Startup First Light Fusion is demonstrating a 'Big Gun' device it hopes will advance the renewable energy source.

Development of new fusion energy schemes now includes a U.K. effort that uses high-compression inertial confinement to generate power via the fusing of atoms.

First Light Fusion completed development of its “Big Gun” fusion device in May, and has since finished testing and commissioning. At 22 meters in length and 25,000 kg in weight, Big Gun is considered the largest of its kind in the U.K. First Light Fusion was spun out from the University of Oxford. It employs a team of engineers and physicists, and works closely with university researchers.

The Oxford-based startup’s approach is based on an inertial confinement, which seeks to achieve fusion conditions by exposing fusion fuel to extremely high compression in a very short time. The approach uses the inertia of the fuel itself to maintain those conditions long enough to trigger a fusion reaction. Company founder Nick Hawker published a peer-reviewed paper in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society showing that inertial confinement fusion could provide energy at prices competitive with existing renewables.

10/17-19 EAC