181 - The Future of Fusion: Insights from Insiders at MIT and Kyoto Fusioneering

Join us on this groundbreaking episode of "The Insiders' Guide to Energy," where we delve into the cutting-edge world of nuclear fusion energy with two remarkable guests. David Cohen-Tanugi, a Venture Builder for Clean Energy at MIT, and Richard Pearson, Chief Innovator and UK Director at Kyoto Fusioneering, come together to discuss the transformative potential and current advancements in fusion technology.

David, from MIT’s Proto Ventures sheds light on how fusion energy, long considered a scientific curiosity, is now transitioning towards viable commercial applications. His work at MIT involves bridging innovative research with real-world energy solutions, aiming to create startups that could revolutionize our energy systems. The conversation explores how MIT is nurturing ventures that address critical gaps in the fusion supply chain and technology ecosystem.

On the other hand, Richard from Kyoto Fusioneering brings a practical perspective from the industry frontline, focusing on the engineering challenges and system-level innovations necessary for fusion energy. His insights on the role of Kyoto Fusioneering in developing technologies that support the fusion process highlight the collaborative efforts needed to make fusion a reality.

Throughout the discussion, both guests discuss the collaborative report they've contributed to, which serves as a guide for entrepreneurs and investors interested in fusion energy. This report outlines the vast opportunities in the burgeoning fusion industry, emphasizing the need for a robust ecosystem of technologies and services to support fusion’s commercial viability.

This episode is not just a technical discussion but a visionary exploration of how fusion energy could become a cornerstone of our sustainable energy future. Whether you’re an energy professional, an investor, or simply a science enthusiast, this conversation will provide valuable insights into the exciting developments that might soon power our world.

Tune in to learn more about the future of energy on InsidersGuideToEnergy.com

Chapters

• 2:00 What led to the MIT and Kyoto fusion collaboration?
• 6:53 How was the first of its kind "Enabling Commercial Fusion" report conceived?
• 14:40 How can one quantify the ecosystem needed to achieve fusion by 2030?
• 20:00 What are some of the unconventional ways needed to achieve fusion?
• 30:00 A Summary of how fusion works!
• 34:45 What is leading industry insiders to be optimistic about large scale fusion by 2030

Transcript

00:00:00 David Cohen-Tanugi 

The ways that fusion is currently a. 

00:00:06 David Cohen-Tanugi 

You know, immature early stage emerging industry comprised mostly of vertical integrators and that there's a tremendous need and tremendous opportunity for a more mature, more well-rounded kind of supply chain and eco. 

00:00:21 David Cohen-Tanugi 

System of vendors, suppliers, original equipment manufacturers and so on and so forth across everything from materials to components to consumables to systems and subsystems to software and human and financial services. Basically, across every single piece of the industry, there are places for corporations, entrepreneurs, investors. 

00:00:41 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Researchers to make a difference and that I think is the message that has not been heard enough. 

00:00:52 Chris Sass 

Your trusted source for information on the energy transition. This sadistic insiders guide to energy podcast. 

00:01:05 Chris Sass 

Welcome to another edition of the Insiders Guide to Energy. I'm your host Chris Sass, and with me is co-host Jeff McCauley. Jeff, what do we have happening today? 

00:01:12 Jeff McAulay 

It's about time to talk about nuclear fusion, and this is such a big topic. We have two guests joining us today, not just to talk about the innovations enabling fusion, but the systems of enabling innovation in fusion, which is super meta and I'm really excited to dig in. 

00:01:33 Jeff McAulay 

With our two guests today. 

00:01:35 Jeff McAulay 

We've got David David Cohen, tenugui venture builder at MIT, as part of Proto Ventures, and Richard Pearson, co-founder and chief Innovator and UK director at Kyoto Fusion. Neering, who gets the title for longest title so far. I think we've had on the show. David. Richard, welcome. 

00:01:55 Jeff McAulay 

We're so thrilled to have you here. 

00:01:56 Richard Pearson 

Yeah. Thanks for. 

00:01:57 

Yes. 

00:01:58 David Cohen-Tanugi 

It's good to be here. 

00:02:00 Jeff McAulay 

So first of all, this is a new a new program out of MIT, Proto Ventures. We want to hear a little bit about what that is, David, and then maybe how you first came to collaborate with Richard and we'll dive into fusion from there. 

00:02:18 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Excellent. Well, I'm very happy to start. So just a little bit about myself for background, I'm a climate tech entrepreneur. I did my PhD in material science and engineering, actually right here at MIT about a decade ago. 

00:02:29 David Cohen-Tanugi 

And I've worked on technology commercialization ever since out of grad school, I co-founded a startup called Amber Labs together with some classmates. Then I went on to lead the automation team at a virtual power plant startup called Connect. And so now I lead the clean energy efforts for MIT Pro adventures. 

00:02:47 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Proto Ventures as Mitt's in-house venture studio. To our knowledge, the first of its kind program within any university. Basically what we do is we create new projects within the university that have the potential to change the world of energy and to become successful startups. So we do that. 

00:03:07 David Cohen-Tanugi 

I. 

00:03:08 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Mining technologies and ideas and people that we see on the MIT campus with real world pressing commercial needs in the clean energy sector. 

