Timeline – 1972

LLE Grows
By 1972, LLE had grown to 40 faculty and staff with a budget of $1 million.

The Laser Fusion Feasibility Project
The Laser Fusion Feasibility Project (LFFP) was established at LLE. It was the first privately funded effort involving industry–university–government collaboration to investigate laser fusion as an energy source for the future. The LFFP consortium together invested $35 million to the development of inertial fusion as an energy source. This represented the largest single contribution made to this field outside the federal government.

LFFP was among the nation’s first privately funded research efforts in laser fusion. Exxon and General Electric were the first two major industrial sponsors of LFFP and were joined later by Northeast Utilities, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), Empire State Electric Energy Research Corporation, Southern California Edison, Standard Oil of Ohio (SOHIO), and Ontario Hydro.