Fusion always seems to be ten years away. Are we getting closer?
The time for fusion is now. Because of the promise that fusion offers for emissions-free, baseload power, with none of the challenges that we see with other types of energy, there has been some impatience for the technology to be available! However, the past few decades leading up to this moment have been well spent, and General Fusion’s technology is positioned for commercialization by the early 2030s.
Speaking about General Fusion specifically, we were founded 20 years ago. During this time, we have significantly advanced our technology and leveraged enabling tools like supercomputing, high-speed digital controls and 3D printing, that were not available decades ago but are now helping to accelerate fusion technology development. We are on the cusp of demonstrating that our unique approach to commercial fusion energy works at power-plant relevant scale and can be made available within a decade.
You announced a breakthrough discovery in February; can you tell us more about it and what makes it game changing?
The announcement early this year highlighted an achievement that’s just one part of the progress we’ve made in recent years. Without getting too technical, our technology consists of three components: good plasma, good compression, and fusion stability—meaning increased neutron yield and temperature under compression. This recent technical achievement showed that we can precisely and symmetrically compress our liquid metal wall in tens of milliseconds, which is critical to the compression component of our technology. But we have accelerated our technology along all three of these fronts over the last five years, which gives us great confidence in the fusion demonstration we have planned to start construction in the UK early next year. This demonstration is our springboard to commercialization; it should validate and inform all of the results from our large-scale test beds and prototypes, allowing us to finalise a commercial power plant design.
From the start, our goal has been to not only achieve fusion, which we first achieved at General Fusion in 2005, but to produce commercial electricity from fusion. With that in mind, we designed our approach to fusion to avoid all of the problems that other fusion companies face and make fusion practical and affordable.
For instance, we use a proprietary liquid metal wall that protects our machine from neutrons. Without the protection from the liquid metal, machines are subject to neutron degradation, which makes them less durable. The liquid metal wall also allows us to get the heat out of the machine, then transform the heat into steam to create electricity. Other approaches are still struggling to find a practical way to remove heat from the fusion machine. Finally, our technology is fairly simple and similar to the pistons in a diesel engine, bypassing the need for high-cost components such as superconducting magnets or high-power lasers.
What effect do you anticipate fusion will have on the energy landscape?
The wonderful thing about fusion is that it produces no long-term radioactive waste and can be regulated like a hospital or industrial facility, which opens up a vast landscape for its possible locations. Our goal is to install our fusion machines at every retired coal plant site around the world; with the right investment and commercialization focus, this has the potential to completely transform our energy landscape.
There will always be a place for wind or solar, we need a lot of arrows in our quiver, but once fusion is commercialised I do think it will become what coal plants were to the 1900s--the baseload power for the next century and beyond.
Speaking of investment, how do you prefer to fund your efforts?
We have successfully supported our efforts over the past 20 years through external financing as well as government support (in the US, Canada and the UK) and envision a similar approach going forward. We take a multiphase approach to financing - we already have very committed shareholders, and as we demonstrate key parts of our technology, we will continue to expand our investor base in a responsible way.
We are at a tipping point in terms of investor interest; in the last few years, approximately USD 5 billion has been invested in the fusion industry. We are beginning to see the same enthusiasm you would have seen for solar and wind a decade or two ago, which is critical to our success.
Are you optimistic about reaching the climate targets laid out for 2050?
With commercial fusion power available, we will undoubtedly meet our 2050 targets - at General Fusion, we are on track to begin commercialising our technology in the early 2030’s.
