It is the so-called “Saint Grail” of clean energy production: fusion power.
Fusion reactions are the same source as the power stars – where hydrogen atoms break and merge together in helium, creating a massive energy explosion.
Exploiting this power of use on Earth has long been a dream of scientists and engineers. And a British Columbia company says it has made a major step towards achieving the objective.
General Fusion, based in Richmond, has been working on technology for 16 years.
Last month, he has taken an important step in the work by successfully forming a “magnetized plasma” in his concept proof machine known as LM26, a massive device that seems to belong to the STARSHIP company’s machine room.
“This machine will demonstrate certain results that – once these results have been obtained – it is a very sure thing that we can build a power station,” said the director of sciences and founder, Michel Leberge.
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“For a long time, people have thought that fusion is simply a science fiction,” added CEO Greg Twinney. “We did the work to prove the opposite.”
The machine works by forming a hollow cavity inside a drop of magnetized liquid metal; The plasma is then injected into the cavity. This is what the team says that she has now achieved.
The “science fiction” stuff then come.
The machine is designed to then compress this magnetic liquid blob filled with increasingly small plasma. At a certain point, this intense thermal pressure will trigger a fusion reaction, causing neutrons that will overheat the liquid metal. As in a fission nuclear reactor, this heat would be used to create steam and power a turbine, generating electricity.
The company hopes to obtain plasma compression in a few weeks.
“This is the next great thing we have to demonstrate,” said Mike Donaldson, senior president vice of technological development.
“When we demonstrate it, we know the way to the power plant after that.”
The company aims to demonstrate the merger in a series of stage tests, first to a heat of 10 million degrees C (1KEV), then to 100 million C (10 KEV), and finally, to the “sale on a scientific scale” – the point where the reaction creates more energy than necessary to launch it and maintain it.
“Will it work? The more difficult it is, the more difficult it will be,” said Laberge.
The general merger is optimistic, it can reach the 10kev milestone by the end of 2026.
Science and engineering, of course, are a game of tests and errors and there is no guarantee that the company will reach these deadlines.
But there is no doubt that recent successes “pumped the team,” said CEO Twinney.
The company has considerably benefited from provincial and federal funding, including $ 69 million from the Federal Strategic Innovation Fund, but mainly based on private capital.
“We have been there for 20 years and we have always been pre -revenue – however, the mission is so important, the price is so big, that you continue to pass through this towards the final objective,” said Twinney.
“For us, the mission has always been the same: marketing the fusion energy, not just a scientific project, but to put fusion energy on the network for clean, abundant and unlimited energy.”
& Copy 2025 Global News, A Division of Corus Entertainment Inc.