General Fusion

This week, The Debrief detailed our recent first plasma achievement in LM26: “Government leaders across Canada are considering this a huge milestone and a win in the global race for clean energy. Calling it a “made-in-Canada” innovation is once again putting Canada at the forefront and as leaders in clean energy technology.” Take a read: https://lnkd.in/gzP-S4VT

This week in London, our Founder and Chief Science Officer, Michel Laberge, joined 400 delegates at The Economist Fusion Fest. He sat down with Economist senior editor Oliver Morton for a discussion about our new LM26 machine and path to power using our practical Magnetized Target Fusion.  LM26 is targeting transformative technical milestones of 1 keV, 10 keV, and 100% Lawson – results that will make the move to a commercial power plant more straightforward than others as we’ve front-loaded the work to overcome the barriers to commercialization. Thank you, Economist Impact events, for hosting a great inaugural summit! 

We recently hosted Bill Reass—a renowned pulse power expert with over 50 years of experience in the field, including with top U.S. national labs and universities. He joined Blake Rablah, our Manager of Pulsed Power Systems, for a week in our lab as we prepare to compress plasmas in LM26 soon.  Did you know? Pulsed power is storing accumulated energy over time and discharging it rapidly for instantaneous power (like a lightning bolt ⚡).     Our MTF approach uses pulsed power in various applications:   ⚡ Ionizing the target gas to become a plasma   ⚡ Forcing the plasma into the target chamber of the plasma injector   ⚡ Generating the stabilizing magnetic field that helps keep our plasma confined   ⚡ Compressing the plasma via a conducting metal lithium liner Thank you for visiting and sharing your expertise with us, Bill!

“Its technology — called magnetized target fusion — is the most promising route to commercialize fusion.” Former Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith spoke with Bloomberg Vancouver bureau chief Thomas Seal about joining General Fusion as a strategic advisor. Read the exclusive: https://lnkd.in/gbprHbkk

📢 Today, we are thrilled to announce former Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith has joined us as a strategic advisor. “I’ve been watching the fusion energy industry closely for my entire career. Fusion is the last energy source humanity will ever need, and I believe its impact as a zero-carbon energy source will transform the global energy supply at the time needed to fight the worst consequences of climate change,” said Smith. “I am thrilled to work with General Fusion. Their novel approach has inherent and distinctive benefits for the generation of commercially competitive fusion power. It’s exciting to join at a time when the team is about to demonstrate the fundamental physics behind their system and move to scaling up to a pilot plant.” Bob joins General Fusion at a critical and exciting time in the demonstration of our practical MTF technology with our large-scale LM26 machine. He brings more than 35 years of experience developing, scaling, and launching world-changing technologies to our team. We are honoured to have him join us on the path to fusion commercialization! Read more: https://lnkd.in/gkTpMQa2

Find us next week at The Economist Fusion Fest in London, the first fusion-focused forum hosted by Economist Impact events! Our Founder and Chief Science Officer, Michel Laberge, will join senior science & technology editor Geoffrey Carr for a fireside chat—delving into one of the industry’s critical next steps on the path to powering the grid with zero-carbon electricity: transitioning from fusion demonstration machines to real-world power plants. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/duPVPruV

With General Fusion’s LM26, B.C. and Canada are leading in the global race to commercialize zero-carbon #fusionenergy. As Global News' Aaron McArthur reports, we are “on the cusp of creating something that could change the world!” Aaron highlights our deep ties to local universities and manufacturers who have supported our technology development journey. These collaborations also supported us in bringing LM26 online within just 16 months—a testament to the local innovation ecosystem and how fast we can build game-changing tech! Watch: https://lnkd.in/gNrW4h4r

Measuring success with experts from around the world 🌍    We were thrilled to host diagnostic experts from the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) this week to continue our collaboration on LM26’s cutting-edge diagnostic system that will precisely measure the performance of the machine to key temperature thresholds of 1 keV, 10 keV and, ultimately, scientific breakeven equivalent.     We’re working with the UKAEA, TRIUMF, Simon Fraser University, and others to develop a robust system for LM26 spanning magnetic sensors, neutron detectors, spectroscopy, and laser-based diagnostics. In development are state-of-the-art Thomson scattering, interferometer, neutron spectrometer, and other critical devices. These diagnostics will provide the data we need to verify our results through third-party expert validation and peer-reviewed publication.     When LM26 begins compressing plasmas soon, we’ll measure ion temperature from neutron counting, neutron yield, electron temperature from absolute extreme ultraviolet (AXUV) diodes, electron density from interferometers, plasma stability from magnetic probes, liner collapse symmetry with lasers and high-speed cameras, and ion temperature from an ion Doppler spectrometer. These measurements will verify the machine’s initial performance and plasma heating to our 10+ million degrees Celsius milestone.    Thank you, Alexandru Boboc, Richard Martin, Sam Blackmore, and Charles Vincent, for sharing your extensive fusion diagnostic expertise with our team. We are honoured to have the UKAEA's continued support on our path to commercializing our practical MTF technology!

New peer-reviewed results published in Nuclear Fusion confirm General Fusion has successfully created magnetized plasmas that exceed the energy confinement time required for our LM26 large-scale fusion demonstration machine! General Fusion's PI3 plasma injector - now integrated into LM26 - achieved energy confinement times exceeding 10 milliseconds without needing active magnetic stabilization or auxiliary heating. A 10-millisecond energy confinement time is required to compress plasmas in LM26 to achieve key temperature thresholds of 1 keV, 10 keV, and ultimately, scientific breakeven equivalent (100% Lawson). Additionally, the maximum energy confinement time achieved by PI3 was approximately 12 milliseconds. The machine’s maximum plasma density was approximately 6x10^19 m^-3, and maximum plasma temperatures exceeded 400 eV. These strong pre-compression results support LM26’s transformative targets! Read our full announcement 👉 https://lnkd.in/gRdrtemN See the open-access paper 👉 https://lnkd.in/gRtT3w-7)

We are honoured to have Antonius Donné, one of the world’s foremost fusion experts with nearly 40 years in the field, chair our Science & Technology Advisory Committee (STAC). Tony is the former CEO of EUROfusion, where he coordinated the work of 5,000 scientists. Today, he leads our STAC in examining the technical plans and results from LM26 and advising the company as it charts its path to commercialization. Watch his remarks at our recent LM26 ribbon-cutting event: