It’s the so-called “holy grail” of clean energy production: fusion power.
Fusion reactions are the same source that power stars — where hydrogen atoms smash and fuse together into helium, creating a massive blast of energy.
Harnessing that power for use on Earth has long been a dream of scientists and engineers. And one B.C. company says it’s taken a major step towards achieving the goal.
Richmond-based General Fusion has been working on the technology for 16 years.
Last month, it achieved a major milestone in the work by successfully forming a “magnetized plasma” inside its proof-of-concept machine known as LM26, a massive device that looks like it belongs in the engine room of the Starship Enterprise.
“This machine will demonstrate some results that — after those results are achieved — it’s a very sure thing we can build a power plant out of it,” chief science officer and founder Michel Leberge said.
“For a long time, people have thought that fusion is simply science fiction,” added CEO Greg Twinney. “We have been doing the work to prove otherwise.”
The machine works by forming a hollow cavity inside a blob of magnetized, liquid metal; plasma is then injected into the cavity. That’s what the team says they’ve now achieved.
The “science fiction” stuff comes next.
The machine is designed to then compress that plasma-filled, magnetized liquid blob smaller and smaller. At a certain point, that intense heat pressure will trigger a fusion reaction, firing out neutrons that will superheat the liquid metal. Like in a fission nuclear reactor, that heat would be used to create steam and power a turbine, generating electricity.
The company is hoping to achieve plasma compression within weeks.
“It’s the next big thing we need to demonstrate,” said senior-vice president of technology development, Mike Donaldson.
“When we demonstrate that, we know the path to the power plant after that.”
The company aims to demonstrate fusion in a series of milestone tests, first at a heat of 10 million degrees C (1keV), then at 100 million C (10keV), and eventually, at “scientific breakeven” — the point when the reaction creates more energy than is needed to initiate and sustain it.
“Will it work? The higher the target the more difficult it will be,” Laberge said.
General Fusion is optimistic it can hit the 10keV milestone by the end of 2026.
Science and engineering, of course, are a game of trial and error and there’s no guarantee the company will hit those timelines.
But there’s no question recent successes have the team “pumped,” said CEO Twinney.
The company has benefitted significantly from provincial and federal funding, including $69 million from the federal Strategic Innovation Fund, though has relied primarily on private capital.
“We’ve been around for 20 years and we are still pre-revenue — however, the mission is so important, the prize is so big, that you continue to move through this towards the end goal,” Twinney said.
“For us, the mission has always been the same: commercialize fusion energy, not just a science project, but to put fusion energy on the grid for clean, abundant, limitless energy.”