Vancouver-based General Fusion to go public in first-of-its-kind fusion energy deal
After recent major technological advances worldwide, fusion is widely viewed as a potential clean energy breakthrough because it does not produce carbon emissions and uses small amounts of fuel, but it has proven difficult to make work at a commercial scale for conventional use.
General Fusion’s approach avoids some of the extremely complex and expensive equipment used by other fusion projects that need superconducting magnets or high-powered lasers. Instead, the company uses magnetized target fusion technology, with a machine that squeezes super-hot gas, known as plasma, with liquid metal in an effort to trigger fusion reactions.
That machine, called Lawson Machine 26 (LM26), began operating last year at the research hub at Vancouver’s airport and is roughly half the size of what a commercial power system would require. The company says it will use the money from the public listing to continue improving the machine and proving that the technology can eventually generate usable electricity.
“General Fusion has a 20-year track record of creating and advancing the fusion technologies that we believe will address one of humanity’s biggest challenges: meeting the urgent and growing demand for energy while delivering clean, sustainable, reliable baseload power,” said Greg Twinney, CEO of General Fusion, in a statement today.
“The fusion era is now, and we’ve ushered it in through decades of innovation and teamwork. That’s what’s made us one of only a handful of private fusion companies with real-world, meaningful fusion results on the path to commercial viability and why we’re set to become the world’s first publicly traded pure-play fusion company. This announcement and Private Investment in Public Entity (PIPE) financing are the next step in our journey to bringing fusion energy to the grid.”
Moving forward, General Fusion will continue to operate from Metro Vancouver and will remain led by Twinney and its existing management team following the transaction.
Before announcing the deal, General Fusion had already raised more than US$400 million (C$550 million) from investors — including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — as well as industry partners, and government funding programs in jurisdictions such as Canada and the United Kingdom, where the company intends to eventually achieve a demonstration plant at 70 per cent of the scale needed for commercialization.
Construction on the U.K. project was expected to begin as early as 2023 for a completion in 2026/2027. But in 2023, the company put those plans on hold, and instead proceeded with an additional, smaller trial to bridge the gap before reconsidering the larger-scale experiment at a substantial cost.
The performance of the existing LM26 machine — the smaller trial — at the company’s facility at Vancouver’s airport could determine whether the substantially more ambitious U.K. project proceeds.
The company holds more than 200 patents related to its technology.
Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III is an investment firm that specializes in energy and clean-technology companies.
“Demand for energy is skyrocketing, and the power sources available to us today aren’t up to the task. We strongly believe fusion is going to play a key role in our future,” said Chris Sorrells, chairman and CEO of Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III.
“When we looked at the players in the space, General Fusion was an easy choice for us, because we believe this company has both the technology in LM26 and the team that’s needed to reach commercialization and bring the world’s energy grids into the future.”
The announcement comes as electricity use continues to rise around the world, driven by battery-electric vehicles, the electrification of building systems, new data centres, and growing demand for power-hungry technologies, including artificial intelligence.
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