(by Monica Paternesi) A new facility Eni is to build in Culham, Oxfordshire, in collaboration with the Atomic Energy Authority of the United Kingdom (UKEA), will be the largest plant in the world for the management of tritium, a fundamental fuel for nuclear fusion, the Italian energy giant said Friday.
The plant will be completed in 2028 and represents the central core of the agreement signed by the energy group with the UKEA that provides for a broader collaboration on the nuclear fusion front, what seems to be becoming the most challenging bet in the field of energy diversification, at a global level.
The H3AT plant is designed with the aim of being a world center of excellence for industry and the academic world to study innovative solutions for processing, storing and recycling the tritium fundamental for the supply and generation of fuel in future fusion power plants.
The partnership between Eni and the Atomic Energy Authority, explains the company, combines UKEA's experience in fusion research and development and the energy group's industrial capabilities in plant engineering, implementation and management of activities.
And according to Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi, "fusion energy is set to revolutionize the global energy transition path, accelerating the decarbonization of our economic and industrial systems, helping to spread access to energy and reduce energy dependency links as part of a fairer transition.
"Eni is strongly committed to various areas of research and development of this complex technology, in which it has always firmly believed. "Today, with our UK partners, we are laying the foundations for further progress towards the goal of fusion which - if we take into account its enormous scope of technological innovation - is increasingly concrete and not so far away in time".
In fact, Eni is already active in the field of fusion through several projects and is a shareholder of Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a spin-out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.
The hypothesis is to start the first fusion power plant in the early 2030s. In Italy, the energy group has a 25% joint venture in the DTT (Divertor Tokamak Test) project, together with Enea and with research institutions and universities.
Today's agreement therefore constitutes another step forward on the energy transition front.
"The UKEA-Eni H3AT Tritium Loop Facility will not only position the UK as a leader in the development of fusion fuel technologies, but will also accelerate progress towards a clean energy future that is safe, sustainable and abundant", stated the UK Climate Minister, Kerry McCarthy.
"H3AT, the largest and most advanced plant in the world", underlined Sir Ian Chapman, CEO of UKEA, "will position itself as a new point of reference laying the foundations for further innovative discoveries in the field of fusion fuel".
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