Inertia drives the sale of some of the most detailed scientific experiments in the world

Fusion power startup, Inertia Enterprises, said Tuesday it has signed three agreements with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to help bring to market the laser-based fusion reactor developed at the California lab.

The deals could give Inertia leverage over upstart rivals. The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at LLNL is so far the only experiment proving that a controlled fusion reaction can produce more energy than is needed to ignite. Inertia burst onto the scene in February with a $450 million Series A, making it one of the best startups in the industry.

Inertia and LLNL work on a type of fusion called inertial confinement, which produces fusion conditions by compressing a fuel pellet using an external force, unlike other methods that use strong magnetic fields to confine plasmas until atoms collide.

In NIF, 192 laser beams are fired into a large vacuum chamber to converge on a small gold cylinder called a hohlraum, which contains a pellet of oil encrusted with diamond. When the lasers hit the hohlraum, it vaporizes and emits X-Rays that detonate a BB-sized fuel pellet inside. The diamond cloth is converted into plasma, which expands to compress the deuterium-tritium fuel.

If that doesn’t sound unusual enough, remember that all of this needs to happen several times a second if the technology is to generate grid power.

The design of a laser-driven reactor was first described in the 1960s as a safe method for thermonuclear weapons research, although scientists also saw its power-generating potential. Construction of the NIF began in 1997, and it took 25 years to reach the breaking point where the fusion reaction released more energy than was needed to kick it off.

Several startups, including Inertia, Xcimer, Focused Energy and First Light, are trying to turn this concept into commercial-scale power plants. Because the NIF lasers are based on older technology, the hope is that the new lasers will be more efficient, reducing the energy needed to fuel each fusion reaction and making it easier for each reaction to produce enough energy to make a commercial-scale power plant profitable.

The agreements between Inertia and LLNL include two strategic partnership projects, and one research and development partnership agreement. The organizations say they will work together to develop more advanced lasers and improve fuel efficiency with a view to better performance and productivity. Inertia also licenses nearly 200 patents from the lab.

Perhaps it was inevitable that Inertia and LLNL would continue to work together. Annie Kritcher, founder and chief scientist of Inertia, helped design a successful experiment at NIF that achieved scientific distinction. The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 paved the way for him to found the company while maintaining his position at LLNL.