Sumimoto and Tokamak team up to bring about the commercialization of nuclear fusion
British company Tokamak Energy and Japan's Sumitomo Corporation have agreed to collaborate in the development and large-scale implementation of commercial nuclear fusion in Japan and around the world. Sumimoto Corporation is the energy arm of the Sumimoto Group, one of Japan's large holding companies and one of the world's top 500 companies.
The partnership will see Sumitomo contribute expertise and investment to a number of joint projects with Tokamak focused on scaling and industrialising the global fusion supply chain.
The companies will jointly develop the first market entry strategies for Tokamak Energy's fusion technology in Japan and other countries.
Tokamak reactor prototype
“The ultimate goal for both organizations is to jointly design, build and operate fusion power plants at scale,” Tokamak said.
The collaboration will enable Sumitomo to establish itself as the global market leader for the financing, construction and operation of fusion power plants and Tokamak to accelerate the commercialization and industrialization of its spherical tokamak devices in the late 2030s. An agreement that finally it adequately brings together the finance and operational side of the merger.
The partners will also collaborate on the development of a supply chain for other emerging applications of fusion technologies.
“It is critical to phase out the world's dependence on fossil fuels and to deliver fusion as a globally available, low-cost, clean, sustainable energy source ,” said Ross Morgan, commercial director at Tokamak. “ Sumitomo and Tokamak Energy recognize the importance of partnerships to accelerate the realization of the commercial merger and with our shared knowledge we can achieve this goal” .
“ We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Tokamak Energy, pioneering fusion energy ,” added Yoshihiko Ichikawa, General Manager, Energy Innovation Initiative, Sumitomo Corporation. “ Together, we will address challenges and fuel innovation to accelerate the realization of commercial fusion. Our joint efforts will accelerate the journey towards a sustainable energy future for all."
Oxfordshire-based Tokamak has a roadmap for commercial fusion power plants to be built by the mid-2030s. To get there, the plan is for ST80-HTS to be completed in 2026 “to demonstrate the full potential of magnets high-temperature superconductors” and to inform the design of its fusion pilot plant, ST-E1, which is expected to demonstrate the ability to deliver electricity – producing up to 200 MW of net electrical power – in the early 2030s.
In January, Tokamak said it signed an agreement with Japan's Furukawa Electric to supply "several hundred kilometers" of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tape for its ST80-HTS fusion device prototype. HTS tape was developed and supplied by Furukawa; tape production is underway at the group's SuperPower Inc facility in New York, USA.
The following month, Tokamak announced that it had built a first batch of next-generation HTS magnetos to be assembled and tested in scenarios relevant to fusion power plants.
Then everything necessary for the realization of nuclear fusion and its development on a commercial level is completed: prototype, industrialization, financing and logistics chain. Only the first step is missing: the working prototype.
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The article Sumimoto and Tokamak join forces to reach the commercialization of nuclear fusion comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/sumimoto-e-tokamak-si-uniscono-per-giungere-alla-commercializzazione-della-fusione-nucleare/ on Wed, 02 Aug 2023 10:00:59 +0000.