00:03:20 David Cohen-Tanugi 

We had a first channel focused on AI and healthcare a few years ago that resulted in the creation of two companies and for the last year or so we have really been laser focused. 

00:03:31 David Cohen-Tanugi 

On innovations in the clean energy sector, we do this primarily in collaboration with the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, which is a major Research Center on the MIT campus that works primarily on fusion, but really touches innovations and and areas of science and engineering that have potential in applications for other parts of clean energy. 

00:03:52 David Cohen-Tanugi 

So it's your question, Jeff. I originally met Richard as part of the community of Fusion. 

00:04:00 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Energy commercialization folks who across universities and startups and now increasingly large corporations, are really trying to see how we might make fusion energy a reality at scale. 

00:04:18 Jeff McAulay 

Wonderful. And and Richard, tell us a little bit about your background and and. 

00:04:23 Jeff McAulay 

How you came to meet David and why you're contributing to an MIT project across town. 

00:04:27 Richard Pearson 

Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, I am upon, I'm British, I guess a bit about me as I, I started life as a mechanical engineer, but then went on to study nuclear engineering at Imperial College, where I got my masters. 

00:04:38 Richard Pearson 

Degree. 

00:04:40 Richard Pearson 

I then went on to complete a PhD in Fusion Engineering and innovation, and that was at the Open University in the UK. 

00:04:47 Richard Pearson 

And my expertise there is broadly on fusion engineering and innovation, but really my central focus was sort of around systems thinking on fusion commercialisation specific. 

00:04:57 Richard Pearson 

I still hold a couple of visiting research positions and a field editor position at a journal, so still engage very much in in that area as well and that sort of is how I How I Met and came across David. So I've been aware of David's work for a for a little while now and we thought very similarly. So a lot of the work that David did going into the report. 

00:05:17 Richard Pearson 

That I think we'll get into a little later was very much dovetail with with what the work I was doing and also overlapped heavily with the thinking and the way that I I viewed the fusion. 

00:05:27 Richard Pearson 

World, should we say? 

00:05:29 Richard Pearson 

UM, my role. So in 2019, just as I was finishing my PhD, I started a fusion company in Japan. Now that's a whole another story. How a British person in Britain started a company in Japan, or rather co-founded a company in Japan. But essentially what we do is we we, we're a privately funded fusion company, we've raised. 

00:05:49 Richard Pearson 

I think around about 100 million U.S. dollars equivalent now in capital and we are a bit different in the sense that if you think about fusion, which I'm again, I think we're probably going to have to take a step back at some point to talk about what fusion is. But if you think about Fusion as being like a star in a jar. 

00:06:06 Richard Pearson 

Most of the organizations you hear about are focusing primarily on the star and sort of we'll build out to the to the jar, but we're focused on making the star work by designing systems and technologies that that go into the jar. And again, we can get into the specifics of that a little later. But our mission is kind of to unlock the potential of fusion. 

00:06:25 Richard Pearson 

By enabling the sector to deliver that ultimate energy source that is fusion, and as you said at the top of the call, I have three titles. 

00:06:34 Richard Pearson 

UMUK director I managed the UK team trying to grow us over here, but my chief innovator role is really a technology to market kind of role. So looking at product productization trying to think around how we foster those relationships that ultimately result in the new collaborations partnerships and yeah supporting the the cutting edge fusion. 

00:06:52 Richard Pearson 

Sector. 

00:06:54 Jeff McAulay 

This is wonderful, and so I I want to dive into this report that you've highlighted. It's enabling commercial fusion venture and technology opportunities for our growing fusion industry. This is possibly one of the. 

00:07:07 Jeff McAulay 

Best technical reports I've ever read. It is accessible. It's bite size. It's breaking down an extremely complex topic into accessible areas. It's basically what I would call the the innovators guide to Fusion. So if you're an entrepreneur or a system thinker and you're looking for ways to contribute. 

00:07:29 Jeff McAulay 

To fusion commercialization, this is your guidebook of where to start. It actually borders on industrial policy and it's one of the more comprehensive documents I've seen. If this was coming from any other source, if it was coming from a national lab, it would probably be 300 pages. But it's it's very accessible. 

00:07:49 Jeff McAulay 

And what stands out to me is exactly what you were highlighting Richard, which is when people think about Fusion, they think about the. 

00:07:56 Jeff McAulay 

Is groundbreaking science experiments in a lab somewhere that's either using magnets or lasers or this or that just to show, hey, you know, we can get break even energy for one femtosecond or or or something. What's really exciting about this report is that it really is treating fusion as a system. 

00:08:16 Jeff McAulay 

And a commercial system that needs multiple technologies to work for it to reach commercialization. So I've I've said enough glowing praise about this report, but I I think this highlights and and David I want to ask. 

00:08:32 Jeff McAulay 

You how was this conceived of as the output? Because most venture studios don't have this kind of overarching industrial policy in mind when they start. Was there a template or or or or something that you were starting from that led you to? 

00:08:50 Jeff McAulay 

To envision this report. 

00:08:53 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Well, thank you for. Thank you for the kind words, Jeff. Uh, I'll just first say uh, this report was a a lot of fun and a really great collaboration between a lot of highly expert and talented people. Definitely more knowledge, people who are much more talented and intelligent and knowledgeable than I am. So if anything, I just coordinated a bunch of folks and and kind of helped. 

