Speaker 1: Welcome to text stuff. This is the story. I'm as
Speaker 1: Voloscian here with Cara Price. Hi AHAs Hi Cara. So
Speaker 1: this week I wanted to ask a simple but very
Speaker 1: big question, which is can nuclear fusion save the world,
Speaker 1: and if so, on what timeline?
Speaker 2: Is?
Speaker 3: It ridiculous for me to ask what nuclear fusion is.
Speaker 3: I genuinely don't know.
Speaker 1: Not at all actually, And it's a little confusing because
Speaker 1: we hear so much about nuclear all the time at
Speaker 1: the moment, especially with the new demands for energy from
Speaker 1: the AI industry. But people are normally talking about nuclear
Speaker 1: fission rather than nuclear fusion. But I'm going to let
Speaker 1: Alex Creeley explain this, who works at a company called
Speaker 1: Commonwealth Fusion Systems.
Speaker 4: So, fusion is the process of powers of stars. You
Speaker 4: take small atoms like hydrogen, you can bind them together.
Speaker 4: You make bigger atoms like helium, and that releases like
Speaker 4: a whole bunch of energy. So it's a bunch of
Speaker 4: potential advantages. It's clean, it's firm, so it turns on
Speaker 4: when you want it, not when you don't. And hopefully
Speaker 4: if we can make it work in a power plant
Speaker 4: on Earth, it'll change the way the world makes electricity.
Speaker 3: So, as you were saying, like, this is obviously a
Speaker 3: concept that is different than nuclear fission, but I still
Speaker 3: can't understand the difference between nuclear fusion and nuclear fission.
Speaker 1: Well, well, let's toss back to Alex for that.
Speaker 4: Fission and fusion are like exact opposite processes. You take
Speaker 4: big atoms like uranium, you split it apart from smaller atoms.
Speaker 4: So fusion's combining fission splitting apart. Oh, that actually makes sense.
Speaker 1: It's actually deceptively simple. You know. Fission, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: is the process by which today is nuclear power plants
Speaker 1: are powered, and it's a process that we've mastered, essentially
Speaker 1: splitting the atom. Nuclear fusion, on the other hand, works
Speaker 1: in the lab, but it hasn't yet been commercialized.
Speaker 3: So there are people though that think that nuclear fusion
Speaker 3: can save the world, even though we haven't perfected this
Speaker 3: process yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there've actually been several big breakthroughs in the last
Speaker 1: few years and a glut of funding. I think I
Speaker 1: read that twelve nuclear fusion startups have raised more than
Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars each in the last few years.
Speaker 4: Thank god.
Speaker 1: My other guest today came to this space early before
Speaker 1: it was as hot as it is today. Her name
Speaker 1: is Gabriella Hurst. You probably know she is.
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 3: She's a very interesting fashion designer whose career I followed
Speaker 3: for a while.
Speaker 1: Actually, yes, so. She was the creative director of Chloe.
Speaker 1: She now runs her own brand. She designed Jill Biden's
Speaker 1: inauguration dress. She's one of the most celebrated fashion designers
Speaker 1: in the world. And she made her mission to make
Speaker 1: fashion production more sustainable, which is how she got intrigued,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, by nuclear fusion.
Speaker 2: I believe it's around eighty five percent of the world
Speaker 2: is moved with fossil fuels, and I knew these idea
Speaker 2: that we were going to consume less energy was just mistaken.
Speaker 2: And I found this article in the Financial Times and
Speaker 2: something inside me when like this is it like I
Speaker 2: have found a holy grail of sorts.
Speaker 1: Beginning of sentence, I found this article in the Financial
Speaker 1: Times is something I do every other every other time.
Speaker 3: Literally, that's literally how we function.
Speaker 1: So Gabriella became a global ambassador for nuclear fusion. She
Speaker 1: linked up with Alex Creeley at Commonwealth Fusion Systems and
Speaker 1: she used a runway show at Chloe back in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two with Gigi had died walking to bring the
Speaker 1: world's attention to fusion.
Speaker 3: And I could probably argue that we wouldn't be talking
Speaker 3: about nuclear fusion in this way had she not put
Speaker 3: on this fashion show.
Speaker 1: Well, she certainly brought the topic out of the academy
Speaker 1: and into the kind of popular cultural conversation before anyone else.
