Young people got hands-on with the future of clean energy last week, as the STEP team hosted a workshop, in partnership with Bassetlaw District Council, to kick off Bassetlaw MP Jo White’s Summer School.
Hosted at The Bridge Skills Hub and Fusion Energy Café in Worksop on Friday, students got the chance to explore the ongoing transformation of the West Burton site, ask big questions about fusion energy, and meet the people already helping to deliver the STEP programme.
The students heard directly from STEP employees about their own career journeys into the industry, from engineering and science to communications and project management, and discussed how a project like STEP will require people of all talents and backgrounds to succeed.
Then on Monday the students started their week in Parliament, as part of Jo White’s Summer School, where they took part in a mock Select Committee session.
They put their questions to STEP’s Head of Communications Ben Bradley, alongside representatives from government and industry, grilling them on the progress of the STEP Programme and the opportunities it will create locally, as well as the wider clean energy sector.
STEP Head of Communications Ben Bradley said:
Part of STEP’s mission to develop our prototype fusion energy power plant is about the benefit we can bring to communities and economies across North Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and the wider East Midlands, so it was great to engage with talented young people and discuss the opportunities of the programme.
We hope that some of these local young people will be part of the future workforce that delivers the mission to commercialise fusion energy at STEP – and changes the world!
The event at the Fusion Energy Café and The Bridge Skills Hub was hosted by Bassetlaw District Council and marks a growing relationship between STEP, based at West Burton in North Nottinghamshire, and surrounding local communities.
Bassetlaw MP Jo White said:
When I stood for election, my commitment to local people was that I would resurrect the summer school that former MP John Mann ran for 11 years. I saw for myself the difference it made with young people.
It gave them an idea of what they wanted to do with their lives. Parents and grandparents told me that their children went down [to Parliament] as children and came back as adults because they were shown new opportunities and aspirations they would never have otherwise dreamed of.
Notes to Editors
The first of its kind, STEP is the UK’s major technology and infrastructure programme to build a prototype fusion power plant that will demonstrate net energy, fuel self-sufficiency and a viable route to plant maintenance.? This will pave the way for the potential development of a fleet of future fusion power plants around the world and the commercialisation of fusion energy.
We’ll achieve this by producing a prototype tokamak power plant – in an innovative spherical shape – that will demonstrate net energy. That’s why the programme is called STEP: it stands for ‘Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production’.? But STEP is about more than tokamak technology – it’s a huge endeavour encompassing design, site development and construction, alongside supply chain logistics and industry. Fusion research and development has the potential to catalyse new ideas and technologies that will benefit multiple industries and help secure our future on this planet.
By fusing government and business, inspiration and pragmatism, theory and practice, UK-expertise and international impact, we’re going to realise the step-change that will secure humanity’s bright future. A recent report by AMION, commissioned by local authorities, set out the economic potential of the STEP programme.
Read the AMIOM report (PDF)
To sign-up for updates about STEP, visit: step.ukaea.uk or follow our social channels @STEPtoFusion.
Social media coverage and images from the Bassetlaw workshop event
