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Speaker 1: The information provided in this program is of a general nature.

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Speaker 1: It is not intended to be personalized financial advice. We

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Speaker 1: encourage you to seek appropriate advice from a qualified professional

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Speaker 1: to suit your individual circumstances. It's in the sun and

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Speaker 1: it's in the stars. Now a number of startups are

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Speaker 1: trying to create nuclear fusion here on Earth. This episode

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Speaker 1: takes you behind one of the companies edging closer to

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Speaker 1: abundant energy.

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Speaker 2: This is like humans discovering fire again.

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Speaker 3: That is effectively energy. You Toldia right.

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Speaker 1: It is clean, abundant, affordable.

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Speaker 4: Energy, and that will unlock huge business applications, but also

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Speaker 4: really good societal outcomes. Families won't worry about continuing to

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Speaker 4: pay the power bill to keep their houses warm.

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Speaker 1: We could be on the cusp of a breakthrough in

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Speaker 1: nuclear energy, with billions being spent on achieving fusion or

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Speaker 1: reviving fission. Amazon, Microsoft and Google have all made commitments

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Speaker 1: to nuclear as a source to power their data centers

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Speaker 1: ahead of an AI boom. Even open Ayes sam Oltman

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Speaker 1: is involved. Around seven billion US dollars has been invested

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Speaker 1: into companies trying to commercialize fusion, with most of them

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Speaker 1: targeting a date in the twenty thirties to start adding

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Speaker 1: nuclear energy to the grid. According to the Fusion Industry Association,

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Speaker 1: most of them are in the USA, but there is

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Speaker 1: an effort underway in a small corner of the world.

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Speaker 1: This blitting of atoms nuclear fission was done for the

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Speaker 1: first time by a New Zealander, Ernest Rutherford. Could this

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Speaker 1: company in the same country be the first in the

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Speaker 1: world to fuse atoms?

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Speaker 3: Hey, Ratu, how are you?

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Speaker 2: Aye Madison, nice to meet here.

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Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having us.

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Speaker 2: Absolute pleasure.

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Speaker 3: This is the experiment.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, no, this is where it all happens. It's pleasure

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Speaker 4: to have here. We're going to be able to show

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Speaker 4: you lots of ritical stuff.

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Speaker 3: I can't wait. One of the coolest things to come

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Speaker 3: out of Wellington.

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Speaker 2: In New Zealand the world.

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Speaker 3: This is Open Star Technologies, a startup.

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Speaker 1: Developing a nuclear fusion reactor in Wellington's Hills. It was

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Speaker 1: founded by Ratuma Tider and his university flat. In the

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Speaker 1: past two years it's raised twelve million at US dollars

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Speaker 1: and just had a major milestone heading plasma for the

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Speaker 1: first time.

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Speaker 3: And this five meter wide its steel chamber.

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Speaker 4: So the thing they made first plasma special for us

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Speaker 4: is there's so many things they have to go right,

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Speaker 4: and there's so many bits of a technology that no

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Speaker 4: one's ever done before.

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Speaker 2: And first plasma is that moment where you know that

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Speaker 2: everything actually worked for the first time, all at the

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Speaker 2: same time, and you get really bright height and you

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Speaker 2: know a lot of sharing about it as well. It's

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Speaker 2: just spent so much work with the team.

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Speaker 1: Basically, here's the moment they made that glowing gas field.

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Speaker 1: Why is heading playma so critical as a first stage

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Speaker 1: for fusion.

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Speaker 4: So for fusion, there's a whole bunch of ingredients that

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Speaker 4: you need. You need a magnet to confine a plasma,

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Speaker 4: you need a heating system to make it, you need

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Speaker 4: all the supporting technology, and actually plasma is one of

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Speaker 4: the last things to appear once you've got all those pieces,

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Speaker 4: and so a lot of what you would see in

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Speaker 4: a real fusion machine is actually right in front of you,

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Speaker 4: just at some smaller scale and late lower performance because

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Speaker 4: it's a prototype. But getting that plasma shows that we

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Speaker 4: can connect all the pieces and that the next step

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Speaker 4: is to increase for power, make a more powerful magnet,

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Speaker 4: make a bigger chamber, a better chamber, and actually start

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Speaker 4: driving fusion performance.

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Speaker 1: So this is what will be the beginning of a

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Speaker 1: fusion reactor.

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Speaker 2: Its descendants will bet yes.

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Speaker 4: So the next machine that we build will actually make

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Speaker 4: fusion reactions and that will be the headline, and then

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Speaker 4: the machine after that will make so many fusion reactions

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Speaker 4: you might actually be able to do something useful with it.

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Speaker 3: This is the next working prototype.

