Essay by Eric Worrall
Apparently all you need to do to ensure “the creation of highly skilled jobs and driving growth into our industrial heartlands” is to create planning guidelines for nuclear fusion plants.
Nuclear fusion boost as government sets to unblock planning rules
Government confirms the UK will be the first country in the world to develop fusion-specific planning rules. From:Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and The Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP Published 17 July 2025
- Government backs innovation and growth with plan to develop National Policy Statement to unblock fusion projects
- forms part of golden age of nuclear plans through the government’s clean energy superpower mission
- UK will become the first country in the world to develop fusion-specific planning rules – helping support thousands of skilled jobs as part of the Plan for Change
New clean energy jobs and growth for British businesses are set to be unlocked as the government confirms the UK will be the first country in the world to develop fusion-specific planning rules.
The plans will see fusion introduced into the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project regime, putting fusion energy projects on the same footing as other clean energy technologies such as solar, onshore wind and nuclear.
This will drive growth and unlock benefits for places such as Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire and South Yorkshire where the fusion industry is already supporting thousands of jobs – revitalising industrial heartlands with the clean energy of the future.
Currently, fusion projects must submit an application to the local authority with no set timelines for approval and no guidance on which sites are appropriate – hindering the technology’s development in the UK.
The introduction of a National Policy Statement will provide clarity to developers and streamline the planning process for fusion, giving applicants clearer guidance on where and how quickly projects can be developed. This will give industry certainty, break down regulatory barriers and get projects built quicker to cement the UK’s position at the forefront of the global race for fusion.
The Spending Review also delivered a commitment to invest over £2.5 billion in fusion research and development. This includes progressing with the STEPprogramme (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) which aims to develop and build a world-leading fusion power plant by 2040 in Nottinghamshire, creating thousands of new jobs with the potential to unlock limitless clean power.
A thriving fusion industry in the UK will support the growth of other technologies, including superconductors, robotics and advanced materials, which in turn will provide highly-skilled jobs for British scientists, engineers and construction workers as part of the Plan for Change.
The government’s clean energy mission is the only route to energy security, lower bills and good jobs for the country, and by setting out clearer planning rules for investors, the UK will maintain its optimum position for fusion industry investment.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said:
The future of fusion energy starts now. We are backing the builders not the blockers – paving the way for the UK to become a clean energy superpower and ensuring that limitless fusion energy plays a key role in our future clean energy mix.
We are ensuring the clean energy of the future gets built in Britain, supporting the creation of highly skilled jobs and driving growth into our industrial heartlands as part of our Plan for Change.
This clarity for investors follows a major backing of £61.9 billion for clean homegrown power in the Spending Review, in which a golden age of nuclear was confirmed with the selection of Rolls-Royce SMR as the preferred bidder to build the UK’s first small modular reactors and £14.2 billion investment to build Sizewell C.
Developing the fusion NPS will also help fusion energy projects move faster along the process from identifying sites to the start of construction.
This follows the government’s £20 million investment into the ‘Starmaker One’ British fusion investment fund which is expected to unlock £100 million of private investment in the UK – driving economic growth.
Tim Bestwick, CEO, UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), said:
The inclusion of fusion energy in the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project regime is a clear indication of the government’s support for fusion.
Fusion promises to be a safe, sustainable part of the world’s future energy supply and the UK has a huge opportunity to become a global hub of fusion and related technology.
Fusion-specific planning rules will help provide certainty about investing in UK fusion developments, and strengthen the UK’s position as a leader in the quest to commercialise fusion energy.
Notes to editors
The government plans to consult on a detailed National Policy Statement for fusion energy by March 2026.
Consultation response on Scope of Fusion Energy National Policy Statement
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nuclear-fusion-boost-as-government-sets-to-unblock-planning-rules
This appears to continue the fantasy initiated by the previous Tory government, a campaign to convince voters that construction of the nuclear fusion plants which were going to revive Britain’s industrial heartlands was already happening.
I hope this nuclear fusion is now campaign is the product of ignorance, or perhaps some over enthusiastic science advisors. Because if it isn’t ignorance, if British politicians are aware of how unlikely it is that operational nuclear fusion plants will be bringing down prices and reviving British industry in the next few decades, this would be one of the most cynical political deceptions I’ve ever had the misfortune to report.
