Why Fusion?

Commercial fusion energy has the potential to provide the world with a clean and secure source of power. When realised at scale, fusion offers all the benefits of other renewable energy sources, with the potential to fundamentally transform our global energy system, providing vital energy security and eliminating vital energy.

Today, we have never been closer to successfully commercialising fusion. As the technology advances, Governments and investors are increasingly recognising fusion as the final, untapped and affordable clean energy source the world urgently needs.

Global demand for energy is growing. As populations increase and the shift towards electrification seeds new demand for electricity generation, Governments must work out how they satisfy this demand while also meeting global decarbonisation goals and mitigating the risk of climate change.

Conventional sources of renewable energy like wind and solar are an important part of this puzzle. However, capacity restrictions and challenges of supply intermittency mean they are not a comprehensive fix. Nuclear energy is another vital clean energy source, but with high-start-up costs and long lead times on new projects, nor is it a ubiquitous solution.

That’s where fusion comes in. Delivered at scale, fusion has the potential to be the solution the world needs to simultaneously meet energy demand and realise our 2050 net zero ambitions. According to research by McKinsey, fusion technologies are the key to addressing a 35, 000 TWh “clean power gap” which is set to emerge in the march to that 2050 target. Existing renewable sources of energy cannot get us there on their own.

There are two dominant approaches to fusion energy – inertial fusion (IFE) and magnetic confinement fusion (MCF). At First Light, we are developing a scalable source of IFE, which we believe offers the fastest pathway to achieving commercial fusion. Although a nascent technology compared to MCF, progress in inertial fusion in the last decade has been rapid.

The physics of IFE have already been proven. In December 2022, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US made history when they achieved net energy ‘gain’ for the first time with inertial fusion technology. This means the fusion reaction produced more energy than it consumed – a key milestone on the path to commercial fusion.

We know the physics of inertial fusion work. The next step is scaling up that process so it becomes a commercially-viable solution to the global clean energy gap.

First Light Fusion’s unique amplifier technology is integral to an efficient IFE power plant. The amplifier allows a concentration and shaping of the energy delivered to the target. The increased efficiency of the fusion reaction brings down the driver requirements as well as enabling a much simplified fusion island in the power plant. That in turn brings down the levelized cost of electricity (in other words, the average net cost of electricity generation for a generator over its lifetime) of IFE power plants.

To change the world for the next generation, we need to deal with climate change and tackle the ever-present threat to energy security. Fusion is the key underpinning element to achieving those aims and plugging the clean energy gap.

If the world is to achieve net zero by 2050, it is vital that both public and private investment and support coalesce around fusion and its transformative potential with the urgency that the clean energy conundrum requires. The future is fusion, and the time to act is now.