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Speaker 1: They're developing another magnet to make the dipole levitate.

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Speaker 2: This is actually one of the smaller magnets at open style.

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Speaker 2: We call it the top magnet.

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Speaker 4: When we design this machine, we have a really powerful

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Speaker 4: magnet in the center of a machine in our big chamber,

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Speaker 4: and that magnet is the one that has to levitate.

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Speaker 2: But why does it levitate. We use another magnet on

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Speaker 2: top that actually provides that force. And so this is

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Speaker 2: the top magnet goes on top.

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Speaker 4: It lifts the other one up and allows us to

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Speaker 4: disconnect everything and confine the plasma.

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Speaker 2: And that's a levitated dipoles, hated dipole, and this does

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Speaker 2: the levitate. Well, yeah, the lifting.

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Speaker 1: So this is like New Zealand's LK ninety nine superconductor.

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Speaker 2: Yeah no, no, let's not tagte anything like that.

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Speaker 3: So this is you know, if that actually did happen.

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Speaker 3: This is kind of it.

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Speaker 2: This is the real deal.

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Speaker 4: So all the hype around our something like LK ninety

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Speaker 4: nine was all really about the promise of superconductors. This

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Speaker 4: is a superconducting coil made out of materials that you

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Speaker 4: can procure today, and the quantity is to be useful,

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Speaker 4: like we can actually build things and we have to

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Speaker 4: make it cold for it to work, but we can

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Speaker 4: engineer around that. We don't have to wait for room

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Speaker 4: temperature superconductivity like LK nine nine for this to be

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Speaker 4: useful and applicable.

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Speaker 1: And tell me why livitation is so critical. It's because

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Speaker 1: it's hotter carpetarged, right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So this particular design is really inspired by how

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Speaker 4: planets can find plasma. So there's a plasma above our

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Speaker 4: head right now, but the highest energy particles hit the

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Speaker 4: poles and we call that the Aurora australis and the

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Speaker 4: Aurora borealis.

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Speaker 2: So it's very pretty. But that's about plasma cooling down.

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Speaker 4: So in order to stop that, we have to have

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Speaker 4: a magnet with a hole in the middle, so that

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Speaker 4: a plasma can keep going around without touching anything. But

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Speaker 4: if you try to grab on to our magnet.

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Speaker 2: If you have any kind of connection, plasma will have

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Speaker 2: the connection right, and that sounds bad for the connection,

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Speaker 2: but it's also very bad for the plasma. You're not

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Speaker 2: going to get their plasma hot enough to fuse if

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Speaker 2: it's touching anything physical.

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Speaker 1: Open Star is continuing the initial levitated dipole experiment in

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Speaker 1: the United States that was shut down at MIT and

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Speaker 1: Columbia University.

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Speaker 3: In the early two thousands.

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Speaker 1: Darren Gania was one of those physicists behind it. Now

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Speaker 1: he's working here in Wellington with open Star. How do

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Speaker 1: you feel having been part of the initial experiment that

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Speaker 1: proved it could work, to now being part of extending

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Speaker 1: that and in all places New Zealand.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I mean it's we lost our funding for

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Speaker 5: LDX in the majority of our funding about twenty ten.

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Speaker 5: We kind of kept it going a little bit until

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Speaker 5: twenty fourteen, but most of our funding we lost in

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Speaker 5: twenty ten, and I really felt we left so much science,

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Speaker 5: so much interesting promise on the table, and it was

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Speaker 5: always I mean, it was a long period of grief,

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Speaker 5: tell you the truth, sort of you know, missing it,

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Speaker 5: and there was like that grief thing you like, don't

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Speaker 5: even want to think about it for a while, so

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Speaker 5: it was a while before I even thought about it again.

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Speaker 5: I didn't think about a little bit in between time.

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Speaker 5: Trying to get a refunded didn't work out. One of

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Speaker 5: the reasons that didn't get work out was we didn't

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Speaker 5: have the technology the magnetechnology required and the AXT fact

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Speaker 5: so I actually in twenty seventeen asked the US Department

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Speaker 5: of Energy for more money, but they said, actually, the

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Speaker 5: magnet technology you're you're asking for doesn't exist, and we

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Speaker 5: don't like the risk of funding you to do with

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Speaker 5: this plasma science even because the magnets aren't there.

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Speaker 2: So what happened was.

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Speaker 5: Ratu Openstar called me and they said, hey, we've been

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Speaker 5: developed this magnet technology and I said, oh, you mean

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Speaker 5: the stuff I've been waiting.

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Speaker 3: For all this time, and you've got it.

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Speaker 2: Let's go. Yeah.

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Speaker 5: So that's so it was like, oh, Wellington, yeah, no problem.

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Speaker 5: I mean, you've developed it here and I'm like so

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Speaker 5: happy to join. And it's like, you know, absolutely, it

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Speaker 5: was all this stuff I wanted to do was just

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Speaker 5: sitting on the table waiting for waiting for New Zealand

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Speaker 5: to come up with the magnet technology for us to

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Speaker 5: do it.

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Speaker 1: That they're not the only company chasing fusion. So how

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Speaker 1: does open Stars stack up against the competition worldwide? What

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Speaker 1: makes you think that you can solve this and be

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Speaker 1: first from New Zealand.

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Speaker 2: So I'll say a humble thing first.

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Speaker 4: I mean, we're picking up a technology that is less

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Speaker 4: mature than some of those other approaches. Bad amount of

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Speaker 4: money that's been thrown into tocmacs and stellarators and mirrors

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Speaker 4: and all sorts of things has driven a level of

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Speaker 4: understanding and the development that we do need to compete with,

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Speaker 4: we need to catch up to it. The thing that

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Speaker 4: makes us really excited about this machine is that it's

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Speaker 4: actually surprisingly easy to put together once you solve some

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Speaker 4: key challenges, and once you can start putting together, you

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Speaker 4: realize you can do it quickly. And so from actually

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Speaker 4: getting funded to building this machine took us about two

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Speaker 4: years to turn it on for the first time, and

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Speaker 4: in the world of fusion, that's at least double the speed,

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Speaker 4: if not more, depending on what kind of project you

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Speaker 4: look at.

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Speaker 2: And I'll give you another example.

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Speaker 4: These machines are basically big magnets and they hold onto

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Speaker 4: that plasma using magnetic field and if you build a TOCMAC,

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Speaker 4: and you've designed the magnets, you've built them, you've turned

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Speaker 4: it on, and then one of your engineers has a

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Speaker 4: clever way of improving the field by thirty percent.

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Speaker 2: You're going to have to build a new tokamac right,

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Speaker 2: and you're.

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Speaker 4: Going to spend three five years are going to build it,

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Speaker 4: and then you're going to spend five or ten years

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Speaker 4: building it. So the iteration cycle is like fifteen years easily.

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Speaker 4: Whereas with a dipole, if one of my engineers has

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Speaker 4: an idea to build a new magnet, we build it

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Speaker 4: and then we can swap it with the magnet that's

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Speaker 4: inside the chamber and testa train away and testa straight away.

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Speaker 4: So it literally takes us once that new magnet is ready,

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Speaker 4: it takes us about a week to do the swapover

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Speaker 4: and then we can start getting the results of whatever

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Speaker 4: that improvement is.

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Speaker 2: And so whilst the dipole that we're working on is behind,

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Speaker 2: our ability to catch up we think will mean that

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Speaker 2: we can actually overtake and make a meaningful contribution to

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Speaker 2: trying to solve fusion energy.

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Speaker 3: What is currently solved and still unsolved.

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Speaker 4: So nuclear fusion as a whole, what we know is

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Speaker 4: that if you heat these particles hot enough so Adam's nuclei,

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Speaker 4: you can heap them hot enough to actually fuse together

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Speaker 4: and release energy. So when we think about all the

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Speaker 4: numbers that are involved with that part of a process

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Speaker 4: that has been solved for a very long time, the

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Speaker 4: part that's unsolved is how do you get them that

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Speaker 4: hot in the first place in a way that's actually

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Speaker 4: economic and manageable.

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Speaker 3: So what are you here at Open Star trying to

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Speaker 3: solve in that puzzle?

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Speaker 4: So it always comes down to how do you hold

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Speaker 4: on to this superheated gas which ends up being a plasma.

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Speaker 4: And there's different ways of holding onto a plasma. So

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Speaker 4: we have a particular approach here called the levitated dipole.

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Speaker 4: We think we're the only team in the world really

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Speaker 4: working on this for fusion, and it has a lot

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Speaker 4: of advantages for holding onto that plasma that should allow

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Speaker 4: us to get it hot but also do it in

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Speaker 4: a much more economic fashion.

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Speaker 3: How much of a step is that to unlocking everything else?

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Speaker 4: So if we were to look back in a thousand

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Speaker 4: years at what we're doing today versus like humans discovering

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Speaker 4: fire again, and so just like we made a little

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Speaker 4: fire pit.

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Speaker 2: One day, and we're all going to gather around it.

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Speaker 4: We eventually learn how to build power plants and jet

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Speaker 4: turbines and really manit pulate fire. Plasma is our version

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Speaker 4: of fire, but for doing fusion.

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Speaker 3: What's your timeline for nuclear? When do we start.

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Speaker 1: Creating and adding nuclear energy to the grid, not just

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Speaker 1: here but anywhere or everywhere in the world.

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Speaker 3: Most people think it's twenty thirties. Is that actually realistic?

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Speaker 4: Right? It's you have to be ambitious about these things

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Speaker 4: you have otherwise we've actually seen what happens when these

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Speaker 4: projects give themselves too much space and too much time

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Speaker 4: to do it. They don't They won't hit twenty fifty.

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Speaker 4: They'll just never finish, right. And so you can make

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Speaker 4: arguments about whether or not we'll set an ambitious goal

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Speaker 4: and it will push back and we'll miss it. But

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Speaker 4: at the end of the day, the thing that gets

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Speaker 4: us excited here at Openstar and a lot of the

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Speaker 4: other companies is that we actually have a chance of

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Speaker 4: contributing to solving the climate crisis. And so that means

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Speaker 4: they have a first reactor really probably needs to turn

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Speaker 4: on in the twenty thirties, because then we still need

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Speaker 4: to build thousands more of them to actually decarbonize for

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Speaker 4: grit So a lot of people think that there is

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Speaker 4: a scientific challenge getting to break even first, but then

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Speaker 4: there is a huge industrial challenge actually building out these

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Speaker 4: machines afterwards.

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Speaker 3: What does end adoption of nuclear look like in your mind?

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Speaker 3: Is it small.

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Speaker 1: Nuclear reactors everywhere because that would be perhaps more commercially viable,

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Speaker 1: or is this industrial scale type stuff that government's control.

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Speaker 4: So for fusion, it does end up depending on the

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Speaker 4: different type of reactor you're looking at, and so you

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Speaker 4: could end up in that utility scale replacing co fire

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Speaker 4: power plants hundreds of megawatts up to a gigawatt. But actually,

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Speaker 4: from a commercial perspective, really what you're hoping for is

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Speaker 4: the smallest viable machine where you can find a market

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Speaker 4: for that just keeps the capitalization risk under control and

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Speaker 4: allows the iteration driven by revenue to allow you to

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Speaker 4: keep scaling machines and building better and better ones as

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Speaker 4: time moves on.

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Speaker 2: So actually, I.

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Speaker 4: Don't think it's too much about the end state. The

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Speaker 4: n state is some kind of energy utope here, and

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Speaker 4: I'm looking forward to it.

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Speaker 2: But actually it's like, what's that first machine we're going.

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Speaker 4: To build that people find useful, probably like a fifty

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Speaker 4: megawatt electric machine that is probably bohowering a data center that.

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Speaker 1: Is effectively energy you Tolkia, right, it is clean, abundant,

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Speaker 1: affordable energy forever. What does that mean for economies? What

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Speaker 1: does that unleash? It would mean we're entirely independent.

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Speaker 2: So there's a There's a couple of things.

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Speaker 4: One is I think fusion is a really exciting industry

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Speaker 4: because it rewards countries for their innovation culture and their

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Speaker 4: hard work rather than their luck on what natural resources

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Speaker 4: they happen to be founded upon.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 4: And so we in New Zealand we kind of worship

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Speaker 4: our own innovation culture number eight wire and this is

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Speaker 4: a chance for us to actually translate that into full

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Speaker 4: blown economic juggernaut. The other interesting thing about what their

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Speaker 4: energy utopia looks like is that it really stretches my imagination.

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Speaker 4: I don't have a fantastic argument like answer rather than

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Speaker 4: like flying cars and really cheap rocket trips to Mars, right,

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Speaker 4: But to give people a sense of what that change

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Speaker 4: could look like from an every day perspective, I think

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Speaker 4: the Internet gives us a pretty good example.

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Speaker 2: We all remember dial up.

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Speaker 4: We all remember broadband being rolled out, and we remember

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Speaker 4: paying for data by the gigabyte and then running out

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Speaker 4: and having to pay more. That's effectively how we sell

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Speaker 4: energy today, right, every bit of energy you use you

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Speaker 4: have to pay for, whereas with data that's actually moved

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Speaker 4: towards a transmission model. You pay for the bandwidth like

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Speaker 4: you want a faster Internet connection. And so we think

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Speaker 4: you could probably achieve the same thing with energy, which is, yeah,

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Speaker 4: you pay for a connection. If you're running a factory,

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Speaker 4: you're going to pay for a bigger connection, but the

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Speaker 4: amount of energy that you use is no longer a

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Speaker 4: driving force of the economics, and that will unlock huge

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Speaker 4: business applications but also really good societal outcomes. Families won't

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Speaker 4: worry about continuing to pay the power bill to keep

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Speaker 4: their houses warm. All of that infrastructure already exists, it's

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Speaker 4: just the powers too expensive today.

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Speaker 1: So there's not only primary use cases in your mind,

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Speaker 1: but certainly secondary.

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Speaker 3: Use cases as well.

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Speaker 4: Absolutely, and that's probably actually we talked about that MVP

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Speaker 4: in terms of electricity, but really the true MVP for

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Speaker 4: fusion is probably a different application. One really exciting one

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Speaker 4: is medical isotopes. For example, So if you go to

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Speaker 4: a hospital and you need to get like a pet

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Speaker 4: scan or a cat scan, you're ingesting some kind of

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Speaker 4: substance that's a little bit radioactive, and that allows doctors

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Speaker 4: to see where that substance went and find either tumors

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Speaker 4: or abnormalities in your body. And those substances come from

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Speaker 4: a supply chain that will collapse by twenty thirty five,

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Speaker 4: and we don't as a society have a good replacement

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Speaker 4: for that. So modern medicine has been adopting these techniques

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Speaker 4: to great success. It's a multi billion dollar perannum industry.

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Speaker 4: We're going to run out a supply in twenty thirty five.

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Speaker 4: Populations are getting older and wealthier, so the demand is

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Speaker 4: absolutely there, and we think smaller fusion reactors are probably

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Speaker 4: a great source of those materials. So that's probably the

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Speaker 4: most immediate market that we're looking for.

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Speaker 2: Of that's kind of adjacent power.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned something interesting and one of your earlier answers

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Speaker 1: about how abundant energy from future and would mean that

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Speaker 1: we are no longer reliant on resources like oil, like coal,

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Speaker 1: things that are resources that we currently pull up out

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Speaker 1: of the ground. As that is our future for energy

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Speaker 1: that disrupts the world order as we know it, Like,

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Speaker 1: do you recognize that is the possibility of what you're

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Speaker 1: doing here?

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Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I think the challenge that we have in front of us,

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Speaker 4: if we do nothing, the world order will be disrupted.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 4: Climate change is an existential threat for humanity that needs

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Speaker 4: to be solved. And I think even countries that produce

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Speaker 4: the existing kind of energy sources like oil and gas

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Speaker 4: and coal, they do recognize this in the long run,

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Speaker 4: and be at a company or a nation state, often

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Speaker 4: the point of view is we're not in the oil business.

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Speaker 2: We're in the energy business.

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Speaker 4: And whatever form energy takes, you know, for humanity, that's

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Speaker 4: the business we want to be in. And so you

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Speaker 4: do see existing fossil fuel industry investing in new energy technologies.

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Speaker 4: Now you can get into an argument about whether or

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Speaker 4: not that's greenwashing, whether or not a believer's technologies will

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Speaker 4: be successful.

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Speaker 2: But we're at a company like Open Style. All we

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Speaker 2: can dedicate ourselves to is actually trying to solve a

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Speaker 2: problem that's in front of us.

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Speaker 1: In twenty ten, Stephen Hawking said fusion could provide an

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Speaker 1: inexhaustible supply of energy without pollution.

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Speaker 3: Or global warming.

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Speaker 6: It's considered to be clean, cheap, efficient, and endless, yet

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Speaker 6: its nuclear association is often unappealing for reasons History can explain, and.

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Speaker 2: This is smoke that towered and mushroomed August sixth, nineteen

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Speaker 2: forty five over the ademized remains of Hiroshima when.

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Speaker 3: A new Zealanders split the atom.

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Speaker 1: History now tells us how that ended up when it

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Speaker 1: became uncontrolled. What is the potential risk of what we're

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Speaker 1: talking about here? Could this lead to devastation and destruction

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Speaker 1: if it falls into the wrong hands again.

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Speaker 4: So there are risks, probably on two aspects to talk

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Speaker 4: about a risk.

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Speaker 2: One is from a local risk.

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Speaker 4: So if you've built one of these machines, is it

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Speaker 4: safe to have in your backyard? And I think that's

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Speaker 4: something that people ready care about and rightfully so fusion

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Speaker 4: why we're so excited about it is well, there are risks,

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Speaker 4: we're confident that they can be managed in the same

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Speaker 4: way we manage other industrial risks. So a fusion power

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Speaker 4: plant should really be no more dangerous than a chemical

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Speaker 4: plant or a big manufacturing facility. It's big voltages, it's

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Speaker 4: big machines, it's things that can go pop if they're

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Speaker 4: not handled properly and humans can do this, we know

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Speaker 4: we can make that work because our whole modern world

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Speaker 4: depends on that and traditional nuclear so nuclear fission takes

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Speaker 4: it a step on that. If you look at the

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Speaker 4: clean up cost for Fukushima Daichi all costs for Japanese

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Speaker 4: taxpayer two hundred and fifty billion dollars over the course

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Speaker 4: of that project. That's not something you can get insurance

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Speaker 4: for and not something that we expect to be necessary

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Speaker 4: for fusion machines. In terms of communicating that safety, like,

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Speaker 4: my commitment is just to be as open an eyes

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Speaker 4: with people and share their concerns and show how we're

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Speaker 4: going to manage those.

