December 12, 2023 • 50 mins
If this company perfectly combines lasers and atoms, the reaction could be worth trillions of dollars.
Focused Energy’s Thomas Forner, CEO, and Pravesh Patel, CTO, join us to talk about making lasers. Lots and lots of lasers. But for what aim? They are pointing hundreds of directed beams at a tiny target: a millimeter-sized plastic capsule of deuterium and tritium, about the size of a peppercorn. These experiments may reveal a commercial pathway to grid-scale fusion energy. In contrast to other pursuits for nearly limitless clean energy such as stellarators and tokamaks, our third installment of the Tough Tech Today fusion series spotlights Focused Energy’s inertial approach to excite hydrogen isotopes.
Uniquely straddling the Atlantic to tap into specialized talent pools in Austin, Texas, and Darmstadt, Germany, this team is leveraging discoveries from top fusion labs in the U.S. and Europe. The company has spun out of the Technical University of Darmstadt and combined with talent from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where the first net energy gain from nuclear fusion was demonstrated in 2022.
In a planet hungry for energy, the company aims to generate significant revenues within a few years, fast-tracking commercialization of fusion energy while tapping into early revenues streams Focused Energy is deriving from testing other organizations’ technologies, cleaning up nuclear waste, and providing other valuable services as the company matures its laser drivers, high-gain ignition facility, and, eventually, establishes a pilot power plant. It is a lot of progress for a venture that has raised $82 million to date, including closing an $11 million Series A in 2023. From maintaining a permanent presence among regulators in Washington, D.C., to working with other energy companies to ‘educate the market’ about why fusion energy is now a venture-class investment opportunity, Forner, Patel, and the Focused Energy team exemplify a multinational collaboration of some of the world’s top minds.
P.S. Thank you to our tough tech champions. We really appreciate your support! If you’d like to level-up your support of our work, take a look at our pay-if-you-can membership options so you can help us bring Tough Tech Today to more folks!
🔖Topic Timecodes:
[1:50] Focused Energy’s approach to fusion
[6:07] Differences from WX-7
[7:41] Magnetic vs. inertial fusion
[11:16] How ignition discovery changed the inertial fusion industry
[12:46] Focused’s focus
[14:18] Biggest misconception about fusion in venture capital
[17:52] Comparison of risks between fusion, fission, and autonomous driving industry
[20:57] Developing in public vs private sector
[24:48] Founding story of Focused Energy
[28:23] Working between US and Germany
[34:30] Balancing cooperation and competition
[36:16] Connections to government and politics
[40:10] What’s on the whiteboard
[41:53] Number one technology priority for Focused Energy
[43:28] How does inertial fusion work?
[48:30] Focused Energy is hiring
🧠Relevant Links:
- Episode homepage: https://www.toughtechtoday.com/fusing-atoms-with-lasers/
- Thomas Forner on LinkedIn: https://de.linkedin.com/in/forner-thomas
- Pravesh Patel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pravesh-patel
- Focused Energy homepage: https://focused-energy.world
👏Credit Roll:
- Producers: Jonathan 'JMill' Miller and Forrest Meyen
- Guests: Thomas Forner and Pravesh Patel
- Hosts: JMill and Forrest Meyen
- Editing: JMill
- Transcri
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pravesh Patel (00:00):
Hi, I'm Prav. You have to say...
Thomas Forner (00:04):
I'm Tom, and we need to stay tough to solve
fusion.
JMill (00:09):
Awesome. Okay.
Announcer (00:11):
Welcome to Tough Tech Today with Meyen and Miller.
This is the premiere showfeaturing trailblazers who are
building technologies today tosolve tomorrow's toughest
challenges.
Forrest Meyen (00:26):
Let's go. Welcome to Tough Tech Today. Today is
the third part in our series onfusion. And today we're honored
to have with us two guests fromFocused Energy. We have Prav
Patel and Thomas Forner. FocusedEnergy is enabling secure energy
harvesting from directlaser-driven fusion, and
(00:51):
developing a completely novelrange of non-destructive testing
for industry based on the sametechnology. Their technology is
also very modular, which enablesits use throughout industry. So
we have Thomas Forner here. He'sthe CEO and founder of Focused
Energy. Prior to Focused Energy,Thomas was a serial entrepreneur
(01:12):
who loves working with data andpeople; he has run various
ventures in the fields ofe-commerce, nutrition, and
software; building and scalingcompanies of various sizes. We
also have Prav Patel, he's theChief Technology Officer of
Focused Energy. Previously, hespent 20 years at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory oninertial fusion, and is one of
(01:35):
the program leads at theIgnition Experiment at the
National Ignition Facility thatgenerated net positive fusion.
