'World's largest' fusion fuel facility to be built

The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority is based in Culham

A facility designed to store and recover a fuel used for nuclear fusion is set to be built.

United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and Italian energy company Eni have partnered to construct the facility - thought to be the world's largest - at the Culham science campus in Oxfordshire.

Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen which is heated and forced together to make a heavier particle during nuclear fusion.

The new tritium fuel cycle facility, which will recover and re-use the particles, is due to be completed in 2028.

Nuclear fusion is the energy process that powers the stars, with scientists saying it has the potential of virtually unlimited supplies of low-carbon, low-radiation energy.

The fusion process sees two hydrogen isotopes, such as tritium, fuse together under intense heat and pressure to form a helium atom - releasing large amounts of emissions-free energy.

The new facility is due to be completed by 2028

UKAEA said tritium recovery and re-use would play a "fundamental role" in the "supply and generation of the fuel in future fusion power plants" and be "crucial in making the technology increasingly efficient".

Kerry McCarthy, government climate minister, said the new facility would "not only position the UK as a leader in the development of fusion fuel technologies" but also "accelerate progress towards a future of safe, sustainable, and abundant clean energy".

UKAEA added the site had been designed to "serve as a world-class facility", providing the opportunity to study how to process, store and recycle tritium.

Prof Sir Ian Chapman, chief executive of UKAEA, said the agency believed that fusion energy could "contribute to a net zero future, including going beyond the decarbonisation of electricity".

He said the new plant would "set a benchmark which would be paving the way for innovative offerings in fusion fuel".

Culham was previously home to a nuclear fusion reactor, which in its final test produced a record amount of energy.

The reactor was decommissioned in 2024, with the government hoping to build the world's first fusion power plant in Nottinghamshire – which would begin operation in the 2040s.