British Fusion Startup Pursues New Approach The UK company First Light Fusion has published a plan for a new nuclear fusion concept called FLARE. It’s a two-step approach to inertial confinement. First, they want to squeeze the fuel slowly with an electrical pulse, then ignite it quickly with a small burst – for example, a short laser pulse. All this happens in a big pool of liquid lithium that soaks up heat, generates power, and also breeds tritium as a new fuel. They say the gain (meaning energy from fusion divided by energy delivered to the fuel) could reach a stunning 200 to 1,000. About the timeline, they vaguely say they hope to have a “commercial demonstration potentially by the mid-thirties.” First Light Fusion has previously used solid projectiles to shoot at fuel targets and was aiming at commercialisation in the early 2030s. The full concept plan is available here: firstlightfusion.com/flare/ Design Sketch for the Nuclear Fusion Reactor. Credits: First Light Fusion