1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:13,080 Welcome to the Chronos Fusion Energy podcast. 2 00:00:13,080 --> 00:00:18,080 I'm Priyanca Ford, the founder of Chronos Fusion Energy, and I'm thrilled to have you 3 00:00:18,080 --> 00:00:21,040 with us for today's episode. 4 00:00:21,040 --> 00:00:26,880 We're diving into the world of nuclear technology with a guest whose extensive career has made 5 00:00:26,880 --> 00:00:30,880 him a leading figure in the industry. 6 00:00:30,880 --> 00:00:37,680 Joining me is Martin Owens, our Chief Strategy Officer and Board Advisor at Chronos Fusion 7 00:00:37,680 --> 00:00:40,040 Energy. 8 00:00:40,040 --> 00:00:46,240 Martin has 35 years of experience in nuclear energy, from reactor development to project 9 00:00:46,240 --> 00:00:51,440 management, and he brings a unique perspective to the table. 10 00:00:51,440 --> 00:00:56,480 Martin's journey into nuclear energy has been anything but conventional. 11 00:00:56,480 --> 00:01:01,920 After earning his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Old Dominion University 12 00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:08,820 in 1984, he was on the path to becoming a test pilot before his career took a turn into 13 00:01:08,820 --> 00:01:11,800 nuclear operations. 14 00:01:11,800 --> 00:01:18,320 His first role in the industry was the BWXD Nuclear Operations Group, where he helped 15 00:01:18,320 --> 00:01:22,220 develop reactors for the U.S. Navy. 16 00:01:22,220 --> 00:01:27,560 This pivotal experience laid the groundwork for a successful career in advanced nuclear 17 00:01:27,560 --> 00:01:31,000 technologies. 18 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:36,440 In addition to his work at Chronos Fusion Energy, Martin holds a key position at Los 19 00:01:36,440 --> 00:01:45,340 Alamos National Laboratory as Senior Director of the Capital Project Execution Organization. 20 00:01:45,340 --> 00:01:52,280 His role at Los Alamos involves overseeing complex projects and ensuring the successful 21 00:01:52,280 --> 00:01:57,120 execution of capital initiatives. 22 00:01:57,120 --> 00:02:03,600 This dual responsibility reflects his deep expertise and commitment to pushing the boundaries 23 00:02:03,600 --> 00:02:07,800 of nuclear technologies. 24 00:02:07,800 --> 00:02:14,040 Martin's career includes notable roles at Arriva and GE Hitachi. 25 00:02:14,040 --> 00:02:21,680 At Arriva, he managed nuclear reactor and fuel development programs, earning a promotion 26 00:02:21,680 --> 00:02:23,720 to project director. 27 00:02:23,720 --> 00:02:32,720 At GE Hitachi, he served as EPC director, leading large-scale nuclear projects. 28 00:02:32,720 --> 00:02:40,640 His academic background is complemented by an MBA in global management from Ashford University, 29 00:02:40,640 --> 00:02:46,200 giving him a strategic outlook on the industry's challenges and opportunities. 30 00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:54,080 Today, Martin plays a crucial role at Chronos Fusion Energy, guiding our strategic direction 31 00:02:54,080 --> 00:03:00,920 as we work towards commercializing fusion energy and achieving energy independence. 32 00:03:00,920 --> 00:03:07,440 In this episode, we'll explore Martin's career path, his insights into nuclear technology, 33 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:11,120 and his views on the future of fusion energy. 34 00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:16,880 We'll discuss his work at Los Alamos, the challenges of nuclear regulation, and the 35 00:03:16,880 --> 00:03:22,800 innovative approach we're taking at Chronos Fusion Energy. 36 00:03:22,800 --> 00:03:29,240 Martin is the person I go to with the hard-to-solve, almost impossible problems, and he always 37 00:03:29,240 --> 00:03:33,120 finds a way to make things happen. 38 00:03:33,120 --> 00:03:39,600 Here's Martin Owens. 39 00:03:39,600 --> 00:03:40,600 Thanks for doing this, Martin. 40 00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:41,600 I'm happy to be here. 41 00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:51,560 We usually start these off by asking, what got you into your field of specialty? 42 00:03:51,560 --> 00:03:56,280 For you, it's nuclear energy, nuclear operations. 43 00:03:56,280 --> 00:03:58,640 What drew you into it? 44 00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:03,880 Well, to be honest, it was kind of happenstance for me. 45 00:04:03,880 --> 00:04:08,200 I wasn't quite sure what kind of career I was going to go into. 46 00:04:08,200 --> 00:04:14,880 Originally, I was really headed to be a pilot, wanted to be a best pilot. 47 00:04:14,880 --> 00:04:21,300 And sort of I almost went in that direction, and I got into the Air Force and a lot of 48 00:04:21,300 --> 00:04:23,320 different other kinds of things. 49 00:04:23,320 --> 00:04:28,840 And kind of just all of a sudden sort of changed my mind, and I sort of started wondering what 50 00:04:28,840 --> 00:04:30,680 I was going to do. 51 00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:35,200 And so I had just gotten out of school. 52 00:04:35,200 --> 00:04:39,920 And so I was like, had one thing that came up, and that was I needed to pay some bills. 53 00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:40,920 Okay? 54 00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:43,920 So I had to, you know, get a job. 55 00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:46,040 And so I just happened to get a job. 56 00:04:46,040 --> 00:04:55,680 And, you know, I got a couple offers and took a job in Lynchburg, Virginia, with a company 57 00:04:55,680 --> 00:05:00,800 that at that time was called Babcock and Wilcox at the Naval Nuclear Fuel Division. 58 00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:03,680 And I really never intended to get into nuclear. 59 00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:06,680 I mean, I thought about maybe going into the nuclear Navy. 60 00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:10,560 That seemed kind of attractive to me. 61 00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:18,320 So I ended up sort of like in a role in nuclear, I didn't really expect to stay. 62 00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:22,520 I thought this would be a good first job. 63 00:05:22,520 --> 00:05:31,800 But as I got into it, I realized that this was really amazing technology, and we were 64 00:05:31,800 --> 00:05:38,720 very, very, we were at the cusp of doing a lot of development and it was a very dynamic 65 00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:40,520 program. 66 00:05:40,520 --> 00:05:43,040 And so that really appealed to me. 67 00:05:43,040 --> 00:05:49,880 And you know, I just really got into the business of building nuclear power plants for the Navy. 68 00:05:49,880 --> 00:05:53,560 So that's how I ended up my start. 69 00:05:53,560 --> 00:05:54,560 Wow. 70 00:05:54,560 --> 00:06:00,600 The Navy has always been ahead of the game when it comes to nuclear energy. 71 00:06:00,600 --> 00:06:03,000 Why is that? 72 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:08,640 Is that unlikely or is that just how it would have always been? 73 00:06:08,640 --> 00:06:18,080 Well, I think, you know, many things in this world get driven by the Defense Department. 74 00:06:18,080 --> 00:06:26,520 And especially new technology tends to, the applications of it, you know, tend to come 75 00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:29,760 out in, you know, it's the same thing in aircraft, right? 76 00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:34,160 So you have the Wright brothers who are, but they were bicycle mechanics, right? 77 00:06:34,160 --> 00:06:41,520 But pretty soon people started thinking about, well, gee, can we use this for the military? 78 00:06:41,520 --> 00:06:48,760 And so you had World War I and they started using aircraft and that's what I think drove 79 00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:49,760 that industry. 80 00:06:49,760 --> 00:06:57,840 Same thing with nuclear, you know, nuclear really started out in experimental land. 81 00:06:57,840 --> 00:07:06,720 Of course, everybody knows about Oppenheimer and atomic weapons and the technology got 82 00:07:06,720 --> 00:07:08,160 developed quite a bit there. 83 00:07:08,160 --> 00:07:13,000 But then there was this application of could we use this for power? 84 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:14,880 Could we harness this? 85 00:07:14,880 --> 00:07:24,360 And really that all started with the nuclear Navy and, you know, Admiral Rickover, who 86 00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:28,840 had a vision of how it could be applied to submarines. 87 00:07:28,840 --> 00:07:39,280 And he convinced a number of people, including getting the funding, to develop it for power. 88 00:07:39,280 --> 00:07:47,720 And that really sort of cast the die, if you will, of the direction of nuclear power very 89 00:07:47,720 --> 00:07:51,320 early on, very rapid development of it. 90 00:07:51,320 --> 00:07:52,320 Wow. 91 00:07:52,320 --> 00:07:57,040 Yeah, nuclear energy has an absolutely fascinating history. 92 00:07:57,040 --> 00:08:04,880 Our DOE labs have done so much, especially Los Alamos. 93 00:08:04,880 --> 00:08:10,520 So where, you were at Arriva for a long time. 94 00:08:10,520 --> 00:08:14,200 What did you, what was Arriva about? 95 00:08:14,200 --> 00:08:23,240 And how did, I'm just curious, how did Fission go from lab to commercial? 96 00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:27,880 Was it the same as what Fusion is trying to do in that there are a couple of private companies 97 00:08:27,880 --> 00:08:28,880 or? 98 00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:29,880 I'm curious. 99 00:08:29,880 --> 00:08:30,880 Yeah. 100 00:08:30,880 --> 00:08:38,840 So the companies that were heavily involved in developing nuclear power for the Navy was 101 00:08:38,840 --> 00:08:41,960 General Electric and Westinghouse. 102 00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:48,560 And so, and because they were power companies, right, they had developed, they were already 103 00:08:48,560 --> 00:08:53,680 into power, you know, and developing electricity. 104 00:08:53,680 --> 00:08:57,080 So that's how they got involved. 105 00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:03,240 And you know, really Eisenhower, President Eisenhower had the Atoms for Peace initiative. 106 00:09:03,240 --> 00:09:13,120 He was sort of a visionary, I think, and that he wanted to really spread that nuclear energy 107 00:09:13,120 --> 00:09:14,880 across the globe. 108 00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:21,920 But these companies like General Electric, you know, they were the first ones to commercialize 109 00:09:21,920 --> 00:09:25,360 nuclear power, you know. 110 00:09:25,360 --> 00:09:32,360 Believe the first, the first plant that produced electricity was in California. 111 00:09:32,360 --> 00:09:34,240 So it was a General Electric plant. 112 00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:43,840 So that came out of their experience in the nuclear Navy because they had developed, that 113 00:09:43,840 --> 00:09:52,160 Nolz-Toller Power Lab or CAPL up in Schenectady, New York there, they were behind designing 114 00:09:52,160 --> 00:09:55,200 the reactors for the Navy. 115 00:09:55,200 --> 00:09:59,880 And then they sort of just spawned that out to the commercial world. 