GET DAILY REPORT FREE
Fusion energy, long viewed primarily as a potential source of clean electricity, is taking on a new potential role in national defense, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Denver-based fusion startup Xcimer Energy has partnered with aerospace and defense company RTX on a roughly $50 million development agreement, including an RTX investment, to develop pulsed ultraviolet laser systems capable of defending against drone swarms, missiles and other threats. The companies envision a mobile, shipping-container-sized prototype that could be demonstrated within two years.
Powered by electricity rather than ammunition, the system could offer an effectively continuous supply of laser shots, potentially providing a lower-cost way to counter increasingly common and inexpensive drones. The technology draws on Cold War-era research into high-powered excimer gas lasers developed for missile defense under President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars.”
Xcimer co-founders Conner Galloway and Alexander Valys revisited that approach after studying archival research at Los Alamos National Laboratory and seeing renewed interest in fusion and growing electricity demand. Their company has raised nearly $200 million from investors, including Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Emerson Collective, while also receiving $9 million from the Department of Energy.
Xcimer is simultaneously pursuing a commercial fusion power plant targeted for 2035, with its defense partnership providing a potential source of nearer-term revenue. The collaboration combines Xcimer’s laser and light-source technology with RTX’s expertise in targeting, tracking and command-and-control systems.
The Wall Street Journal has the full story. A subscription may be required.
