The Gender Pay Gap report is a ‘snapshot’ of data taken each year to compare the hourly pay and bonus figures for men and women across all roles and grades. All organisations with more than 250 employees must report this data.

Today’s report is compiled using data from 5 April 2023, capturing paid gross salaries and bonus awards 12 months prior to this date. This was in the middle of a period of significant growth for the company and before an organisational design review and restructuring had been completed. It is also important to clarify that a gender pay gap is not a measure of equal pay, which compares the salary of individuals performing the same role.

The headline figures from the company’s 2023 report published on GOV.UK here show:

• Women’s mean (average value) hourly rate is 16.6% less than men
• Women’s median (middle value) hourly rate is 16.2% less than men

The report shows that nearly all the difference in 2023 is from the upper quartile of earners. It should also be noted that a very small number of bonuses were paid to men only (2.36%) in 2023. The encouraging news is if the company was to run the same report today those figures would reduce to an 8.95% difference in mean hourly rate and 3.43% in the median hourly rate.

Understanding this data and taking action to fairly address any gap is extremely important to the company.  It is a positive step forward to see the changes that were introduced in the past 12 months, including a number of promotions for women across the company in recognition of the great work they are doing, that will be reflected in next year’s report.

A new pay and grading framework introduced using external benchmarking salary data is rightly supporting equity in pay for aligned skills and experience and scope of roles, in addition to clearer career progression for all of the company’s people, both on technical and managerial paths.

A 2024 company-wide bonus award saw a higher number of females receiving ‘Very Good’ awards and there has been more focus and success on targeting diverse candidate pools for new roles. This investment in people, and in building a diverse workforce, is essential to achieving the company’s mission of clean, secure, affordable fusion energy for all.

Tokamak Energy is  fully committed to continue to engage with its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion working group.  New ideas will constantly be developed on ways to further improve representation across the company as well as continuing to challenge thinking internally and across the fusion industry. This includes assessing and improving how future employees are attracted and recruited as well as more outreach and STEM events to build talent pipelines for the future.

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The triple product achieved is the highest by a private fusion energy company.  Triple product¹ is a widely recognised fusion industry measure of plasma density, temperature and confinement, collectively a key measure of progress in the path to realising commercial fusion conditions.  The company has been invited to present the results today at the 64th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Plasma Physics in Washington, USA.

Chris Kelsall, CEO of Tokamak Energy said: “High performance in smaller spherical tokamaks is the key to commercial fusion power.  Our latest achievement further substantiates this optimal route to clean, secure, low cost, scalable and globally deployable commercial fusion energy.  We are proud to have achieved this result in collaboration with the Princeton and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.”

The ST40 spherical tokamak is now undergoing an upgrade and will further develop operational experience and efficient technologies for future devices which the company will be announcing soon.

NOTE

¹Triple product (nT𝝉_E): Any device that is going to make fusion energy a commercial reality requires a plasma (an ionized gas of charged particles / hydrogen nuclei) with a high triple product. nT𝝉_E is a widely recognised measure of progress towards the achievement of commercial fusion plasma conditions.  There are three plasma conditions that must be met simultaneously:

1. Density, n – can the device contain a dense enough plasma so that a sufficient number of fusion collisions occur?
2. Temperature, T – is the device capable of heating the plasma so that the charged particles move fast enough to fuse with each other, when they collide?
3. Confinement time, t_E – can the device keep the charged particles within the plasma for long enough to sustain fusion reactions?

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The Center for Plasma Material Interactions (CPMI) at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign is the premier university-based lithium technology laboratory in the US. CPMI are developing novel divertor concepts that utilize flowing liquid lithium as a solution to the erosion and impurity accumulation challenges faced by solid divertors.

Lithium is very effective at pumping deuterium and tritium and has been shown to improve plasma performance by enabling access to new operating regimes. This new work will add a continuous plasma source and a lithium distillation column to the lithium loop at CPMI to demonstrate that the proposed technology is relevant for spherical tokamak fusion reactors.

