Costa News Spain Breaking News | English News in Spain.
The regional government (Junta) is aiming to make Andalucía an international benchmark for nuclear fusion with two scientific facilities it is promoting in Granada and Seville.
The projects seek to develop clean, unlimited energy sources and create employment and technological opportunities of high added value.
The infrastructure in question are the Ifmif-Dones particle accelerator, planned for the Granada municipality of Escúzar, and the Tokamak Smart reactor, which is being built by the University of Seville.
The regional ministry of university, research and innovation has earmarked 219.95 million euros to promote these two ‘world-class’ research facilities that it hopes will make Andalucía an international hub for nuclear fusion.
The Junta’s contribution to the two centres comes mainly from the Feder Andalucía 2021-2027 programme. Ifmif-Dones has its own self-financing. The vast majority of funds (211.9 million) are allocated to the particle accelerator.
This investment represents 50% of Spain’s commitment to the project. The other half will come from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
The main mission of the accelerator will be to test, qualify and validate materials for future nuclear-fusion power plants. The project is expected to be developed in a period of approximately 30 years. Construction and commissioning phases will last about 10 years. The operational phase, which runs from 2035-2055, will start once the construction is complete.
According to the Junta it will be an unique facility which will be crucial in validating components that will work under extreme conditions within fusion reactors. This is essential to move to commercial fusion energy generation.
Its construction and operation will be carried out with the participation of numerous countries and scientific institutions, with Spain and Andalucía playing a central role by hosting the accelerator, constructing the building and housing the international team responsible for its start-up.
The impact of this project on the Andalusian society and economy will be extraordinary. It will create tens and thousands of jobs, both direct and indirect, throughout its entire lifecycle. It will also attract top research talent to the universities and technology centres of the region.
The University of Seville project, which will receive eight million euros in funding from the Junta de Andalucía, will build the first spherical Tokamak, which will be an experimental device for controlled nuclear fusion. The project will use a powerful magnetic field and a vacuum chamber to confine a plasma and heat it to extreme temperatures. This will fuse atoms to produce clean energy. In the first phase of the project, enough will be produced to supply Seville.
