Plans to proceed with the bidding process to build a prototype nuclear fusion reactor in West Cumbria have been enthusiastically endorsed.

The reactor would use fusion to potentially create vast amounts of energy – the same process which occurs naturally in the Sun.

Copeland Borough Council’s executive have unanimously agreed to endorse the proposals to enter the Moorside site, as well as “other suitable NDA-owned land around Sellafield”, into a bidding process to determine the location of a prototype nuclear fusion reactor.

Copeland Borough Council is working with the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to draw together its full application for the bidding process, which is being conducted by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).

Bids must be submitted by the end of this month.

Scientists have pursued nuclear fusion technology for decades, as a safe method of generating colossal amounts of electricity without emitting greenhouse gases or producing nuclear waste.

Gosforth and Seascale Conservative councillor and the deputy chairman of Copeland’s executive, David Moore, described the project as exciting at yesterday’s executive meeting.

“Fusion’s been talked about for 40 years,” Mr Moore said, but added that based on the current progress of technology, a working fusion reactor was “probably about 20 years away”.

Mr Moore cautioned that it would be a “really competitive process" but stressed that the area had a number of advantages, including the fact it was already home to a lot a research and development work in the nuclear sector, including that at the National Nuclear Laboratory, housed at Sellafield.

“We also have the infrastructure,” Mr Moore said, “ but most of all, we’ve got the supply chain already in place."

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