General Fusion: The Fusion Demonstration Plant : fusion
Nuclear fusion is a nuclear reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei collide together at a very high speed and form a new nucleus. For light elements like hydrogen or helium the fused nucleus weights less than the sum of the original nucleus. The missing mass is released as energy in accordance with Einstein's mass-energy equivalence equations. Fusion is the process that powers active or "main sequence" stars.
If nothing else, General Fusion wins the award for "Most Likely To Have Been Conceptualized As A Fever Dream". Like, I'm gonna spin up a tornado of molten metal and shoot a blast of hot plasma into the eye of the storm and then SMASH THE THING WITH A HUNDRED GIANT HAMMERS AND MAKE AN EXPLODING SUN.
There have been a lot of little changes over time in the concept. They switched away from a spheromak idea for holding the plasma in the central cavity and are using a central solenoid now, which is going to have to handle the strain if of getting squeezed by the compressing pistons. There's also the question of how well they can maintain a smooth outer wall when trying to squash the whole thing together while it's spinning around.
That said, I'm looking forward to seeing of they actually go through with building this demo plant. Even if it doesn't work it'd be really cool to see.