Speaker 1: I mean that said, of course, there's been investment interests
Speaker 1: around this for a long time. Sam Altman became the
Speaker 1: chairman of one of the nuclear fusion startups called Helian,
Speaker 1: back in twenty fifteen. But I think bringing it into
Speaker 1: the mainstream was something that Gabriella really can credit for,
Speaker 1: and she and Alex together helped me really dive into
Speaker 1: this question, which is can it save the world, and
Speaker 1: if so, on what timeline? Alex, when will someone like
Speaker 1: Abriella be able to use fusion to manufacture I just.
Speaker 2: Want to say I'm the least of the problem. I
Speaker 2: would say, like, how about.
Speaker 1: About how about Zara.
Speaker 2: Or how about all the AI people want to thing?
Speaker 2: Just know, I'm just like, I'm really not a problem.
Speaker 5: In the scale we want.
Speaker 4: We want to make enough fusion for everyone that's like
Speaker 4: the goal and.
Speaker 1: Went when what is the fundamental challenge of commercializing this
Speaker 1: that the idea has been actively invested in since the
Speaker 1: late fifties early sixties. We're seventy years in, but there's
Speaker 1: a new for one of a better word energy, it
Speaker 1: feels like around this.
Speaker 4: So the central challenge of fusion is to get your
Speaker 4: fuel hot and to keep it hot without spending so
Speaker 4: much energy keeping it hot that it's not worth it.
Speaker 4: So to do fusion, your fuel needs to be like
Speaker 4: one hundred million degrees one hundred million degrees, one hundred
Speaker 4: million degrees. It's like it's a number that's so large
Speaker 4: it's kind of meaningless.
Speaker 5: Because comparely to the times of the heat of the sun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's hotter than the core of the sun,
Speaker 4: hotter than the core of the sun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can create that heat here on Earth today.
Speaker 4: Today, today we can. Yeah. So it sounded like science fiction,
Speaker 4: but like we do it every day. But there's a
Speaker 4: new energy in it now. So people are working for
Speaker 4: this a long time. But the technology you need to
Speaker 4: do that to get the fuel hot and keep it
Speaker 4: hot is all different types of technology. It's like building
Speaker 4: on the just general progress of human civilization over the
Speaker 4: last seventy years. We now have new types of magnets,
Speaker 4: new types of lasers, new materials, new computational ability to
Speaker 4: optimize stuff, and all of that has kind of gotten
Speaker 4: us to the point where we're ready to take what
Speaker 4: was a science experiment which is really cool or really
Speaker 4: hot maybe and turn that into a power plant. So
Speaker 4: it's coming soon. There's a lot of companies working on it.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of us are target targeting early
Speaker 4: twenty thirties, so not too long from now.
Speaker 1: Gabrielle, when you first got interested in this in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, was that some kind of breakthrough that made
Speaker 1: it more relevant or what was the was the moment then?
Speaker 2: I think it was reading how much the private sector
Speaker 2: had like Gearrope in recent years, because before it was
Speaker 2: only publicly funded and it was a Cold War race,
Speaker 2: and he had a momentum, right, and then it kind
Speaker 2: of I think it was around the nineties where it
Speaker 2: slowed down. Of it the momentum of the evolution of
Speaker 2: fusion energy, and it was that understanding of the private
Speaker 2: sector investing and that big players were getting involved and
Speaker 2: the good the button, the ugly were getting involved, and
Speaker 2: so I was like, Okay, there's something here, and I
Speaker 2: did the research, meaning I used it as a research
Speaker 2: for my collection, which you can imagine telling a French
Speaker 2: Meissan studio saying well, this season, we're going to study
Speaker 2: fusion and we're going to be set a few private
Speaker 2: sector and a few public sector.
Speaker 5: And they weren't be like what is she on?
Speaker 2: And that we did and it was it was amazing
Speaker 2: how the teams interpreted everything, Like we really did prints
Speaker 2: of like isotopes and like you know the Runway show,
Speaker 2: we use a master of lights that was all the circles.
Speaker 5: Of a tacomac.
Speaker 2: But it was really that spark of like, oh this
Speaker 2: is getting caught not found intended.
Speaker 1: And what is a token mac?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so tokmac is like the type of fusion machine
Speaker 4: that we build. There's like a whole zoo of types
Speaker 4: of fusion machines. The donut and you make it out
Speaker 4: of magnets. So I think the tokmak. The word is
Speaker 4: a contraction of like toital magnetic chamber. Toidal is just
Speaker 4: like the math word for donut shaped, So donut shape
Speaker 4: magnetic chamber. And we're we're building like that type of fusion.
Speaker 1: Machine and that will live inside the power plant exactly.
Speaker 4: Yep. That's the heart of the power plant. So we
Speaker 4: use these magnets. We make a donut shaped star and
Speaker 4: then the star makes the energy and then we extract
Speaker 4: that and boil water and make steamage like.
Speaker 2: A steam engine, just that it's powered by instead of coal,
Speaker 2: it's by fusion.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Humanity has gotten very good at boiling water over
Speaker 4: the last couple hundred years, and we still do that. Actually,
Speaker 4: even for fusion, we just come up with very clever
Speaker 4: ways to boil the water.
Speaker 1: This is about generating heat to boil water. That's what
Speaker 1: it comes down to.
Speaker 5: Yes, yep, Yes, surprisingly a lot of thinking into that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you talked about this kind of moment where a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of public investment that was kind of latent
Speaker 1: exploded into privatization. That's something most people are very familiar
Speaker 1: with when it comes to AI, the fundamental dapper research
Speaker 1: that in the last few years has kind of exploded
Speaker 1: into a very immediate consumer product. Space is another example, right,
Speaker 1: SpaceX and Blue Origin others building on the kind of
Speaker 1: NASA and Soviet rocket tree platform technology to privatize space.
Speaker 1: But where does fusion sit within this kind of public
Speaker 1: to private paradigm.
Speaker 4: It's a similar idea where there's like foundational research that's
Speaker 4: happened all around the world since the fifties, and there's
Speaker 4: just a lot of understanding of the science that we've
Speaker 4: developed and a lot of like adjacent technolog that we've developed,
Speaker 4: and it doesn't seem like it's going very fast until
Speaker 4: like it hits a tipping point where a bunch of
Speaker 4: commercial entities like investors and stuff come in and they
Speaker 4: look at it and like this looks really close, Like
Speaker 4: it doesn't look close, and all of a sudden it
Speaker 4: kind of passes a tipping point where it looks like
Speaker 4: we're going to invest in this, and like we think
Speaker 4: this is a real short term thing that we can
Speaker 4: commercialize and deploy all of the world. And what commercial
Speaker 4: entities are good at is scaling, so like not just
Speaker 4: build one, build like thousands, which is what you need
Speaker 4: for power.
Speaker 2: But I also I would say that what is different
Speaker 2: from is a very focus on much more grounded It's
Speaker 2: not like a wild West goal rush like AI where
Speaker 2: people are like in pre idea stage getting funded. It's
Speaker 2: really grounded in deep science in the fact that we
Speaker 2: are here because fusion exists. We are a product of fusion.
Speaker 2: So it's really harnessing the energy. So there's a much
Speaker 2: more holy aspect to it.
Speaker 1: But you use the phrase holy grail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's really even if you look at the
Speaker 2: poetry of the line that he said, or it's just
Speaker 2: so simple, but it's the truth. But fission you have
Speaker 2: to break, and for fusion, you have to fuse, right,
Speaker 2: And I think what we need is a lot of
Speaker 2: fusion in this world instead of breaking apart. So I
Speaker 2: think there's something that I find very spiritual in the
Speaker 2: science of all of it that's really interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think it's one of the things we thought about too,
Speaker 4: is like fusion powers the universe, Like the universe has
Speaker 4: already chosen fusion as like the main way to make energy,
Speaker 4: and so like it seems like a good choice that
Speaker 4: human civilization should eventually get to that same choice.
Speaker 5: It's proven, Is it proven?
Speaker 4: Yes, it's a brun model.
Speaker 1: We like to talk about podcasts as the theater of
Speaker 1: the mind. Garyell, what's it like as an outsider, like
Speaker 1: talk about the process of translating this through fashion from
Speaker 1: mass audience. I mean, you had obviously a huge platform.
Speaker 1: I think you had Gigi had Deed walk in that show.
Speaker 2: Alex, a lot of models in our Big Models, Alex Costanini.
Speaker 1: There's a yeah, what you're trying to achieve and did
Speaker 1: you do it? Well?
