The Australian government is no longer considering siting a national low and intermediate-level radioactive waste facility in Napandee near Kimba in South Australia. A federal court handed down a decision to dismiss a 2021 declaration naming Napandee as the proposed site for the facility. The federal government said that it will not appeal the decision.
     In 2015, the government called for site nominations. Napandee was voluntarily nominated in 2017 by its landowner as a possible site to host the facility. In September of 2020, an Australian Senate committee recommended that the parliament pass legislation to make Napandee the preferred site for the facility.
     In November of 2021, after years of consultation, then Minister of Resources Keith Pitt declared Napandee as the location of the facility. As called for under the relevant legislation, the declaration had the effect of the federal government purchasing about two hundred hectares of land for the purpose of hosting the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility (NRWMF).
     However, the area’s traditional landowners, the Barngarla people argued that they were not properly consulted by the former coalition government about the decision to select the site. They sought judicial review of the 2021 declaration. On July 18th, Federal Court Justice Natalie Charlesworth ruled in their favor. She set aside the declaration because the court found “apprehended bias” present in the decision of the then minister.
     Madeleine King is the current Minister for Resources. In addressing parliament, she said, “I do not intend to appeal the judge’s finding of apprehended bias. I have reached an agreement with the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation on costs, and I hope that we will also come to an agreed approach to orders relating to the date of application of the judge’s decision in coming days, for the court’s consideration, in due course. We have said all along that a national radioactive waste facility requires broad community support. Broad community support which includes the whole community, including the traditional owners of the land. This is not the case at Kimba.”
     King said that the federal government does not intend to pursue Napandee as a potential site for the facility. They will also not pursue Lyndhurst and Wallerberdina either which were previously shortlisted sites. She noted that “My department has begun work on alternative proposals for the storage and disposal of the Commonwealth’s civilian low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste.”
     Australia does not produce any nuclear power. However, it has a long experience of operating research reactors and producing radioisotopes for use in medicine, research and industry.
     According to King, the most recent national inventory conducted in 2021 found that Australia has about seventeen thousand cubic yards of low-level radioactive waste and five thousand seven hundred cubic yards of intermediate-level radioactive waste. This radioactive waste is currently stored at over a hundred sites around the country, including science facilities, hospitals and universities.
     The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO) said, “We want to reassure the Australian community that ANSTO will take the necessary steps to ensure we have sufficient storage capacity for our radioactive waste until a purpose-built facility is established. This means we can and will continue to operate, including the production and supply of nuclear medicines at our Lucas Heights campus. We will maintain our support for the Australian Radioactive Waste Agency (ARWA) in its work to progress establishment of a national waste facility.”
     The ARWA was set up in July of 2020 to manage all of Australia’s radioactive waste. It is leading the process to deliver the NRWMF. ARWA will also lead a separate process to site a facility to permanently dispose of the country’s intermediate-level radioactive waste. This will probably be a deep geological disposal facility in a different location.

     General Fusion (GF) is a private fusion developer based in Canada. GF has just announced plans for a new Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) machine. The MTF is designed to achieve fusion conditions of over one hundred million degrees Celsius by 2025. GF hopes to reach breakeven by 2026.
     The MTF is also known as the Lawson Machine 26 (LM26). The demonstration is designed to be cost-efficient and produce results quickly using General Fusion’s unique approach to fusion. The LM26 will be constructed at GF’s Richmond, British Columbia headquarters. The LM26 will validate GF’s ability to symmetrically compress magnetized plasmas in a repeatable manner and achieve fusion conditions at scale.
     The LM26 will integrate General Fusion’s existing operational plasma injector (PI3) with a new lithium liner compression system. The PI3 was preceded by twenty four predecessor prototypes and more than two hundred thousand plasma experiments. GF said that the PI3 is one of the world’s biggest and most powerful operational plasma injectors. The PI3 has already demonstrated plasma temperatures of five million degrees and ten millisecond self-sustaining energy confinement times. Both of these are critical steppingstones to achieving the LM26’s target of fusion conditions in 2025. The LM26’s plasmas will be about fifty percent of the scale of a commercial fusion reactor.
     Over the next two years, GF will collaborate with the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to validate the data acquired from the LN26 and incorporate it into the design of GF’s commercial-scale demonstration in the U.K.
     GF said that “This machine represents a significant new pillar to accelerate and de-risk General Fusion’s Demonstration Program, designed to leverage the company’s recent technological advancements and provide electricity to the grid with commercial fusion energy by the early to mid-2030s.”
     Greg Twinney is the CEO of General Fusion. “Our updated three-year Fusion Demonstration Program puts us on the best path forward to commercialize our technology by the 2030s. We’re harnessing our team’s existing strengths right here in Canada and delivering high-value, industry-leading technical milestones in the near term.”
     GF’s MTF approach involves injecting hydrogen plasma into a liquid metal sphere. The plasma is then compressed and heated so that fusion takes place. The heat from the fusion of the hydrogen atoms is transferred into the liquid metal. This allows fusion conditions to be created in short pulses rather than creating a sustained reaction. This approach “avoids the pitfalls of other approaches that require expensive superconducting magnets or high-powered lasers,” according to GF.
     GF intends to construct its Fusion Demonstration Plant (FDP) at the UKAEA’s Culham Campus near Oxford, England. The plant will be utilized to prove the viability of the MTF technology. It will be a seventy percent scaled version of the commercial pilot plant. But, the plant will not be used to produce power. The FDP will cycle one plasma pulse per day. It will utilize deuterium fuel. The commercial pilot plant will use deuterium-tritium fuel. It will cycle up to one plasma pulse per second. The FDP is expected to be commissioned in 2026 and to go into operation by early 2027.
     GF has completed the first close of its Series F funding for a combined total of twenty-five million dollars. The round was anchored by existing investors including BDC Capital and GIC. It also includes new grant funding from the Government of British Columbia. This builds upon the Canadian government’s ongoing support through the Strategic Innovation Fund.

