Inertia moves to commercialize one of the world’s most elaborate science experiments
Fusion power startup Inertia Enterprises said on Tuesday that it has signed three agreements with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to help bring the laser-based fusion reactor pioneered at the Californian lab to market. The deals could give Inertia a boost over rival startups. The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at LLNL is so far the only experiment to prove that controlled fusion reactions could produce more power than they require to ignite. Inertia burst onto the scene in February with a $450 million Series A, making it one of the best capitalized startups in the industry. Inertia and LLNL are working on a type of fusion called inertial confinement, which generates fusion conditions by compressing a fuel pellet using some external force, unlike other…