Speaker 2: What I tried to achieve was I think information is
Speaker 2: very siloed. So the science community, the fusion community all
Speaker 2: know what's going on and the updates, and the fashion
Speaker 2: community all know their own things, and it's all very
Speaker 2: silo or information. And if I just get a few
Speaker 2: more people to know about it, just did you need
Speaker 2: that public support in a way? So I think I
Speaker 2: got like at least ten more people to know about it.
Speaker 4: Maybe a few more solid And I think on our side,
Speaker 4: it's like that is so important because like we're working
Speaker 4: to get the technology to work, but that is not
Speaker 4: sufficient to really achieve like the longer energy mission of fusion.
Speaker 4: It's like you need a world who understands fusion and
Speaker 4: is excited about it and like wants to bring it
Speaker 4: all forward. Like you need politicians involved, you need like
Speaker 4: heavy industry, you need like financing, you need public policy,
Speaker 4: you need all of these pieces together, and like the
Speaker 4: only way you educate that much larger group of people
Speaker 4: is to have a much wider platform, and like all
Speaker 4: the work the gabrielity is critical to that wider platform.
Speaker 1: And it kind of paid off. I guess would you
Speaker 1: feel the need to do that again or do you
Speaker 1: think like mission accomplished.
Speaker 2: In terms of no, no, no, till fusion is in
Speaker 2: the grid, the mission is not accomplished.
Speaker 1: Until fusion is in the grid, the mission is unaccomplished.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think we're clear now.
Speaker 4: I agree.
Speaker 5: We did get an article in Vanity Fair.
Speaker 2: So I think it's about telling these great news because
Speaker 2: it's great news. There's like brilliant people like my friend
Speaker 2: Alex doing this work in the world, and they could
Speaker 2: have used that brilliance for something else and using it
Speaker 2: to save our buds. And it's a very holistic approach.
Speaker 2: Is like its whoever wins the race's good for.
Speaker 5: All of us.
Speaker 1: So I read it. I read a piece this morning
Speaker 1: actually which said that around a dozen nuclear fusion startups
Speaker 1: in the US have raised more than one hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars in recent years. One of those, of course, is
Speaker 1: Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Gabriella, you studied the whole ecosystem. I
Speaker 1: think you met a lot of the companies, Why Commonwealth
Speaker 1: and why Alex in terms of one of the companies
Speaker 1: that you want to make a special effort to showcase they.
Speaker 2: Are transparency their commitment to the timeline. And I don't
Speaker 2: think we ever spoke about this meeting a lot of
Speaker 2: the members. I never met somebody with a big ego.
Speaker 2: I met very dedicated people that were extremely committed to
Speaker 2: this vision and this passion and all rooted for like,
Speaker 2: oh shit, we have a big problem. Our humanity is
Speaker 2: facing a big problem, and we're going to commit our
Speaker 2: life to this. And so it was really the people
Speaker 2: that made me think common World fushould and they're really
Speaker 2: going at it in the timeline.
Speaker 5: I think you guys are like what on timeline or not?
Speaker 5: Something too not too oft.
Speaker 4: We're moving fast. We always want to be faster, but
Speaker 4: we're moving fast.
Speaker 1: I'm moving fast towards what are you doing? What does
Speaker 1: it mean to be the director of the Tokomac operations?
Speaker 1: Like just break it down for us in a very
Speaker 1: simple way.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 4: Sure, So I end up with two jobs right now.
Speaker 4: We're a startup, so you know, with more jobs than
Speaker 4: you like. One of my jobs is the director of
Speaker 4: Tokmac Operations. So right now we're building a demonstration plant
Speaker 4: just outside of Boston. It's not yet a full power plant,
Speaker 4: but it shows that all the stuff works, and so
Speaker 4: I am managing the operations team for that, like, once
Speaker 4: we finished building it, how do you turn it on?
Speaker 4: Like which buttons do you push? And like hopefully don't
Speaker 4: break it. And actually the process of transitioning that job
Speaker 4: to some other people because we've like kind of trained
Speaker 4: up a great team. So I'm transitioning now to be
Speaker 4: the chief engineer for ARC Design. And so ARC is
Speaker 4: our power plant that'll be in Virginia. We're starting the
Speaker 4: design process for that and so today most of my
Speaker 4: time is focused on the power plant design.
