Longview Fusion Energy Systems announces path to laser fusion power
13/02/2023
Following the historic achievement of fusion energy gain announced by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Longview Fusion Energy Systems Inc has unveiled plans to build the world’s first laser fusion power plant.
US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M Granholm reported that the world’s first and only demonstration of fusion energy breakeven (more energy out than energy in) was achieved at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, USA. The National Ignition Facility, the world’s most energetic laser, squeezes together a type of hydrogen so that it becomes 100 times denser than lead and at a temperature of 100 million degrees, bringing star power to earth.
Longview’s power plants will combine the National Ignition Facility’s laser fusion breakthrough with modern, efficient lasers and a patented design to replicate these conditions several hundred times a minute, similar to the repetitive pulses in a car engine but delivering over one million horsepower. These power plants will provide carbon-free, safe, economical and sustainable energy at a scale that can power a city’s electricity and drive industrial production of the materials needed for today’s world, from steel to fertiliser to hydrogen fuel. With plant groundbreaking planned in five years, this revolutionary energy source will play a significant role in meeting the global growing need for clean energy.
The Longview team, spearheaded by Dr Edward Moses and Valerie Roberts, led the successful delivery of the National Ignition Facility’s fusion facility.
Edward is a global leader in fusion energy, with more than four decades of experience in engineering, physics, fusion technologies and laser science. Valerie has over three decades of experience advising Fortune 500 executives and government clients across a range of strategic and operational matters. To deliver the world’s first laser fusion power plant, Edward and Valerie have assembled a powerhouse team of fusion scientists, engineers and business leaders, who have been instrumental in the development of the breakthrough technology since its inception. Longview has been working with a broad partnership of US industry, utilities, academic, national laboratories and strategic investors over the past 18 months to design a power plant based on the physics that has now been proven at the National Ignition Facility.
Edward said: “Longview has been working quietly in anticipation of this day, which is historic by all measures. We knew that when breakeven was achieved, it would be too late to begin to plan for full-scale commercialisation. Today is the ‘day after’, and we are here to ensure that the world will have a carbon-free option in time to make a difference.”
“The Longview power plant is based on the world’s only experimental demonstration of fusion burn,” said Valerie. “It can use materials and products that are available today, cutting decades off the commercialisation process. This reflects Longview’s ethos to deliver energy justice across the world’s communities, addressing the biggest challenge of our time: climate change.”
