Former Rolls Royce Senior Executive takes up CEO position at Tokamak Energy
Tokamak Energy has announced the appointment of Jonathan Carling, former COO, Civil Large Engines at Rolls Royce, as CEO.
Carling, who has previously held the roles of Executive Vice President at Rolls Royce, COO at Aston Martin and Chief Engineer at Jaguar Land Rover, brings extensive engineering and business experience to Tokamak Energy which aims to achieve commercial scale fusion power within eight years. Jonathan takes over from current CEO and co-founder Dr. David Kingham, who moves to the role of Executive Vice Chairman at the Oxford based engineering firm.
Tokamak Energy has a five-stage plan to produce fusion power. The next step is to reach plasma temperatures of 100 million degrees in 2018. The plan is then to demonstrate fusion conditions within three years and demonstrate the commercial viability of fusion power by 2025. The company will raise additional capital in 2018 to deliver exceptionally high temperature plasmas and fusion conditions.
“Jonathan’s experience as a COO in world leading engineering businesses will be immensely valuable as we aim to demonstrate the commercial potential of fusion power in a spherical tokamak with high temperature superconducting magnets” said Dr. David Kingham, Executive Vice Chairman of Tokamak Energy.
Jonathan Carling, CEO of Tokamak Energy, commented, “Thanks to the commitment and expertise of its world-class team of scientists and engineers, the company’s approach of combining spherical tokamaks with high temperature superconductors has already been shown to be a viable route to commercial fusion.
The way the leadership team have gone about developing the science and technology foundations of the company is very impressive and I am excited to be joining the company, to help make fusion energy a commercial reality.”
Dr. Chris Martin, Chairman of Tokamak Energy, added, “I am delighted that Jonathan has joined Tokamak Energy as the company transitions from physics proof of concept to delivering a complex commercial power source. Tokamak Energy stands on the shoulders of giants with a plan that integrates physics and engineering from fusion, magnet design, advanced control and AI into a compact commercial fusion reactor.”
Image Source: Tokamak Energy