BIV MAGAZINE
18 | BIV MAGAZINE: BC TECH ISSUE 2022 PUBLISHED BY BUSINESS IN VANCOUVER
BOTTLING THE SUN
Fusion energy companies mark significant milestones on path to harness the power of the sun NELSON BENNETT
W
hen Burnaby-based General Fusion was founded in 2002, it was one of only three private startups chasing the Holy Grail of clean energy – fusion power.
Today there are 33, according to the Fusion Industry Association (FIA). That’s on top of large fusion research projects, like the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in France, Joint European Torus (JET) in the U.K. and National Ignition Facility in the U.S. Of the US$5 billion that private fusion companies have raised to date, US$2.8 billion of that was raised just in the last year, according to the FIA. “When the history books are written about fusion energy, the last 12 months will be seen as the turning point when it became clear that fusion would move out of the laboratories and into the marketplace,” the FIA says in its 2022 industry survey. In November 2021, General Fusion closed a US$130 million Series E funding round that was US$10 million oversubscribed. “The goal was, of course, to raise capital,” says Greg Twinney, who moved from CFO to CEO in July. “An almost equally important goal was to bring on the right types of investors – ones that would be able to take us from where we were previously funded through VCs [venture capital firms] and whatnot and bring on big global investors.” Those Series E investors include Singapore’s Temasek,
the Jameel Investment Management Co., and the Business Development Bank of Canada. “Those types of investors are ones that have a long view and have the types of capital we need to execute the program,” Twinney says.“We will be going back out to market later this year to do a Series F round of capital. I expect that it will be more than double than what we raised in the Series E.” General Fusion has marked some important technical and business milestones in the last 12 months, as have other fusion projects. The company’s headcount has increased from 60 to 200 and it is on the move in two directions. The company is in the process of moving its headquarters from Burnaby to Sea Island, and it has begun site preparation for a demonstration machine in the U.K. The demonstration project is being built in partnership with the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, which is the site of the JET fusion experimental reactor. “That’s where recently one of their machines, one of the largest longest running machines in the world – JET (Joint European Torus) – hit a world record,” Twinney says. “We’re actually building our machine right beside theirs. That machine’s going to be our step-out from the