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Mad Red Milibean’s sole objective is the destruction of capitalism. All other priorities are rescinded. He is the most dishonest specimen in an historically dishonest government.
Why give this government feint the oxygen of publicity?
We can’t build a railway line (though admittedly the wrong kind). What hope we can magic up fusion power?
I will lose no sleep over this.
[Edit: sorry Boff Doff, this wasn’t meant to be a reply to you.]
Magic carpets are better. They are simple and need no tracks.
And leave no tracks – excellent getaway vehicles.
The politest thing that can be said of the man is that he lives in a fantasy land.
The U.K. no longer has any “industrial heartlands”nor do we generate sufficient wealth to be a “superpower” in any field.
The steam engine was a real accomplishment. A huge step forward.
Those were the days, but the centuries fly by!
A huge step forward from what? Let me think… thinking… Oh yes, windmills.
The deal should be to power the grid entirely with reliable sources until the fusion comes online. (Which of course means forever)
He’s a chip off the old block…
Red Ed’s pledge to bring back socialism is a homage to his Marxist father. So what did Miliband Snr really believe in?
As for the country that gave him [Ralph, formerly Adolphe Miliband] and his family protection, the 17-year-old wrote in his diary: ‘The Englishman is a rabid nationalist. They are perhaps the most nationalist people in the world . . . you sometimes want them almost to lose (the war) to show them how things are. They have the greatest contempt for the Continent . . . To lose their empire would be the worst possible humiliation.’
This adolescent distaste for the British character certainly didn’t stop him availing himself of the fine education that was on offer in this country, or spending the rest of his life here.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2435751/Red-Eds-pledge-bring-socialism-homage-Marxist-father-Ralph-Miliband-says-GEOFFREY-LEVY.html
”They have the greatest contempt for the Continent”
That would be the Continent that houses the French, Spanish, Prussians who had at various intervals jointly and severally tried to engineer a coup d’état in Britain, kill its Queen, invade and subsume it, destroy its trade and empire, and on two occasions cause widespread damage and loss of life by aerial bombardment.
Also the Continent that twice invaded Russia causing widespread destruction and tens of millions of deaths.
Hard to fathom why the British treat the Continent with suspicion and greatest contempt.
Let’s play “Pretend to care about having a stable grid with plenty of reliable, affordable energy some time in the future”. Yes, that’s the ticket.
The best ever elaboration of “then a miracle happens”.
Always the future. The eternally unfalsifiable future. Good for both our doom and our salvation.
“The Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP”
That should read …
The Wrong, Horrible, Ed Miliband MP [**Maniacal Plan**]
[ **A “maniacal plan” typically refers to a scheme or strategy that is characterized by extreme enthusiasm or madness, often associated with chaotic or irrational behavior.
It can imply a sense of urgency or intensity in pursuing a goal, sometimes without any regard for consequences.** ]
Miliband is a middle class stereotype
We used to call it ‘channel tunnel vision’
Nuclear fusion…. Always twenty years away. [20 years = 1 tokamak]
The big, nay only, feature of Miliband’s approach to energy is to do little or nothing other than hand out wads of cash and shred planning laws to suit.
Labour proposes to ease planning restrictions on onshore wind
Miliband to strip councils of powers to block 800ft wind turbines
Ed Miliband now wants Brits to put wind turbines in their gardens
Ad nauseam.
A windmill in every home, no less.
Land for The Many – The Labour Party
Land price stabilisation
We recommend that a Labour government should set an explicit goal to stabilise house prices, so that wages can catch up and the house-price-to-income ratio can gradually fall. As the problem of house price inflation is, at root, a problem of residential land price inflation, this is also a goal to stabilise land prices.
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/12081_19-Land-for-the-Many.pdf
For example, councils can buy up and pay well under the market value and there will be nothing the land or house owner can do except take the hit.
Interestingly, the above report was edited by Moon Bat Monbiot…
a better distribution of wealth and power. – One that suits his ilk, that is.