116 00:09:59,880 --> 00:10:04,440 And so that's how that, the commercial world got going. 117 00:10:04,440 --> 00:10:11,640 We've been difficult actually to, if they didn't have that whole investment from the 118 00:10:11,640 --> 00:10:17,680 government to really, you know, develop the technology and then they could apply it to 119 00:10:17,680 --> 00:10:21,120 the commercial world. 120 00:10:21,120 --> 00:10:33,640 So at this point, because GE is older than Fission Energy. 121 00:10:33,640 --> 00:10:34,640 Is that a true statement? 122 00:10:34,640 --> 00:10:35,640 Yeah. 123 00:10:35,640 --> 00:10:36,640 So GE was an established company. 124 00:10:36,640 --> 00:10:37,640 Right. 125 00:10:37,640 --> 00:10:38,640 Okay. 126 00:10:38,640 --> 00:10:39,640 Right. 127 00:10:39,640 --> 00:10:42,600 You got to think Edison, right? 128 00:10:42,600 --> 00:10:49,280 So you know, the roots of General Electric are back to Thomas Edison. 129 00:10:49,280 --> 00:10:54,160 And Westinghouse is like, you know, George Westinghouse. 130 00:10:54,160 --> 00:10:57,400 So they developed a lot of the electric motors, right? 131 00:10:57,400 --> 00:11:03,120 We talk about things like alternating current motors and all these kinds of things. 132 00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:04,960 And so, yes. 133 00:11:04,960 --> 00:11:13,120 And so those companies really were relied upon to have the expertise and the engineering 134 00:11:13,120 --> 00:11:19,200 background, but also the manufacturing base to be able to do those types of things. 135 00:11:19,200 --> 00:11:20,200 Yeah. 136 00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:22,640 That's a hard one to scale up. 137 00:11:22,640 --> 00:11:28,880 You can save a decent decade if you work with an established company for that. 138 00:11:28,880 --> 00:11:29,880 Yeah. 139 00:11:29,880 --> 00:11:33,640 I think that makes sense. 140 00:11:33,640 --> 00:11:35,800 How was Old Dominion University? 141 00:11:35,800 --> 00:11:38,640 Where is that, by the way? 142 00:11:38,640 --> 00:11:42,080 So that's in Norfolk, Virginia. 143 00:11:42,080 --> 00:11:44,400 And yeah. 144 00:11:44,400 --> 00:11:47,920 So I ended up at Old Dominion. 145 00:11:47,920 --> 00:11:59,080 The interesting thing about Old Dominion is that it's in very close proximity to Langley. 146 00:11:59,080 --> 00:12:07,280 And so there's a number of professors there involved in NASA and doing a lot of that kind 147 00:12:07,280 --> 00:12:09,200 of work. 148 00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:12,680 So you get the benefit of that. 149 00:12:12,680 --> 00:12:19,360 And today, it's a very large university there. 150 00:12:19,360 --> 00:12:27,360 When I went, it was still kind of large, but it was more of a university that had a lot 151 00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:29,960 of people that commuted to it. 152 00:12:29,960 --> 00:12:33,760 So I was one of the few, I think, that actually lived on campus. 153 00:12:33,760 --> 00:12:36,840 But yeah, I enjoyed my time there. 154 00:12:36,840 --> 00:12:39,320 It was some interesting professors. 155 00:12:39,320 --> 00:12:40,320 Nice. 156 00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:45,120 So mechanical, you did mechanical engineering there. 157 00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:51,520 And that's before you got, you knew you weren't even going to get into fission. 158 00:12:51,520 --> 00:12:52,520 That's right. 159 00:12:52,520 --> 00:12:55,560 So at the time, I was thinking about going to the Air Force. 160 00:12:55,560 --> 00:13:01,320 So I thought that mechanical engineering would be a really good background for that. 161 00:13:01,320 --> 00:13:05,320 If you were to be getting to things like being a test pilot or things like that, you need 162 00:13:05,320 --> 00:13:07,320 to understand the engineering of that. 163 00:13:07,320 --> 00:13:13,560 And mechanical engineering has always been thought of as sort of the broad-based engineering 164 00:13:13,560 --> 00:13:19,360 discipline that you can apply to a lot of different areas. 165 00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:21,920 So you can, you don't get too pigeonholed. 166 00:13:21,920 --> 00:13:26,440 You can apply that to a number of different industries. 167 00:13:26,440 --> 00:13:27,440 Right. 168 00:13:27,440 --> 00:13:30,560 So that's interesting. 169 00:13:30,560 --> 00:13:40,240 You were in, you did for fission, this, when engineering was the biggest challenge for 170 00:13:40,240 --> 00:13:41,920 fission, you worked on that. 171 00:13:41,920 --> 00:13:46,640 And now for fusion, we're very much thinking that when people say, what is your biggest 172 00:13:46,640 --> 00:13:48,640 challenge, I say engineering. 173 00:13:48,640 --> 00:13:50,480 It's an engineering challenge. 174 00:13:50,480 --> 00:13:52,880 So yeah, it's applicable. 175 00:13:52,880 --> 00:13:58,720 How do you think about the timing of that? 176 00:13:58,720 --> 00:14:05,720 I would just like to somehow draw that parallel between fission and fusion when it comes to 177 00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:16,720 the physics, just being in the precipice of this birth of this new commercial technology 178 00:14:16,720 --> 00:14:21,720 that's been developed in the lab for decades and decades and then... 179 00:14:21,720 --> 00:14:34,920 Well, yeah, I think that's in all really cutting edge sort of applications of technology, the 180 00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:38,560 real trick is how do you actually make something that works? 181 00:14:38,560 --> 00:14:49,920 So in the lab, you can prove out the physics of things and you can prove out formulas and 182 00:14:49,920 --> 00:14:57,000 how you explain things, but how you actually translate that into something that can work. 183 00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:04,480 So on the fission side of things, the nuclear Navy, a tremendous amount of money and technology 184 00:15:04,480 --> 00:15:15,280 and science behind that, but to actually develop, let's say, like materials that will work for 185 00:15:15,280 --> 00:15:25,440 years under all kinds of really difficult conditions, whether it's heat, pressure, being 186 00:15:25,440 --> 00:15:33,320 bombarded by fission, neutrons, and how do you actually make something that can actually 187 00:15:33,320 --> 00:15:34,920 work is very, very difficult. 188 00:15:34,920 --> 00:15:39,320 I mean, it's one thing to where you can get close to it and you can say, yeah, a little 189 00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:44,200 bit more development here, we can actually work, but then to actually meet all the requirements 190 00:15:44,200 --> 00:15:51,000 and deliver something, that's a specialty unto itself. 191 00:15:51,000 --> 00:16:00,480 And so that was the leap of say, Rickover, with the Nautilus of actually being able to 192 00:16:00,480 --> 00:16:04,680 broadcast underway under nuclear power. 193 00:16:04,680 --> 00:16:11,120 And the same thing as infusion, it's no different in that. 194 00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:17,280 I think the physics are understood, but it's now how do we develop the materials that will 195 00:16:17,280 --> 00:16:18,600 withstand that? 196 00:16:18,600 --> 00:16:22,160 How do we have the control systems? 197 00:16:22,160 --> 00:16:28,740 That's going to be actually the hardest thing to accomplish. 198 00:16:28,740 --> 00:16:32,800 So there's very close parallels of those things. 199 00:16:32,800 --> 00:16:39,760 But in today's world, we have so much more at hand. 200 00:16:39,760 --> 00:16:42,480 So we have so many more exotic materials. 201 00:16:42,480 --> 00:16:49,720 We have so many more computer programs that can calculate things way faster than they 202 00:16:49,720 --> 00:16:57,800 did in the 50s with slide rules and very slow processing types of applications. 203 00:16:57,800 --> 00:17:00,480 So we should be faster. 204 00:17:00,480 --> 00:17:03,280 We should be better. 205 00:17:03,280 --> 00:17:05,800 And that's what I'm believing. 206 00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:08,720 Yeah, I agree with you. 207 00:17:08,720 --> 00:17:21,720 I think in terms of time scale, I think building a fusion energy generator in about 12 years, 208 00:17:21,720 --> 00:17:27,400 starting in 12 years, we could be building one every four years to five years would be 209 00:17:27,400 --> 00:17:30,680 the build time span, if not shorter. 210 00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:34,360 But what is that with fission? 211 00:17:34,360 --> 00:17:42,600 How many years does it take to build it and then get the regulatory licensing, so to speak? 212 00:17:42,600 --> 00:17:45,360 We should really talk about that. 213 00:17:45,360 --> 00:17:50,160 Yeah, in fission, the technology exists. 214 00:17:50,160 --> 00:17:56,340 And the engineering has been really accomplished, all the basics. 215 00:17:56,340 --> 00:18:02,280 It really becomes more of a regulatory challenge. 216 00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:12,120 And really, it's really a little bit unfair because nuclear power has proven itself over 217 00:18:12,120 --> 00:18:15,520 decades to be safe. 218 00:18:15,520 --> 00:18:28,920 And the rigor that technology has produced safety systems and backup safety systems that 219 00:18:28,920 --> 00:18:32,960 control that is there. 220 00:18:32,960 --> 00:18:38,160 But the regulatory framework these days is very difficult. 221 00:18:38,160 --> 00:18:43,560 I think it's maybe getting a little better because I think there are people realizing 222 00:18:43,560 --> 00:18:49,800 in those regulatory bodies that they're really stifling the advancement of nuclear power. 223 00:18:49,800 --> 00:18:55,120 And if you look across the world, other countries are going much faster. 224 00:18:55,120 --> 00:18:59,880 If you go to China, they've got many plants under construction there and have developed 225 00:18:59,880 --> 00:19:00,880 plants. 226 00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:06,240 We in the United States have only two plants to show for that in recent history. 227 00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:12,200 And that's at Vogel there in Georgia, which are under Westinghouse. 228 00:19:12,200 --> 00:19:17,680 But that took well over a decade, $30 billion. 229 00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:24,120 And many of those years were just trying to get the license to build it. 230 00:19:24,120 --> 00:19:29,960 Whereas years ago, that wasn't the case. 231 00:19:29,960 --> 00:19:38,900 But if you look at fission compared to fusion, the case for safety basis for fusion is much 232 00:19:38,900 --> 00:19:48,860 more straightforward than fission because you can have an extended reaction, let's say 233 00:19:48,860 --> 00:19:53,040 that you have to control it. 234 00:19:53,040 --> 00:19:59,840 You have to have many backup systems to make sure that you don't have a situation where 235 00:19:59,840 --> 00:20:04,760 you have a meltdown, which we all, that's a common term that people understand. 