british columbia canada key people nathan gilliland ceo ; michel laberge ph.d. physics founder cso products nuclear fusion development website general fusion home page general fusion is a canadian company based in burnaby british columbia which was created for the development of fusion power based on magnetized target fusion mtf . 1 2 3 as of 2015 update they were developing subsystems for use in a prototype to be built later . 4 the company is funded by a variety of investors including chrysalix venture capital the business development bank of canada a canadian crown corporation bezos expeditions cenovus energy growthworks capital khazanah nasional a malaysian sovereign wealth fund and sustainable development technology canada . 5 contents 1 funding 2 design 3 see also 4 references 5 external links funding edit chrysalix energy venture capital a vancouver based venture capital firm led a c 1.2 million seed round of financing for general fusion in 2007 . 2 6 7 as of 2011 update general fusion remained in chrysalix portfolio . 8 other canadian venture capital firms that participated in the seed round were growthworks capital and bdc venture capital . in 2009 a consortium led by general fusion was awarded c 13.9 million by sustainable development technology canada sdtc to conduct a four year research project on acoustically driven magnetized target fusion ; 9 sdtc is a foundation established by the canadian government . 10 the other members of the consortium are los alamos national laboratory and powertech labs inc. 9 as of 2013 update general fusion had received 45 million in venture capital and 10 million in government funding . 11 in may 2015 the government of malaysia invested 27 million . 12 design edit diagram of the general fusion reactor general fusion uses a 3 metre diameter spherical tank filled with liquid metal lead lithium mixture . the liquid is spun to open up a vertical cylindrical cavity in the centre of the sphere vortex . this vortex flow is established and maintained by an external pumping system ; the liquid flows into the sphere through tangentially directed ports at the equator and is pumped out radially through ports near the poles of the sphere . the two five metre long conical injectors are attached to opposite ends of the tank . they use nearly 200 capacitors that were recycled from an old laser fusion experiment in los alamos . they are used to inject a few milligrams of hydrogen gas at a time . 13 the gas forms spheromaks self confined magnetized plasma rings composed of the deuterium tritium fuel . 14 they have reached 200 ev and expect ultimately to exceed 600 ev . 13 the spheromaks merge in the centre of the sphere to form a single magnetized plasma target . 14 the outside of the sphere is covered with 300 pneumatic rams . 13 the rams use compressed gas to accelerate their associated pistons to 50 m s. these pistons simultaneously impact a set of stationary anvil pistons at the surface of the sphere which collectively launch a high pressure spherical compression wave into the liquid metal . as the wave travels and focuses towards the centre it becomes stronger and evolves into a strong shock wave . when the shock arrives in the centre it rapidly collapses the cavity with the plasma in it . 15 at maximum compression the conditions for fusion are briefly met and a fusion burst occurs releasing its energy in fast neutrons . the neutrons are slowed down by the liquid metal causing it to heat up . a heat exchanger transfers that heat to a standard steam cycle turbo alternator to produce electricity . 15 some of the steam is used to run the rams . the lithium in the liquid metal finally absorbs the neutrons and produces tritium that is extracted and used as fuel for subsequent shots . this cycle is repeated about one time per second . 15 in 2015 the company paid a 20 000 prize for a crowdsourced robust seal technology capable of withstanding extreme temperatures and repetitive hammering so as to isolate the rams from the liquid metal that fills the fusion reactor . 13 see also edit polywell references edit this machine might save the world josh dean popular science 23 december 2008 a b looking for a net gain in the energy sector tyler hamilton toronto star 20 april 2009 garage scientist aims to thwart opec nathan vanderklippe financial post 16 november 2007 general fusion rethink fusion . www.generalfusion.com . retrieved 2015 08 22 . company investors . generalfusion.com . retrieved sep 18 2015 . more money for fusion energy michael kanellos cnet news.com 5 september 2007 chrysalix is funded by a number of investors including several energy firms ; its investors are listed on chrysalix website general fusion . chrysalix.com . retrieved nov 9 2011 . a b sustainable development technology canada . round 13 funded projects . retrieved 9 nov 2011 . press release . media backgrounder sustainable development technology canada . sdtc website . retrieved 9 nov 2011 . bartel mario jan 2 2014 . where are they now general fusion gets closer to the sun . burnaby newsleader . retrieved jan 1 2014 . next big future malaysia invests 27 million in canada s general fusion startup who will begin building full scale prototype in 2017 . nextbigfuture.com . retrieved 2015 08 22 . a b c d next big future general fusion successfully crowdsourced an engineering solution to a problem on their nuclear fusion project . nextbigfuture.com . retrieved 2015 08 22 . a b brown mark 2011 11 30 . canadian firm general fusion plans prototype nuclear fusion test for 2014 . wired . wired . retrieved 2015 03 02 . a b c general fusion s approach . archived from the original on mar 8 2010 . retrieved dec 9 2009 . external links edit general fusion inc. website magnetized target fusion at los alamos national laboratories a guide to new nuclear in greentech media richard harris 2011 11 09 . power for the planet company bets big on fusion . national public radio . nature news feature plasma physics the fusion upstarts in nature journal retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title general fusion & oldid 735289505 categories fusion powertechnology companies of canadaengineering companies of canadacompanies based in burnabyhidden categories use dmy dates from july 2013articles containing potentially dated statements from 2015all articles containing potentially dated statementsarticles containing potentially dated statements from 2011articles containing potentially dated statements from 2013 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 19 august 2016 at 19 14 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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