00:09:15 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Go from an idea to reality. OK, So what is this all about? And to your question, Jeff, how does Adventure Studio inside of a university create a opportunities report that starts feeling almost more like industrial policy? 

00:09:30 David Cohen-Tanugi 

The mission of Proto Ventures is to create startups that wouldn't have existed otherwise and that have the potential to change a field and industry. In our case, clean energy, and as a result, I coming in about a year ago, was interested and and quite intent on not just. 

00:09:51 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Doing what a lot of clean energy. 

00:09:54 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Tech commercialization consists of, namely looking at technologies and justice and basically focusing on what people call tech push. Here's a promising breakthrough. What's it you? I think it's useful for something. Let me go and try to find what it's useful for and and then we'll make a product and and sell to it. 

00:10:12 David Cohen-Tanugi 

My experience of commercialization in general and of the clean energy sector in in particular, is that that really has its limitations. And so we were very intentional in kind of setting up the the clean energy channel at Proto Ventures that we were going to take a really broad look at what the overall. 

00:10:33 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Space looked like today and what were the biggest bloggers and ultimately the biggest levers for both kind of changing, you know, changing the industry and ultimately making the biggest impact and and and building the most successful companies. So that's what really motivated spending. 

00:10:53 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Multiple months, really in in more market discovery, customer Discovery Opportunity assessment mode before jumping into any specific venture idea. 

00:11:03 David Cohen-Tanugi 

And as we were doing this, you know, interviewing leaders at existing clean energy, fusion startup companies and other people and investors in this space and and other folks in this sector, what became very apparent was that fusion. 

00:11:22 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Has gone very quickly over the last few years from, you know, basically an academic research area to now. 

00:11:29 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Commercial real, you know, commercial effort with dozens of private companies having raised, you know, billions of dollars at this point to develop fusion power plants with very ambitious, ambitious goals to, you know, deliver power to the. 

00:11:42 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Grid. 

00:11:43 David Cohen-Tanugi 

In the early twenty 30s and commercial plants later in that decade, so these are very ambitious. 

00:11:50 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Targets with companies that are, you know, well funded and and putting a lot of effort. 

00:11:54 David Cohen-Tanugi 

But what was also apparent is that these companies, as much as they want to be relatively vertically integrated and be essentially the developers and the providers of a whole power plant design like Richard was saying earlier, they have a sense of what their core is and their core typically is kind of the the star you know. 

00:12:14 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Leaking of plasma and producing net energy gain and so on and so forth. But they end up having to focus on many, many, many different areas that they don't view it as their core, but that nobody else is doing. 

00:12:27 David Cohen-Tanugi 

And the truth is, all mature industries need and leverage are robust and sophisticated to supply chain. I can't really think of any industry that doesn't meet that criteria, and most people who've studied industrial innovation believe that Fusion eventually will be no exception. There may be integrator companies picture the equivalent of. 

00:12:47 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Boeing safe for aircraft? 

00:12:49 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Uh, But there's gonna be people who make airplane seats and people who make engines and people who make, uh, you know, the little screens that you use to watch TV and so on and so forth. And it's not relevant. It's it's not realistic for Boeing to try to do that all all by themselves. And then the same way in the fusion industry, that won't be realistic. 

00:13:09 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Weather. But today the industry the fusion industry is shaped. 

00:13:15 David Cohen-Tanugi 

It is in a in, not in a very immature way. Let's put it where we only have Boeings. There's basically Boeings and a couple small entities that aspire to be the engine providers or the seat providers, or the control systems providers, and so on. And I would say Kyoto Fusion Fusion during Richard's company. 

00:13:35 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Is really the poster child, I guess for forward thinking entities that want to fill out that ecosystem so. 

00:13:44 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Long story short, having accumulated that knowledge about what's needed, where the gaps, uh, and what are the things that fusion companies really wish they could purchase from somebody else and know it's gonna, you know, bite them eventually because they don't have time to work on it today, but they're going to be blocked until somebody else can sell it to them, and nobody's stated to. 

00:14:05 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Isolated. To do that, we at Proto Ventures decided to partner with the plasma science and Fusion Center at MIT to create an external facing road map, inviting really as a as a call to action, really. 

00:14:19 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, national labs, large corporations, that would be tempted to create a new business unit, all these folks to look at this industry and realize that there are opportunities for them to make a big impact and and be financially successful, hopefully in. 

00:14:40 David Cohen-Tanugi 

The long run. 

00:14:40 Chris Sass 

David, when when I first met you, I think it was an MIT event not so long ago and and pretty much everybody on stage was talking about this ecosystem of the parts, right. 

00:14:49 Chris Sass 

Two things that came to mind. One you just threw out a few numbers and same with Richard your, your, your billion here are dollars and things. These numbers sound tremendously large to the layperson. 

00:15:01 Chris Sass 

But where we're going, they aren't very large, I guess. 

00:15:05 

First, let let's. 

00:15:06 Chris Sass 

Quantify exactly what we're talking about this ecosystem and and the the economies of scale they're needed to achieve. Perhaps Fusion, you know, assuming we get through the science risk and we get there by 20-30 and have a commercialized solution. 

