UNITY™ Program
Demonstrating the Path to Commercial Fusion Energy
UNITY™ (Unique Integrated Testing Facility) is a program of integrated demonstration facilities led by Kyoto Fusioneering.
The Program comprises three facilities, each addressing a different part of what a commercial plant requires. UNITY-1 demonstrates the Fusion Blanket and Thermal Cycle System, which captures the heat of fusion reactions and converts it to electricity. UNITY-2 demonstrates the Fusion Fuel Cycle System and the stable, safe supply of fuel to the plasma. UNITY-3 will test blanket designs under fusion neutrons.
Realizing a commercial fusion power plant requires more than developing individual components. These technologies have to be integrated into a working system and validated under conditions representative of those in an operating plant.
As an integrated testing and demonstration platform, UNITY builds the engineering maturity, experimental data, and operational experience commercial fusion power plants will require.
UNITY-1
Integrated Demonstration of Heat Recovery, Heat Utilization, and Power Generation Systems
UNITY-1 reproduces the heat a fusion plasma would deliver, without running fusion reactions, using electric and induction heating under magnetic-field conditions — and demonstrates the full chain from energy recovery through to power generation.
UNITY-1 incorporates a blanket for extracting heat, a liquid-metal loop for transporting the recovered heat, an advanced heat exchanger for transferring heat from the liquid metal, and a power generation system that utilizes the heat. It also includes equipment for extracting hydrogen and deuterium.
The UNITY-1 demonstration does not involve radioactive materials such as tritium or neutrons. The experimental equipment consists of a series of fully enclosed systems, with hydrogen, deuterium, and liquid metal safely controlled within the equipment.
UNITY-2
Integrated Demonstration of a Fusion Fuel Cycle System
UNITY-2 is being built by Fusion Fuel Cycles, Kyoto Fusioneering’s joint venture with Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, in a tritium-licensed building at CNL’s Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario.
The UNITY-2 facility includes a tritium extraction system, tritium storage, an exhaust system, pumps, and other equipment required to demonstrate an integrated fusion fuel cycle system.
UNITY-3
Testing Breeding Blankets Under Fusion Neutrons
In partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Kyoto Fusioneering is developing UNITY-3 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee — a dedicated facility for testing tritium breeding blanket designs under a fusion-relevant neutron source.
UNITY-3 is intended as shared infrastructure: capability the wider fusion industry can use, not only Kyoto Fusioneering.