Speaker 2: So basically, this is what's so brilliant about them is
Speaker 2: that they're doing both the demo and the commercial at
Speaker 2: the same time.
Speaker 5: It's not like a linear thing.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, well, first we are going to do
Speaker 2: the demo and then we're going to do the commercial
Speaker 2: plan we don't have that time, so they're doing both.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's like the first one is sparked the
Speaker 4: one we're building now. It like proves out all the technology.
Speaker 4: It like proves out that we as an organization can
Speaker 4: figure out how to build stuff, and then we take
Speaker 4: all of that experience, all that learning, and we bring
Speaker 4: it to the real commercial power plant which sits on
Speaker 4: the grid makes electricity. You know, it looks like a
Speaker 4: coal power plant, but without the coal part.
Speaker 1: Off the break Why wind and solar energy aren't enough
Speaker 1: and how AI demand plays into everything, Stay with us.
Speaker 1: Samultman is involved with one of the nuclear fusion companies
Speaker 1: called is it Helion or Helios Helion, Heleon, and they've
Speaker 1: promised commercial deployment and to provide power to Microsoft by
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight. Yeah, is that credible? And what's your timeline?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So our timeline is the early twenty thirties, and I
Speaker 4: think we try to avoid very specific numbers until we're
Speaker 4: fairly confident we can actually deliver on those. So early
Speaker 4: twenty thirties. Our first plant will be in Virginia, and
Speaker 4: we've actually also signed they're called a power purchase agreement.
Speaker 4: Basically someone signed up to buy your electricity. We've signed
Speaker 4: one with Google and one with any which is an
Speaker 4: Italian energy company. They'll both buy electricity from the same
Speaker 4: plant in Virginia. There's other companies working on this helion
Speaker 4: as one of them. I think different companies have slightly
Speaker 4: different philosophies of like how ambitious to be with their timelines.
Speaker 4: We think our timelines are like very ambitious, but also realistic.
Speaker 4: I think maybe there's some skepticism as to how realistic
Speaker 4: other people's timelines are. But at some level it's good
Speaker 4: to be ambitious, like going fast is good, as Gaby
Speaker 4: said earlier, like anyone gets fusion working, that's good for
Speaker 4: the world, Like that's good for humanity. And so we're
Speaker 4: rooting for these other companies. It's a friendly rivalry. We
Speaker 4: are working toward our timelines. We think our times are realistic,
Speaker 4: and other people they have their own technology, they have
Speaker 4: their own timelines that they're working toward.
Speaker 1: So I mean, you very clearly articulated the mission, which
Speaker 1: is getting energy onto the grid. That's the clearest articulation
Speaker 1: of the mission that I've I've heard talk about what
Speaker 1: does it mean to get the energy onto the grid?
Speaker 1: And why is that the mission?
Speaker 2: Because we are in this path and it really is
Speaker 2: about the burning of fossil fuels. We can go on
Speaker 2: and on about the many things, but it's the burning
Speaker 2: of fossil fuels, which if you look at it in abstraction,
Speaker 2: is a really bad idea, right, but it produces energy.
Speaker 2: It's like we're taking dead fossils, taking it out of
Speaker 2: the earth, burning it, shooting it to the atmosphere. It's
Speaker 2: just like the process is so polluting, it's like burning death.
Speaker 2: Like I don't want to be too dramatic, but literally,
Speaker 2: And so it is the burning of fossil fuels that
Speaker 2: has to stop. And it's not raining in the Amazons.
Speaker 2: I don't want to ruin your day, but it's not
Speaker 2: raining in the Amazons. It's like we are in a
Speaker 2: really pivotal point where all the dreams that we had
Speaker 2: to control the temperature that's done. That doesn't mean we're
Speaker 2: still not going to need fusion. So as soon as
Speaker 2: we can get the burning of fossil fuels with whatever
Speaker 2: technology that has the scale, because we know that wind
Speaker 2: and solar don't have the scale to take this, and.
Speaker 1: They also harder to integrate onto the grid because their fluctuations.
Speaker 4: Right yeah, and wind and solar are great, they're great,
Speaker 4: we should do more of it, but they have their challenges.