236 00:20:04,760 --> 00:20:08,320 But in fusion, you don't have that fusion. 237 00:20:08,320 --> 00:20:12,840 As you know, you have to maintain the fusion itself. 238 00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:18,400 You have to put energy in to sustain a fusion reaction. 239 00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:23,200 As soon as you let off the gas, it stops immediately. 240 00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:31,280 So that is a much totally different way of licensing something. 241 00:20:31,280 --> 00:20:41,480 And so really, in fusion, it's going to be more like accelerators or any source of radiation 242 00:20:41,480 --> 00:20:44,320 that you have to shield. 243 00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:50,000 And so as long as you can demonstrate that you have shielding in place while the fusion 244 00:20:50,000 --> 00:21:00,800 reaction is going on, that's going to be the main driver, which is order of magnitude lower 245 00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:07,520 in complexity and also being able to demonstrate that. 246 00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:17,440 Right, I think we had some good news for fusion, I want to say, like mid last year, maybe it 247 00:21:17,440 --> 00:21:22,680 was a year and a half ago that the Nuclear Energy Commission out here in the US would 248 00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:25,360 regulate fusion very differently. 249 00:21:25,360 --> 00:21:34,640 But then I recently found out that in California, even though they're very profusion, we are 250 00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:36,480 very profusion. 251 00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:43,480 We also have regulations for neutrons and how neutrons are produced and the safety regulations 252 00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:47,920 for it is a high threshold to pass. 253 00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:55,600 So we were having a lot of conversations between a neutronic energy being even more friendlier 254 00:21:55,600 --> 00:22:05,840 on a regulatory, for a regulatory environment in the future than even a neutron. 255 00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:12,960 How, this is kind of like a big what if question with a lot of variables, but I'd love to know 256 00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:15,880 what you think about it. 257 00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:23,320 A lot of countries out there are going to look at how the US is regulating fusion and 258 00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:29,600 they're going to probably come up with their own laws and ways to do it. 259 00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:31,400 What would be a good way? 260 00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:36,040 There are bodies created by EDR and there's the Fusion Energy Association and there are 261 00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:37,480 smart people working on this. 262 00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:43,480 So this is not anything that's on your plate or my plate, but just based on your expertise, 263 00:22:43,480 --> 00:22:48,440 what is the best case scenario? 264 00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:51,360 International fusion. 265 00:22:51,360 --> 00:22:52,360 International fusion. 266 00:22:52,360 --> 00:23:03,920 You know, well, you know, on the fission side, the regulatory bodies do meet and they have 267 00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:12,520 had a lot of words I would say about how they were going to use one country's regulations 268 00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:13,520 in another country's. 269 00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:21,720 But that's never, as far as I know, actually came to fruition. 270 00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:25,880 People have sort of said the US is the gold standard. 271 00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:30,280 I think that's probably US saying that. 272 00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:31,280 Probably. 273 00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:34,360 I have a biocell admit. 274 00:23:34,360 --> 00:23:39,080 But I actually I don't think it's going to be such a high bar at all. 275 00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:47,480 I mean, and I think if you look at things that are already exported products that are 276 00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:58,800 technology that produce some kind of radiation that are used in other countries and are shielded, 277 00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:02,960 you know, I think we've already you could probably find some examples there that already 278 00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:05,160 are in place. 279 00:24:05,160 --> 00:24:17,840 So you know, I don't I'm really I'm really optimistic that that that the regulatory piece 280 00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:24,240 is going to be a small part of the fusion development. 281 00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:28,760 It's going to be the engineering piece is the challenge. 282 00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:29,760 So right. 283 00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:33,240 Yeah, I just I think about that. 284 00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:41,040 I just think about like the neutrons or if we or if Tritium were to be used in kind of 285 00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:43,000 global expansion. 286 00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:47,960 So if we were going to build like 10 generators that we want to put somewhere out there in 287 00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:55,040 the desert somewhere that can power a railway or something like that, we wouldn't want it 288 00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:56,840 to have Tritium in it. 289 00:24:56,840 --> 00:25:02,160 That's up and running or like or like a lithium breeding wall that breeds more and more Tritium 290 00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:06,240 in the system because now you've actually put something weaponizable even though it's 291 00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:07,240 fusion. 292 00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:14,960 So I just so I think that I think that there needs to be that distinction made in the regulatory 293 00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:17,120 system at some point in the future. 294 00:25:17,120 --> 00:25:21,400 I hope people are kind of paying attention to that. 295 00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:24,640 Yes, I think that's a really good point. 296 00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:32,800 Tritium is a something that's highly controlled by governments because of its use in the weapons 297 00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:33,800 programs. 298 00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:41,600 But it also though Tritium exists in like commercial nuclear fission power as a as part 299 00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:43,920 of something they have to deal with. 300 00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:53,920 And if you don't Tritium is very, very difficult to to contain because it's such a small such 301 00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:55,040 a small atom, right? 302 00:25:55,040 --> 00:26:02,440 So what you end up with is there are there are places where Tritium has gotten into the 303 00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:03,440 ground. 304 00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:10,880 And although it has a relatively shorter half life, it's still something you don't want, 305 00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:12,720 of course, in your water. 306 00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:20,120 And so there are plants in the US that have been shut down because of their concerns about 307 00:26:20,120 --> 00:26:21,120 Tritium. 308 00:26:21,120 --> 00:26:29,880 And so not having to deal with large quantities of Tritium is certainly a huge advantage. 309 00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:34,760 It's also not only from a regulatory standpoint, but from a technical standpoint of having 310 00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:44,560 to have all the controls in place, engineered and the cost of all of that as well and complications. 311 00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:56,480 The ancillary systems that you need to build just because you're using Tritium is almost 312 00:26:56,480 --> 00:27:04,040 is good motivation to do the extra engineering and go the a neutrality route. 313 00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:08,000 Because even even with the fusion, it's not just your generator. 314 00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:17,920 If you're using Tritium, you need to have a some sort of a Tritium processing unit attached 315 00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:20,540 to your fusion energy generator. 316 00:27:20,540 --> 00:27:23,840 And that's like a huge external unit that needs to be built. 317 00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:25,560 I mean, we have ours. 318 00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:31,080 We will we would have like our plasma heating system that would be a big external unit and 319 00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:32,080 all of that. 320 00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:38,360 So those ancillary systems are necessary, but for both fusion and fission, it's just 321 00:27:38,360 --> 00:27:46,120 that I think there are a few of the fusion ones are almost easier to build than the yeah. 322 00:27:46,120 --> 00:27:51,320 It's always good to keep it simple, right? 323 00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:52,320 The KISS principle. 324 00:27:52,320 --> 00:28:01,840 And so if we can minimize that, and I understand like an eater, if you look at that, they're 325 00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:08,480 plant has an enormous amount of it devoted to have to handle in Tritium. 326 00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:13,920 You know, it's not just a tiny little sidebar, right? 327 00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:17,960 It's something that they have got a lot of investment in. 328 00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:23,400 And of course, a new tronic reducing the number of neutrons is is huge, right? 329 00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:30,040 Because neutrons can go a long ways unless you have a lot of shielding. 