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Speaker 2: So that's one aspect.

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Speaker 4: The second aspect is kind of is this a pathway

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Speaker 4: to global apocalypse? And I think pretty clearly know and

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Speaker 4: it is a really good example of this eat that big,

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Speaker 4: gargantuan project I spoke about as a collaboration between Russia, China,

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Speaker 4: vu Japan, the United States, and these are all entities

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Speaker 4: or countries that don't necessarily like each other all the time,

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Speaker 4: And in fact, when Russia joined, I'm pretty sure it

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Speaker 4: was still the Soviet Union. Fusion was always seen as

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Speaker 4: a safe technology that you know, rival nations could actual

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Speaker 4: collaborate on and be an olive branch between them without

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Speaker 4: sharing secrets that would let the other one figure out

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Speaker 4: how to destroy the other. And so fusion has always

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Speaker 4: been able to take on like a peaceful role in

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Speaker 4: our geopolitics, and we think that sure it can continue,

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Speaker 4: and we will continue over the next few decades.

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Speaker 1: The ultimate question, though, is can we control fusion?

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Speaker 2: Sure?

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Speaker 3: Can we?

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Speaker 4: So control is an interesting one. The thing that when

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Speaker 4: we look at these other machines, one of the reasons

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Speaker 4: why they become so complicated is because that's exactly what

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Speaker 4: they're trying to do. They're trying to control the plasma

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Speaker 4: in a way that keeps it locked up, allows you

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Speaker 4: to heat it up without it kind of breaking free.

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Speaker 4: And that's actually the one thing that we wanted to

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Speaker 4: avoid the most. And we think we have the only

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Speaker 4: method for confining a plasma using a magnet that doesn't

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Speaker 4: have that particular problem. And so the way to put

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Speaker 4: it is, if you build a plasma in a lab

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Speaker 4: like this one, but you want it to look and

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Speaker 4: behave like a plasma that's actually stable in nature, the

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Speaker 4: dipole is the only way to do it.

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Speaker 2: There's a big dipole plasma above our heads right now.

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Speaker 4: It's called the magnetosphere, and that magnetosphere captures particles that

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Speaker 4: come from the Sun. And really importantly, if that magnetosphere

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Speaker 4: wasn't there, that solar wind would have wiped out the

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Speaker 4: atmosphere millions of years ago, if not billions of years ago,

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Speaker 4: and there.

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Speaker 2: Wouldn't be life on Earth.

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Speaker 4: So we already owe our existence to magnetospheres and controlling

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Speaker 4: our plasmas, and so we're just trying to do that

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00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:32,960
Speaker 4: in a lab and take advantage of stability.

448
00:21:33,480 --> 00:21:38,399
Speaker 1: What makes you think that countries would take on fusion when.

449
00:21:38,320 --> 00:21:41,400
Speaker 3: They have historically been so against using fission.

450
00:21:42,720 --> 00:21:45,680
Speaker 4: I think it's hard to argue that fission doesn't have

451
00:21:45,760 --> 00:21:48,639
Speaker 4: pretty serious challenges from an engineering point of view that

452
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:51,240
Speaker 4: have to be managed in a way that makes communities

453
00:21:51,280 --> 00:21:51,879
Speaker 4: feel safe.

454
00:21:52,080 --> 00:21:53,080
Speaker 2: And it's really up.

455
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:55,280
Speaker 4: To the judgment of those communities whether or not that's

456
00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:57,040
Speaker 4: been a successful arrangement.

457
00:21:57,880 --> 00:21:59,720
Speaker 2: And so you even have really.