Speaker 4: And it's like, especially in areas that they have fluctuations
Speaker 4: that aren't well suited, Like places are cloudy all the time,
Speaker 4: probably you shouldn't install a bunch of solar. And then
Speaker 4: especially in like big population centers, so like we're in
Speaker 4: New York City, it's really hard to power all of
Speaker 4: New York City with wind and solar. You just need
Speaker 4: so much land and then all the transmission of getting
Speaker 4: the electricity from wherever you made it to where you
Speaker 4: need it. That big cities are much better suited to
Speaker 4: like a box that makes electricity, yeah, rather than like
Speaker 4: like collecting it out of the environment. That's where fusion
Speaker 4: strong point is is like it is big population centers,
Speaker 4: it is areas that are really energy intensive, and then
Speaker 4: it helps smooth out all the challenges of wind and
Speaker 4: solar that are on and off and on and off.
Speaker 4: You can do energy storage, but that adds up pretty
Speaker 4: quickly as well as being challenging, especially when you if
Speaker 4: you're so much wind but then it's not windy for
Speaker 4: a week. You know, a lot of energy storage, but
Speaker 4: fusion allows you to like smooth all that out with stuff.
Speaker 4: We call it firm, but it's like on when you
Speaker 4: need it, off when you don't energy.
Speaker 1: What needs to happen between now and the twenty thirties
Speaker 1: for you to achieve your mission.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a great question. A lot of things, and
Speaker 4: I'll start with like, we have to finish developing the technology.
Speaker 1: You can create the heat, but what can you not do?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we can create the heat, but right now
Speaker 4: it takes more energy to do the fusion process. Then
Speaker 4: you get out of the future process. So it's like
Speaker 4: a really cool science experiment. You can make fusion happen,
Speaker 4: but it's not a power plant, and so there's a
Speaker 4: lot of technologies that goes into getting that final step
Speaker 4: and then efficiently getting the heat out and using it
Speaker 4: for something. There's a lot of scientists and engineers all
Speaker 4: around the world working on this. People really care about this,
Speaker 4: like people have dedicated their careers to making this happen.
Speaker 4: In addition to that, we need a supply chain. So
Speaker 4: like building one power plant awesome, really cool, great for
Speaker 4: a step, Like we need a lot of these. It's
Speaker 4: like to really make an impact on the grid, To
Speaker 4: really make an impact on carbon emissions, you need thousands
Speaker 4: of power plants. So we need to develop global supply
Speaker 4: chains who can make all the stuff that you put
Speaker 4: into a power plant. We need the right policy. So
Speaker 4: having governments around the world combination of encourage people to
Speaker 4: do fusion but also regulate it in an appropriate framework.
Speaker 4: We want to do this very safely, but we want
Speaker 4: to do it appropriately, So we want to regulate things
Speaker 4: appropriately for the actual risks of them. And so getting
Speaker 4: the right regulatory and framework around the world and getting
Speaker 4: awareness in so like one of the big philosophies that
Speaker 4: CFS has had is like, we only want to go
Speaker 4: into communities that want us there, So we don't want
Speaker 4: to like bust down the door and be like we're
Speaker 4: building a power plan here, like too bad for you.
Speaker 4: And so having people who are aware of fusion, who
Speaker 4: are interested in fusion, who are excited about fusion really
Speaker 4: helps us go build power plants because then people are
Speaker 4: like no, no, no, please come here, like we want
Speaker 4: this new power plan here. So you need all these
Speaker 4: pieces to come together to build power plants.
Speaker 1: The Ft said, in seven decades of experiments, no group
Speaker 1: has developed a machine that can produce more energy than
Speaker 1: the power hungry devices consume. You believe that's about to change.
Speaker 4: It has changed. So twenty twenty two, a lab in
Speaker 4: California that Lawrence Livermore National Lab produced more energy out
Speaker 4: than in. That's the first time ever in human history
Speaker 4: that's happened. And it was after the Financial Times article,
Speaker 4: so it's yeah, an update and.
Speaker 5: After my show.
Speaker 4: So I looked like I was like some oracle and
Speaker 4: like it's like three months later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like and then it was more onto
Speaker 2: like and people started texting me, oh my god, this
Speaker 2: fusion thing, and I'm like timing, and so.
Speaker 4: We hope to be the second place to do that.
Speaker 4: So this lab in California has done it. We hope
Speaker 4: to be the second place to do that. And then
Speaker 4: the next step is go from make more energy out
Speaker 4: to make enough more energy out that you can make
Speaker 4: a power plant.