Thomas, Prav. Thank you verymuch for joining JMill and today
on Tough Tech Today.
Thomas Forner (01:47):
Thanks for having us.
Pravesh Patel (01:48):
Thank you.
Forrest Meyen (01:50):
So let's kick it off. With really quickly, like,
how would you summarize... we'vetalked with a bunch of fusion
companies so far, and how wouldyou summarize kind of your
approach to fusion. And based onall the other companies out
there and kind of what makesyour company unique and special?
Thomas Forner (02:13):
Focused Energy is special because we really look
for commercializing fusion asearly as possible; as we see,
one of the biggest challenges infusion is to raise enough
capital, and also not to buildanother national lab, that to
build a company and focus oncustomers and products. That's
(02:34):
why we have developed a modularapproach to fusion that allows
us to untap markets early on togenerate revenues already this
year, and ramping up revenues to100 million by the end of the
20s, and then really paving ourway to fusion and unveil fusion,
ultimately, in the 30s.
Forrest Meyen (02:56):
Amazing. Yeah, that is definitely a contrast to
what we've seen on some of theother companies where we've
talked to as they're very, veryfocused on the end goal. But
they do acknowledge that ittakes a huge amount of capital
to get there. And if you're notgoing to, you know, have this
unlimited source of capital,like how do you, you know, how
(03:17):
do you sustain yourself ifthat's your business plan? So
that's, that's very unique.
What's been the hardest partabout...? Or has there been a
big challenge and kind offinding the alignment between
near term markets and kind ofyour long term goal and making
sure that you're still pointingin the right direction of the
ultimate goal, while you weserve the near term customers?
Thomas Forner (03:41):
Of course, I guess this was the biggest
challenge, but also our conceptfrom the very beginning. So we
see fusion companies as let'scall them wave makers, not wave
riders. And so what we need todo is we need to build a whole
new ecosystem. And this cannotonly be done by just one company
(04:05):
and you also need strongpartners, industry partners. And
these industry partnerstypically are risk averse. So
you need something that attractsthem to invest into these
markets. And this is technologythat we are developing, and that
we productize and market earlyon. So first step is that we
(04:27):
have started with a completelyoutfitted and operating target
lab. So we build our proprietarytargets, but at the same time we
produce targets for other labs.
That's a small revenue stream,but a growing revenue stream.
Second step is that we use thelasers that we build that we
develop, the targets that wedevelop, and diagnostics that we
(04:48):
develop anyhow for fusion andjust assemble it differently. So
like with Lego bricks and builda non-destructive testing
machine early on, a neutronsource, immune source and X ray
source with a micro acceleratorbusiness. And this is going to
(05:09):
be the product that we arelaunching in two and a half
years from now. We already havea first customer, pilot
customer, a German energycompany. And we do
non-destructive testing fornuclear waste. So we analyze
nuclear waste barrels, so we canlook through them with our
machine, and can detect what isin the inside. And this is just
(05:34):
a huge change for this market.
Because today, the only way toanalyze it is open the barrels,
this is expensive, this is timeconsuming, this is dangerous.
And we found a completely newway to do this. And also, this
is the way how we develop thelaser for fusion and ultimately
(05:55):
build our fusion power plantwith a combination of lasers,
targets, and diagnostics aswell.
JMill (06:07):
That's really interesting. Is this an approach
that has less direct heritage tothe famed WX-7 facility and
reactor than some of the othersort of approaches to fusion
that would be maybe like sort ofdirect lineage to team members
(06:28):
or to the discoveries of thatreactor?
Pravesh Patel (06:30):
WX-7, you mean that stellarator?
JMill (06:35):
That is correct. Yeah.
Is there any sort ofrelationship other than the fact
that they're also workingbroadly in the fusion realm?
Pravesh Patel (06:45):
Oh, yeah. Our kind of heritage goes back to
NIF (National IgnitionFacility).
JMill (06:52):
Completely separate.
Pravesh Patel (06:53):
Yes.
JMill (06:54):
Yeah.
Pravesh Patel (06:54):
Yeah so WX-7 is a magnetic fusion device. And
we're studying... our approachis inertial fusion energy.