Only 4 years to go…
Fusion is nowhere even remotely close. It’s a research grant scamming fantasy for infinitely gullible politicians. A bit of plasma lasting a few minutes on life support in acres of infrastructure ain’t exactly market ready.
I thought we already had nuclear fusion reactors – hydrogen bombs.
Just build a big reinforced building and set a few off inside every so often and collect the electricity they give off.
What do you mean impractical and they don’t give off electricity?
At the moment nuclear fusion is like gold at the end of the rainbow, always nearly there. Even if there was a major breakthrough tomorrow i.e. a sustainable reaction, that’s nowhere near the end of the beginning never mind the beginning of the end.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves.
I think they’d be better off if they looked into practical portable fission reactors, as used in nuclear submarines and US aircraft carriers.
I suspect this is a way to ensure the SMR fission reactors can be installed where needed, since most people do not know the difference between fission and fusion
You’re giving Miliband far too much credit. He clearly doesn’t have the brains to be so devious. He actually thinks he can schedule the implementation of fusion electricity powerplants with government dictated ‘rules’.
I think you credit Miliband and the government with far too much common sense…
“any”.
Or coal-fired power stations… perhaps: too avant-garde?
Miliband knows very well (now) that his ideas are an anathema to the voting, taxpaying, billpaying public.
The only party to openly reject the net zero ideology and to make it party policy at the next election has already proven its popularity at the ballot box in the recent council elections. Miliband’s own seat in Doncaster…
The rise of Reform: Party takes Doncaster Council
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgpy8grgwko
He can’t have missed that. He knows the economic score. Does any of it give him pause for thought?
Not a chance, he knows best.
This is exactly why the ruling Party is lower voting age and removing all ID requirements.
They are indoctrinating children and they hope they will vote accordingly.
But remember today’s 12 year olds will have the vote in 2029…
By 2029 muslims will have shut down voting, it is against the tenets of Shari’a law. Labour has ’26, ’27, and ’28 to do as much damages as they can.
Now you are beginning to sound like an alarmist. islam is in for the long game, one that started back in the 1950s and 1960s and will not come to fruition for some time yet.
Things are being accelerated by the open border policy. But we are still 85%
Islam takes control at a much lower % when they can front load governmental positions, which they have been doing for quite some time in England.
And my favorite part is Labour is too stupid to figure out they are first on the chopping block when it goes down.
I think it started in the seventh century and will come to fruition far more quickly than people realise. Remember, Lebanon was a liberalised western style country. It took less than 20% of muslims in the population to create the entity that just about exists today.
What percentage of the birth rate?
Recycling [below]. To which (one might say), first do this: Follow Argentina (Vaca Muerta). And maybe Cornwall – in – Mexico (Pachuca – Hidalgo’s world-beating silver mines).
8th February 2023 The future of abundant low-carbon energy without the need for fossil fuels could be in sight … the creation of a new delivery body for the UK’s fusion programme, named UK Industrial Fusion Solutions Ltd. … the minister urged energy companies and investors to recognise the vast potential fusion energy could have for both the UK and the wider world. The Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) plant will be constructed by 2040 to demonstrate the ability to use fusion energy to generate electricity for the UK grid. Read more:
Re the tortuous path to ignition of nuclear-fusion reactors:
——————————
— R. B. Laughlin 2005*
Flash fwd to late-2022 A.D. when a laser fusion pellet finally goes off …
And note the coincident date (from the above) — 8th February 2023 for the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP)
No one can divine the future course of this grand adventure to operate a star-on-earth.
But, as for the quite recent past, it would appear that —
(i) the 2023 announcement (among others) is a reaction to the long-anticipated ignition event (2022).
(ii) a bet on Tokamak / Stellarator designs / ITER … (memorably described as expensive toys for plasma physicists) could be like falling for dirigible airships (Zeppelins / ‘blimps’) as the future of an aviation industry.
Might as well announce, “Planning rules to be relaxed for all new perpetual motion machines”.
Excellent!
Miliband is stupid enough to fall for that.
Milliband also needs to set in place legislation to regulate time travel machines and UFOs
Someone has to put [the BBC’s] Doctor Who out of his/her/its misery…
“Doctor Who continues to break records — for the worst ratings in its 60-year history — as the second episode of Season 2, which aired Saturday, set another all-time low.