330 00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:37,960 But it's also very it's it's it's also bombarding your materials that you have. 331 00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:41,800 And so you have to engineer those materials that much more. 332 00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:45,680 And you're going to have to think about the life span of those things. 333 00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:52,200 See, same thing in, you know, you have to develop those materials for longevity. 334 00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:59,040 So not having as many neutrons to deal with is going to make that a little bit simpler 335 00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:05,800 task and make us make something more robust that can last longer without having to have 336 00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:07,800 lots of frequent maintenance. 337 00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:08,800 Right. 338 00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:13,280 It brings the cost of it down overall. 339 00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:19,240 And just, you know, like for the record, so to speak, like I've always been pro nuclear 340 00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:20,240 energy. 341 00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:24,920 Like I've you know, since I was a child, I've been told good things. 342 00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:30,160 And I worked at Edison International and they owned the Santa No Fre nuclear power plant 343 00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:33,160 where I live in Southern California. 344 00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:37,720 And I think it got shut down a few years ago after after Fukushima. 345 00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:41,680 And there was some political blowback or something. 346 00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:44,000 And they all got shut down. 347 00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:45,920 But I think we had a few others. 348 00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:52,440 I think there was like El Diablo or something, nuclear power plant that got shut down, too. 349 00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:57,720 But so I've always been pro nuclear because in the larger scheme of things, it's been 350 00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:05,240 a safe way to generate enormous, enormous amounts of energy. 351 00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:14,080 And I have friends who have founded companies in California where they have they use fusion 352 00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:20,480 processes to create neutrons because neutrons have their own place in society and they do 353 00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:21,480 different things. 354 00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:22,480 I know this. 355 00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:23,480 You're in Los Alamos. 356 00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,040 Yeah, especially the applications. 357 00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:32,720 But it doesn't have a great place when it comes to large scale, large scale fusion energy 358 00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:33,720 commercialization. 359 00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:34,720 You don't want to have it. 360 00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:37,720 That's kind of just for the record. 361 00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:38,720 Right. 362 00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:39,720 Yeah. 363 00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:40,720 Well, yeah. 364 00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:47,840 And I'm obviously my my career was spent largely in vision. 365 00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:49,960 And so I'm a fan of nuclear power. 366 00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:54,680 And it's not just because I was in it, but probably because I was so close to it, I realized 367 00:30:54,680 --> 00:31:01,720 the advantages and that you have basically power density. 368 00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:02,720 Right. 369 00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:09,280 So you if you look at the amount of uranium that you need compared to, say, like coal 370 00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:15,160 to produce that amount of energy, you're looking at, you know, tons of rail cars, right, compared 371 00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:20,360 to of coal, compared to a tiny little vial of uranium. 372 00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:23,800 So you have this incredible power density. 373 00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:30,080 So you minimize so many things because of that, including waste. 374 00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:36,880 And you know, you've probably seen the press about all the coal ash that has leaked into 375 00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:42,240 rivers and destroyed all kinds of ecosystems. 376 00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:45,560 And so that they have incredible large volumes of that. 377 00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:51,840 So if you look at nuclear power, it's just so much more compact and same thing with fusion. 378 00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:56,480 We're talking about amazing amounts of energy just in a small area. 379 00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:01,960 You know, we're not talking about taking up, you know, millions, thousands of acres of 380 00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:05,680 land for things like solar panels and so forth. 381 00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:12,040 So that's the that's the real advantage of one of them anyway. 382 00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:13,040 Yeah. 383 00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:23,440 We were talking about recently, I think, with Carl, we were talking about Q factor and how 384 00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:26,360 Q factor is calculated. 385 00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:31,760 And like the bare bones way of looking at it is input versus output. 386 00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:36,920 But you could just look at like the plasma Q factor or like your fusion energy Q factor 387 00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:41,400 or the entire or for your entire system. 388 00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:44,000 So it depends on the variables you use in that equation. 389 00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:46,480 You can calculate it many different ways. 390 00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:53,760 But the honest way to do it would be to do the entire system, so to speak, to look at 391 00:32:53,760 --> 00:33:00,120 what goes into powering every single bit of the system and the output that comes out of 392 00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:01,520 it. 393 00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:08,000 And based on even like the most honest of calculations for Q factor, pound for pound 394 00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:14,400 fusion gives you almost four X the amount of power that fission would would give, like 395 00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:18,880 just based on the amount of deuterium and tritium you would use or something. 396 00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:25,720 So yeah, it's we need amazing engineers. 397 00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:27,280 That's what we need. 398 00:33:27,280 --> 00:33:29,120 We need engineers. 399 00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:32,360 Everything that I just said can only be solved by engineering. 400 00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:40,040 Right, and you know, and as I said earlier, you know, we have the advantage today of not 401 00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:41,680 just mechanical engineers, right. 402 00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:49,880 But we're talking about computer scientists, too, who can really leverage things like AI 403 00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:53,080 and move us even more forward. 404 00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:58,400 I've always been amazed at when I worked in the neighbor actor program, and how well they 405 00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:06,560 were able to design way back in the 60s with what the tools that they had back then. 406 00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:11,400 Actually they but the thing was they could only do so many iterations as they optimized 407 00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:15,720 the design, because those calculations would take a long time. 408 00:34:15,720 --> 00:34:21,680 So they couldn't just say, you know, well, we'll just keep iterating until we reach an 409 00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:23,440 even better situation. 410 00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:28,600 They could maybe only run run the reactor to end, you know, three, four times or something 411 00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:30,720 like this way back in the day. 412 00:34:30,720 --> 00:34:35,480 But today, you know, with the computer models that you have, you don't have to spend so 413 00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:39,120 much time doing actual, you know, physical testing. 414 00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:46,080 But also you can run, you know, you can run scenario after scenario, and you can optimize 415 00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:54,600 things to where, you know, if you look at where nuclear powers come in the Navy, you 416 00:34:54,600 --> 00:35:00,000 know, years ago used to be, you know, a reactor, I don't know, might have a year or two, three 417 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,400 kind of life and you have to go replace it. 418 00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:07,120 You know, and today in the nuclear Navy, you're talking about life the ship reactors, so that 419 00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:16,320 they just they you you you weld them shut for 30 plus years and you're looking at, you 420 00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:18,320 know, that kind of an advancement, right. 421 00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:23,360 So that's that's that's come a long ways. 422 00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:29,200 Usually, we have a huge head start because of where where all the tools and technology 423 00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:31,400 that we have at our disposal. 