458
00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:02,760
Speaker 4: Like people would absolutely say, well the Germans, no engineering,

459
00:22:02,880 --> 00:22:04,560
Speaker 4: like that's a that's a country that should be on

460
00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:07,480
Speaker 4: top of the stuff. And even they have moved seriously

461
00:22:07,520 --> 00:22:11,800
Speaker 4: away from fission. As an engineer, I can see the

462
00:22:11,880 --> 00:22:14,480
Speaker 4: merits of how you would keep a fission reactor safe,

463
00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:17,800
Speaker 4: but I really do think it's it's legitimate that communities

464
00:22:17,960 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 4: need to be convinced, and if they don't understand that,

465
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:23,840
Speaker 4: I think that's that's kind of the end of a

466
00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:28,399
Speaker 4: picture for fusion. We think that fundamentally the technology is

467
00:22:28,520 --> 00:22:32,000
Speaker 4: safer to start with, which means that the safety issues

468
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:34,919
Speaker 4: are easy, easier for us to solve, and then easier

469
00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:38,360
Speaker 4: for us to communicate with communities on how it's being managed,

470
00:22:38,680 --> 00:22:42,159
Speaker 4: and the absolute level of risk is just lower to

471
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:47,640
Speaker 4: begin with. And then finally, since bringing the company out

472
00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 4: of stealth, from a personal perspective, I've been talking to

473
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:55,200
Speaker 4: normal people about fusion, and people can tell the difference

474
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:59,480
Speaker 4: between fission and fusion, and people as long as you're

475
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:01,800
Speaker 4: open and honest about how those risks are going to

476
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:04,520
Speaker 4: be managed, I think they're very welcoming that we give

477
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:06,199
Speaker 4: us a shot and we see if this is a

478
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:07,440
Speaker 4: solution that we're looking for.

479
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:11,160
Speaker 1: Appetite for fusion is growing where the cost of existing

480
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:16,000
Speaker 1: energy has hit crisis levels. For example, Germany is funding

481
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:19,320
Speaker 1: a research effort to construct its first fusion power plant

482
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:23,679
Speaker 1: by twenty forty, but power companies are already spending billions

483
00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:28,680
Speaker 1: on more renewable energy generation infrastructure, such as wind and solar.

484
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:31,480
Speaker 3: I also want to talk to you about renewable generation.

485
00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:35,000
Speaker 1: Elon Musk tweeted even this morning saying that he thinks

486
00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:40,159
Speaker 1: solar will be the biggest edition of electricity generation in

487
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:43,879
Speaker 1: the world. Obviously that's what he's doing with Tesla. Is

488
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:46,680
Speaker 1: this a bet against Elon Musk? Is this a bet

489
00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:48,400
Speaker 1: against renewable generation.

490
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:52,440
Speaker 4: One of the things that Elon I think prides himself

491
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:56,520
Speaker 4: on is he backs technologies that are actually very mature,

492
00:23:57,080 --> 00:24:00,199
Speaker 4: and he doesn't actually like solving technical rescue for can

493
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:02,679
Speaker 4: avoid it. Right, So solar panels are something that you

494
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:06,960
Speaker 4: can now procure in mass like. Industry is making those

495
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 4: things cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. But ultimately renewables have

496
00:24:10,080 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 4: a really big problem, which is that they're on supply technologies.

497
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:16,000
Speaker 2: They give you the power when they want, not when

498
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:16,720
Speaker 2: you want.

499
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:20,560
Speaker 4: And the answer to this has traditionally been batteries, that

500
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:22,480
Speaker 4: we're going to store the power and then sell it

501
00:24:22,520 --> 00:24:25,680
Speaker 4: back to people. But the economic model around that, whilst

502
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 4: it can enable renewables, is not actually a detriment to

503
00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 4: something like fusion. So if you build a fusion power plant,

504
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:36,879
Speaker 4: it makes a great baseload generator and that means it

505
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:38,679
Speaker 4: can sell you power during the day, but it can

506
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:42,320
Speaker 4: also produce power overnight when people don't actually demand that much.

507
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 4: And so if you've told me that we've solved the

508
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 4: battery problem for renewables, I'm just going to tell you cool,

509
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:49,919
Speaker 4: We'll build a battery pack, we'll charge that overnight with

510
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:52,040
Speaker 4: our fusion power, and we'll sell it back into the grid.

511
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:55,399
Speaker 2: So our ability to actually compete with renewables as they

512
00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:56,440
Speaker 2: get cheaper and cheaper.

513
00:24:56,320 --> 00:25:01,040
Speaker 4: Should be viable. Batteries are not the killer from that perspective.

514
00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:04,239
Speaker 1: So you see an energy future where there's fusion and

515
00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 1: also renewables in the group.

516
00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 4: If fusion takes us as far as we think it can, no,

517
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:13,680
Speaker 4: it will just be fusion eventually, so my lifetime, but

518
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 4: that's that's the ultimate. So there's a physical limit on

519
00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 4: how good you can make a solar panel, right, and

520
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:21,360
Speaker 4: we will probably hit that.

521
00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 2: Limit within my lifetime.

