General Fusion launches its latest Steampunk Fusion reactor

General synthesis On Tuesday, he announced that he had successfully created a plasma, an overheated fourth state of matter needed for merger, inside the prototype reactor. The main stone marks the beginning of a 93-week desire to prove that the Stimpank approach to the Fusion Power outfit remains a viable contender.

The reactor called Lawson Machine 26 (LM26) is General synthesisThe latest iteration in a number of devices that have tested different parts of its unique approach. The company assembled LM26 in just 16 months and hopes to hit Breaken sometime in 2026.

The total synthesis is one of the oldest Fusion Companies It still works. Founded in 2002, it has raised $ 440 million so far, according to Pitchbook. During this time he saw competitors rise and fall and, like Lig Lice Fusion, he failed to fulfill Breaken’s promises, including one made More than 20 years agoS

There are two points in Fusion Power that says the reaction is said. The only one that most people think of is called commercial breakthrough. Then the merger reaction produces more power than it consumes the entire facility, which allows the power plant to put electricity on the grid. No one has reached this milestone yet.

The other is known as Scientific Breaken. In this case, the merger reaction should produce at least as much power as it was delivered directly to the fuel. Scientific Breaken looks only within the limits of the experimental system, ignoring the rest of the facility. However, this is an important stage for any synthesis attempt. So far only the National Finance Facility of the US Department of Energy has reachedS

The General Fusion approach to Fusion Power differs significantly from other start -ups. Called Magnetized target merger (MTF), it is similar in some respects of inertial detention, the technique that the national ignition facility used in At the end of 2022 To prove that synthesis reactions can generate more power than it was required to start them.

But when the National ignition facility uses lasers to compress the fuel pellet, the design of the MTF reactor of General Fusion relies on steam -controlled pistons. Inside the camera, the deuterium fuel is closed with a little electricity to generate a magnetic field, which helps to maintain the plasma containing. The pistons then drive a liquid lithium wall inwards on the plasma, compressing it.

As the fuel is compressed, its temperature rises until it causes a synthesis reaction. The reaction then heats the liquid lithium that the company plans to circulate through a heat exchanger to create steam and rotate a generator.

Appeared mtf In the 70’s The US Navy Research Laboratory, where researchers develop concepts of compact synthesis reactors. These efforts did not produce fruit. General Fusion says this is because the pistons compressing the liquid lining have not been accurately controlled and that modern computers now provide a bigger chance of performing complex choreography.

Whatever LM26 achieves, General Fusion still has more work. The device does not have the liquid lithium wall, instead it relies on a solid lithium compressed by electromagnets. This limits the number of test numbers that the company may take as it takes longer to reset the device. The company has made progress On the prototype of the liquid wall, performing over 1000 tests to see how it lingers over time, but integrating everything will still be a monumental engineering challenge.

Turning the LM26 switch is still a significant step for a company that is now competing to deliver a power plant with many newcomers with its own Deep pocket books and aggressive deadlines.