The UK fusion strategy has arrived with a plan to develop fusion energy, which is the most ambitious way possible to say that Britain would like a star, but preferably one that obeys health and safety rules. The kettle has been informed and is trying not to take it personally.
The strategy covers research, technology development and commercialisation. In other words, it intends to take a profoundly complicated idea through the traditional British sequence: investigate it, build things around it, and eventually ask whether it can fill in a form.
The Government says the plan will strengthen supply chains, build the skills needed for the fusion industry and support investment. This is wise. Even an energy revolution needs someone who can find the right bolt, someone else who knows which drawer contains the right bolt, and a third person prepared to explain that the drawer is now subject to a consultation.
Fusion is being pursued as a reliable, commercially viable low carbon energy source. That wording is admirably practical. Nobody is promising that tomorrow’s breakfast will be cooked by a miniature sun. However, the long term goal does make every ordinary plug socket feel faintly underdressed.
The strategy seeks to accelerate fusion research and technology development. Laboratories may therefore become busier with people explaining magnetic fields while holding mugs that are much less dramatic than the science. This is how progress works: fewer capes, more careful notes, and a growing number of forms asking whether the plasma has completed its equality assessment.
Commercialisation waits patiently at the end of the corridor. It wants to know whether the brilliant machine can also survive a meeting about budgets. That is the true test of any breakthrough. A star may be powerful, but can it cope with procurement, skills shortages and a spreadsheet whose cells have been merged for reasons nobody can now remember?
The strategy places fusion within wider plans for growth and jobs. It is reassuring that a potential energy revolution has remembered both people and invoices. Britain has always liked innovation best when it comes with a decent apprenticeship and a polite receipt.
The official plan is serious about making fusion useful. The imaginary star remains cheerful, contained and absolutely not allowed near the curtains. If Britain eventually succeeds, the sun may rise over the country every morning, provided it has first secured planning permission, passed its risk assessment and learned to switch itself off at five. At last, Britain will have achieved the impossible: unlimited energy with strictly limited office hours.
Source: GOV.UK.
