The strategic alliance between Eni and Aeneas on nuclear fusion for the energy of the future: the two partners signed an agreement on Wednesday in Frascati to create a joint venture intended to implement the international project Divertor Tokamak Test (Dtt) from over 600 million. The CEO of Eni was present at the signing, Claudio Descalzi and the president of Aeneas Federico Head, the Minister for Research Manfredi and for Development Patuanelli.
The agreement brings international attention back to the Enea research center in Frascati near Rome. It is here, in fact, that the Dtt (Divertor Tokamak Test) fusion project will be implemented. This will be made possible by the new company Dtt Scarl, of which Eni will have the 25%, Aeneas the 74% and the European Consortium Create the 1%.
The Divertor Tokamak Test will be carried out in 7 years and will see the participation of the European Union, the Create Consortium, the EIB (with a record loan of 250 million euros), the EUROfusion European Consortium (with 60 million), the Ministry of Economic Development and the Mur (with 80 million euros ) and the Lazio Region (with 25 million) and another 30 million from international partners.
The Dtt project was created to provide scientific and technological answers to some aspects of fusion process, such as the management of very high temperatures and the materials to be used, and is proposed as a support and test infrastructure for the most advanced technological solutions that will be implemented in large international fusion projects.
It is a project that represents recognition of scientific research and Italian industry: the effects of the project on National GDP are estimated at approx 2 billion euros with the creation of 1.500 new places of work, of which 500 direct, among scientists and technicians.
The project's objective is the creation of an experimental machine which will have to develop solutions for nuclear fusion, a process for producing renewable, sustainable and inexhaustible energy.
Already in 2018, Eni had approached fusion research by funding the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in the race to make the nuclear fusion In the next 15 years. A Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) attended theEni with 50 million dollars.
An interest that the Italian group has now confirmed with this motivation: “We have lived through 6 difficult years in which oil went from 100 to 27 dollars, some companies collapsed and 600 people were made redundant. The solution we have found is to have invested 1 billion in research and 3 billion in the application of research. – declares the CEO of Eni, Claudio Descalzi – This has allowed us to reduce the break even of the projects, the level to repay all costs, from 119 dollars to 50 and 27 dollars for the upstream, this has allowed us to reduce the debt and all this thanks to research. The technologies that saved us”.
But the news of the new alliance above all rewards Enea who turns the international spotlight on his Frascati Center. “With this alliance between research and industry, Italy relaunches its leadership role in a strategic sector for the competitiveness of our country, that of mergers, where Italian companies have already won over 1,2 billion euros in contracts and are considered among the best in the world", underlined the president Enea Federico Head. “I want to thank all those who have worked hard to achieve this result and the institutions that have played a fundamental role in achieving this goal which is part of the broader context of our mission to support companies in the challenge of innovation, through the transfer of knowledge, advanced technologies, services, projects, products,” he added.
