Longview Fusion Energy Systems has contracted U.S. engineering and construction firm Fluor Corporation to design the world's first commercial laser fusion power plant.
Longview said, “Fluor will leverage its global experience in developing and constructing complex, large-scale facilities to provide preliminary design and engineering to support the development of Longview's fusion-powered plant.”
Longview noted that, unlike other approaches, it does not need to build a physics demonstration facility, and, with its partner Fluor, “can focus on designing and building the world's first laser fusion energy plant to power communities and businesses”.
The historic breakthroughs in fusion energy gain at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's (LLNL) National Ignition Facility (NIF) have enabled their project.
Nuclear fusion is the process by which two light nuclei combine to form a single heavier nucleus. A huge amount of energy is released during fusion. LLNL has been pursuing the use of lasers to induce fusion in a laboratory setting since the 1960s. They built a series of increasingly powerful laser systems at the California lab and created the National Ignition Facility (NIF), described as the world's largest and most energetic laser system. The NIF uses high-power laser beams to create temperatures and pressures similar to those found in the cores of stars and giant planets - and inside nuclear explosions.
On 5 December of 2022, the NIF achieved the first ever controlled experiment to produce more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive the reaction. The experiment utilized one hundred and ninety-two laser beams to deliver more than two million joules of ultraviolet energy to a deuterium-tritium fuel pellet to create so-called fusion ignition - also referred to as scientific energy breakeven. In achieving an output of three point one five megajoules of fusion energy from the delivery of two point zero five megajoules to the fuel target. The experiment demonstrated the fundamental science basis for inertial confinement fusion energy (IFE) for the first time.
Longview says it is the only fusion energy company using this verified approach. Its power plant designs include commercially available technologies from the semiconductor and other industries. Longview says that this is to ensure the delivery of carbon-free, safe, and economical laser fusion energy to the marketplace within a decade.
Valerie Roberts is Longview's Chief Operating Officer and former National Ignition Facility construction/project manager. She said, “We are building on the success of the NIF, but the Longview plant will use today's far more efficient and powerful lasers and utilize additive manufacturing and optimization through AI.”
Edward Moses is Longview's CEO and former director of the NIF. He added, “Laser fusion energy gain has been demonstrated many times over the last 15 months, and the scientific community has verified these successes. Now is the time to focus on making this new carbon-free, safe, and abundant energy source available to the nation as soon as possible.”
In April of 2023, Fluor signed a memorandum of understanding with Longview to be its engineering and construction collaborator in designing and planning laser fusion energy commercialization.
Longview's plan is for the development of laser fusion power plants. They will have the capacity of up to sixteen hundred MW to provide electricity or industrial production of hydrogen fuel and other materials that can help to decarbonize heavy industry.