424 00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:32,400 Yeah. 425 00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:40,960 Yeah, so the time scales overall would be faster, the development of the lab to commercial 426 00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:44,000 time scales, all of that. 427 00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:47,680 A lot of computing can be thrown at it. 428 00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:53,200 Yeah, I was even I was talking to somebody about prototyping recently, and we talked 429 00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:58,320 about using computing for prototyping and and just how much more can be accomplished 430 00:35:58,320 --> 00:35:59,320 now. 431 00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:02,320 It's really it's remarkable, really. 432 00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:09,440 And with the and and I think everything that we see now, remarkable as it may be with the 433 00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:18,720 advent of A.I. and the development of like self modeling and all of that, we are we're 434 00:36:18,720 --> 00:36:26,480 almost at a place where I dream of putting in a use case scenario into our simulation 435 00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:33,760 and have the A.I. use everything we've built to give us a perfect design for whatever use 436 00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:36,480 case scenario we've asked it to do. 437 00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:42,480 And we feel like if we can really build the A.I. and the machine learning in the best 438 00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:51,040 ways, we can have a perfect buildable design within a week or two of engaging with a company. 439 00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:57,280 So I'm kind of excited about that, because I feel like that that gives us so much of 440 00:36:57,280 --> 00:36:58,280 a head start. 441 00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:02,720 And I'm excited to see what what we can do in the next two years and what other companies 442 00:37:02,720 --> 00:37:06,320 are going to do with A.I. and fusion energy. 443 00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:11,600 It's a it's a great time to be in A.I. or fusion. 444 00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:16,160 No, yeah, I agree. 445 00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:21,080 You know, when you look at what are the most valuable things that companies have these 446 00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:26,200 days, like as far as the technology of anything that you're developing, it really comes back 447 00:37:26,200 --> 00:37:31,440 to what they have simulate the simulations that they have and the models that they've 448 00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:32,440 built. 449 00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:40,080 They hold that pretty close to their vest as far as being intellectual property, because 450 00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:46,760 you know, they've got they can use those now to to design the next thing. 451 00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:52,320 And it's not so much, you know, in old days, you had to sort of build parts and pieces, 452 00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:57,560 go test them in the lab and then and then iterate from there. 453 00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:01,600 Now, the probably the most important thing is understanding that data that you can put 454 00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:02,600 into these models. 455 00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:03,600 Right. 456 00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:11,480 And you still have to have some data to put in the models and that once you have that, 457 00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:19,080 now you're you're able to have all kinds of different permutations and get to a get to 458 00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:25,200 a better starting place before you actually start building a product. 459 00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:30,400 And that's where things start to get expensive when you're actually building things. 460 00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:33,760 You don't want to build something and then find out it doesn't work and then have to 461 00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:38,760 go back, redesign it and so forth. 462 00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:39,760 Yeah. 463 00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:50,000 You and I have talked a lot about how we are also not. 464 00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:57,560 We also understand, like, you know, liquid fuel production and all of that and how everything 465 00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:02,000 that we see around us is made out of some kind of petroleum. 466 00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:10,920 So I'm I'm kind of excited for for working with that industry because it's it's not going 467 00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:15,960 anywhere and it doesn't. 468 00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:23,880 And all we can do is make it a little bit cleaner and and maybe remove 50 percent off 469 00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:28,280 what people feel is problematic about that industry. 470 00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:31,480 What do you what do you what do you think about that? 471 00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:34,160 Is that something you want to talk about? 472 00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:35,160 Sure. 473 00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:43,880 You know, you know, I used to work on advanced reactors, fission reactors, but specifically 474 00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:47,920 gas cooled reactors and with Triso fuel. 475 00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:55,800 And I started in that industry back in the 90s developing Triso fuel. 476 00:39:55,800 --> 00:40:03,040 And the the goal there is to be able to when it's much more intrinsically safer because 477 00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:09,720 you have this fuel, which is actually the containment and for fission gases. 478 00:40:09,720 --> 00:40:15,080 But it's a ceramic type fuel so you can run it at much, much higher temperatures. 479 00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:19,960 And so you're not looking at melting metals and so forth. 480 00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:26,680 You know, like a situation with water cooled reactors. 481 00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:34,600 And so the output of that is, though, is that you can reach very high temperatures, you 482 00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:40,320 know, way over 800 C and go up to 11 or 12 hundred C even hotter. 483 00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:42,560 And then you start to run into some material issues. 484 00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:49,760 But the positive there, which is very similar to what we're talking about in fusion, is 485 00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:58,200 that when you start being able to have that kind of heat, that usable heat, industries 486 00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:02,000 all over the map need that kind of level of heat. 487 00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:05,960 And what they're getting it from mostly today is through like natural gas. 488 00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:11,800 OK, and burning those kinds of fuels in order to be able to process these things. 489 00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:18,360 But the petroleum industry itself, in order to refine the products that they, you know, 490 00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:27,240 the crude oil that they are drilling, they have to use about around a third of that fuel 491 00:41:27,240 --> 00:41:30,080 in order to process their fuel. 492 00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:38,480 And so all the products that we have around us, really the average person, I don't understand 493 00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:43,120 that their entire world around them is built from petroleum products. 494 00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:52,160 All the plastics and, you know, cars, your lipstick, your computer screens and keyboards, 495 00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:57,160 all these things are petroleum products, is your carpet, everything. 496 00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:01,840 You know, you can look around your apartment, your house, your room, your car, wherever 497 00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:09,240 you are, and you'll be hard pressed to not have something within arm's reach that isn't 498 00:42:09,240 --> 00:42:13,440 based on petroleum products. 499 00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:23,880 So if we can harness the energy from fusion, just the usable heat without even thinking 500 00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:33,880 about electricity, we can make all of those products much more efficiently, but also you're 501 00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:37,840 not throwing away one third of the fuel, the feedstock. 502 00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:42,040 So you know, it's very attractive. 503 00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:45,400 No, that specific one was a big selling point. 504 00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:52,880 I spoke about this at COP28, and I know you gave me some talking points, and we discussed 505 00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:59,120 this before I went out there, but that, when I told people about that specific thing, that 506 00:42:59,120 --> 00:43:01,600 was a big intrigue. 507 00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:07,280 Not only would it be cleaner, but there would be a big savings. 508 00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:11,560 Yeah, there's a huge driver for that. 509 00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:18,000 You know, one day I believe that petroleum will be actually be more valuable for the 510 00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:25,360 product side of it, the petrochemical side of it versus just the fuel side of it. 511 00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:35,060 You know, it's all conjecture of how much petroleum is available for the future. 