The federal Strategic Innovation Fund is providing the financing, an extension of a $49.3-million award to the Richmond, B.C.-based fusion power firm in October 2018. (The Logic)

Talking point: General Fusion is building its LM26 machine at about half the scale of a future commercial power-generation unit. The reactor is designed to demonstrate that the company’s setup can maintain a temperature of 100 million C in the hot-gas mix at its centre and generate more energy than it takes to produce. The ultimate goal is one some federal departments share: cheap, waste-free energy. The firm has also raised $28.5 million in equity funding and $5 million from the British Columbia government for the project. General Fusion was previously aiming for a bigger machine and a lot more federal money. It paused a planned US$400-million demo plant in the U.K., partly underwritten by the country’s nuclear agency. In November 2022, it asked Ottawa for $335 million to help with commercialization, including developing power-plant machinery.