Dunne: Other companies focused on fusion energy are still in the basic research stage; they still need to prove whether their approach is ever able to achieve net energy gain, which is an open-ended scientific exploration. In contrast, Inertia is building directly on the only approach to fusion that’s been proven to successfully produce more power than it consumes. This is the culmination of over 60 years of work and about $30 billion investment (in today’s dollars) by the U.S. government. The scale of this work, and the 12 years to go from National Ignition Facility operation to physics demonstration, should help calibrate the challenge. There are a number of laser-based fusion approaches being pursued by private industry, but Inertia’s goal is to take the most direct and lowest-risk path to making fusion work at grid-scale—and then optimize from that point of demonstration. Because Inertia is leveraging known physics, we can confidently focus our efforts and investments on scaling technology and building a manufacturing supply chain that can deliver fusion power to the grid. Inertia is partnering with a broad cross-section of the semiconductor laser diode industry, along with the optics industry, and manufacturers of components needed for our fuel targets to ensure that the laser and target systems will have an appropriate supply chain that can scale to levels needed for the power plant, also meeting performance, cost and schedule requirements. Specific details of these engagements are currently confidential.

Why did Chief Scientist Annie Kritcher seek to start what became Inertia while still at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in what is called a "first-of-its-kind" agreement?

We're very fortunate that Annie has been able to join the Inertia founding team as chief scientist, while also remaining an LLNL employee. This ability to be both an entrepreneur and a member of staff at a national lab is the first of its kind [arrangement], recently enabled by the federal CHIPS + Science Act. Annie has been integral to achieving ignition and energy gain on the NIF laser, as well as scaling that result to ever-higher gain. Her ability to co-found Inertia allows her to translate these results into development of a power plant, which is outside the mission space of the national labs. For Inertia, her ability to stay within the lab reinforces the strategic partnership and ability to leverage unique computational tools that have been benchmarked on the NIF results. Inertia’s approach is rooted in proven physics, with its physics development being led by Annie, who headed design of the ignition results, and power plant development being led by [Mike Dunne], who formerly led that activity at LLN. This is combined with a team that has the technical and business expertise to scale technologies for the power plant, and access to capital to bring fusion energy to market.

What kind of prototype facility is Inertia building? What is the capacity and schedule to complete design and construction?

In the immediate term, Inertia is focused on three key areas. The first is to build a prototype of the laser system, which we call Thunderwall. This will demonstrate we can achieve performance and electrical efficiency needed for grid-scale power; the power plant will then host 1,000 of these lasers. The second is to build a prototype of the fuel ‘target’ manufacturing plant, to demonstrate the path to mass production at the scale and cost required. The third to drive design of the power plant itself, to ensure a robust design that integrates the laser and target systems in a configuration that can scale to gigawatt power delivery. These activities are based in Livermore, Calif. At the end of this technology development phase, we can move directly to construction of the first “pilot” power plant. This is unlike all other approaches to fusion, which will need an intermediate physics testing facility. The Inertia power plant will initially operate at 50 MWe net to the grid, to meet DOE requirements for a “pilot plant” and then scale to over 1 GWe net over time.

What was the attraction for the $450-million private capital fundraising?

This is our first capital raise, and it’s with an investor team that shares our vision and has confidence in our approach. We see this as a partnership that stretches across the different phases of Inertia’s delivery plan. While this funding is critical to advancing commercialization, industrialization and large-scale energy construction projects are capital-intensive. We will raise more capital as we achieve our objectives and move our plans forward. 

How is Inertia still involved with LLNL, such as related to technology advancement, engineering and plant siting?

Inertia has a deep partnership with LLNL that stretches from the first-of-a-kind arrangement with our co-founder Annie Kritcher to licensing of a large number of patents to commercialize innovations made at the lab and to joint technology development programs.The siting of our pilot plant will be determined in years ahead, based on a rigorous site selection process across the nation. By design, Inertia is aligned with the strategic direction of the U.S. Energy Dept.—leveraging decadal and ongoing investments in the National Ignition Facility, along with key elements of the fusion energy long-range plan and federal programs to advance inertial fusion energy. These drive innovations across different technical areas and develop the workforce needed to deploy fusion. We will share details of any specific engagements in the months and years ahead.

What is the status of interest in your technology by potential customers?

The laser that will power our plant will be the most powerful in the world (in terms of average power)—one million times more powerful than the National Ignition Facility, 20 times more efficient and 1/10th the physical footprint for each beamline. What does this mean? Average power is what’s needed to drive a power plant. It’s not sufficient to fire a super-powerful laser just once; that gives you peak power, but not the sustained, continuous power needed for producing electricity. For a fusion power plant, we need to fire the laser hundreds of times per minute (10 times per second) to deliver power needed for a city. So, moving from the NIF laser that delivers 2 megajoules every few hours to the Inertia laser that will deliver 10 megajoules, 10 times per second, is about a factor of 1 million.There is no question that there is a very large customer base spanning across markets for electricity and process heat. The challenge is not finding customers, it’s delivering a solution that works, and that can be developed into a commercially viable source. That is our focus as a company—to take the most direct, lowest-risk path to demonstrating fusion power at scale, and then optimizing from there. 

What are Inertia’s biggest risks ahead?

Many of the biggest challenges we face are similar to those of any company trying to develop and scale large-scale, capital-intensive industrial projects. Ultimately, it’s about system integration—ensuring each part of the power plant works in harmony together, from the lasers to fuel targets to power production systems. This involves navigating a complex set of tradeoffs, understanding how to balance performance with risk, cost and delivery. To do this, we are building a technical roadmap that is informed by other successful commercialization and scale-up efforts, from semiconductor chips to ‘lidar’ lasers in self-driving cars to the technologies embedded in our smartphones. We’re bringing in people with the requisite experience, from former leaders at Apple and Waymo who have scaled similar technologies, to external advisers with decades of experience working on fusion. Our leadership team and our partnerships with academia, national labs and industry bring together thought leaders from across the country to solve these challenges.