Coal to Fusion: An Energy Transition Landmark
The former West Burton Power Station in Nottinghamshire, which burned coal for electricity from 1966 until its closure in 2023, has been selected as the site of the UK's first fusion power plant. The announcement marks a pivotal transition for the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production program — known as STEP — from an extended research and design phase into active construction planning.
Lord Patrick Vallance, the UK's Minister of State for Science, Research and Innovation, announced the appointment of a construction partner and the commencement of a £200 million ($266 million) revitalization of the West Burton site — the initial investment that will transform a decommissioned coal infrastructure site into a world-class nuclear research and eventual power generation destination.
The STEP Program
STEP is the UK's flagship effort to develop a commercially viable fusion power plant by approximately 2040. Unlike the international ITER project in France — which aims to demonstrate fusion's scientific feasibility on a large tokamak — STEP is explicitly designed to produce a prototype power plant that generates net electricity. It is an engineering and commercial ambition, not purely a scientific one.
The spherical tokamak design at the heart of STEP differs from the conventional tokamak geometry used in ITER. A spherical tokamak has a more compact, spherical plasma chamber rather than the donut-shaped torus of a conventional design. The UK has deep expertise in spherical tokamak research through the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, which has operated the MAST Upgrade device — and the STEP program draws directly on that experience.