512 00:43:35,060 --> 00:43:42,280 We all know it's more difficult to harvest than in the past because we've fused up the, 513 00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:46,320 you know, of course we've gone to the easiest sources first, and now we're going to have 514 00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:50,120 to go to other places more remote to try and get that. 515 00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:57,840 So it just makes sense to try and preserve that product as well as all the other industries 516 00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:00,600 that need usable heat. 517 00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:06,600 You know, the concrete industry, the cement industry uses a lot of heat. 518 00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:13,480 There's a number of different industries that are buying right now natural gas in order 519 00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:17,160 to power those kinds of things. 520 00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:23,680 So it's a very exciting, applications are just abound if you can reach those kinds of 521 00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:27,480 high heat, which not everybody can. 522 00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:31,720 And actually, fusion energy is going to surpass almost anything, right? 523 00:44:31,720 --> 00:44:33,840 Because you're talking about plasma, right? 524 00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:37,720 You're talking about incredible temperatures. 525 00:44:37,720 --> 00:44:46,240 So I think it's going to be the first most usable application of fusion power. 526 00:44:46,240 --> 00:44:49,840 And then before we even start to think about electricity. 527 00:44:49,840 --> 00:45:03,880 Yeah, I was reading an article in the Washington Journal this morning, and it said that we 528 00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:14,280 would need about 20 to 25% increase in energy to just power AI over the next decade, like 529 00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:22,480 a significant uptick, like a significant input into the grid. 530 00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:23,480 Yes. 531 00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:32,720 And you know, Google has or building a number of these data centers around the country. 532 00:45:32,720 --> 00:45:38,360 And there's a number of them around Washington DC area, because of all the data there and 533 00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:39,680 so forth. 534 00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:49,160 When I was at GE, I was involved in the small modular reactor program, and those reactors 535 00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:53,600 developed about 300 megawatts of electricity. 536 00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:59,300 What is really interesting to me was learning that some of these data centers need 100 megawatts. 537 00:45:59,300 --> 00:46:04,640 So it's almost like, you know, they need one third of a small modular reactor to power 538 00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:07,400 them. 539 00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:13,200 So they're incredibly hungry for power. 540 00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:18,920 And as we know, data is just expanding even more, right? 541 00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:21,000 It's going to be intense. 542 00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:31,600 So the need for efficient ways to produce and to provide that power is nowhere in sight. 543 00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:32,600 Yeah. 544 00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:40,560 Modular generators are making, it's like a big buzzword in the fission industry now, 545 00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:41,560 it seems. 546 00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:49,800 So I know that fission has also vastly improved, and there are lots of investments going into 547 00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:53,520 fission. 548 00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:59,040 And so there are plans to build all these new types of fission reactors. 549 00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:08,600 How does, does fusion still, can fusion still compete with those upgraded fission reactors? 550 00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:12,000 How do you feel about that? 551 00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:20,360 You know, I worked on neighbor reactors for about, like, just over 20 years. 552 00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:25,560 And I really was not in tune with the commercial world when I was doing that, because that 553 00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:26,560 was all classified. 554 00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:28,600 We were behind razor wire. 555 00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:29,760 I was focused on that. 556 00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:33,880 I went through three generations of reactors while I was there. 557 00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:39,920 I was really fortunate that when I first started there, what really got me hooked was we were 558 00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:45,840 working on the Seawolf prototype, which in my estimation today is like the, it's the 559 00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:50,480 baddest ass, small modular reactor on the planet. 560 00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:57,400 And then I went on to work on the Virginia class, first Virginia class, and then what's 561 00:47:57,400 --> 00:48:04,400 now the Gerald Ford carrier, which is the new carrier. 562 00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:09,040 And so after all that, I sort of popped out and said, I'm going to try commercial. 563 00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:11,120 It's got to be a lot easier. 564 00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:12,120 Right. 565 00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:17,240 That's what, and I go into the commercial world and I find out they hadn't built a 566 00:48:17,240 --> 00:48:23,000 new fission reactor in the U.S. and since around 1980. 567 00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:24,000 Okay. 568 00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:30,520 And, and so the whole industry has just been absolutely stagnant. 569 00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:38,320 And so as I got into that, I mean, I worked on getting a large reactor licensed here in 570 00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:43,280 the U.S. and to be built like three or four different locations in the U.S. 571 00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:47,400 First one was me at Calvert Cliffs, Maryland. 572 00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:50,840 And we worked on that for six years just to try and get the licensing, right? 573 00:48:50,840 --> 00:48:54,920 We spent almost a half a billion dollars just on that. 574 00:48:54,920 --> 00:49:01,200 And it was nothing really totally new, had four different safety trends and so forth. 575 00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:08,040 So what has happened is we've put even more money into all of these different systems. 576 00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:11,960 And so these things start to become even more expensive. 577 00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:18,800 And what you find is many of the utilities are not large enough to even afford one of 578 00:49:18,800 --> 00:49:20,280 these reactors. 579 00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:24,880 It meets their, it's beyond their capex. 580 00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:31,400 And so if you look at Vogel, they spent $30 billion on, I believe anyway, on those, on 581 00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:34,160 two 1100 megawatt reactors. 582 00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:43,280 So you have utilities that are very, they're not, their appetite to spend lots of capital 583 00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:47,600 money is not very high. 584 00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:50,000 Many of them are traded on the stock market. 585 00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:53,600 And so they're concerned about if they decide they're going to, they're going to invest 586 00:49:53,600 --> 00:50:01,240 in something like this, their stock price may go down because the track record has not 587 00:50:01,240 --> 00:50:03,080 been very good, right? 588 00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:08,520 It's like it takes many, many years over budget. 589 00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:15,320 And so the appetite there is, so that's where a really small modular reactor started becoming 590 00:50:15,320 --> 00:50:21,400 the buzzword, as you said, because, well, instead of maybe 10, 12, $15 billion, maybe 591 00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:23,280 it's one or $2 billion. 592 00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:27,080 And maybe we could afford that. 593 00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:34,720 So really the drive on small modular was more of a commercial affordability than anything 594 00:50:34,720 --> 00:50:36,160 else. 595 00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:41,880 There's been a lot of talk about, well, we'll drive the cost down because we'll be able 596 00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:51,160 to build these in factories and we'll be able to sort of replicate these on and so forth. 597 00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:57,360 However, nobody today has cracked that nut. 598 00:50:57,360 --> 00:51:05,360 There's been a lot of talk about it, but you have to have a sizable number of orders to 599 00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:10,600 get off the ground to do that and build your supply chain. 600 00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:12,280 The Navy has done that. 601 00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:17,840 But if you look at the commercial world, there's a lot of talk about it, but unfortunately 602 00:51:17,840 --> 00:51:25,080 I don't see, even when I was at GE, we had, GE's had the wherewithal as far as the fuel 603 00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:28,560 manufacturing, which is huge. 604 00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:31,760 And so they have a real chance at it, I would say. 605 00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:37,720 They still need a lot of orders in order to make that a reality. 606 00:51:37,720 --> 00:51:44,720 And each of those would still run into the same regulatory stuff or is somehow, do any 607 00:51:44,720 --> 00:51:50,840 of these make it easier to meet those regulatory standards we spoke about before? 608 00:51:50,840 --> 00:51:55,920 Well, every site is going to have to be licensed. 