“Ultimately, to operate as a commercial power plant, Zap’s reactor will need to spark 10 pulses per second for months on end.”
Century fired 1,080 consecutive pulses this summer. The Department of Energy milestone asks for one pulse every 10 seconds for two hours. A power plant needs 100 times that rate for months. Zap raised $130 million on a 50 megawatt promise for the early 2030s, and nobody outside the National Ignition Facility has hit breakeven yet.