We are impressed by their new approach, pragmatic collaborative culture and the scientific rigour. We are excited to be working with First Light to help bring this vital technology towards commercialisation. Ian Baird, Managing Director of nuclear at Mott MacDonald, said of the project, “Fusion energy is one of the great engineering and scientific challenges. According to the companies, the project is on track to deliver its first fusion this year, before creating more energy than it uses to spark a reaction by 2024. Unlike existing nuclear fission technology, there is no long-lived waste, no meltdown risk, and the raw materials it uses can be found in abundance.Ī release from Mott MacDonald and First Light Fusion explains that the firms are applying an inertial confinement approach, which apparently creates the extreme temperatures and pressures required for fusion by compressing a target using a projectile travelling at massive speed. The companies believe their approach has the potential to transform the world’s energy supply if it can be harnessed and applied to power generation. First Light is currently identifying and addressing key engineering challenges, but aims to deliver a detailed reactor design in the 2020s which will be viable for commercial use. Now however, UK-based First Light Fusion and international engineering group Mott MacDonald are collaborating to bring the distant dream of nuclear fusion within reach. The problem is that until now, every fusion experiment has operated on an energy deficit, making it useless as a form of electricity generation, leading to the running joke that nuclear fusion is the innovation which is perpetually just 50 years away. The promise of nuclear fusion to that end is huge: it represents a zero-carbon, combustion-free source of energy. The project aims to deliver designs for a reactor which can create more energy than it uses by 2024.Ī recent analysis conducted by system-change advisory and investment firm SYSTEMIQ, found that achieving a zero-carbon global energy system by 2050 will require significant investment in both existing renewables and new clean energy technologies. Experts were uncertain if the hydrogen bubble would create further meltdown or possibly a giant explosion, and as a precaution Governor Thornburgh advised “pregnant women and pre-school age children to leave the area within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until further notice.” This led to the panic the governor had hoped to avoid within days, more than 100,000 people had fled surrounding towns.International consulting firm Mott MacDonald has teamed up with First Light Fusion to develop a nuclear fusion reactor. After the radiation leak was discovered on March 30, residents were advised to stay indoors. At that time, plant operators had not registered the explosion, which sounded like a ventilation door closing. On March 28, some of this gas had exploded, releasing a small amount of radiation into the atmosphere. The bubble of gas was created two days before when exposed core materials reacted with super-heated steam. Two days later, however, on March 30, a bubble of highly flammable hydrogen gas was discovered within the reactor building. More than half the core was destroyed or molten, but it had not broken its protective shell, and no radiation was escaping. The reactor had come within less than an hour of a complete meltdown. The temperature began to drop, and pressure in the reactor was reduced. Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh considered calling an evacuation.įinally, at about 8 p.m., plant operators realized they needed to get water moving through the core again and restarted the pumps. The plant’s parent company, Metropolitan Edison, downplayed the crisis and claimed that no radiation had been detected off plant grounds, but the same day inspectors detected slightly increased levels of radiation nearby as a result of the contaminated water leak. Shortly after 8 a.m., word of the accident leaked to the outside world. The radiation levels, though not immediately life-threatening, were dangerous, and the core cooked further as the contaminated water was contained and precautions were taken to protect the operators. READ MORE: How the Three Mile Island Accident Was Made Even Worse By a Chaotic ResponseĪs the plant operators struggled to understand what had happened, the contaminated water was releasing radioactive gases throughout the plant.
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