Nuclear fusion race draws in Nobel-winning LED pioneerExclusive:...

Nuclear fusion race draws in Nobel-winning LED pioneerExclusive: Shuji Nakamura's U.S. startup Blue Laser Fusion pursues 'dream' energy sourceShuji Nakamura, left, and Hiroaki Ohta are co-founders of Blue Laser Fusion, a U.S. startup pursuing nuclear fusion energy.RYOTARO YAMADA, Nikkei staff writerJuly 23, 2023 02:58 JSTPALO ALTO, U.S. -- A new U.S. startup led by a Nobel Prize-winning electronics engineer aims to build a nuclear fusion reactor by around 2030, making it the latest company seeking to harness the power of stars.Shuji Nakamura, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was one of three winners of the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics for the development of the blue light-emitting diode.Now, Nakamura aims to use powerful beams of light to fuse atoms for energy. The Japanese-born American engineer founded his third company, Blue Laser Fusion, in November and serves as CEO.Hiroaki Ohta, a former president of Tokyo-based drone maker ACSL, is a co-founder and head of technology.Using proprietary technology, Blue Laser Fusion is working on equipment that can continuously emit high-power laser light in an effort to solve a major challenge of nuclear fusion -- sustaining the reaction.To ignite nuclear fusion, the fuel must be heated to more than 100 million C to achieve a plasma state. The pursuit of fusion energy has taken two main paths: the laser method and magnetic confinement.Blue Laser Fusion raised $25 million from venture capital firm JAFCO Group and the Mirai Creation Fund, which is backed by Toyota Motor and other investors and managed by the SPARX Group. It aims to secure additional funding from U.S. investors.Blue Laser Fusion has filed more than a dozen patent applications in the U.S. and other countries in the first six months of its existence.Nakamura said he has dreamed of working on nuclear fusion since he was a student. "Our goal is to commercialize fusion power with a highly safe method that can be tested repeatedly, using our knowledge of semiconductor lasers," Nakamura told Nikkei. "We want to contribute to solving the world's energy problems."Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory research facility in California succeeded in generating more energy than was put into a fusion experiment, but only for an instant. (Jason Laurea/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory/Handout via Reuters)His company will work with Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions, a supplier of turbines for nuclear power plants, and YUKI Holdings, a Tokyo-based precision metal processing company.The goal is to have a reactor capable of generating 1 gigawatt of electricity, equivalent to about one atom-splitting nuclear reactor, in operation in either Japan or the U.S. by 2030. The partners will seek to build a small-scale experimental plant in Japan by the end of 2024.Blue Laser Fusion declined to reveal details of its technology because it has a patent pending, but Nakamura said it is theoretically possible to build powerful rapid-fire lasers. The company is eyeing boron as a nuclear fuel instead of the more commonly used deuterium because the boron fuel produces no damaging neutrons.According to a July report by the U.S.-based Fusion Industry Association, 43 companies worldwide are working on fusion energy, 10 more than in the previous year. Total fusion-related fundraising has exceeded $6 billion.In the field of magnetic confinement, Japan's Kyoto Fusioneering said in May that it had raised 10.5 billion yen ($74 million) from investors including Japanese trading house Mitsubishi Corp. in its latest fundraising round. EX-Fusion, an Osaka University company experiment with the laser method, announced in July that it had raised 1.8 billion yen.Of the two main fusion methods, magnetic confinement has been seen as the most promising and has more companies involved.The problem with the laser method is that large equipment is unable to continuously fire beams, while smaller equipment lacks the output needed to ignite fusion.In December, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the U.S. succeeded for the first time in generating more energy than was put into fusion experiments using laser equipment, but only for an instant.Fewer than 10 startups are thought be working on the laser method, but Japan has a foundation of research in this field, including experimental equipment at Osaka University.