“All of our academic collaborators get by on an absolute shoestring. I think there needs to be more funding for inertial fusion”

The return on investment could be enormous.

Hawker estimates that the world will want up to 10,000 fusion plants by 2050.

“How much clean power would the world buy? The answer, as far as I’m concerned, is as much as is physically possible to build.”

First Light has developed a method of triggering inertial fusion using a 22-metre gas gun that fires a 100g projectile at 6.5km/second – about twenty times the speed of sound – at a pellet containing tritium and deuterium.

He wants to develop power plants that repeat the process every 30 seconds, with every pellet generating enough power to fuel the average UK home for more than two years.

Referencing the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory experiment, Hawker says: “The final step is exactly the same between our process and that process. So this gives us huge, huge confidence that we’re on the right track, because the core physics is exactly the same.“

First Light will soon build its own ignition demonstrator to show investors.

He wants to build a pilot plant by the mid-2030s and a full commercial plant by the end of the next decade offering power at as little as $45 per megawatt hour, a similar timeframe to his competition.

But to capture the market opportunity, start-ups like his need continued support to develop the technology.

Investment in Britain’s fusion industry to date has largely focused start-ups using the alternative method, magnetic-driven fusion.

“I don’t think we should take away from magnetic fusion,” Hawker says. “But if [funding is] 100 to one at the moment, maybe we just add another nine or another 20 or something just to even out.”

Tokamak Energy, which is also based in Oxford, is focusing on magnetic fusion.

Managing director Matthews says: “Of course, there’s a degree of competition. Our investors will want us to have a degree of competition.”

The company, which is backed by the US and UK governments, has developed a device that last year hit 100 million degrees celsius, the threshold for sustaining fusion.