Speaker 1: And Gabrielle, what's changed since you did the show?
Speaker 5: This is a big change.
Speaker 2: I do think that there is much more awareness that
Speaker 2: breakthrough got a lot of media attention. When I started,
Speaker 2: the AI boom wasn't happening, Like AI was talked about
Speaker 2: the fear of AI, but it wasn't like a booming.
Speaker 5: So I think it is definitely something that is really
Speaker 5: thought through.
Speaker 2: Yeahs as the need and as you said, the very
Speaker 2: good definition of power hungry devices.
Speaker 5: It's true.
Speaker 4: One of the reasons, I mean, we were going to
Speaker 4: build a power plant regardless of AI. One of the
Speaker 4: reasons we're building it specifically in Virginia is because of
Speaker 4: data centers. The Virginia area has so many data centers
Speaker 4: they really, really, really need more electricity. And so they
Speaker 4: were again very excited. Both the individual community was excited
Speaker 4: because it was a fusion plant, but like the state
Speaker 4: of Virginia and like the power producers there were very
Speaker 4: excited that fusion was coming because they need electricity.
Speaker 1: I mean, also just how the culture has changed, right
Speaker 1: Like if you look at twenty twelve period with AI,
Speaker 1: there was like Jeffrey Hinton, who just won the Nobel Prize.
Speaker 1: He and his lab couldn't get access to the supercomputers
Speaker 1: at the leading universities, so they bought in video chips,
Speaker 1: figured out how to basically engineer them to be AI chips,
Speaker 1: and this amazing boom was born. What's changed in terms
Speaker 1: of the culture, in terms of the perception of the
Speaker 1: industry since you've been working in it at Eggs and
Speaker 1: what still needs to change.
Speaker 4: I've been in fusion now for ten years. It's a
Speaker 4: little bit longer. I started started undergrad doing some internships,
Speaker 4: and I think at the time it was still viewed
Speaker 4: as an academic pursuit. It was a scientific interest. I
Speaker 4: got into fusion for the Climate Mission, for the Energy
Speaker 4: Mission of like we need energy, and we want clean energy,
Speaker 4: we want for an energy but broadly it was still
Speaker 4: in the academic realm. And over those ten years people
Speaker 4: have realized that like, no, no, this is coming soon
Speaker 4: right on this precipice. It's like fusion, Like it feels
Speaker 4: impossible until all of a sudden it feels inevitable. I
Speaker 4: mean like powered flights the same way. Like a week
Speaker 4: before the Wright brothers through their airplane, there was like
Speaker 4: this whole article about how flight's impossible and like we
Speaker 4: should stop this folly of that, you know, to waste
Speaker 4: the time. That's really changed. I think that a lot
Speaker 4: of the attitude around the world has changed, like yeah,
Speaker 4: this is you know, some crazy scientists.
Speaker 2: Like whatever I was confronted constantly is like from really
Speaker 2: smart people that I respect, like this is not gonna
Speaker 2: even happen. I remember when we did the panel in Cops. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And what was the name of the former Dee arnimonies yes, yes,
Speaker 2: he was a non believer and he turned his believer.
Speaker 2: So there's there's a lot of believers now. Also, we
Speaker 2: haven't really talked that it doesn't use uranium.
Speaker 4: We're getting close, and I think the world recognizes that,
Speaker 4: and I think which is great also because because of
Speaker 4: the awareness, we get help and support from a much
Speaker 4: wider range of people than we would have ten years ago.
Speaker 4: So suppliers we go, we need to order this weird
Speaker 4: part and like ten years ago and be like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: get in line, like you know, maybe someday they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is for fusion, great, like front of the line,
Speaker 4: like we'll make this thing for you.
Speaker 1: So it's mostly exciting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's all. It's all sorts of stuff ranging from
Speaker 4: like big things of small things that are moving this
Speaker 4: faster carbrio.
Speaker 1: You mentioned uranium. Why and what are the misconceptions that
Speaker 1: you're battling.
Speaker 2: No, it's not the misconception. It's just that we know
Speaker 2: that uranium can be weaponized and fision, yeah for fiicient,
Speaker 2: not for fusion, and fusion doesn't use uranium, and this
Speaker 2: idea of energy that is not weaponized it's very appealing.
