A new British startup company has taken a radically new approach to make fusion energy a reality.
First Light Fusion is researching energy generation by inertial confinement fusion.
Inertial confinement fusion is a type of fusion energy research that attempts to initiate nuclear fusion reactions by heating and compressing a fuel target, typically in the form of a pellet that most often contains a mixture of deuterium and tritium.
Fusion is the natural process that powers the sun and stars. In fusion power plants, the fuel is a form of hydrogen, found in water, which is so abundant as to make it effectively inexhaustible. The power is produced when these hydrogen atoms “fuse” together to form heavier elements, such as helium. It has long been recognised that fusion is a clean, carbon-free source of energy that can power the world — recognised, but not achieved.
First Light Fusion's new method uses a high-velocity projectile (58 times the speed of sound) to create a shock-wave to collapse a cavity containing plasma inside a ‘target’. The design of these targets is First Light’s technical USP.
The company was spun out from the University of Oxford in June 2011 and is based near Oxford. First Light continues to work closely with the academic community, both in the UK and internationally. The company is well-funded by both institutional investors and private individuals.
Most other inertial confinement fusion approaches have tried to use schemes involving high powered lasers.
Inertial confinement fusion for energy generation is a well-established research field and is being pursued in many laboratories worldwide, perhaps most notably in the US at the National Ignition Facility. First Light is exploring a number of alternative research directions that harness the same fundamental physics, with the prime focus being power generation. First Light’s work to-date has included theoretical analysis, detailed numerical simulation and experimental validation. This has allowed description of the accessible parameter space and has led to a clear vision of the pathway to fusion.
The company’s approach was inspired by the only example of inertial confinement found on Earth – the pistol shrimp, which clicks its claw to produce a shock-wave that stuns its prey and causes the surrounding water to cavitate. The air and vapour inside these cavities is heated as they implode, causing a plasma to form.
The only other naturally occurring inertial confinement phenomenon is a supernova. The reaction created by the collapsing cavity is what creates energy, which can then be captured and used.
This week the company announced that it had successfully completed building and testing of its unique pulsed power device, dubbed Machine 3.
The new device is capable of discharging up to 200,000 volts and in excess of 14 million ampere – the equivalent of nearly 500 simultaneous lightning strikes – within two microseconds. The £3.6m machine uses some 3km of high voltage cables and another 10km of diagnostic cables.
Similar to a rail-gun, it will use electromagnetism to fire projectiles at around 20km/s (enough to travel from London to New York in 4 minutes). Now fully operational Machine 3 will be used to further research First Light Fusion's technology as the company seeks to achieve first fusion, which it expects to deliver in 2019.
The next step in the technological development will be to achieve 'gain', whereby the amount of energy created outstrips that used to spark the reaction. The company is targeting 2024 to achieve gain.
Sources: First Light, Wikipedia
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