Inertial Fusion Energy is a proposed approach to building a nuclear fusion power plant based on performing inertial confinement fusion at industrial scale. This approach to fusion power is still in a research phase. ICF first developed shortly after the development of the laser in 1960, but was a classified US research program during its earliest years. In 1972, John Nuckolls wrote a paper predicting that compressing a target could create conditions where fusion reactions are chained together, a process known as fusion ignition or a burning plasma.[2] On August 8, 2021, the NIF at Livermore National Laboratory became the first ICF facility in the world to demonstrate this (see plot).[3][4] This breakthrough drove the US Department of Energy to create an Inertial Fusion Energy program in 2022 with a budget of 3 million dollars in its first year.[5]