By Adam Vaughan

Bloomberg/Getty Images

Boris Johnson has said the UK can become carbon neutral by the middle of the century and beat the sceptics, in his speech to the Conservative party conference.

The prime minister touched repeatedly on climate change, green technology and science in his address, and suggested that nuclear fusion which the Tories promised 200 million in extra funding over the weekend was on the brink of a breakthrough.

They are on the verge of creating commercially viable miniature fusion reactors for sale around the world, he said of the JET fusion research centre at Culham in Oxfordshire.

Advertisement

Now I know they have been on the verge for some time. It is a pretty spacious kind of verge, he joked, to laughter in the audience. While the UK is considered a world leader in fusion research, its continued role in a multibillion European fusion project in France has been called into question by Brexit.

In response to Johnsons speech, Tom Nicholas at the University of York says: I would say thats definitely a stretch. Culhams best case would be full technology demonstration by the 2040s, he adds, although even that wouldnt be a commercially viable fusion plant.

Johnson said that while people used to suggest that wind and solar power werent fit for the UK, on some days they were now supplying more than half of the countrys electricity needs.

People years ago said wind turbines would not pull the skin off a rice pudding, Johnson said. He didnt mention that the phrase was his own, which he used when he told The Telegraph in 2013 that the UK should back shale gas, not wind power. Solar power has stalled in the UK and onshore wind farms are no longer being built on the mainland because of policy changes brought in by the Conservative government in 2015.

The prime minister also said the UK was leading on low carbon and battery technology, and said the UK would build a gigafactory, a reference to the sort of large-scale battery factory thatTesla has built in the US. The Labour party used its conference last month to promise three such gigafactories. Battery industry figures have told New Scientistthat the UK is an unlikely candidate for such a facility in Europe, with Germany seen as a much more likely location.

Johnson also promised more zero emission buses and better road and rail links, though he notably didnt mention the High Speed 2 rail project, which is under a government-commissioned review.

The prime minister praised UK leadership in science, saying Manchester led on genomics, gene therapy was being used to cure blindness, and the UK was building two spaceports, one in Newquay and one in Sutherland.

More on these topics:

Original post:
Boris Johnson jokes about UK being 'on the verge' of nuclear fusion - New Scientist News

Comments are closed.