The world’s biggest laser

The fusion race is heating up following a $450 million funding round

Read in browser

What's cooler than the prospect of generating fusion energy? Doing it with lasers. That's the plan put forward by Inertia Enterprises. The technique has been proven in the lab, though it still has a long way to go to work outside of it. We've got an exclusive look at the company's major new funding round in today's newsletter. We also bring you the latest on how the combination of budget cuts and climate change fueled wildfires in Argentina and Chile now threatening some of the world's oldest trees. Want more scoops on the fusion race? More research on how climate change is fueling extreme weather? Subscribe to Bloomberg News. Major laser By Will Wade Fusion energy startup Inertia Enterprises has raised $450 million to start developing a power plant that hinges on building the world's most powerful lasers. The Series A funding round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners and includes Threshold Ventures, Long Journey Ventures and GV (formerly Google Ventures). The Livermore, California-based company expects to begin construction in 2030 on a commercial power plant. It also plans to build a facility to make the lasers and a production line to supply millions of tiny pellets made of special materials that they intend to blast to trigger fusion reactions. A rendering of Intertia Enterprise's fusion technology. Image courtesy of Inertia Enterprises The scale of the funding reflects the growing interest in fusion, which holds the promise of abundant clean energy but also comes with daunting engineering and physics challenges. The industry attracted more than $9.7 billion in backing through the middle of last year, according to a Fusion Industry Association report released in July. Major deals have continued since then, led by an $863 million funding round announced by Commonwealth Fusion Systems in August. Dozens of companies are pursuing the technology, which involves replicating the conditions at the heart of stars, but none has yet demonstrated a viable commercial system. There are two main approaches to fusion power plants. Commonwealth is one of the leaders seeking to use powerful magnets to control a super-heated cloud of plasma. Inertia is pursuing a different path, using powerful lasers to set off fusion reactions. That method was validated for the first time in a 2022 breakthrough at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. That test used the world's largest laser to blast a peppercorn-sized capsule. That triggered a fusion reaction with two hydrogen isotopes, releasing more energy than was needed to set it off. Inertia is developing a new laser that Inertia Chief Executive Officer Jeff Lawson said will be a million times more powerful, and the company's roster includes co-founder Annie Kritcher, who was lead designer of Livermore's fusion experiments. Inertia plans to use 1,000 lasers, firing 10 times a second at its proposed commercial power plant. Most of the leading fusion companies are pursuing the magnet-based approach. But none has been able to demonstrate a reaction that delivers more energy than was needed to trigger it, the industry's most important benchmark. Inertia's approach and on-staff expertise give it an edge, said Bessemer Ventures partner Byron Deeter. "Most of the scientific risk has been meaningfully reduced," he said. "Not eliminated, but meaningfully reduced." Read the full story on Bloomberg.com. Financing fusion $6 billion The size of the merger transaction announced last year between fusion developer TAE Technologies Inc. and Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (Yes, the company behind Truth Social.) Energy's great white shark "Fusion has always been the apex predator of energy technologies. It's a very hard problem with a big payoff." Bob Mumgaard CEO, Commonwealth Fusion Systems This week's Zero Major economies around the world are grappling with electricity grids under stress from equipment bottlenecks and workforce shortages. What can be done to solve it? This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi talks with Manoj Sinha, CEO of Husk Power Systems, about distributed energy resources and their potential to bring electricity to where it is needed most — from energy-poor regions in the Global South, to energy-hungry data centers in rich countries. Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday. Chile's climate-fueled fires By Fabiano Maisonnave Human-induced climate change, along with land-use shifts and budget cuts, likely worsened recent wildfires in Argentina and Chile that are threatening some of the world's oldest trees, an analysis has found. These regions are now receiving 20% to 25% less rainfall due to climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, according to a report by World Weather Attribution, also known as WWA, a scientific group that examines extreme weather events days after they occur. A firefighter works in Argentina's Patagonian Chubut province. AFP "We estimate that similarly extreme fire weather conditions are now nearly three times as likely due to the 1.3C of human-caused warming," said Clair Barnes, a researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy of Imperial College London. "The drying trend is well captured by the climate models." The fires, which began in early January, devastated large swaths of south-central Chile, destroying about 2,300 homes and killing 21 people, according to a United Nations report. In Argentina's Patagonia, where the blazes continue out of control, fires have burned parts of Los Alerces National Park, home to the Alerce, the second-longest living tree species in the world, reaching more than 3,600 years. Read the full story on Bloomberg.com and subscribe for unlimited access. The EPA's big repeal By Jennifer A Dlouhy and Zahra Hirji A pedestrian walks near the EPA headquarters in Washington, DC Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg The US Environmental Protection Agency plans this week to repeal a policy that provides the legal foundation for a raft of rules regulating greenhouse gas emissions, marking President Donald Trump's most consequential retreat from the fight against climate change. A move to scrap the Obama-era endangerment finding, a 2009 scientific determination that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare, is expected as early as Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the details. The policy underpins rules including federal emissions standards for cars and trucks. Read the full story on Bloomberg.com. More from Green Morning smog in New Delhi, India, in December. Photographer: Vipin Kumar/Getty Images/Hindustan Times India's air pollution is adding another threat to company profits along with impacts on public health, with a sweep of businesses pointing to the effects of pollution-related disruptions in the country's most recent earnings season. Read the full story. Exxon isn't thrilled with the EU's new methane rules. The company said they could add about 13% to the cost of crude oil imports and deal a hammer blow to the bloc's industrial base. The warning came the day before key industry executives meet with EU officials to discuss economic competitiveness. Almost all major banks that have pledged to finance low-carbon steel are backing initiatives that will lead to additional greenhouse gas pollution, an analysis by nonprofit BankTrack found. More from Bloomberg Business of Food for a weekly look at how the world feeds itself in a changing economy and climate, from farming to supply chains to consumer trends Hyperdrive for expert insight into the future of cars Energy Daily for a daily guide to the energy and commodities markets that power the global economy CityLab Daily for top stories, ideas and solutions, from cities around the world Tech In Depth for analysis and scoops about the business of technology Explore all Bloomberg newsletters. Follow us You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Green Daily newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, sign up here to get it in your inbox. Unsubscribe Bloomberg.com Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10022 |