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Paper short abstract

Nuclear fusion presents value-laden promises of energy abundance, security and sustainability. In this paper, the values inherent in these narratives are analysed alongside interviews with developers to assess how values shape the development of the technology.

Paper long abstract

Nuclear fusion; responsible innovation; value-sensitive design; energy ethics

Fusion energy is gaining traction through its promise as an abundant, clean, low-carbon energy source, with some bestowing it with the status as the ‘holy grail’ of energy production and a ‘Promethean spark of hope’ for climate change mitigation efforts. Its promise has increasingly become associated with other technoscientific and 'deep tech' ventures, such as meeting the energy demands of AI.

In creating these future imaginaries, several overarching values emerge, particularly values such as security, wellbeing, environmental sustainability, justice and fairness. Moreover, the prevalence of energy security and energy justice narratives associated with fusion energy, related to values of human wellbeing and fairness, adds a further layer of complexity to considerations of values in fusion. This research aims to identify these values in public discourse and through the perspectives of developers to understand how they are invoked, conceptualised, operationalised and realisedin the development of the technology.

Empirically, the UK fusion sector was taken as a case study. Values invoked implicitly and explicitly within publicly issued documents and semi-structured interviews with developers and engineers were thematically coded, analysed and synthesised to identify areas of alignment and divergence between vision and reality. Subsequent synthesis of both sources identified several areas where values were differently invoked, operationalised and conceptualised, which may present challenges within the development process.