Miliband bets on nuclear fusion in bid to lead clean power race
Fusion plants are to be included in the UK's national infrastructure planning system, meaning they can be built in any part of Britain without needing consent from local authorities and with little opportunity for local people to object.
Mr Miliband said the aim was to ensure fusion, if it ever works, could rapidly become part of the UK energy system.
The Energy Secretary predicted that the first generators could be under construction within a decade and said the technology would help the UK 'to become a clean energy superpower'.
Mr Miliband said: 'These changes would ensure fusion projects get built quicker. We are giving developers the clarity they need to build the fusion industry in Britain, creating highly skilled jobs and driving growth.'
Fusion is the process that powers the sun and works by using extremely high temperatures and pressures to force hydrogen atoms to fuse, creating helium and releasing vast amounts of energy.
The process can be harnessed to build weapons such as the hydrogen bomb, but controlling it to produce energy has proved impossible, despite seven decades of research.
This is because fusion plasmas are 15 times hotter than the sun and would melt all known materials so they have to be contained by magnetic fields.
The challenge has been to design reactors and magnetic containment systems that can hold such plasmas for long periods while releasing the heat they generate to drive turbines.
The advent of AI combined with a plethora of new designs for fusion reactors is driving hopes that such challenges can now be solved.
The UK already has some of the world's leading fusion science and engineering teams and successive governments have pledged to support them with £2.5bn of investment.
That money is now funding the construction of a prototype fusion power plant at West Burton in Nottinghamshire. Many private companies are also looking at alternative pathways to achieving fusion.
Kerry Turner, minister for climate, said fusion did not need to be so tightly regulated as existing nuclear power stations because the process produced very little radioactive waste.
She said: 'The UK aims to build a prototype fusion power plant in the UK by 2040. Private fusion companies in the UK and overseas are also quickly developing demonstrator fusion facilities.
'To deliver these facilities, sites for fusion energy facilities will need to be identified and construction started this decade.'
The move was welcomed by those leading the UK's nascent fusion industry. Tim Bestwick, chief executive of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), said: 'Fusion promises to be a safe, sustainable part of the world's future energy supply and the UK has an opportunity to become a global hub for fusion technology.
'These new fusion-specific planning rules will help provide certainty about investing in UK fusion developments.'
A similar system is already in place for wind farms, solar farms and other controversial energy developments.
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