A jointly funded study by Guardian Metals revealed the expected demand for tungsten as fusion reactor innovation accelerates.
Guardian Metals co-funded a research project entitled “Material Selection of Fusion Breeder Blankets,” which forms part of Oxford Sigma’s collaboration with the UK Atomic Energy Agency (UKAEA). This study is the first scientific paper to directly quantify the amount of tungsten that is expected to be required in nuclear fusion techniques in the context of the tungsten supply chain.
In this study, in the scenario analyzed, if the rollout of 500mwth and 2000mwth scale fusion reactors stagnated, the fusion industry would need 100% of the world’s production by 2056, and the world’s tungsten production would grow 16 times from the current level by the end of the century.
For context, over a lifespan of 40 years, one 2,000 MWTH Aries reactor requires approximately 2.6 times the tungsten consumed in the US each year in all use cases. The results strongly support the need for new sources of metals to meet the growing future demand from fusion technologies.
The study was co-funded in part by Guardian Metal, which involves technical methods and analysis carried out by its partner Oxford Sigma Ltd (Oxford Sigma). Oxford Sigma is a fusion technology company dedicated to energy safety and dealing with climate change. Its mission is to accelerate the commercialization of fusion energy by providing advanced material technologies, innovative material solutions and comprehensive fusion design services.
Important data points:
•Tungsten is a major candidate for both face and shielding in both spherical and D-shaped tokamaks, taking into account core properties including high melting points, thermal conductivity, high neutron shielding and low sputtering yield (material loss when hit with energy particles).
Two specific reactor designs have been studied, and the results conclude that:
o Over 40fpy (full power year) at 500mwth (megawatt thermal), the aries-st ructor consumed 4,231 tons of tungsten and 29,034 tons at 2,000mwth.
o eu-dem01 The reactor above 40fpy at 500mwth consumed 3,945 tons of tungsten and 9,554 tons at 2,000mwth.
Given that the current global consumption is around 100,000 tons per year, this study modelles the global tungsten supply as a cornerstone problem that will underlie future consolidated power plants fleets.
A complete study can be found as follows:
E. Day-San, GC Blackett, M. Dornhofer, AK Manduku, MD Anderton, L. Tanure, TP Davis, ‘Supply and Demand and Supply of Tungsten in the Fleet of Fusion Power Plants, Fusion Engineering and Design, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2025.114881
This article will also be featured in the 23rd edition of Quarterly Publication.
Source link
