$22 Million Boost for Unique Nuclear Fusion Reactor

Canadian nuclear fusion company General Fusion has received a critical lifeline with $22 million in funding from investors, allowing it to pursue key scientific milestones with its LM26 prototype.

Canadian nuclear fusion energy startup General Fusion has received $22 million in new funding from investors, providing a much-needed boost for the struggling company. To ease its financial difficulties, the company laid off at least 25% of its employees in May, and CEO Greg Twinney had issued a public call for support. The new funding will give General Fusion some breathing room.

Founded in 2002, General Fusion had previously raised $440 million before this round. Before disclosing its financial issues, the company had activated its Lawson Machine 26 (LM26) device, a half-scale prototype of a commercial-scale reactor. The new funding will give the company more time to reach key scientific milestones with the LM26.

A Different Approach to Fusion

General Fusion’s technology is based on a method from the 1970s: Magnetized Target Fusion. Inside the reactor, an electric current is passed through a deuterium-tritium fuel (heavy hydrogen isotopes) to create a magnetic field that contains the plasma. This plasma is then compressed by steam-powered pistons that push on a liquid lithium wall. This combination increases the temperature and pressure within the plasma to levels required to trigger a fusion reaction.

When the company activated the LM26 in March, it announced that the device would reach scientific breakeven in 2026. Scientific breakeven is a technical term where the energy produced by the fusion reaction equals the energy required to initiate it. This threshold is critical to proving the viability of the reactor design. However, the ultimate goal is to achieve commercial breakeven: for the fusion facility to produce more energy than it consumes and efficiently supply electricity to the grid.

As it moves toward this goal, General Fusion has set two intermediate targets: heating the plasma to 10 million and 100 million degrees Celsius. Given the limited size of the current funding, General Fusion is expected to focus on the most achievable goals to convince investors.

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