00:15:18 Chris Sass 

Then what are the economies of scale? What kind of numbers are we talking? Cause I I think it's deceiving to our audience just to hear, you know, Commonwealth fusion, big dollars. You know this guy, these dollars. But what does that mean? 

00:15:30 Richard Pearson 

Yeah, sure. No, no, it's a it's a great point. I I think therefore probably the best place to start here is saying we are talking about creating an entirely new. 

00:15:39 Richard Pearson 

Through here? Yes, it's an energy technology. But what? What? We'll stand up this new energy technology is a whole new industry. So I think it's instructive to go back to sort of pre aviation era and thinking what was required to get to commercial aviation in the 1st place. That's kind of what we're talking about here. That's the paradigm that we're in. So you know, we're not talking about someone being a new let's just say. 

00:15:59 Richard Pearson 

Call. 

00:16:00 Richard Pearson 

Manufacturer and they want to bring in they're they're a new company. They want to bring a new type of car to the market. So several examples of that over recent years that's different cause the markets there already the product, you're OK in the case of of of companies like Tesla, maybe they're visually integrating new ideas, but fundamentally we've designed wheels before. We've designed chassis before and so there's a lot of pedigree. 

00:16:21 Richard Pearson 

Knowledge there. Here we're talking about trailblazing pretty much everything we're saying. We need to develop this. We need to develop that and that goes from everything from supply chains through to new, new mining, new manufacturing techniques as well as all the actual fusion stuff itself. 

00:16:38 Richard Pearson 

So yeah, orders orders of magnitude more cash going to be needed here than the billions it's going to be 10s of billions or into hundreds of billions industry over the next decades that's going to grow and it is growing at the moment. That's the positive thing. But it needs to continue that growth and that's gonna require both public and private investment globally. 

00:16:57 

As well. 

00:16:58 Chris Sass 

Is the second trend that I noticed along the way was a lot of fusion companies. So Richard you you seemed to have started out understanding that there's a supply chain needed in an ecosystem needed and and trying to solve that. 

00:17:08 Chris Sass 

Problem what I've seen with a number of the early fusion companies, you know, 100, thirty 160, whatever number you want to say of funded companies is a lot of them think they're gonna make magnets. They're gonna make other products in order to get some cash flow during the next 10 years or whatever they need. How does this vision change from what you and David are? 

00:17:28 Chris Sass 

Or, you know, talking about here. Is that what this is or is that? 

00:17:32 Chris Sass 

Different. 

00:17:33 David Cohen-Tanugi 

I think this is something different. I think what you're referring to, Chris, is the. 

00:17:40 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Tiring of the market road map of of certain fusion companies that say in the long run we're fusion power plant company, but that's gonna take a while to get to revenue. So in the meantime, we're gonna sell other stuff. 

00:17:54 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Another great example, and actually it's the poster child of fusion here at MIT, is Commonwealth Fusion systems, which started out in their early state pitches, saying exactly what you were saying. Namely, we can also sell magnets for other applications. And even if Fusion doesn't work out, we'll still be a successful company because we'll sell. 

00:18:13 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Magnet. So it's not just a timing thing, it's also a de risking thing inside that. 

00:18:18 Richard Pearson 

I'm going to try an analogy. 

00:18:21 Richard Pearson 

Been thinking about this when David was speaking just there. You know what we're talking about here is an industry that is maturing at the moment and going through a phase of companies having been around for a few years and having had a reasonable amount of investment, some a lot more than others. And there's some soul searching going on for sure. But then let's think about, you know. 

00:18:39 Richard Pearson 

Let's let's let's compare. 

00:18:40 Richard Pearson 

Fusion to the Mars shot and I specifically use Mars shot there actually, because I think the mission to Mars is probably the only thing that comes close to being the sort of technical challenge we're talking about here. 

00:18:50 Richard Pearson 

Sort of akin to akin to the level of of technical complexity. So someone's going for the Mars shot and they're totally they. They are fully down that path. Someone might go actually hang on a minute. I think I can help them get out of orbit or actually hang on a minute. There's an entirely separate industry of satellite technologies that need to go to a bit. I think I'm actually gonna do something different. I think I'm gonna turn into a satellite orbiting company. 

00:19:10 Richard Pearson 

Others may go well. Actually, I think we can mine them and we've got technology for that. So by helping someone try and get to Mars, you can both help them do that while also stopping and off on, off along the way and realising there are commercial opportunities on that on that quite literal path through the stratosphere, up into orbit onto the moon. 

00:19:27 Richard Pearson 

And beyond. So. So I think maybe there's an interesting analogy there, maybe what maybe I'll try and build on that in the future. But I think that's where we're at the moment where there are companies realising, OK, I have mining technology, OK, I've actually got the satellite technology you're talking about. I can I can help you with with designing your payload structure, whatever it may be. So there's a bunch of things here. 

00:19:47 Richard Pearson 

That infusion are shaking out at the moment and I think Dave's report coming back to that does really well and identifying the system that we currently exist in and where those opportunities for innovation sit. 

00:20:00 Jeff McAulay 

Can we keep going on that and maybe some more examples because I believe there's another, what is it is like a millimeter wave laser technology that's being used in geothermal and probably getting the technology. What what am I thinking of is like? 