Speaker 2: Just to be clear, I have nothing against about nuclear fission,
Speaker 2: Like I'm like make nuclear great again. It's as I
Speaker 2: get the end of the day, we want to replace
Speaker 2: fossil fuels. That's that is and it's going to take
Speaker 2: a whole landscape of energy, right, fusion, wind, solar, geo thermal,
Speaker 2: now the technology to get geo thermal. It's like advancing
Speaker 2: as well from areas that usually wouldn't have geo thermal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can think of it like like there's a
Speaker 4: portfolio of ergy, just like the same way you like
Speaker 4: a financial portfolio. It's like portfolio of energy solutions that
Speaker 4: each are good in certain areas but maybe more challenging
Speaker 4: other areas.
Speaker 1: And if this works, would it not become one hundred
Speaker 1: percent No?
Speaker 4: No, Like fusion is great, it has a bunch.
Speaker 2: Of country like mine doesn't need fusion. Uruay is completely hydro,
Speaker 2: does not need fusion. All the energy that was producing
Speaker 2: my country is clean because we didn't have oil and
Speaker 2: to import oil is very very expensive. So for US,
Speaker 2: oil wasn't the easy option. But how do you power
Speaker 2: this country? Oh, we have a lot of rivers, so
Speaker 2: you'reways one of the cleanest countries in the world.
Speaker 4: Self promoting my country or like Iceland has geo thermal. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they don't need they don't need a bunch of fusion.
Speaker 4: But like large population centers or it's like very remote
Speaker 4: areas like there's like very few people when in solar
Speaker 4: are so much better, Like you don't need a giant
Speaker 4: power plant. Yeah, but for cities, especially for countries that
Speaker 4: are very oil intensive or very natural gas intensive or
Speaker 4: coal like that's for fusion.
Speaker 5: Big magnufacturing, big magnufacturing data center.
Speaker 4: It's part of a portfolio. It's not like fusion is
Speaker 4: not the solution everything. It's part of a portfolio.
Speaker 1: Can you clear fusion save the planet? How? On on
Speaker 1: what timeline?
Speaker 2: The answer is yes, Yes, definitely is going to be
Speaker 2: one of the leading energies. And for those that want
Speaker 2: to leave the planet, they think they have to go
Speaker 2: to Mars, they even need fusion for their rockets. So
Speaker 2: without fusion they cannot even leave. So fusion is gonna
Speaker 2: happen one way. For those that are really ambitioning to
Speaker 2: be out of I mean I like it here, they
Speaker 2: are going to need chuation for their rockets.
Speaker 5: So one way or an now or chuation has to happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think the having fusion in the
Speaker 4: world just makes a lot of things better. It reduces
Speaker 4: all of our emissions. You can also think of it
Speaker 4: as like energy is no longer a thing that you
Speaker 4: have to dig out of the ground. That like some
Speaker 4: countries have it in the ground, some countries don't. People
Speaker 4: fight wars over that. Yeah, Like fusion means energy is
Speaker 4: a manufactured product. You don't have to fight wars over
Speaker 4: energy Anymoreah, there's emissions things that about fusion that would
Speaker 4: be great. There's like geopolitical things about fusion that would
Speaker 4: be great, and like on what timeline like soon, Like
Speaker 4: I think the more help we can get, like the
Speaker 4: more people around the world that know about fusion, that
Speaker 4: are excited, that can take their talents from wherever they
Speaker 4: come from and like apply it to fusion, like, the
Speaker 4: faster it's.
Speaker 2: Going to be.
Speaker 1: I definitely feel much better informed after this than I
Speaker 1: did before. And thank you for laying out something which
Speaker 1: feels complicated and scary in a way which was easy
Speaker 1: to consume and understand.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having us, Thank you for having us.
Speaker 4: That's it for this week for tech stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Kara Price and I'm os Voloshin this episode, was
Speaker 1: produced by Eliza Dennis, Tyler Hill and Melissa Slaughter. It
Speaker 1: was executive produced by me Karra Price, Julian Nutter, and
Speaker 1: Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Norvel for iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 1: Kyle Murdoch mixed this episode and you also rode theme song.
Speaker 3: Join us on Friday for the Week in Tech, where
Speaker 3: we'll run through the headlines you need to follow.
Speaker 1: And please do rate and review the show wherever you listen,
Speaker 1: and reach out to us at tech Stuff podcast at
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Speaker 1: We love hearing from you.