After the premiere’s 2 million viewers beat the previous record low from Season 1, Episode 2 dropped even further, drawing just 1.58 million viewers ”
https://cosmicbook.news/doctor-who-season-2-ratings-lowest-ever
That’s because the production values have gotten way too high. People want aluminum foil outifts, and trash cans with cannon attached.
No. It went woke…
Pronouns and all that bolleaux
The last two seasons were Doctor Who in name only…
… more like Doctor WTF
From the article: “The government’s clean energy mission is the only route to energy security, lower bills and good jobs for the country,”
Not if it includes windmills and solar. Windmills and Industrial Solar are energy “insecure” and are a cause of higher bills.
And hanging your hat on fusion is just kicking the can down the road. A long road.
What they should do is present conventional nuclear power plants as the answer to their energy security, lower bills, and lots of new jobs. Conventional nuclear reactors can actually be built here and now. They are the *real* solution to the energy crisis in the UK.
But ignorant UK politicians promote “pie in the sky” Fusion.
We need Nigel in charge.
I have a feeling Nigel is going to be Arkancided. Where is Shrillary at currently?
She is lying low but calculating her next evil move. The way Tulsi talks, shrillary will be shown to have conspired as part of a treasonous coup.
She is the one who used campaign money to pay for the initial documents, even admitted it in FEC filings.
Yeah, and maybe Judge Boasberg will be included as one of the conspirators.
We are starting to see what the Deep State looks like and who is involved.
Yes, Hillary, and Obama and Biden and their minions tried to overthrow the election of a legitimate presidential candidate, and when he won, in spite of all their effort to stop him, they changed tactics and tried, and are trying, to undermine his presidency.
This makes Hillary and Obama and Biden and their minions TRAITORS to their country. They have no right to thwart the will of the American people, but that’s just what they tried, and are trying, to do.
Traitors belong in jail.
So, simply because he says it fusion will magically pop into existence. Too funny, what a maroon.
In this case nuclear fusion is being offered merely as a political ploy, however the plant being proposed at a site in Chesterfield Virginia and slated to come online in the early 2030s appears to be real: https://time.com/7302543/nuclear-energy-commonwealth-fusion/
Will it actually get built and become operational? Dunno. Maybe. Will it provide power at a price which can compete with say, NG, or even SMRs.? Again, dunno. However, it should be given a chance to prove itself. Otherwise, we put ourselves in the position of being energy luddites.
I have no objection to any entrepreneur raising capital and spaffing it on whatever scheme gets his juices flowing. And I hope I would have the grace to reward the successful one lavishly.
Maybe I should be less cynical of Milliband’s motives. Maybe I should give him credit for offering to stand aside. But I can’t quite make myself believe that’s what he thinks he’s doing.
One of the pictures in that piece shows a half completed frame for a Tokamak. They only have to finish that frame and put a workin’ reactor on it. Way to go boys.
Like hydrogen and all the other crackpot, physics-defying schemes they’ve had to quietly dump, this one won’t fly either. He just wants to be perceived as “doing something”.
Not quite so. Fusion has not yet been proven to be a completely unviable pile of wombat turds.
Unlike carbon capture, the hydrogen economy, ‘renewable’ energy…
The very things I had in mind, Leo. But as far as fusion is concerned, I won’t believe it until I see it, if I ever see it. Not sure I’ve got another 20 years…
P.S. I like the “wombat turds”.
So, how long do you guess until Fusion becomes at least as useful as a pile of wombat turds?
Sadly British politicians, Like Trump, rely on the fact that their core electorate is even stupider than they are.
Occasionally people behind the scenes deftly manipulate them into Doing The Right Thing, but its more usually Doing The Subsidy To My Company/Country thing.
No doubt te sites will be handy for real small nuclear installations when Reform get into power, assuming they are any better.
As things stand, Reform have clean hands and no other party does.
If scrapping net zero really is a matter of deep concern I suggest you stick with the uniparty.
