Armed with new funding awards from the U.S. Department of Energy, General Fusion will advance its Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) technology for use in commercial fusion power plants. The Vancouver, Canada-based company is collaborating with the U.S. Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to scale up and commercialize its approach to fusion-based power generation.

Development efforts focus on General Fusion’s Fusion Demonstration Plant, the world’s first power plant-relevant, large-scale MTF prototype. In this system, a magnetized plasma target formed into a liquid metalThe MTF is slated to begin operating in 2027. Source: General Fusion flux conserver (liner) is rapidly compressed to fusion conditions. At peak compression a fast burst of fusion is created. A proprietary lead-lithium liquid metal wall surrounds the fusion plasma and is designed with a low start-up tritium fuel requirement and an advantageous breeding ratio to produce sufficient quantities of tritium fuel to sustain the fusion process.

Through the partnership with SRNL, General Fusion will model its tritium fuel cycle and the total inventory of tritium required for a future commercial power plant. The research initiative with ORNL is expected to enhance open plasma modeling tools and enable a powerful approach to efficient modeling of General Fusion’s fusion machine. Tapping into the laboratory’s supercomputing capabilities, this work will enable high-fidelity study of the planned demonstration plant.