INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
General Fusion laid off at least 25% of its employees last week, just days after hitting a key milestone for its latest fusion demonstration
It has raised $440 million, according to PitchBook, including a $22.66 million round that closed in July
Backers include Jeff Bezos, Temasek, and BDC Capital
the challenges that face the fusion industry.To date, only one device has been able to hit so-called scientific breakeven, a milestone
To hit commercial breakeven, reactors need to produce dozens of times more energy than has been demonstrated so far.The road to those
milestones has proven extraordinarily costly
Commonwealth Fusion Systems has raised over $2 billion, Helion has pulled in over $1 billion, and upstart Pacific Fusion has been pledged
The former uses magnetic fields to control plasma, squeezing it until it reaches the conditions for nuclei to fuse
The latter approach typically uses lasers to compress a fuel pellet.General Fusion, on the other hand, has been trying to use steam-driven
pistons to compress fusion fuel
The United States Navy tried something similar in the 1970s to no avail, but General Fusion thinks that modern computers could solve some
of the timing problems that plagued earlier attempts