The low-hydrogenic-recycling concept aims to achieve higher plasma confinement times, higher core-electron temperatures, a more stable plasma and enable a low-cost fusion reactor. Existing collaboration work being undertaken by the parties seeks to create a reactor-compatible, flowing-lithium-divertor plate for testing in Tokamak Energy’s latest spherical tokamak, the ST40. Earlier this year, the ST40 demonstrated a world-first, achieving a plasma temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius, the threshold required for commercial fusion energy. This is by far the highest temperature ever achieved in a spherical tokamak and by any privately funded tokamak.

Central questions which will be addressed are: how much tritium does liquid lithium pump and how quickly can unburnt tritium be recovered from the liquid lithium? These questions are essential for any fusion concept which uses lithium. The outcome will inform a model of the fuel cycle within a tokamak fusion reactor, which will describe how much tritium is required and how quickly unburnt tritium may be recovered.

David Kingham, Co-Founder & Executive Vice Chairman of Tokamak Energy, said:
“We are delighted to receive our sixth and largest INFUSE grant from the US Department of Energy and particularly one that strengthens our collaboration with the University of Illinois. This is further validation that the US Government places great importance on the development of commercial fusion energy. This is vital research which can lead to higher performance and reduced cost of energy from compact spherical tokamak fusion reactors. As a result of this research, we are growing our teams in the US and UK working on lithium systems.”

David Ruzic, Able Bliss Professor at Illinois and Director of CPMI, said:
“Tokamak Energy is a great partner. Their concept of a high-magnetic-field spherical tokamak is the leading concept that could make commercial fusion energy possible. The addition of lithium plasma facing technologies has the potential to make this solution even more attractive. The INFUSE grant will allow us to measure and then find solutions to the tritium recovery issue. This is a very important step in lithium fusion technology development, and we are thrilled that the US DOE is in full support of this effort.”

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Tokamak Energy has demonstrated a world-first with its privately-funded ST40 spherical tokamak, achieving a plasma temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius, the threshold required for commercial fusion energy.

This is by far the highest temperature ever achieved in a spherical tokamak and by any privately funded tokamak.  While several government laboratories have reported plasma temperatures above 100M degrees in conventional tokamaks, this milestone has been achieved in just five years, for a cost of less than £50m ($70m), in a much more compact fusion device. This achievement further substantiates spherical tokamaks as the optimal route to the delivery of clean, secure, low cost, scalable and globally deployable commercial fusion energy.

With over 25 diagnostic tools in the ST40 and utilising the latest advanced measurement technologies, the 100M temperature result has been verified by an independent advisory board consisting of international experts. Tokamak Energy plans to share these significant results with the scientific community.

Chris Kelsall, CEO of Tokamak Energy said:

“We are proud to have achieved this breakthrough which puts us one step closer to providing the world with a new, secure and carbon-free energy source. When combined with HTS magnets, spherical tokamaks represent the optimal route to achieving clean and low-cost commercial fusion energy. Our next device will combine these two world leading technologies for the first time and is central to our mission to deliver low-cost energy with compact fusion modules.”

The ST40 device will now undergo an upgrade and be used to develop technologies for future devices.   The ST-HTS, which will be the world’s first spherical tokamak to demonstrate the full potential of high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets, is due to be commissioned in the mid-2020s. This device will demonstrate multiple advanced technologies required for fusion energy and inform the design of a world first fusion pilot plant, to be commissioned in the early 2030s.

The company is also manufacturing a complete HTS magnet system, which will be the first validation of strong magnetic fields with HTS coils in a spherical tokamak.

Kwasi Kwarteng, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said:

“Fusion energy could be the ultimate power of the future – low carbon, safe and sustainable – and this is another crucial step towards it. I congratulate all of those who contributed to this important milestone. 

“The Government’s fusion strategy, published last year, is designed to support companies like Tokamak Energy to make fusion energy a reality. I look forward to further milestones in the months and years ahead.”

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