5 Questions With… First Light Fusion
First Light Fusion featured in our ‘5 Questions With…’ interview in the June 2024 issue of the Fusion Energy Insights Quarterly. The Quarterly is an exclusive publication available to members of Fusion Energy Insights.
Each issue, we ask a senior member of a private fusion company these 5 questions:
1.What's your approach and how does it work?
2.Why is it unique/what's the USP?
3.What are your milestones to commercial fusion—where are you now and what is your timeline?
4.How are you backed financially? What have you raised and how much do you estimate you will need to raise to achieve your goals?
5.What are the key strategic partnerships that you have in place or in planning that will get you to commercial fusion?
Plus a couple of personal ones.
Here is a sneak-peek of some of the things First Light Fusion revealed.
1. What is the approach of First Light Fusion?
At First Light Fusion, we take a unique approach to inertial fusion energy (IFE). Our approach is simpler, more energy efficient and has lower physics risk than other conventional approaches which rely on large lasers to trigger a fusion reaction.
Ours is a pulsed process, like an internal combustion engine, but instead of a spark plug, we use a “driver”, which heats and compresses a target containing fusion fuel to a high density in a very short amount of time, releasing a burst of energy. The power output is the energy per event multiplied by the frequency, i.e. how often the driver fires. The driver in the reaction is a high-energy source, often a high-energy laser. With the right laser and the right fuel pellet design, the required implosion velocity for fusion can be reached. At First Light, we use two types of driver for our experiments: two-stage light-gas guns and electromagnetic launchers.
2. Why is the First Light Fusion approach to fusion unique?
The key technology that allows First Light to re-use spherical implosion designs despite the driver being one-sided is our unique amplifier technology. The amplifier is the key technology that has unlocked a brand new method of inertial fusion.
Our amplifier technology does two things: firstly, it focuses the impact of the projectile to deliver a spherical implosion within the amplifier, and, secondly, it amplifies the velocity. The fuel capsule then implodes at a multiple of the projectile velocity. These two aspects together have led to a revolutionary new approach to inertial fusion using a projectile driver, with a much simpler path to a power plant.
Leader Insight
Pictured: COO Ryan Ramsey
How long have you been working on fusion?
I’ve been working in the fusion world for a few years, but I actually started my working life in the fission world, as British Royal Navy submariner. I was privileged to have led as captain of the nuclear-powered attack submarine HMS Turbulent. I’ve also spent time leading in the business world in a variety of sectors including energy and renewables. This means I have a keen understanding of the significance of the gap in clean baseload energy and how fusion is the only way of plugging that gap.
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Members of Fusion Energy Insights get access to this article and more in an exclusive publication each quarter – The Fusion Energy Insights Quarterly. Here we share industry updates on nuclear fusion across global activity, fusion regulation, fusion investment, fusion energy news, science and new players, plus we profile different fusion companies and include special feature articles from industry insiders, tracking the progress of this exciting clean energy solution.