Fusion Energy: The Next Frontier in Clean Power

Deep Pockets S5 Ep3

[00:00:00] Welcome to Deep Pockets with Petra Soderling, the show about government and innovation. I hope you enjoy today's episode and the music created by a New Orleans jazz icon. Leroy Jones. Find this and other Leroy Jones tunes wherever you get your music.

We've spoken about the energy industry a few times here in this podcast. Most recently with Emma Wong, who is the principal leader in nuclear engagement strategy and innovation at the Electric Power Research Institute. Epri. In season four, episode 10, she spoke about innovation in our current nuclear energy power plants.

These are the fishing based plants. Today we're going to learn about the future of nuclear fusion. My guest is Laura [00:01:00] Thomas, who you may know from my book, government and Innovation. I interviewed her about the innovation during the Times of War and Peace, and also from season one of this podcast where in episode five she spoke about how wars shape innovation.

Laura is the chief strategy officer at Fuse, a fusion energy company building toward a clean and near limitless energy source. On its path to fusion FUSE is providing access to pulsed power machines that serve the skyrocketing radiation testing demands of the US national security and commercial space and energy customers.

Because this field is new to me, I had to do some research on what Fusion is and what Fuse does. So I found this article from Wired from December, 2024. It's titled, inside a Fusion Startup's Insane [00:02:00] Top Secret Opening Ceremony. The first paragraph of this wired article reads. Once in a while. Silicon Valley is still Silicon Valley.

It happened on August the eighth, 2024 at the opening ceremony for a nuclear fusion energy startup. The events of that day were so astonishing. I wish I could brought them out to you in an instant, like a hologram, but you will need to be patient as the linear nature of language allows me to unveil only one piece at a time.

And dear listeners, you will have to go and read the entire piece on your own because it's insane and important and exciting all at once. But getting back to my guest prior to Fuse, Laura was the chief of staff at Quantum Technology Company inflection, where she remains an advisor. She previously served as CIA, case officer [00:03:00] and Chief of Base.

She built and led sensitive programs at CIA headquarters and abroad in multiple international assignments, including high risk and high ambiguity environments focused on major US adversaries. Laura has worked with partners across the US Intelligence Community, national Security Council, department of Defense, department of Energy, NASA Congress, and within foreign governments and investors, she speaks at university government agency investor and tech industry events on leadership, national security, and deep tech.

Such an impressive resume and so nice to have you back here at Deepak. Laura. It's a pleasure to be back. Thank you, Petra. Okay, so you were in the quantum industry. Yay. And now you're in the fusion industry also. Yay. That's right. But how did one lead to the other? I guess I'm just really attracted to, to [00:04:00] incredibly hard things because I can't think of two technologies that, that are, you know, harder, deeper tech than quantum infusion.

I, I guess I should back up and say when I was leaving government or thinking about leaving government, I. I was thinking I want to get into an industry that I believe is truly going to be a game changer for the US government and for national security and really for the world.

So I started doing a lot of research and had already had a number of conversations when I was inside the agency about emerging tech and its disruptive nature. Ultimately decided that the future of national security is really going to be in which countries wield technologies faster and are able to adapt and adopt them into their, the way they use them or the way that the government and the people function.

So that's when I jumped out to Quantum. Was at the Quantum Company for a wonderful three years. It was an amazing experience, learned so much and was recruited essentially into Fuse. While I was there, I started as [00:05:00] an advisor and I was just noticing, day by day the exciting developments in the FUSE team and the traction they were getting and decided maybe it was time for my next challenge.

And I didn't wanna be just a one trick pony and have only done one hard tech. Why not do two? And ultimately my goal is to go back into government at some point. And I think being well-rounded and having. Different perspectives from different industries. It would be very helpful in that.

That's not anytime soon, but certainly something in the future. And yeah, having a great ride so far and learning a lot. For sure. You previously said that you joined the quantum industry because of the dual use nature, so you can use this technology both with the civilian and military.

Applications and the impact of quantum on US national security. So do you still feel like you have the same national security focus now, but it's just infusion? Oh, absolutely. It's a change in path, not a change in mission for sure. The country that. Is able to get to Fusion first is [00:06:00] going to have an immense amount of influence and power in the world.

And I think it's very important that the US and like-minded nations are the ones that get to this energy source first. Yeah, it, there's a very large national security component of the technology. And then what's unique about Fuse, we're very different from a lot of the other fusion companies and that we're doing radiation testing.

Along the pathway to fusion. It's how we're monetizing the way we get to fusion and essentially. We're building very large radiation machines and we shoot blasts of different types of radiation and we can test how component parts react to that radiation and the money that we get from that, as well as the learning that we get from that helps monetize the fusion path.

So fusion's been around for some time. I remember my dad telling me about fusion like way, way back. I can't even mention the decade 'cause it was so way back. So just like quantum fusion always seems to be a decade or more [00:07:00] away. And I'm sure you've always asked about the timelines for fusion.