It may already be too late, but Trump is the right person to end the U.S. slide into third world status by securing our borders, deporting criminal illegal aliens and gangs, stemming the flow of drugs, especially fentanyl, making our electrical grid more robust, boosting energy production, returning manufacturing capabilities to the U.S, improving election integrity, etc.
You might not like him at all, and I might not like everything about him or his performance, but it’s his successes, and there are many, that are making us stronger.
De re
Let’s fix that:
I would invite you to skim Vance, J.D. et al., for a glimpse of what may come:
Source. https://americanmind.org/salvo/american-statesmanship-for-the-golden-age/ [05.July.2025 speaking in San Diego County, California]
Amen, Brothers (& Sisters). Amen.
If that is true about Trump enthusiasts, it is certainly orders of magnitude more so for the zealots of Obama/Biden/Harris…Newsom, etc. Trump at least has some grasp of reality.
If Trump’s core electorate were stupid we would be enduring a President Harris and well underway to third-world status.
Farage: Not My Religion…
The man talks a lot of sense.
In other news, land is being set aside for the three planned warp drive engine factories.
Wise.
The plans for Utopia Planitia are on Elon’s desk.
And they’re going to use the planned Transporter factories to travel to and fro.
Cart before the horse – need those antimatter factories first
Permitting requirements for mining dilithium crystals have been reduced and streamlined. We will be ahead of all other countries in the production of that rare resource.
Have they planning permits for the matter-antimatter reactors yet?
The only working fusion is the Bomb
Anything else is crap
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said: “The future of fusion energy starts now.”
So let him demonstrate simultaneous heating & lighting of Westminster to a packed house (for 2 micro seconds), using the working fusion technology we have, (:-))
There have been suggestions of detonating thermonuclear bombs in deep salt deposits and then using the heat to power a steam turbine.
What about good old Sol that little fusion factory a mere 93,000,000 miles from here?
Is there funding for the irradiated radioactive waste facilities which would be necessary to support this fusion initiative? The largest fusion reactor in the US, the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor became so radioactive that no human could safely approach it. It was sat in its sealed containment (part of its design) for several years to “cool down” its radioactive components. It was then sliced into large chunks with huge remotely operated diamond cable saws. The whole monstrosity was then loaded onto sealed tractor trailers and dumped in the Handord Washington nuclear waste landfill where it remains to this day.
Hanford, WA not Handord ?
https://bp-pub.pppl.gov/pub_report/2000/PPPL-3395.pdf
Sort of accurate.
In my opinion, Mr Milliband shows a shocking lack of imagination. He should also be procuring land, clearing it and erecting the necessary infrastructure. It worked out just fine for Ray Kinsella:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3c_pJ_CLJQ
A great demonstrator for ‘Cargo cult’!
Bizarre! Nuclear fusion is not a hamburger. You cannot order a nuclear fusion device.
But I want a Mr. Fusion!
Theranos 2.0
Except no one will end up in jail.
This resembles a Soviet era joke about psychiatric hospital.
In which the patients were given a shiny new swimming pool. And if they will behave well and learn to dive, there will also be water pumped in it.
All it will take is a few carefully crafted questions in the House of Commons and Miliband will be up s**t creek without a paddle.
You don’t plan an energy strategy based on maybes which you cannot be sure will turn into definites. You keep on researching, you do demonstration pilot projects and you define clearly what metrics must be satisfied for the new approach to be economically viable upon scale up.
Remember that Miliband does jot even have any A Levels in Science. He did PPE at Oxford, which includes zero modules on nuclear physics, advanced mathematics, civil engineering, electrical engineering, not to mention a total lack of study of the history of Kondratiev wave-style innovation.
Why on earth would you expect the man to be properly briefed? I’d highly doubt he had any significant input into this research scam…..he’s just a salesman wonk who’s supposed to sell it to an ignorant, disinterested populace….
He seems to have taken a page from NY.
“the UK to become a clean energy superpower and ensuring that limitless fusion energy plays a key role in our future clean energy mix” More fantasy from Ed Miliband. Truly incompetent and in control of Britain’s energy future.
“the UK to become a clean energy superpower and ensuring that limitless fusion energy plays a key role in our future clean energy mix”
According to Einstein, the only thing in the universe which is limitless is human stupidity.