Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for having me this evening. It's an honour to be able to discuss a visionary moonshot program with an all-party committee. I appreciate your time so late in the evening.
The problem that General Fusion seeks to solve is environmental. Our technology will produce electricity with zero emissions. By 2050 there will be a 265% increase in global electricity demand. In that same year, 33 countries, including Canada, have pledged to reach net zero in electricity production.
Although progress has been made introducing decarbonization strategies, the International Energy Agency reports that 50% of the reductions will likely come from technologies that have yet to be commercialized. This makes sense. We haven't had a new clean energy source introduced to the grid in a very long time.
A Canadian moonshot program should focus on bringing forward new energy sources, such as fusion. Fusion is the energy that powers the stars, when two hydrogen atoms fuse and release a neutron and helium. To harness that energy, we need to replicate the conditions of the sun on earth to achieve net energy.
There are primarily four reasons that fusion energy is hailed as the holy grail of energy.
One is that fusion fuel is abundant and energy-dense. Fuel is extracted from seawater. One kilogram of fuel is equivalent to 10,000 tonnes of coal.
Fusion is also carbon-free. There are no harmful atmospheric emissions from the fusion process.
Fusion can provide utility-scale energy on demand as well, making it an excellent complement to renewables and to battery storage.
Finally, fusion energy is also low risk. Fusion is the opposite of fission in many ways. It has a risk profile that is akin to medical isotopes and is both well understood and well regulated. It does not use special nuclear material; it does not have long-lived radioactive waste; and it does not have risk for criticality accidents.
Because of these benefits, our company, General Fusion, has been pursuing fusion energy since 2002. Since then we've secured over $300 million U.S. We currently employ over 200 people in Vancouver and have over 150 patents.
I'm not a technical expert, but I'll tell you how our technology works. We inject magnetized hydrogen plasma into a steel vessel that is coated with liquid lithium metal via centrifugal force. From there, high-powered pistons compress the liquid metal around the plasma into a perfect sphere, creating high temperatures and pressure. At that point, fusion occurs.
Our real game-changer and our competitive advantage compared with many of the other players is our proprietary liquid metal liner. This allows the machine to be protected from spinoff neutrons. At the same time, those neutrons interact with the liquid metal wall and produce tritium, which in essence is producing our own fuel supply. Third, the hot liquid metal then runs through a heat exchanger and produces electricity. Lastly, our use of mechanical compression with this liquid metal wall avoids the need for expensive magnets and high-powered lasers to sustain the fusion process. This results in a cost of electricity that is equivalent to coal.
Over the past 20 years, we have proven the core components of our system. We're now at the stage to assemble these together into our fusion demonstration program. In partnership with the UKAEA, we will build a prototype plant that will be 70% the scale of a commercial plant and located next to the record-breaking Joint European Torus at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy.
At the same time that we build this plant, our brain trust in Canada will remain busy building out the commercial maturation program. Our objective is to put energy on the grid by 2030. Within the past two years, a significant number of factors have converged that will make us very—