Focused Energy, a pioneering fusion power startup, has recently achieved an impressive milestone on the path to clean energy. The company has procured two of the world’s most powerful laser. They’ve recently inked a contract with Amplitude Laser, one of the laser cutting industry’s leading manufacturers. They will build custom technology demonstrators for close to $40 million.
Unlike the NIF, these lasers are designed to deposit more than a kilojoule of energy on a target. They’re going to be critical to Focused Energy’s audacious plan to get to ten shots per second. This nascent capability is a center piece to their designs commercialized so far for commercial scale power plants. Each facility will require thousands of lasers in order to run efficiently.
Scott Mercer, co-founder and CEO of Focused Energy considered the acquisition a vote of confidence in Focused Energy. He continued on, “These are some of the highest-average-power lasers in private company hands.
The lasers will be stored in a new facility, which is now under construction, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Completion for this facility is expected within two years. That’s only big enough to cover an area the size of a small house—1,600 square feet.
Doug Hammond, Vice President of Laser Engineering at Focused Energy stressed the importance of these lasers. He considers them crucial to realize a much larger vision. Like all these sub-systems, he noted that they are all technology demonstrators. They’re essential for the future pilot plant of fusion we hope to one day build.
In conjunction with this acquisition, Focused Energy is designing high-energy main amplifiers, which are at the heart of their operations. Amplifiers Hammond said they are designing the high-energy main amplifiers in parallel because they haven’t been built yet. He pointed out that this method demonstrates the firm’s forward-thinking strategy.
Just as each of these lasers are bespoke, so too are the solutions they represent. Solutions that Focused Energy is actively pursuing on our path to mission. Damien Buet, CEO of Amplitude, explained how the market had been clamoring for such specialized equipment. He quipped, “One of the reasons we’re not manufacturing these big lasers in volume is that there just isn’t a market for them.”
With its pioneering work on spacecraft prototype fusion generators, Focused Energy is at the forefront of a technological revolution that will reshape the energy sector. The company just completed a significant acquisition of another developer and is boosting its internal development pipeline. It wants to be a big part of the future of renewable energy production.