Oxford University spin-out company First Light Fusion said this week it would collaborate with the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) in a project designed to create a net gain in energy out of a fusion reaction.
The feat has never been accomplished before. To date, fusion energy has been a net energy loss, requiring more energy to create the reaction than the energy the reaction produces.
“Fusion holds the promise of safe, clean and virtually limitless power,” the company said. “It has the potential to transform the world’s energy supply if it can be applied successfully to power generation.”
The company said the plan was to demonstrate fusion by the end of 2019 and to demonstrate a positive net outcome from the process by 2024. To do this, the company said it would create a “fusion island” that converts fusion into heat and controls the fuel supply that would be the prototype of a fusion power plant, a strategy now under development at Britain’s UKAEA facility in Culham, England.
The project is partly funded by a grant from the Energy Entrepreneurs Fund, a function of the Department for Business Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
The project follows First Light Fusion’s success at a “first test shot,” on one of the six limbs of its newly constructed pulsed power machine, which was followed up by a series of test three-limb shots in September. The completed machine is currently being commissioned and is ahead of schedule.
Once fully commissioned, Machine 3 will be the only pulsed power machine of its scale in the world dedicated to researching fusion energy. The machine can discharge up to 200,000 volts and more than 14 million ampere, the equivalent of close to 500 simultaneous lightening strikes within two microseconds.