General Fusion’s recent achievement marks a historic breakthrough in the race toward practical fusion energy. It’s the so-called “holy grail” of clean energy production: fusion power.

Fusion reactions are the same source that powers stars — where hydrogen atoms smash and fuse into helium, creating a massive blast of energy.

Harnessing that power for use on Earth has long been a dream of scientists and engineers. One B.C. company says it has taken a significant step towards achieving its goal.

Richmond-based General Fusion has been developing this technology for 16 years.

Last month, it achieved a significant milestone in its work by successfully forming a “magnetized plasma” inside its proof-of-concept machine, known as LM26. This massive device resembles the engine room of the Starship Enterprise.

“This machine will demonstrate some results that, once achieved, it’s a very sure thing that 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 content follows next.

The machine is designed to compress that plasma-filled, magnetized liquid blob smaller and smaller. At a certain point, the intense heat pressure will trigger a fusion reaction, releasing neutrons that will superheat the liquid metal. Similar to a fission nuclear reactor, the 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 Mike Donaldson, Senior Vice President of Technology Development.

“When we demonstrate that, we know the path to the power plant.”

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 10 keV milestone by the end of 2026.

Science and engineering, of course, are a game of trial and error, and there is no guarantee that the company will meet those timelines.

But there’s no question recent successes have the team “pumped,” said CEO Twinney.

The company has benefited significantly from provincial and federal funding, including $69 million from the federal Strategic Innovation Fund; however, it has primarily relied on private capital.

“We’ve been around for 20 years, and we are still pre-revenue; however, the mission is so important, and the prize is so big, that you continue to move forward toward 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.”

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