JMill (07:06):
Okay, does that then make it so that in terms of, you
know... I liked to understandthe access to talent for fusion
systems then. So it's notnecessarily that someone who may
have had as much experience on astellarator design, it's not
like they can just moveorganizations over to Focused
(07:28):
Energy and plug right in,there's actually a lot of sort
of separate sort of physics atplay, then to further the
approach that you're pursuingversus some of the other kind of
companies that we have looked atin the past?
Pravesh Patel (07:41):
Yeah, so there's, there's two kind of big
Forrest Meyen (07:42):
Yeah. So when you talk about that moment of
approaches to fusion. There's amagnetic fusion, and there's an
inertial fusion. So magneticfusion has been principally
funded through government labs,pursuing fusion energy, and
nationally, and theninternationally with projects
(08:05):
like ITER. They're pursuingtokamaks and stellarators and
devices like that. Inertialfusion comes from a history of
work on high energy densityphysics. And basically ever
since the laser was invented,back in the 1960s. Physicists
(08:25):
realized that they could uselasers to create very high
energy density matter. And backin 1972, there's a very famous
guy, John Nuckolls from LawrenceLivermore National Lab, who
published this concept for thefirst time of using these high
(08:46):
energy lasers to implode smallpellets of deuterium and
tritium. And calculated that,you know, if you did this
implosion, just right, you couldcompress deuterium and tritium
to densities and temperatureshigher than the center of the
(09:07):
Sun. And you could initiate afusion reaction. And that fusion
reaction could potentiallyproduce hundreds of times more
energy out than you put in. Sothat concept was first published
in 1972. And national labs,particularly national security
(09:28):
labs, in the US, in all over theworld in France, in the UK, in
China and Japan, have beenpursuing this concept of
laser-based inertial fusion, andit's taken 50 years to do. But
the National Ignition Facilitywas kind of like the final
(09:48):
machine in a series ofincreasingly larger laser
machines that were builtspecifically to try and achieve
this, and to try and achieveignition—that is, producing a
thermonuclear explosion thatproduces more energy than then
you put into it in a laboratory.
And that's what the NationalIgnition Facility at Livermore
(10:13):
was built for, and what itfinally achieved, you know, this
last year. And then there'sother other labs around the
world that have been pursuingthat concept as well. So our
scheme kind of directly comesfrom that. So in terms of like,
(10:34):
our team members and our talent,you know, we're drawing from
that community. And we can alsotake advantage of laser
technology developments over thedecades that have been invested
in, like by the US governmentand other governments, target
(10:55):
technology, simulation,co-capabilities, diagnostics,
etc. So we're kind of reallystarting from a very mature, you
know, scientific andtechnological, kind of stepping
stone, and kind of launchingfrom that.
(11:21):
ignition achieved, what reallydid that mean for the industry?
And, you know, especially on thecommercial side, like, how did
it change the landscape andperhaps, you know, enable your
startup to flourish?
Thomas Forner (11:38):
I would say it has not immediately changed it:
it's still about to change it.
So it took some time. That this,there's a lot of education that
is needed for the investorspace. And that's what they all
have been doing for the last 24months, to hire experts, to get
(11:58):
a deeper insight into thedifferent fusion approaches. And
finally, they have seen the netenergy gain from NIF. This
definitely has changed the viewon inertial fusion. So this is
now seen as one of the mainapproaches to fusion, and maybe
the very one of the veryinteresting ones, when it comes
(12:22):
to commercial viability in thelong run. As you build on
lasers, as you build an industrylasers, as you have proven
technology also, that haschanged other industries, like
chip production recently, likeautomotive manufacturing where
it uses lasers, at a high reprate, 24/7 running for seven
(12:42):
years without maintenance.
That's what we want to build forfusion. And this is ultimately
then a cheap source. And yetit's about the cost for the
levelized cost of electricity sowe have a competitive price for
electricity in the end, andthat's how we that's how we
built Focused Energy.
JMill (13:03):
With the idea of building something that's able
to run for such a long duration,is somewhere in there where the
modular concept comes in termsof like how to size for a future
projected grid baseload? And howthen do you build a system that
is kind of more like an elastic?
Thomas Forner (13:25):
Yeah I mean, it's determined by the size of the
target and the amount of laserenergy you need for igniting it
and for getting a net energyout. So there's a sweet spot
that we are aiming at, it'sprobably at the lower end, at
point five gigawatts ofelectricity to the grid, and on
the upper end property, twogigawatt or maybe even more. And
(13:50):
this is determined by physics inbetween. So how much fuel can
you assemble? How many lasers doyou need? And the modular
concept means we areconceptualizing the lasers, so
rather small lasers and many ofthem, so like a couple of 100,
or maybe 500, 600, 700, lasers,and you just add more lasers or
(14:11):
less lasers, depending on howmuch energy you need on the
target.