Yeah, of course. So what is it? Yeah. Oh, thank you for posing that very difficult question. Look. It's hard and it's gonna take time. There's not a silver bullet answer. And just like the quantum industry, there's an incredible amount of hype in the space. And part of what I did at CIA and it's, I would say largely misunderstood by a public audience, but is really getting at the truth.

What is reality? And sorting through fact versus fiction. And I think that's incredibly important for people to do, not just in the quantum industry, but also the fusion industry. And I think that it's really important that when you're evaluating a fusion company, you really listen to how they talk about the future and the claims that they make.

I'll say if a company is able to, produce, commercialize, commercialize fusion energy within the next few years and get energy to the grid, all the better. I think that would be a wonderful thing for the us a [00:08:00] wonderful thing for humanity. Do I think that's likely? No. But do I think that we're proving out certain stepping stones that make it more clear that this is a real viable technology?

Absolutely. And I'm spending a lot of my time, energy, really focused on this and I'm a big fan and I believe that it's gonna be very impactful in the coming decade. For sure. You mentioned to me separately, and also I saw this phrase on your LinkedIn profile, public-private partnerships ships, and you said they are the key to a number of deep tech initiatives.

So can you go deeper into the role of public-private partnerships? Why do you think they're so important? I believe that if the government. Relies solely on the private sector to completely finance some of the technologies that are incredibly important for it and for the world. That's probably a, not a good policy decision.

And if you look back at some of the technologies and capabilities that we have today, look at space launch. I. Look at all the [00:09:00] space-based infrastructure that we have. The reason why we have that, in addition to the basic science and the frameworks that were laid by the US government, the national labs, which is very important, was because we had what was called the NASA cots.

Contract and NASA gave up its space launch and then paid private companies to compete and then do space launch. And then we had SpaceX and say, what you will about SpaceX, it's enabled the US and many other countries to get into space and it's brought down the cost of launch dramatically. And that's an example of a public private partnership that has just had, incredible success.

I believe that is important that we replicate similar things in the private sector in different industries, and it's not about government, giving away money. It's about the government being a good customer. So let the private sector create the service or create the hardware and then the government buys it.

And the government agreeing to buy it and the government working with the private sector to make sure that it's very [00:10:00] clear what their requirements are and that the government can and will buy it. And then that allows investors on the private sector side to really jump off the sidelines and invest money when they see that these opportunities are available.

And then you can essentially have the private sector and government leveraging each other to run faster towards these big, moonshot goals. Let's build on that because there are people who argue that it's not free market mentality to have industrial policy, which is taxpayer dollars, supporting these massive infra infrastructure projects in the us.

So what do you think about the role of the government in such an initiatives like fuse infusion what's the role of the private capital there? Yeah the role of the government's to serve the people. I think that's pretty simple. Has, does it do a perfect job of that? Absolutely not. Are there things that we must improve?

Absolutely. And the beauty of the US at least, is this marriage between capitalism and democracy and, of course we have to [00:11:00] have industrial policies that support the American people and serve the American people. We've had it all throughout our history. Some have done better than others. I think if you look back and you look at the microelectronics industry, that was spurred because the government, specifically the military, was buying all these chips for our weapon systems.

Nowadays we need the government to step in and buy again, and it's doing that, it's starting to do that, but it could be a lot more streamlined and more efficient, and hopefully we'll see that over the next few years. Really a reformation and the way the defense department works and truly modernization.

Okay, let's move on from this gloomy topics. I have, my last question is question. I ask all of my guests, so leave us with an uplifting thought. Maybe tell our listeners something that makes you happy this week. Ah my son started school, yay. His first day of school, and what really made me happy is he.

Truly ran away for me to go play with other kids. And we got pictures later of him hanging off a [00:12:00] monkey bars oh, delightful. That made me happy. A very personal sense, I think on the professional side. I had some calls with various government folks working in the nuclear enterprise. And just, hearing the incredible demand and the demand signals that are out there for what we're doing on the radiation piece.

It's encouraging and I think it's truly a pathway to fusion in a way that, that doesn't exist outside of Fuse so far at least. And we're gonna be doing a live stream of firing our pulse power driver for the first time next week. It could explode, it could blow up, or it could be the first time that, that this technology's ever been demonstrated at this level.

So preparing for that this week, you can imagine everyone in the company is here on fire, but in the best of all ways. So that's a good thing this week. Terrific. This has been Laura Thomas, chief Strategy Officer at fs. Thank you so much for coming back to Deep Pockets, Laura. All right. Thank you, Petra.[00:13:00] 

You've listened to Deep Pockets with Petra Ling, the show about government and innovation. If you like today's episode, please subscribe and share our show in your social media. It means a lot to me and to my guests. The wonderful music you heard is by a New Orleans Hall of Fame, jazz icon, Leroy Jones.

Find this. And other Leroy Jones tunes wherever you get your music. This podcast as well as the recording of my audio book is done by Chris Elliott at Studio at Goose in south of France. Get in touch with Chris to book studio time in our beautiful village, and why not come and taste the natural local wines from Laina Winery while you're [00:14:00] here.