E8: The Fusion Marathon
There’s this joke that fusion is always 30 years away. 50 years ago, it was 30 years away. 20 years ago, it was still thirty years away. Today, though… we might be within a decade. We spent the first half of the season on nuclear fission, and the last episode on many of the other energy sources that will play a role in meeting humanity’s growing energy demands and building an Age of Miracles. All of them will be critical. But there’s a growing chorus of people who believe that if we’re going to meet the demand for 3-5x the amount of energy we use today, and do it with clean energy, we’re going to need clean energy. And that as we climb the Kardashev Scale – the framework for measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it can use – fusion is going to be our ladder. In today's episode, we’ll cover the basics of fusion energy – what it is, how it works, why it matters, how progress is measured, and what the main approaches are. Thank you to this episode’s guests: Clay Dumas, Andrew Côté, Sehila Gonzalez, Ian Hogarth, and Ryan Umstattd. SPONSORS: RIPPLING SPEND | WEIGHTS AND BIASES | GIVEWELL | ANROK Imagine total control over your company's spending with Rippling Spend, the all-in-one platform for expense reports, corporate cards, and bill pay. Visit https://www.rippling.com/turpentine for a free demo and one month free trial. Advanced training for building production-ready RAG applications. Learn from experts to overcome LLM challenges, evaluate systematically, and integrate advanced features. Includes free Cohere credits. Visit https://wandb.me/cr to start the RAG++ course today. GiveWell spends 50,000 hours every year doing deep-dives into different charitable programs to try to find the ways to do the most good for your dollar. Visit https://www.givewell.org to find out more or make a donation. Select PODCAST and enter Econ 102 at checkout to make sure they know you heard about them from us. Anrok is the enterprise-grade solution that automates sales tax compliance worldwide. Visit https://www.anrok.com/turpentine to claim your free nexus study and take control of your SaaS tax strategy. – A huge thank you to our presenting sponsors for Season 1: Range Fund Holdings: Visit https://www.rangeetfs.com or contact your financial advisor to learn more about the Range Nuclear Renaissance ETF and start investing in the future of energy. Secureframe: Get 10% off your first year of Secureframe: https://secureframe.com/packy Pilot.com: Get 20% off your accounting bill for the first 6 months, go to https://pilot.com/packy Clean Air Task Force https://www.catf.us/ For the full list of resources referenced in this show: https://ageofmiraclesss.addpotion.com/ Subscribe to Not Boring to get weekly doses of tech and business strategy, straight to your inbox: https://www.notboring.co/ Follow our hosts: Packy McCormick on Twitter and LinkedIn Julia DeWahl on Twitter and LinkedIn Recommended podcast: 📈 ECON 102 W/ NOAH SMITH - Keeping econ entertaining - Noahpinion author Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg break down business news and politics every week. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Mos4VE3figVXleHDqfXOH Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/id1753399812https://podcasts.apple.com/id1753399812 Timestamps: (00:00) The fusion race (06:55) How does fusion work? (16:02) Fusion reactor designs (20:24) History of fusion (25:02) The three approaches to plasma confinement (30:50) The tokamak (35:24) Iter (41:54) Recap (49:01) Revisiting why fusion matters This show is produced by Turpentine: a network of podcasts, newsletters, and more, covering technology, business, and culture — all from the perspective of industry insiders and experts. We’re launching new shows every week, and we’re looking for industry-leading sponsors — if you think that might be you and your company, email us at erik@turpentine.co.