Fusion power startup Focused Energy has signed a deal to purchase two of the world's most powerful lasers, the company tells TechCrunch exclusively. The giant laser will be installed at the startup's future facility, which is being built in the San Francisco Bay Area over the next two years.
“These are some of the highest average power lasers in the private sector,” Focused Energy CEO Scott Mercer told TechCrunch. The laser can deliver more than 1 kilojoule of energy to a target and costs nearly $40 million.
Focused Energy is pursuing an approach to nuclear fusion known as inertial confinement. In this approach, multiple laser beams converge to compress the fuel pellet to the point where the contents fuse and release energy. Although this technology is the first to demonstrate that net-positive fusion power generation is possible, there are still major hurdles to overcome.
The current state-of-the-art inertial confinement system is located at the U.S. government's National Ignition Facility and announced a net positive breakthrough just over two years ago. There, physicists can perform about 300 “shots” a year to investigate nuclear fusion. This is far less than what is needed for a commercial fusion power plant. For example, Focused Energy targets 10 shots per second.
Focused Energy's two new lasers can fire approximately once a minute, and the equipment to support this is also being actively developed.
“All of these subsystems are technology demonstrators for the ultimate fusion pilot plant that we want to build,” said Doug Hammond, the company's vice president of laser engineering. He added, “Currently, there is no high-energy main amplifier, so we are developing it in parallel.”
The laser is also a technology demonstrator, so it is effectively a custom-made product, manufactured by French laser specialist company Amplitude Laser. One laser system occupies approximately 1,600 square feet, about the size of a small house. “One of the reasons we don't serialize these large lasers is because no one wants to serialize them,” Amplitude CEO Damien Buet told TechCrunch.
That could change if Focused Energy hits its milestones. The company's current design for its commercial power plants requires thousands of lasers per facility. “The number of diodes required in one facility would exceed the current maximum diode capacity in the world,” Buet said. “The entire supply chain will need to be strengthened.”
This high number both provides enough energy for ignition and gives each power plant enough reliability to continue operating the facility if the laser needs repair or replacement. It is necessary.
Focused Energy's main challenge now is building things quickly, Mercer said. “We have set our goal to 2035, and the main condition is how quickly we can start moving towards large-scale manufacturing of lasers,” he said. “Just getting conventional power plants onto the grid within 10 years is an ambitious process today.”