522
00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:25,920
Speaker 4: And then there you're looking at, well sunlight hits for

523
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:28,440
Speaker 4: the Earth there about one killer wat per square meta

524
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:31,440
Speaker 4: and you can't do any better than that other than

525
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:32,160
Speaker 4: taking up more.

526
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 2: And more space.

527
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 4: Whereas a fusion reactor can be made better and better

528
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 4: and better as we discover new materials and we get

529
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 4: better at the engineering, our ability to produce power and

530
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:44,400
Speaker 4: compact to useful units that we can actually plug into

531
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:48,440
Speaker 4: society should outpace the diffuse energy source.

532
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 2: Fatter is our.

533
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 3: Sum sort of sum that up.

534
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:53,359
Speaker 1: Then the billions of dollars, including in this country, that

535
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 1: has been thrown at renewable generation will one day be

536
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:58,720
Speaker 1: wasted because fusuon is just gonna own.

537
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:01,040
Speaker 2: No, absolutely not, that's ridiculous.

538
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 4: Any investment has some time horizon to give you a return,

539
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 4: right And so what I've just talked about is like

540
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:10,159
Speaker 4: a multi decade or like this is this thing that

541
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 4: my kids and grandkids are going to watch happen. Right

542
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 4: for now, what we need to do is get as

543
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 4: much renewable and clean energy on the grid to displace

544
00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 4: carbon emitting energy sources. And renewables are fantastic at that

545
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 4: right now. And what's going to happen is that they're

546
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 4: going to take up more and more capacity, and then

547
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:30,480
Speaker 4: we're going to have the sticky base load problem that

548
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 4: hopefully we can crack fusion in time.

549
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:34,119
Speaker 2: To then a replace out.

550
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,040
Speaker 4: So I think it's renewables now the infusion and infusion

551
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:39,880
Speaker 4: will just make all the renewables we used originally obsolete.

552
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:43,119
Speaker 3: The big question as of course, commercial viability.

553
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 1: Even if this experiment works out, will this become a

554
00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:48,200
Speaker 1: profitable company.

555
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 4: So the pathway that we see in building prototypes and

556
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:55,159
Speaker 4: timelines is to get to that minimum viable products and

557
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 4: that's probably like an isotope generation machine rather than a

558
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 4: power plant that it's addressing a problem in a multi

559
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:06,360
Speaker 4: billion dollar global market. You've got huge pharmaceutical companies trying

560
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 4: to find solutions in that space. And really what we

561
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 4: want to show is revenue into a company so that

562
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:15,120
Speaker 4: you could potentially pay back investors. But more importantly, if

563
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 4: you're building a profitable business, you're not having money go out.

564
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:19,920
Speaker 4: You're having money go in to allow you to continue

565
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:21,439
Speaker 4: capitalizing and building on it.

566
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 2: I mean, Tiesla still sucks money in rather than paying

567
00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 2: it out.

568
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:28,239
Speaker 4: And they're a very large, successful business with a lot

569
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:28,879
Speaker 4: of investments.

570
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: With a lot of investment, So what's the future for

571
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 1: open Star?

572
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 3: What valuation do you foresee for this business? A trillion

573
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:38,400
Speaker 3: a billion? Like what are we looking.

574
00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:43,160
Speaker 4: At I think it's absolutely a trillion dollar market, right

575
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 4: and you do want to capture as much of it

576
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 4: as you can. Really, the way that I view it

577
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,200
Speaker 4: is we have a problem to solve, and I think

578
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:55,639
Speaker 4: free markets investment building companies is the best mechanism to

579
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 4: create a flywheel to make that happen, which means that

580
00:27:58,160 --> 00:27:59,479
Speaker 4: we need to have a commercial model and we need

581
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:01,119
Speaker 4: to be able to show how we're going to get returns,

582
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 4: and we need to be pretty hard nosed about how

583
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 4: we're going.

584
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:04,480
Speaker 2: To capture value.

585
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:07,640
Speaker 4: But I don't think open Star will literally capture all

586
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 4: of it, and there's plenty to go around. I mean,

587
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 4: if you look at probably the best example is for

588
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:18,520
Speaker 4: global hydrocarbon industry, right oil. There's trillions of dollars of

589
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 4: invested infrastructure that keeps our modern energy economy working, and

590
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 4: all of that needs to be replaced, I mean owned

591
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:27,719
Speaker 4: by someone, maybe not one person, but hopefully a lot

592
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:28,080
Speaker 4: of us.

593
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:30,840
Speaker 2: But open Star wants to be a huge part of that.

594
00:28:31,119 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 3: I'm excited to watch you do it.

595
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:33,480
Speaker 2: Thank you, thanks so.

596
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: Much having us Rouster appreciate it.

597
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:35,439
Speaker 2: Cheeruz