00:20:11 Richard Pearson 

Yes, yeah, yeah. 

00:20:13 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Ways, yeah, Quays energy uses. 

00:20:17 Richard Pearson 

Well, I was going to say I think, yeah. So. So yes, that's Quays energy, interesting geothermal company again with some affiliation I think to MIT or at least some some background and certainly strong geothermal research at MI. 

00:20:30 Richard Pearson 

So yeah, Quays energy is a geothermal company and they're looking to use a fusion relevant technology called a gyrotron, which I'll talk about in just a second. But basically they wanna use that technology for a different application and that's to pulverize the Earth, the Earth's crust, to try and do drilling without actually using any mechanical components. So a gyrotron is a high. 

00:20:50 Richard Pearson 

High power, high frequency microwave, a missing device, that being a microwave at the right frequency can resonate and and and cause and and create heat, so it well, sorry it can. It can heat up heat up matter in the context of fusion. What we use gyrations for is to heat a plasma. So if you tune to the right. 

00:21:11 Richard Pearson 

Frequency and you have the right power. You can actually heat heat the ions in. 

00:21:16 Richard Pearson 

Plasma and actually provide energy to the plasma to get to the right conditions for fusion to occur. What we're talking about here is a complete spin-off application for this where you know, five years ago, if you said this to me, I would said, wow, that sounds really crazy. We can't do that. We can't mine use it for essentially mining operations, but that that is now being looked into, which is a really interesting spin-off application including for Q2. 

00:21:36 Richard Pearson 

Hearing by the way, cause, because we make byrons. 

00:21:39 Jeff McAulay 

That that's great. So I want to talk about timeline and then go to what might be the next examples. So first of all, we did throw around the time frame 20-30. I want to clarify that these are research reactors in the next decade when we talk about commercial fusion, I don't think anybody's talking about that being a reality but before. 

00:21:59 Jeff McAulay 

2050 so to use the Mars analogy, our question here is can there be? 

00:22:05 Jeff McAulay 

Decent businesses getting satellite into orbit for the next 10 or 20 years, and then those turn into amazing businesses if we are going to Mars in 20 to 30 years. So the the example here in in fusion being could you have a advanced laser technology that enables geothermal in the next 10 to 20? 

00:22:27 Jeff McAulay 

And then is there to support fusion in, in in 2050, but help me with the time frames and then I want to get into what might be those next example businesses. 

00:22:37 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Well, let me describe a little bit the methodology that we took in the enabling commercial fusion report and I think it will help answer this question. Ultimately what our report the, the the question that our report asks and answers is if there is to be. 

00:22:57 David Cohen-Tanugi 

A. 

00:22:58 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Successfully, you know, commercially successful large scale mature fusion industry one day. 

00:23:05 David Cohen-Tanugi 

If that is to happen, what will have to be true? What products, goods, services, components, subsystems will have to exist and be available for that industry to be mature and functional, and then we laid out all of those things and some of those things are not available today and they're really an invitation. 

00:23:25 David Cohen-Tanugi 

For research for researchers to start working on potential. 

00:23:28 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Solutions. Others are things that could be built tomorrow if only the relevant entities put their mind to it, and so on and so forth. And so that's on the kind of the supply side of things in terms of what's available and what will be available. And then there's a demand question, which is what I think you're asking. Fundamentally, Jeff, which is what is their demand for today? What is there going to be demand for in five years? 

00:23:50 David Cohen-Tanugi 

And when is there going to be the full demand as in like a big, full mature, successful, lucrative? 

00:23:58 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Fusion. 

00:24:00 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Industry, I think what I would tell you is you will hear a wide range of estimates about when fusion becomes not just a club of startups, but actually you know producing power on the grid and meaningfully displacing other sources of energy and the global energy. 

00:24:20 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Mix and everything. 

00:24:23 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Nobody knows is the short answer. I think the hard nosed, you know, people's best guess, I think who are not, you know directly in the fusion startups would probably tell you if things go well, we start seeing the the you know the first electrons being produced and going on to their grid in the late 30s. 

00:24:43 David Cohen-Tanugi 

In the late twenty 30s and you know the first, you know, commercially viable money making plants showing up in the twenty 40s such that by the time the second-half of the 21st century. 

00:24:58 David Cohen-Tanugi 

You know, rolling on 2050 and beyond, then the size of the fusion slice in the energy pie starts becoming visible and starts crowding out the other parts of that pie. So that's roughly I think the, the the timeline assuming things work out. 

00:25:17 David Cohen-Tanugi 

And that means to your point, Jeff, there are some things that you're. 

00:25:20 David Cohen-Tanugi 

You could you should not try to start selling today because actually you'll only really be able to sell those things in 20-30 or 2040 or 2050, which is maybe not what an entrepreneur would want would want to do today. And there are other things. On the other hand that are very much in demand today and in my. 

00:25:40 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Market research and customer discovery in the fusion space identified a number of places and this is not called out explicitly in the report that actually there's some there's right before startup today and there's a demand for today. I'll list a few and Richard, I'll let you add as well because I have a I suspect you have a strong hypothesis around this. 

