverage the combined skills and talents of both organizations to develop the fastest path to commercial fusion power on the grid."

"Achieving our shared missions to deliver low carbon and sustainable fusion energy involves working at the forefront of science, engineering, and technology. This new collaboration agreement with CFS will help push these developments and capabilities, drive innovation and accelerate progress," said Prof. Ian Chapman, UKAEA CEO. "Fusion presents an exciting opportunity for the UK and we're proud our ground-breaking work here continues to support economic growth and attracts such leading international partners."

The scope of the collaboration could include:

• Bilateral exchanges such as CFS tokamak operations team working with the JET operations team with the objective of learning best practices from JET deuterium-tritium operations.
• CFS access to UKAEA non-tokamak fusion technology R&D facilities, and contribution to experimental program planning on those facilities.
• Collaboration on fuel cycle technologies, neutronics modeling, systems integration models, advanced manufacturing, remote handling and remote maintenance.
• CFS science team collaborates with MAST-U science team to maximally exploit its flexibility of operation and achieve complementarity to the high-power experiments planned on SPARC.
• Collaborative work to identify and answer emerging plasma physics questions where improved empirical understanding or advancements in modeling can help to reduce risks for both ARC and STEP.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) is collaborating with MIT to leverage decades of research combined with new groundbreaking high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet technology. HTS magnets will enable compact fusion power plants that can be constructed faster and at lower cost. The mission is to deploy fusion power plants to meet global decarbonization goals as fast as possible. CFS has raised more than $2 billion in funding since it was founded in 2018 and assembled a team of leaders in tough tech, fusion science, and manufacturing with a track record of rapid execution. Supported by the world's leading investors, CFS is uniquely positioned to deliver limitless, clean, fusion power to combat climate change.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) carries out fusion energy research on behalf of the UK Government. UKAEA oversees the UK's fusion programme, headed by the MAST Upgrade (Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak) experiment. It also hosts the world's largest fusion research facility, JET (Joint European Torus), which it operates for scientists from around Europe. 

More information: https://www.gov.uk/ukaea. Social Media: @UKAEAofficial 

Contact: Kristen Cullen                                                                                                 
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SOURCE Commonwealth Fusion Systems