Central England Branch Annual Lecture at AWE, Aldermaston: "Fusion: Powering our Future"
On 20th November, Chris Warrick (Head of Communications, UKAEA) gave a presentation on “Fusion - Powering our Future” at the William Penny Theatre at AWE, Aldermaston.
With climate change at the top of everyone’s agenda, Chris spoke about the work to develop a new source of electricity from Nuclear Fusion at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire. This lecture discussed the process that powers the Sun and its successful replication at the European JET project resulting in a world record for energy production from fusion power (16MW) and the support to ensure that the next step international device ITER will hit the ground running, when it comes into operation in the mid 2020s. The talk also covered other key technologies being developed by UKAEA (robotic maintenance, fuel cycle, materials etc.) required for the first fusion power stations.
The lecture was hosted and sponsored by AWE Aldermaston. Richard Walker (Site Engineered) opened the meeting emphasising the developing relationship between AWE and the NI CEB. Mehdi Askarieh (Chairman of NI CEB) thanked Richard Walker, David Brophy and Vanessa Brookes-Bell for their continued support and generosity to the NI and CEB.
Picture above right
From left to right: Richard Walker (Head of Site Engineering, Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE); Dr Mehdi Askarieh (Chairman of NI CEB), David Brophy (Head of Commissioning Engineering and Handover, AWE) and Dick Francis (Education of Training Officer, NI CEB).
Chris Warrick, Head of Communications, UKAEA (left) and Dr Mehdi Askarieh, Chairman of NI CEB (right)