00:26:00 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Standards and ratings for the investment community to wrap its head around what all these different fusion companies are doing and claiming and being able to independently assess what is real and what is not real and compare apples to apples picture moodies or standard and poor for fusion. There's a there's a market for that today. 

00:26:20 David Cohen-Tanugi 

A mega fund for Fusion investments, similarly so that everybody who wants to get in on the action but doesn't have the technical expertise to. 

00:26:28 David Cohen-Tanugi 

All the different opportunities, there's a market for that today, workforce training and recruiting just to get qualified human beings and brains working on this tremendous challenge. There's a market for that today. Cryogenic systems, materials testing, sensors, there's a market for all of these things today and it doesn't mean the market's not going to get bigger. It hopefully will. 

00:26:48 David Cohen-Tanugi 

But you could very well make a company selling just in fusion with that. 

00:26:53 David Cohen-Tanugi 

In the near term. 

00:26:55 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Richard, what did I miss? Probably a lot of things. 

00:26:56 Richard Pearson 

Yeah, but that's that's good. Cause you've teamed me up. But I I think I think it's probably worth saying that I agree with everything you've said. I think I think just to take one side step or a step backwards to the the point about sort of going for that commercial fusion and why that's still the goal. I think it is really imperative to point out that people are excited about Fusion because this is last energy. 

00:27:17 Richard Pearson 

That this is there, we don't need to go on the hunt for another energy source after this. It's not like ohh we've done fusion. What's next? All those sci-fi films we watch that where there's flying cars and mega cities and sort of no one seems to be worried about pollution or anything like that. All of those kind of utopian societies are often often implicitly. 

00:27:37 Richard Pearson 

Fueled by something like fusion, clean, plentiful, etc. So when we've done this as, as David says, that pie that slices that the fusion slice of the pie that starts to grow, we'll only grow and grow and grow. And that's not just for electrification, by the way. That will be for deep decarbonisation. So I I just wanna before I dive into. 

00:27:54 Richard Pearson 

To some of the some of the other areas, including the ones that we're working on in the current markets and potential future markets, it's really important to to sort of note that point. 

00:28:03 Chris Sass 

Let's keep going in and and and hear a little bit about. 

00:28:05 Richard Pearson 

Sure. So so so. 

00:28:05 Chris Sass 

What you're currently working. 

00:28:07 Richard Pearson 

I agree the the areas that that David laid out there are ripe for innovation, particularly the ones around investment and actually sort of almost almost the, the, the, the diagnosis is all the industries growing. We've got to this. 

00:28:18 Richard Pearson 

Point how do we how do we check? We can go to the next phase. That's where. 

00:28:22 Richard Pearson 

Some of those. 

00:28:22 Richard Pearson 

Come in. Then there are some more. Well, they're they're mainly deep tech related. So one of the things we're working on, for example is the tritium systems or the fuelling systems. So let me use another car analogy here if you'll let. 

00:28:33 Richard Pearson 

Me. 

00:28:34 Richard Pearson 

So if you think about an engine, you have to inject fuel into the engine. The engine uses that. 

00:28:38 Richard Pearson 

Fuel to produce the the power and then you can. 

00:28:41 Richard Pearson 

Drive the car. 

00:28:41 Richard Pearson 

OK, however, it's more complicated than that, because if you go down to the component level, you realize, OK, we need an injector that can inject at certain rates. We need sensors that tell us how much fuel is in the tank, how to get the fuel from the tank to there, and then you need an exhaust system. There is a reason you put catalytic converters on exhaust cause there's certain waste. 

00:28:57 Richard Pearson 

And so on. Now imagine that, but about, well, infinitely and say infinitely in, in in literal terms, but many, many times harder, with a lot more complexity. And we haven't done this before in this way. So one of the things we're doing is we are actually building and demonstrating these technologies work, not just independently, which meant much of the research over the last well, certainly the last 30-40 years. 

00:29:18 Richard Pearson 

The public sector has looked into, but we're actually trying to commercialize these technologies and and and we're building a facility called Unity 2 Unity ones in Japan, Unity two is in Canada, Unity two is a tritium fuel cycle test facility. So tritium is the fuel for. 

00:29:33 Richard Pearson 

Vision and we're going to actually be testing this in an integrated fashion. 

00:29:37 Richard Pearson 

And this is going to be both our own test facility to demonstrate that and also a user facility. So looking at the commercial angle, we're saying to the the sector come and work with us, we will help you develop, design develop and qualify either your own technology or we're actually able to pivot our technologies towards what you need. So this is sort of you know engineering product development in action. 

00:29:58 Richard Pearson 

So we're converting that pure R&D focus into something that the market needs right now. So I think probably that's the best example of what we're doing. And of course, we've touched on Jaron's already. 

00:30:08 Jeff McAulay 

Yeah. And and Richard, we've probably waited long enough for you to give us an actual definition of fusion and maybe use the significance of tritium and deuterium in your answer. 

00:30:20 Richard Pearson 

OK, great. Other talks are available on, on, on exactly how fusion works, but I'll try and give a sort of a a summary, so in no. 

