BOTTLING THE SUN

Fusion energy companies mark significant milestones on path to harness the power of the sun

NELSON BENNETT

When Burnaby-based General Fusion was founded in 2002, it was one of only three private startups chasing the Holy Grail of clean energy – fusion power.

Today there are 33, according to the Fusion Industry Association (FIA).

That’s on top of large fusion research projects, like the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in France, Joint European Torus (JET) in the U.K. and National Ignition Facility in the U.S.

Of the US$5 billion that private fusion companies have raised to date, US$2.8 billion of that was raised just in the last year, according to the FIA. “When the history books are written about fusion energy, the last 12 months will be seen as the turning point when it became clear that fusion would move out of the laboratories and into the marketplace,” the FIA says in its 2022 industry survey.

In November 2021, General Fusion closed a US$130 million Series E funding round that was US$10 million oversubscribed. “The goal was, of course, to raise capital,” says Greg Twinney, who moved from CFO to CEO in July. “An almost equally important goal was to bring on the right types of investors – ones that would be able to take us from where we were previously funded through VCs [venture capital firms] and whatnot and bring on big global investors.”

Those Series E investors include Singapore’s Temasek, the Jameel Investment Management Co., and the Business Development Bank of Canada. “Those types of investors are ones that have a long view and have the types of capital we need to execute the program,” Twinney says. “We will be going back out to market later this year to do a Series F round of capital. I expect that it will be more than double than what we raised in the Series E.”

General Fusion has marked some important technical and business milestones in the last 12 months, as have other fusion projects. The company’s headcount has increased from 60 to 200 and it is on the move in two directions.

The company is in the process of moving its headquarters from Burnaby to Sea Island, and it has begun site preparation for a demonstration machine in the U.K.

The demonstration project is being built in partnership with the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, which is the site of the JET fusion experimental reactor. “That’s where recently one of their machines, one of the largest longest running machines in the world – JET (Joint European Torus) – hit a world record,” Twinney says. “We’re actually building our machine right beside theirs. That machine’s going to be our step-out from the

General Fusion is one of the few companies taking a hybrid approach to fusion power. The company uses magnets to confine plasma, and pistons that fire synchronously to collapse the plasma and spark ignition • GENERAL FUSION

lab and into full-scale demonstration as the major last milestone to a commercial pilot plant. This is a massive, massive milestone.”

Far from seeing the space becoming too crowded, Twinney says the fact there are now more than 30 private companies pursuing fusion power is good for all involved. They all learn from each other’s successes and failures, and are creating momentum for the whole industry. “Fusion is the future of energy – there is no doubt in my mind, and our minds,” Twinney says. “And the fact that others are recognizing that and investors are recognizing that is a good thing.”

Fusion power is considered the Holy Grail of clean energy because the fuel is plentiful – heavy hydrogen from seawater – it would produce zero greenhouse gases, there is no danger of meltdowns and the only radioactive substance produced is tritium, which has a very short half-life and is not waste per se because it is actually part of the heavy hydrogen fuel mix.

Most fusion companies are pursuing one of two approaches: Magnetic or inertial confinement. General Fusion is one of the few that is taking a more hybrid approach – magnetic confinement with pulse compression.

Fusion occurs when smaller nuclei are fused together under tremendous force into larger nuclei, with a release of energy occurring in the form of neutrons. It’s what happens in stars when gravitational force creates extreme heat that turns on the fusion engine.

Replicating that in a machine requires some form of confinement to squeeze plasma – a kind of super-hot fog of unbound positive and negative particles – to the point where nuclei fuse.

One approach is inertial confinement, in which lasers are focused on a small capsule of heavy hydrogen fuel (deuterium and tritium) to create ignition. This takes a tremendous amount of energy, and the challenge for all fusion efforts is to get a sustained ignition that produces more energy than it takes to get ignition – called

General Fusion’s machine uses liquid metal spinning inside a chamber that acts as a protective barrier between the hot plasma and the

machine • GENERAL FUSION

This decade we will start to see commercial pilot plants built,” says General Fusion CEO Greg Twinney • ROB KRUYT

net energy gain.

The other main approach is magnetic confinement, using powerful magnets in a machine called a tokomak to contain and squeeze plasma into a donut-shaped form called a torus.

General Fusion uses magnets to confine the plasma, but to get ignition it uses pistons arrayed around a spherical chamber to fire synchronously to essentially collapse the plasma on itself and spark ignition.

General Fusion’s machine uses liquid metal spinning inside a chamber that acts as a protective barrier between the hot plasma and the machine – basically, a sphere of plasma contained within a sphere of liquid metal. This protects the machine from damage.

The temperatures generated in fusion – up to 150 million degrees Celsius – are five or six times hotter than the core of the sun, and can destroy the machines that produce them. This makes durability a big challenge in any fusion machine.

“You can do research projects for seconds or milliseconds, but a plant needs to last 40 years for it to be economical,” Twinney says. “So a durable machine is something that our approach enables, with liquid metal protecting the machine from neutron damage.”

The other advantage of the liquid metal blanket is that, since it gets extremely hot, the heat can be transferred with heat exchangers to drive steam turbines to produce electricity.

“We have been generating plasmas and sustaining them long enough that we feel confident that we have that box checked to move into this demonstration program,” Twinney says.

Building the demonstration project will take about five years, with commissioning to be done in stages. “We are in a new era for fusion energy,” says FIA CEO Andrew Holland. “We are on an accelerated schedule now. These companies are building this proof of concept machine now, then it moves to pilot plant. All this leads, we think, to our goal of fusion energy on the grid in the 2030s.”

Twinney says he thinks fusion power could be a reality even sooner than that. “This decade we will start to see commercial pilot plants built.”

WE WILL BE GOING BACK OUT TO MARKET LATER THIS YEAR TO DO A SERIES F ROUND OF CAPITAL. I EXPECT THAT IT WILL BE MORE THAN DOUBLE THAN WHAT WE RAISED IN THE SERIES E Greg Twinney CEO General Fusion