609 00:51:55,920 --> 00:52:02,040 So you have your site licensing and then you have the reactor itself that's licensed, the 610 00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:03,040 technology. 611 00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:07,280 So hopefully you only have to get the technology licensed once, but if you go into another 612 00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:15,200 country like UK or, you know, you name it, right, you're going to have to go through 613 00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:21,720 their regulatory body and get their license, which is expensive. 614 00:52:21,720 --> 00:52:28,120 One thing people don't realize, and I didn't realize until I got into it, was that the 615 00:52:28,120 --> 00:52:33,240 companies themselves have to pay for the review. 616 00:52:33,240 --> 00:52:39,880 So when you submit a review to the NRC, at the time, this is a little while back, but 617 00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:50,000 I believe it was around $275 an hour, you paid for a reviewer that largely were subcontractors. 618 00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:59,360 And so they would, there's really no incentive for them to stop asking questions. 619 00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:01,240 They can dream up more questions. 620 00:53:01,240 --> 00:53:09,560 And so it went on and on and on and you're paying for it. 621 00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:18,320 So you can imagine how frustrating that is to companies that, you know, they don't have 622 00:53:18,320 --> 00:53:25,560 endless money and they're trying to get something licensed that as the time is going on, they're 623 00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:31,800 not making things and they're not, you know, getting any bills paid. 624 00:53:31,800 --> 00:53:35,240 So it's this huge outlay. 625 00:53:35,240 --> 00:53:39,760 And that's why you saw a number of companies going bankrupt, a number of companies like 626 00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:41,800 Westinghouse. 627 00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:55,520 So I think if you look at that sort of ecosystem, you can see how Fusion has a much more attractive 628 00:53:55,520 --> 00:54:03,520 opportunity because you're not going to be going through that kind of regulatory process. 629 00:54:03,520 --> 00:54:07,800 And you can get to market much sooner. 630 00:54:07,800 --> 00:54:09,800 It's more predictable. 631 00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:14,640 Engineering is more predictable than the regulatory environment. 632 00:54:14,640 --> 00:54:18,960 Yeah, that's a huge plus. 633 00:54:18,960 --> 00:54:22,960 And you always have to worry, not worry, but the concern is, right, somebody's got to buy 634 00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:25,200 this product. 635 00:54:25,200 --> 00:54:33,640 Somebody has to have the money to that and is willing to invest in this. 636 00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:42,520 And the utilities, as I described, are very reluctant to outlay that kind of money. 637 00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:43,520 Right. 638 00:54:43,520 --> 00:54:53,160 I find myself thinking in terms of if I were to build a hundred generators, what are the, 639 00:54:53,160 --> 00:55:00,600 you know, what are the things that I'm going to need to contend with if I was going to 640 00:55:00,600 --> 00:55:02,240 build a thousand generators? 641 00:55:02,240 --> 00:55:03,240 Is that scalable? 642 00:55:03,240 --> 00:55:05,720 And what are the things I would need to contend with? 643 00:55:05,720 --> 00:55:09,080 And this is over the course of the next two decades or three decades, of course. 644 00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:18,480 But like, if I were to build something at that scale, I would not want it to have anything 645 00:55:18,480 --> 00:55:27,200 in it that is highly weaponizable or I wouldn't want it to have anything that has, you know, 646 00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:32,360 something that has a half-life of a thousand years or 10,000 years. 647 00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:35,720 Is that still the case with the modular reactor then? 648 00:55:35,720 --> 00:55:38,680 I take those two things would still be. 649 00:55:38,680 --> 00:55:39,680 Yeah. 650 00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:44,320 You know, as you go through those regulatory meetings and so forth, you're always going 651 00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:45,320 to get that question. 652 00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:48,040 What are you going to do with the waste? 653 00:55:48,040 --> 00:55:55,120 You know, the waste is really not as a, it can be blown up. 654 00:55:55,120 --> 00:55:57,120 I shouldn't say that. 655 00:55:57,120 --> 00:56:00,320 I didn't mean it that way. 656 00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:08,120 But it can be characterized as a huge problem. 657 00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:14,440 You know, all of the used fuel, the spent fuel right now in the U.S. is being stored 658 00:56:14,440 --> 00:56:16,340 at the sites. 659 00:56:16,340 --> 00:56:21,520 So there is no geologic repository in place right now. 660 00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:23,120 Duca Mountain was attempted. 661 00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:27,560 That probably will never come back. 662 00:56:27,560 --> 00:56:34,960 So what you have is these concrete casks on site that has the fuel stored in it. 663 00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:39,040 My belief is it's very safe, okay, that it's being stored there. 664 00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:43,200 But you always have to the legacy of what are you going to do with this? 665 00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:49,480 The U.S. invented all the technology to recycle that fuel, but Jimmy Carter put a moratorium 666 00:56:49,480 --> 00:56:55,680 on that because he was concerned about diversion of plutonium and other things for that when 667 00:56:55,680 --> 00:57:02,880 you separate those fuels in that process for recycling, which is really amazing because 668 00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:08,280 you actually recover about 97 percent of all that and reuse it. 669 00:57:08,280 --> 00:57:17,840 But you could divert, you know, some materials for, you know, weapon type applications. 670 00:57:17,840 --> 00:57:21,360 So that's that was the concern. 671 00:57:21,360 --> 00:57:26,520 But in fusion, we're not going to have those kinds of issues. 672 00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:32,380 We may have some materials that might have gotten irradiated, but they're not themselves 673 00:57:32,380 --> 00:57:40,920 producing these long lived radionuclides with half-lives of thousands and thousands of years 674 00:57:40,920 --> 00:57:43,720 that you're going to have to deal with for eternity. 675 00:57:43,720 --> 00:57:56,760 And so, you know, and also the fuel itself is in a much different form in procuring it. 676 00:57:56,760 --> 00:58:05,480 So the level of effort to go into actually manufacture fission fuel, you've got to mine 677 00:58:05,480 --> 00:58:06,840 uranium. 678 00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:10,640 You have to go and refine that. 679 00:58:10,640 --> 00:58:16,880 Then you have to, you know, there's lots of processing that's involved there. 680 00:58:16,880 --> 00:58:22,920 And then, you know, so incredible investment and controls just in producing the fuel and 681 00:58:22,920 --> 00:58:27,200 getting into a usable form. 682 00:58:27,200 --> 00:58:28,200 Yeah. 683 00:58:28,200 --> 00:58:38,200 I suppose that that's one challenge that we still share with the fission world is with 684 00:58:38,200 --> 00:58:50,240 fusion of the availability of helium-3 and the availability of tritium or deuterium. 685 00:58:50,240 --> 00:58:56,000 They all exist, but again, we need the, I think even that, we've obviously talked about, 686 00:58:56,000 --> 00:59:02,040 we know of companies working on getting the helium, but again, huge engineering problem. 687 00:59:02,040 --> 00:59:09,720 So since it all kind of comes down to engineering, we need engineers. 688 00:59:09,720 --> 00:59:14,640 We need engineers, Martin, like not just for us, but like for all of the other things that 689 00:59:14,640 --> 00:59:16,200 connect to all of this. 690 00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:22,520 So how do we get more people to be engineers? 691 00:59:22,520 --> 00:59:30,760 Like what is the advice for the younger generation here that are choosing what they would do? 692 00:59:30,760 --> 00:59:31,760 Yeah. 693 00:59:31,760 --> 00:59:41,900 I think there is a, I think there will always be people who are curious and want to understand 694 00:59:41,900 --> 00:59:46,540 our universe, want to understand how things work. 695 00:59:46,540 --> 00:59:49,560 And that's sort of the basis of engineering, right? 696 00:59:49,560 --> 00:59:52,680 It's kind of that curiosity. 697 00:59:52,680 --> 01:00:00,040 And once you have that, you'd like to go into a field, I think that is kind of going to 698 01:00:00,040 --> 01:00:01,520 break through into things. 699 01:00:01,520 --> 01:00:10,800 One thing I learned kind of early on though, is there's some people who like to know what 700 01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:16,360 they're going to do every day and it's been worked out and they just sort of have to follow 701 01:00:16,360 --> 01:00:17,360 a process. 702 01:00:17,360 --> 01:00:19,080 And that's perfectly fine. 703 01:00:19,080 --> 01:00:23,040 I mean, what I've learned was I'm glad there are people like that because I'm not like 704 01:00:23,040 --> 01:00:24,520 that. 705 01:00:24,520 --> 01:00:29,860 And we need people like that, but there are other engineers and other curious people that 706 01:00:29,860 --> 01:00:34,760 want to discover things and are willing to sort of step out where everything isn't figured 707 01:00:34,760 --> 01:00:35,760 out yet. 708 01:00:35,760 --> 01:00:37,240 You know, you mentioned helium-3. 709 01:00:37,240 --> 01:00:39,280 How are we going to get helium-3? 710 01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:41,720 We could maybe harvest it from the moon. 711 01:00:41,720 --> 01:00:45,000 Well, that sounds pretty exciting, right? 712 01:00:45,000 --> 01:00:52,520 So it's not easy, but you know, what I've learned is anything that's been satisfying 713 01:00:52,520 --> 01:00:54,620 in my life hasn't been easy. 714 01:00:54,620 --> 01:01:00,120 It's taken a lot of work and it's taken a lot of collaboration and a lot of fun working 715 01:01:00,120 --> 01:01:04,000 with people and discovering things. 716 01:01:04,000 --> 01:01:08,800 So infusion, we know it works. 717 01:01:08,800 --> 01:01:10,760 We absolutely know it works. 718 01:01:10,760 --> 01:01:12,800 It's been done in laboratories. 719 01:01:12,800 --> 01:01:14,840 You can look at the sun, okay. 720 01:01:14,840 --> 01:01:16,920 We're getting energy from every day. 721 01:01:16,920 --> 01:01:17,920 Okay. 722 01:01:17,920 --> 01:01:19,320 So it works. 