00:30:30 Richard Pearson 

No small terms. Fusion is the process that powers the sun and the stars and and I like to tell younger students that I've taught in the past were all made of Stardust and therefore were all made by fusion, because every element in the known universe, apart from those that are produced by supernova stars, comes originally from either The Big Bang or from fusion reactions. 

00:30:50 Richard Pearson 

It's the densest form of energy in the known universe, and it's the opposite of fission. So in fission, we split the atom. In Fusion, we try to combine it, combine lighter elements, and in that process of doing so, we actually release huge amounts of. 

00:31:02 Richard Pearson 

Energy so that. 

00:31:03 Richard Pearson 

That's how fusion works at fundamental level. 

00:31:06 Richard Pearson 

Now in stars, that's actually quite easy because they've got the right conditions for that to occur. Naturally, though, interestingly, and somewhat counterintuitively, stars actually burn their fuel quite slowly, and that's why the sun has lasted for for millennia and will continue to do so for multiple millions and billions of years. Still on Earth, we can't recreate those exact same conditions, so we have to mimic them. 

00:31:27 Richard Pearson 

In a different way, and what you essentially do by that is you use different fuel. So in the sun you start with hydrogen and helium. On Earth we use two isotopes of hydrogen heavy hydrogen which is deuterium, which is available in seawater, and tritium, which is super. 

00:31:41 Richard Pearson 

The hydrogen I won't get into specifics of the reaction there, but basically this is the easiest one. 

00:31:46 Richard Pearson 

To to to get to get to the right conditions to do fusion. How? Well, simply, we basically heat up a mixture of these two hydrogen isotopes. Hot enough so that it turns into a plasma plasmas and ionised gas. 4th State of matter. It's going back to high school, high school physics. 

00:32:04 Richard Pearson 

There, when you when an element is ionized, those electrons are moved, removed and you only have the nucleus left, so the resulting ionised nuclei are positively charged. OK, so you remember positively charged things, often like to repel. So that's why Fusion is hard because we can't actually get these things to join together unless we get this plasma to be hot enough, dense enough. 

00:32:25 Richard Pearson 

And lasts long enough, and for fusion on Earth, it's that combination, the so-called. 

00:32:29 Richard Pearson 

Product. This is the so-called Lawson criterion in physics terms. Basically, you've got to get that above a certain threshold and and various approaches. So you've heard CFS mentioned Commonwealth fusion systems David mentioned earlier. That's a magnetic approach. So what they're trying to do is to get it hot enough and actually last long enough. They're trying to hold that plasma for a long time. It's actually not very dense. 

00:32:50 Richard Pearson 

So they're just trying to get those conditions jacked up. Whereas if you look like a laser approach, they're trying to go hot enough and dense enough, but they're not holding it for very long at all. It's a, it's a pulse continue. 

00:33:00 Richard Pearson 

Approach. So there's different ways of doing this, but that's essentially what we're trying to do on Earth and when we get above that point where we can make fusion happen, that's what I think, Jeff, you referred earlier to as breaking than this is when you get more power out of the fusion reaction, then you put into your magnets, your lasers, your heating systems, etcetera to actually give the conditions in the first place. 

00:33:21 Richard Pearson 

David, did I miss anything, Jeff? Chris, did that make sense to you? I think it's probably. 

00:33:25 Richard Pearson 

A good place to stop. 

00:33:27 Chris Sass 

Makes sense to. 

00:33:27 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Me can I'll I'll just add one piece if that's alright. We haven't we we we've made we've said implicitly but not explicitly why people are. 

00:33:39 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Why people in the energy space are excited about fusion and that is because fusions been essentially a Holy Grail of the energy sector because it promises firm, dispatchable. 

00:33:56 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Energy with no operational CO2 emissions and in a dense form factor, I guess maybe those are the top four, so firm dispatchable, no operational CO2 emissions, dense form factor. And I guess if you. 

00:34:10 Chris Sass 

This. 

00:34:11 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Add more benefits that get people excited about about Fusion. It doesn't inherently require the use of high level radioactive material. Unlike nuclear vision, and it doesn't rely on a scarce or critically limited fuel like pretty much any fossil energy production technology. Just because something is a Holy Grail. 

00:34:32 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Doesn't mean it's easy to attain or going to workout. 

00:34:36 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Really, but generally there's an interest in seeing whether we could power society in this, at least in theory a much. 

00:34:45 Chris Sass 

Better way so I have one more question before before we try to pull this all together. I've got two believers on this podcast today. Fusion's been around quite a while. It's it's, you know. 

00:34:56 Chris Sass 

You have degrees in fusion, so you you went to school for. It's been around long enough that we. 

00:35:00 Chris Sass 

Have degrees and things in it. 

00:35:02 Chris Sass 

Help me understand why. Now? What? What? What's transformative today? That means this is a reality or a near term reality. The 23rd. We're gonna have these proof of concepts in 2050. We'll be enjoying free, ubiquitous energy. 

00:35:18 David Cohen-Tanugi 

I should be very clear that. 

00:35:22 David Cohen-Tanugi 

There is a high there. It's it's I. I should be very clear that it's absolutely possible that the dream, the Holy Grail of fusion is not attained in our lifetimes. 

00:35:33 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Or never, or that it is attained and turns out not to be economically competitive with other energy sources. There are many different things that could turn out not to be true, and that's not a reason not to be optimistic, but I don't consider myself a fusion salesperson and I don't know that. I don't think that Richard does either, so. 

