First Light Fusion, a company spun out of Oxford University, has achieved nuclear fusion in a world first, independently validated by the UK Atomic Energy Authority.
It is the first time that fusion has been shown to work with a projectile-and-target approach, which the Oxford-based start-up said is simpler, faster and cheaper than traditional fusion methods.
First Light is working with investment bank UBS to “explore strategic options” for the next phase of its scientific and commercial development, it said.
Calling its approach to inertial fusion “simpler, more energy efficient, and [with] lower physics risk”, First Light said it has achieved fusion having spent less than £45mln “and with a rate of performance improvement faster than any other fusion scheme in history”.
Instead of using expensive and high-powered lasers or magnets to generate or maintain the conditions for fusion, First Light fires a projectile with a hyper-velocity gas gun that compresses the fusion fuel inside a target.
It said the design of the “highly sophisticated” target is the key technology as it “focuses the energy of the projectile, imploding the fuel to the temperatures and densities needed to make fusion happen”.
The fuel in the target becomes the fastest moving object on earth, the company said, when the fuel accelerates to over 70 km per second as it implodes.
Dr Nick Hawker, co-founder and chief executive of First Light Fusion, said: “Our approach to fusion is all about simplicity. Being simple, we believe projectile fusion is the fastest path to commercially viable power generation from fusion. We aim for simplicity in the power plant engineering, but we also want to make the fusion process itself as simple as possible.”
IP Group PLC (LSE:IPO), which helped found First Light in 2011 and owns a 27.4% stake, calculated that the fusion result could result in “a doubling to quadrupling" of the value of the company being achieved "at the next funding round”.
First Light was valued at around £210mln at the end of December, with its latest funding round in February bringing in US$45mln from investors including Tencent.
