Making fusion power practical means solving critical engineering challenges, from developing affordable, mass-manufacturable targets to accurately measuring their performance. I’m proud to share that Pacific Fusion has received two awards through the U.S. Department of Energy’s INFUSE program to advance both areas of research, working with Cornell University and UC Berkeley. These research collaborations will help us advance our Demonstration System toward net facility gain by 2030 and bring commercial fusion power closer to reality.
Award 1: Developing affordable, scalable fusion targets
One of the biggest challenges in commercializing pulser fusion is developing affordable targets that can be manufactured at scale. Traditional magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF) experiments rely on large, expensive magnetic coils that are destroyed with each shot. Our first INFUSE award, “Composite Liners for Self-Magnetizing High Gain Fusion Targets,” will build on our breakthrough experiments at Sandia National Laboratories and support further research into targets that eliminate the need for these coils. Pacific Fusion Principal Investigator Patrick Knapp will work with Cornell University professors Jack Hare and Sander Lavine to test innovative composite liner targets using Cornell’s COBRA pulsed-power driver.
Award 2: Improving how we measure fusion performance
Accurately measuring fusion performance is another critical challenge. Our second INFUSE award, “Activated Praseodymium as a Multi-Feature Diagnostic Material for ICF,” will investigate whether a specific metal, praseodymium, can improve measurements of neutron yield and provide additional insights into fusion experiments. Pacific Fusion Principal Investigator Jeffrey Schmall and scientist Patrick Adrian will collaborate with UC Berkeley professor Bethany Goldblum, using Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s 88-inch cyclotron to gather the nuclear data needed to develop and calibrate more accurate diagnostics.
Partnerships with the U.S. Department of Energy and leading universities are helping build an American fusion industry and bring fusion power to the grid faster.
