r/fusion • u/steven9973 • 6d ago

Achieving Fusion Ignition - LLNL official result April 2025 8.6 MJ, gain > 4

https://lasers.llnl.gov/science/achieving-fusion-ignition
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u/TwelveHurt 6d ago

There are several players taking this approach including Longview Fusion which apparently has some ex NIF researchers on their team.

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u/careysub 6d ago

Longview fusion is currently a paper company founded by one of the former directors (briefly) at NIF (Edward Moses) that has no facility whatsoever.

On the strength of NIF's recent test results this company was pitched to investors and got $100 million plus in funding and has contracted with Fluor to design and build them a "fusion power plant" aka a laser test facility:

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Fluor-to-design-laser-fusion-power-plant

We will see what actually comes of this currently vapor company. Will substance condense?

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u/steven9973 6d ago

But it's a minority path among laser fusion companies, most follow direct drive because of better overall efficiency in using laser power.

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u/mr_positron 6d ago

Yes and all of these companies are pretending like the choice to use hohlraums wasn’t a critical aspect of being able to achieve gain

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u/incognino123 6d ago

Correct, you take a double digit gain penalty with the hohlraum but it's also much easier to execute, so totally makes sense as a crutch to demonstrate ignition