723 01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:25,440 It's just how do we now engineer this to harness it? 724 01:01:25,440 --> 01:01:32,360 And so you can almost be in almost any field and be involved in this. 725 01:01:32,360 --> 01:01:37,720 You know, for material science, which I think is fantastic because materials are always 726 01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:47,120 going to be the key to computer science, to mechanical, to plasma physics, to instrumentation, 727 01:01:47,120 --> 01:01:53,520 to civil engineering, to space mining. 728 01:01:53,520 --> 01:01:59,920 All these things we're talking about are going to be needed to come together to make this 729 01:01:59,920 --> 01:02:00,920 a reality. 730 01:02:00,920 --> 01:02:01,920 Yeah. 731 01:02:01,920 --> 01:02:02,920 I'm excited about it. 732 01:02:02,920 --> 01:02:12,600 When I spoke with this company about going to the moon and getting helium-3, they told 733 01:02:12,600 --> 01:02:16,520 us about all of the other things that they would be getting from the moon. 734 01:02:16,520 --> 01:02:21,360 And one of those things was a super fertilizer, apparently. 735 01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:23,520 I don't know what this is. 736 01:02:23,520 --> 01:02:26,520 But it's a fertilizer that's a super fertilizer. 737 01:02:26,520 --> 01:02:31,560 And they said that it's almost just as valuable as helium-3. 738 01:02:31,560 --> 01:02:33,320 So we want to go after it. 739 01:02:33,320 --> 01:02:35,680 And it made me think of a story. 740 01:02:35,680 --> 01:02:37,560 Do you know the guano story? 741 01:02:37,560 --> 01:02:41,320 I think I'm saying it right. 742 01:02:41,320 --> 01:02:48,640 I think it was about 200 years ago or something where they found that seagull manure was a 743 01:02:48,640 --> 01:02:50,400 super fertilizer. 744 01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:55,120 And there was this island that had 10 feet of it piled up in every square inch of this 745 01:02:55,120 --> 01:02:56,240 island. 746 01:02:56,240 --> 01:02:57,800 So they incentivized. 747 01:02:57,800 --> 01:03:03,880 So by day, I mean the US government incentivized sea merchants to go to this island and bring 748 01:03:03,880 --> 01:03:04,880 back this guano. 749 01:03:04,880 --> 01:03:05,880 Do you know the story? 750 01:03:05,880 --> 01:03:06,880 No. 751 01:03:06,880 --> 01:03:07,880 I saw it on YouTube. 752 01:03:07,880 --> 01:03:08,880 I don't know how true it is. 753 01:03:08,880 --> 01:03:09,880 So if I find it, I'll send you the link. 754 01:03:09,880 --> 01:03:10,880 And I'll link it to this podcast. 755 01:03:10,880 --> 01:03:13,440 We know so little about our universe. 756 01:03:13,440 --> 01:03:14,440 There's so many. 757 01:03:14,440 --> 01:03:17,600 Anybody who thinks we've got it all figured out. 758 01:03:17,600 --> 01:03:23,760 We know so little about our universe. 759 01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:25,560 There's so many. 760 01:03:25,560 --> 01:03:27,680 Anybody who thinks we've got it all figured out. 761 01:03:27,680 --> 01:03:32,720 We may be, there may be somebody really smart out there that figures out how to make helium 762 01:03:32,720 --> 01:03:35,080 free here on Earth, right? 763 01:03:35,080 --> 01:03:39,560 That does exist naturally in very small quantities here. 764 01:03:39,560 --> 01:03:41,440 But who knows, right? 765 01:03:41,440 --> 01:03:45,520 I mean, there's the realm of possibilities. 766 01:03:45,520 --> 01:03:48,960 But also we know very little about things like the moon. 767 01:03:48,960 --> 01:03:57,400 We only have a few rocks that we brought back from very small areas of the moon. 768 01:03:57,400 --> 01:04:03,880 That's our complete, our knowledge of what exists on the moon is from just a handful 769 01:04:03,880 --> 01:04:06,800 of things, right? 770 01:04:06,800 --> 01:04:09,480 There could be many more other discoveries there. 771 01:04:09,480 --> 01:04:18,000 Same thing, you know, going, you know, Elon Musk wants to go to Mars and explore Mars. 772 01:04:18,000 --> 01:04:26,240 All of these things are discoveries that could make huge leaps in our knowledge and what 773 01:04:26,240 --> 01:04:28,880 we can, what's possible. 774 01:04:28,880 --> 01:04:38,160 So you know, without, you know, doing these kinds of things like what we're doing in Kronos, 775 01:04:38,160 --> 01:04:45,020 you're not going to discover many other things just as the NASA program, you know, had so 776 01:04:45,020 --> 01:04:48,560 many spin-offs that we all talk about, right? 777 01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:53,960 That the semiconductor industry, all these kinds of things that were way advanced because 778 01:04:53,960 --> 01:05:00,840 we were listening to President John F. Kennedy's, you know, charge to say we're going to put 779 01:05:00,840 --> 01:05:04,200 a man on the moon in this decade. 780 01:05:04,200 --> 01:05:06,120 And this is where we are today. 781 01:05:06,120 --> 01:05:12,640 I think that there are a lot of industries that where we've gotten just very lethargic 782 01:05:12,640 --> 01:05:19,800 and we haven't advanced as fast as we should have in many areas. 783 01:05:19,800 --> 01:05:23,840 And that's got to, we've got to, we've got to up our game, right? 784 01:05:23,840 --> 01:05:30,080 And it's through companies, I think, like Kronos and others that are entrepreneurial 785 01:05:30,080 --> 01:05:38,400 that, I think, you know, Priyanka, your vision, you are not a person that says, well, that 786 01:05:38,400 --> 01:05:40,040 won't work because of XYZ. 787 01:05:40,040 --> 01:05:44,120 You're like, hey, to infinity and beyond. 788 01:05:44,120 --> 01:05:51,300 And so it's kind of like, even though we haven't got it all figured out, it's going to be this 789 01:05:51,300 --> 01:05:54,720 journey on figuring all these things out, there's going to be so many other things that 790 01:05:54,720 --> 01:05:56,720 are going to come out of these things. 791 01:05:56,720 --> 01:06:00,040 Yeah, I'm excited about that. 792 01:06:00,040 --> 01:06:06,760 Even all of the things that can be fused in a plasma field that can make new materials. 793 01:06:06,760 --> 01:06:13,040 And I think for space travel, especially we humans, we as humans have so many aspirations 794 01:06:13,040 --> 01:06:17,480 for, for Mars settlements and space travel. 795 01:06:17,480 --> 01:06:23,800 Everything requires something small that can produce a large amount of energy. 796 01:06:23,800 --> 01:06:29,280 Like none of those aspirations work without having that fundamentally. 797 01:06:29,280 --> 01:06:30,600 It has to be lightweight. 798 01:06:30,600 --> 01:06:32,920 It has to be portable. 799 01:06:32,920 --> 01:06:35,800 It has to not blow up. 800 01:06:35,800 --> 01:06:39,040 You know, it has to have things. 801 01:06:39,040 --> 01:06:45,800 And I feel I'm very optimistic for the future. 802 01:06:45,800 --> 01:06:49,320 Somebody's got to figure out this aging thing just so I can like kind of stick around for 803 01:06:49,320 --> 01:06:53,680 the next like 80, 90 years or so and kind of check these things out. 804 01:06:53,680 --> 01:06:55,960 Well, I've still got a long range plan. 805 01:06:55,960 --> 01:07:00,120 So I don't, I'm not, I'm not limiting myself. 806 01:07:00,120 --> 01:07:04,320 And I think energy, as you talked about, is the fundamental thing. 807 01:07:04,320 --> 01:07:10,360 It's even more fundamental than food and water because all of those things can come from 808 01:07:10,360 --> 01:07:11,360 energy. 809 01:07:11,360 --> 01:07:17,200 And it's sort of the history of man has advanced because of energy. 810 01:07:17,200 --> 01:07:24,720 I always think about like, you know, it used to be used to have to build a fire, right? 811 01:07:24,720 --> 01:07:26,600 You had to have a fire. 812 01:07:26,600 --> 01:07:30,600 You had to have energy to stay warm, to cook your food. 813 01:07:30,600 --> 01:07:34,560 And this was the basic, you know, survival mechanism. 814 01:07:34,560 --> 01:07:37,760 And it hasn't changed. 815 01:07:37,760 --> 01:07:42,200 You know, we just become more sophisticated, but it's still a need. 816 01:07:42,200 --> 01:07:46,600 It's the basis of all the other things that we need for life. 817 01:07:46,600 --> 01:07:47,600 Exactly. 818 01:07:47,600 --> 01:07:49,680 Yeah, yeah, I love that. 819 01:07:49,680 --> 01:07:51,880 I love that actually. 820 01:07:51,880 --> 01:07:58,480 Yeah, there's, yeah, we can make the food out if we have energy, we can make an oxygen 821 01:07:58,480 --> 01:08:05,120 needed environment, we can power robots that can put an atmosphere or a dome or something 822 01:08:05,120 --> 01:08:11,040 together to hold the oxygen in and we can have all that built before we even go there. 823 01:08:11,040 --> 01:08:17,920 I think when I was a kid, I watched a cartoon about with the moon, where the moon was an 824 01:08:17,920 --> 01:08:22,800 energy generator and we were like an interplanetary species. 825 01:08:22,800 --> 01:08:31,360 And now in my adulthood, I'm like, oh my God, the moon really is a big gas station from 826 01:08:31,360 --> 01:08:33,280 a fusion energy perspective. 827 01:08:33,280 --> 01:08:35,280 So I get it. 828 01:08:35,280 --> 01:08:37,280 It's kind of exciting times. 829 01:08:37,280 --> 01:08:41,280 Yeah, really is a big, big energy station. 830 01:08:41,280 --> 01:08:52,800 Anyway, so Martin, like closing this out, what can we, how can we close this out? 831 01:08:52,800 --> 01:08:56,040 Well, I don't know. 832 01:08:56,040 --> 01:08:58,400 I don't know if we can close it out. 833 01:08:58,400 --> 01:09:01,400 We're going forward. 834 01:09:01,400 --> 01:09:10,000 You know, it's like we have to, it's more like a launching pad really, you know. 835 01:09:10,000 --> 01:09:17,280 And what I'm really excited about with Chronos is that we have people involved in it that 836 01:09:17,280 --> 01:09:26,600 are really wanting to go to a whole new level of fusion. 837 01:09:26,600 --> 01:09:33,280 You know, we have, you know, Carl Bob Wegel, and I think Carl said that he's a, he's a 838 01:09:33,280 --> 01:09:35,760 pedal to the metal designer. 839 01:09:35,760 --> 01:09:43,680 And you know, he wasn't satisfied with sort of a new tronic fusion that there is the more 840 01:09:43,680 --> 01:09:52,800 perfect or at least better goal with an a new tronic fusion generator. 841 01:09:52,800 --> 01:09:54,560 And that's what we're striving for. 842 01:09:54,560 --> 01:10:00,600 And so that's the exciting thing about what we're all about. 843 01:10:00,600 --> 01:10:04,780 And that, you know, we know it's, we're not, we're not going to over promise and things 844 01:10:04,780 --> 01:10:06,820 are going to be done tomorrow. 845 01:10:06,820 --> 01:10:11,520 We have to have a really realistic view of it, but we are, we're going to go for it. 846 01:10:11,520 --> 01:10:12,520 Yeah, that's awesome. 847 01:10:12,520 --> 01:10:13,520 Yeah, I'm excited about that too. 848 01:10:13,520 --> 01:10:14,520 We have an awesome team. 849 01:10:14,520 --> 01:10:15,520 We have an awesome generator. 850 01:10:15,520 --> 01:10:16,520 It's going to be a great future. 851 01:10:16,520 --> 01:10:17,520 Thank you so much for doing this. 852 01:10:17,520 --> 01:10:27,360 Well, it was a lot of fun. 853 01:10:27,360 --> 01:10:50,320 I enjoyed myself.