The governments of the UK and Canada have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to collaborate more closely on advancing nuclear fusion energy.
The MOU was complemented by the signing of a partnership agreement between Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).
The two agencies will advance technologies critical to the management of tritium, an important fuel for fusion energy.
The MOU aims to foster cooperation in strategic areas including research and development, regulatory harmonization, and the development of skills and workforce.
UKAEA executive director Stephen Wheeler said that fusion energy promises to be a safe, low-carbon, and sustainable part of the world’s future energy supply. For fusion energy, tritium is a key fuel and helps to develop a commercial-scale fuel cycle for the reprocessing and handling of tritium is vital to the delivery of fusion as a clean energy source.
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This collaboration between UKAEA and CNL brings together two of the largest and most experienced tritium research and operational teams to quicken the development of new technologies for tritium processing.
Bottom of FormThe partnership will focus on managing hydrogen isotopes within the fusion fuel cycle.
This includes the continuous and safe handling of fuel, including its processing, removal, and reinjection into the plasma.
The first project will analyze materials for isotope separation at CNL’s Chalk River facilities in Ontario and the UKAEA’s facilities in Culham, Oxfordshire.
CNL hydrogen and tritium technologies head Ian Castillo stated that for our part, CNL has extensive expertise in the safe operation of management, storage, and facilities of tritium and abilities that will be critically important to this collaboration.
Generally, at the UKAEA, we are excited to work with such a capable and internationally respected team of researchers, and we are eagerly waiting for it to get started.
The facilities of the UKAEA and CNL will be leveraged to advance the tritium technologies needed for fusion applications.
These include the design of tritium processing plants, tritium-compatible materials development, tritium breeder blanket technologies, tritium decontamination, and analytical equipment, and the modeling of tritium handling processes.
This UK-Canada partnership complements the UK-US partnership on fusion energy which was announced in November 2023.