      Tractebel and First Light Fusion have just signed a framework agreement for the development of the Machine 4 project which is designed to demonstrate net energy gain through nuclear fusion.
      First Light is based at the U.K. Atomic Energy Agency’s (UKAEA) Culham campus, near Oxford. It was founded in 2011. First Light is working on projectile fusion which is a branch of inertial confinement fusion. Last December the National Ignition Facility in the USA became the first fusion research facility to demonstrate energy gain from fusion. It used a laser array to trigger fusion.
     First Light’s inertial confinement approach will attempt to create the extreme temperatures and pressures required for fusion by compressing a target using a hyper velocity projectile. The First Light plant design avoids the three biggest engineering challenges of fusion. These are preventing neutron flux damage, producing tritium and managing extreme heat flux.
     First Light utilizes a “liquid lithium wall” approach inside the reactor vessel where the fusion reaction will take place. The company says that this technique gives it an inherent advantage in tritium production. The fusion reaction is surrounded by liquid lithium which allows tritium self-sufficiency to be easily reached. This makes it possible to design the system for excel tritium production.
     The two companies said that the Machine 4 demonstrator “will house the largest pulsed power driver in the world, 75 meters in diameter”. Tractabel will “leverage its international expertise in fusion”. The company has worked on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in France.
     Nick Hawker is the CEO of First Light Fusion. He said, : “The design and development of Machine 4 … is well under way as we aim for completion well before the end of this decade. We are delighted to be working with Tractebel through this critical phase, leveraging their unrivalled expertise in major fusion infrastructure projects.”
     Denis Dumont is Tractabel’s chief global nuclear officer. He said, “With this contract, Tractebel re-affirms its commitment to support the UK nuclear industry, fission and fusion, and help meet the UK’s ambition to be net-zero by 2050 … thanks to our internationally recognized nuclear experience, we are able to provide innovative solutions to the most challenging projects. We look forward to developing our relationship with First Light Fusion.”
     First Light Fusion and the UKAEA signed an agreement in January of this year for the design and construction of the Machine 4 facility. Machine 4 is not intended to generate electricity. However, it will assist in the development of technology needed for future inertial confinement fusion energy power plants. First Light said that it will “have a stored electrical energy of c.100 mega joules with the capability of launching projectiles at 60kms per second. This speed on impact inside the target will accelerate to c.200kms per second as a result of First Light’s exclusive amplifier technology. The amplifier focuses the energy of the projectile into the fusion fuel, both boosting the pressure from impact to deliver to the fuel and shaping the waves to produce spherical implosions”. First Light’s current Machine 3 launches a projectile at c.20 kms per second.

     Marvel Fusion is a German laser fusion developer. They have joined with Colorado State University (CSU) to create a public-private partnership for the construction of a one hundred- and fifty-million-dollar high-power laser and fusion research facility on the CSU Foothils Campus.
     This project is scheduled for completion in 2026. It would feature at least three laser systems. Each of these would have a multi-petawatt peak power and an ultra-fast repetition rate of ten flashes per seconds. The site selected for the new laser facility is near CSU’s existing Advanced Beam Laboratory built in 2013 on the CSU Foothills Campus.
     Marvel said, “Such a combination of lasers will make the facility unique in the world, and it would be designed to accommodate expansion and additional lasers in the future.” The state-of-the-art facility will serve as a platform to advance the company’s laser-driven fusion approach.
     The partnership is pending finalization of the financial details by the CSU Board of Governors. It will establish Fort Collins as a nexus for laser fusion research. It will also deliver significant positive impacts to Colorado.
     Moritz von der Linden is the CEO of Marvel. He said, “This public-private partnership sets the global standard for laser-based fusion research, propelling the development of a safe, clean, and reliable energy source. It is an incredible step forward for Marvel Fusion and a testament to our success and vision. Working with the world-class team at CSU over the past two years has been invaluably productive. We are immensely grateful for the trust and support of CSU, the State of Colorado, and the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) ongoing support through the LaserNetUS program.”
     Amy Parsons is the CSU President. She said, “CSU is at the cutting edge of laser research, and this new partnership will cement the university as an international leader in an area of laser science that has the potential to deliver profound benefits to our planet for generations.The project also would drive meaningful, long-term economic and reputational benefits to Fort Collins and the state.”
     Marvel is also planning the construction of a prototype as the next step toward a commercial fusion power plant. The prototype will host hundreds of laser systems capable of achieving fusion ignition and proving the technology at scale.
     Marvel noted that ongoing scientific and technological initiatives in Europe will continue to play a vital role in its research and development. These initiatives include experiments at Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munick’s CALA laser and the ELI-NP laser in Romania.
     In Marvel’s approach, an ultrashort laser pulse initiates the fusion process by interacting with small fuel pellets in a target structure with high intensity. The rapid impact of laser energy triggers the fusion of the fuel’s nuclei before the target structure can disintegrate. In order to achieve sufficient scale for commercial operation, fuel pellets will need to be irradiated and ignited several times a second.
    An injector inserts a new pellet into the target chamber where it is hit by incoming laser pulses and releases energy during the fusion process. Supplementary systems convert the released energy into electricity. By adjusting the rate of pellet injections and synchronized laser pulses per second, Marvel’s fusion power can adjust the overall energy output to market demand.