00:35:53 David Cohen-Tanugi 

There are reasons, however, to be optimistic and the reasons why now the reasons why things that have not worked out in the past and promises that were broken in the past may turn out to be true this time around include the advent of high temperature superconducting materials that enable much stronger magnets, which then themselves. 

00:36:13 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Enable much denser, more modular, smaller and more cost effective fusion systems A. 

00:36:25 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Willingness to invest tremendous amounts of energy and funding honestly into the energy sources of the future, including from the early stage, high risk venture capital community. I think those are probably 2. 

00:36:43 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Reasons of multiple why fusion may happen now that it hasn't been for and I guess the third thing I would add is scientific breakthroughs. Recently in the fusion science community that really leave scientists and engineers feeling like we understand more about the the science of fusion and. 

00:37:01 David Cohen-Tanugi 

Plasmas than we have ever have before, so a lot of barriers, engineering barriers, and science by barriers, to be honest. But people are generally feeling more optimistic than. 

00:37:10 David Cohen-Tanugi 

They have. 

00:37:10 Richard Pearson 

Yeah, I compliment that and yeah, so I compliment that by saying. 

00:37:16 Richard Pearson 

There was a very famous Soviet physicist actually called levat simonovich, and he said in something like the 1970s Fusion will be ready when society needs it. 

00:37:28 Richard Pearson 

And I think it's becoming clearer to me what he meant by that is there has to be an actual market demand, the real demand to make fusion happen. So Fusion has been in the remit of government labs around the world for the last 75 years. This is not a new thing. This is since the 1950s, this has really been looked at in earnest. There was a there was a spike in funding. 

00:37:48 Richard Pearson 

After the oil crisis and the 19 at the late 1970s and so on, and and they've been sort of comings and goings of of funding, but it's kind of been in the room of the public labs to say, hey, we're doing some interesting research here. And we've learned a lot about the science of plasmas and and about fusion as a whole. 

00:38:03 Richard Pearson 

But we've had a number of things along the way that really suggests that that essentially this wasn't really about commercialization all along and it would, it would be commercialized when ready. I think we're at the point now where what we've seen is a paradigm shift. We've seen a paradigm shift in the way that we're doing things. So actually if if you if you read my thesis, please don't, it's it's too long and and laborious. But my my thesis. 

00:38:23 Richard Pearson 

I'm I I contend that we are in this paradigm shift right now. This is an entire upending of the way we're doing things. And this is basically saying we need to get to something that's actually usable for society, not just profitable. By the way, the definition of innovation is the useful and useful application of. 

00:38:41 Richard Pearson 

Prevention and that, that, that in the context of fusion means potentially incredibly lucrative for investors, potentially massively transformational for society and for the planet. So this ticks so many boxes and I think where we're at right now is it's just that change in hang on, we've done loads of really good science here. We've got a lot of good ideas. We understand the fundamental. There's nothing we look at and go well. 

00:39:03 Richard Pearson 

We don't understand the problem. We may not always have the solution, but there's nothing we look at and go. We have almost no idea what's going on there. There are some exceptions to that, but I'm going to caveat saying we're not going to go into those now. 

00:39:14 Richard Pearson 

But generally speaking, we think we can find solutions to these known problems and by commercially orienting them we're saying let's get to that solution faster, better, cheaper. And that really is the philosophy of the the private sector. And actually this paradigm shift that we've seen over the last, I would say, certainly over the last five years, but it's been nascent for 10 years. 

00:39:34 Richard Pearson 

And it's now coming to a head. Public sector is now reoriented itself to say, actually we want to support you. We've got that data. We've got those scientists, we've got those capabilities. Can we help? 

00:39:45 Richard Pearson 

You deliver your mission and be part of the story here again, because not saying public sectors ever gone out of the the light, but it there was almost a, I would say, a race. It was a quasi race between public and private. Now it is really they are coming together in a in a meaningful way. 

00:40:03 Jeff McAulay 

This is really inspiring. Thank you both for joining us. I think we've got a view here where Fusion has maybe been called the fuel of the future, but always will be. And now we've got a. 

00:40:15 Jeff McAulay 

Math. 

00:40:16 Jeff McAulay 

For fusion to come out of the lab and actually become a true commercialized energy technology and we see the systems and subsystems that can even be businesses today. And Commonwealth Fusion showed us there's $2 billion of investment that have been made and that's not going to be the last one. So for listeners, if you're an entrepreneur. 

00:40:36 Jeff McAulay 

You're an engineer. You're an investor. Fusion is not relegated always to be several decades away. There are ways that those underlying tools can be useful businesses right now. Thank you, David. Richard. So much for joining us today. This has really been educational and inspiring. 

00:40:56 Richard Pearson 

Thank you for having. 

00:40:58 Chris Sass 

Our audience, we hope you've enjoyed this episode. The insiders guide to energy. It's been fun making it. The one thing you can do for us if you like this content is take the time to hit the like button. The subscribe follow Button and add comments and questions. Our guests love to see your feedback and we'll see you again next time on the insiders guide to energy. 

00:41:15 Chris Sass 

Bye for now.