Forrest Meyen (14:18):
Hey, you mentioned there's a lot of
education needed in kind of theinvestment market. What do you
think the biggest misconceptionabout fusion is from the venture
capital community?
Thomas Forner (14:36):
Yeah, I mean, one very important aspect is timing.
So, I mean, we're all buildingcomplex machines, we're all
building in concrete. So thismeans you have a long time
frames for building that. Thisis typically not in the range of
(14:56):
a typical investment for VCinvestor. So this means you need
to find concepts, how they caninvest and then exit somewhere,
because typically they havetimeframes of maybe 10 years or
10 years plus one or two, if youare the very first investment in
(15:16):
a fund. So that's one hurdle.
The other hurdle is, if it's abinary bet, so if if it's
really, you don't know, today,whether you're going to make it
in 15 years or not. So it's areally binary bet. And I mean,
of course, we are addressing theby far biggest markets that you
can address, but I wouldn't dobinary bets. So this is one more
(15:38):
additional thing. The otherthing is, the community is very,
very small, both in magnet aswell as in inertial fusion. So
you only have, let's say, acouple of 100 people globally,
who know about fusion. And thereare many, many approaches that
(16:00):
are, from our point of view, notscientifically anchored. And we
believe in science, we believethat approaches need to be
scientifically anchored. And wealso believe in publishing it.
And that's one challenge thatinvestors need to overcome to
(16:22):
differentiate in betweenapproaches that might look nice
at the first view, but turn outto be just impossible. And
that's what we see quite a lot.
JMill (16:39):
I think we would all agree that a tough tech company
would be, at the core, isscience advantaged, and thus,
scientifically anchored... someof those other approaches that
feel maybe sort of less backedby science? Is it perhaps an
issue with probably, that theteams around it may not realize
(17:04):
that right, that they may havethe blinders on, so to say, or
not realize that some aspect ofthe science and math and
engineering actually is a bigunknown, and that they're going
ahead anyway, at the risk of itnot being sort of invented in
time, they're kind of drivingalong the road, and it's not
paved, right, you know, too farahead of them. And so is that
(17:29):
something that there would beperhaps some some sort of rough,
maybe painful, sort ofcontractions of some of the
fusion companies, the for profitones, at least, right? That may
not realize until it's hundredsof millions of dollars after
that, they actually didn't havesort of the science figured out
(17:50):
in time.
Thomas Forner (17:51):
Yep.
JMill (17:52):
Okay. That's a tough thing for the industry, and
something that we kind of seeplaying out maybe a couple years
ahead of time, with autonomouscars, you and I were talking
ahead of ahead of recording thatyou know, with the autonomous
car industry there was a lot of,I think, appeal and thought that
(18:14):
it could be sooner than later.
Fusion in some parts, some folksI think will say it may also
have that kind of feeling thatmaybe it's, it's... feel they
could like.... five yearscompared... to like five years
away. However, with autonomouscars, that's analogous to
something that like weexperienced almost every day,
driving a car around. Whereaswith a big project, like an
(18:37):
infrastructure level project issomething that maybe those those
investors and the teams buildingit like you are aware of, that
these are measured in, in halfdecades or multi decade
endeavors, right, compared tothe autonomous car folks, which
maybe had a shorter timeframe inmind.
Forrest Meyen (19:01):
We'll get the autonomous cars soon, but it's
gonna take time.
JMill (19:07):
Full self-driving beta is still very much more like
alpha
Thomas Forner (19:10):
I was in San Francisco two weeks ago, and
it's amazing seeing all thisrobot taxis driving around.
JMill (19:17):
But I think maybe just after you left perhaps. I mean,
Cruise was sort of, I thinkforbidden through regulation to
from from driving because ofvery recent pedestrian injuries
and deaths that happened.
Thomas Forner (19:35):
It happened when I was there.
JMill (19:37):
Yeah, and so that was like a flash in the pan on the
scheme of autonomous cartechnology that Cruise vehicles
are around, no driver, justpaying passengers onboard. And
now they're kind of tucked awayback into corners again on
private lots because people aregetting hurt. But fusion I would
(20:01):
imagine would have, it's acompletely different kind of
risk calculus so to say.One,it's not fission, which we are
aware of kind of, you know,things go wrong and kind of go
boom, it sounds like that withfusion, if things go wrong, the
whole thing just kind of shutsoff.
Thomas Forner (20:17):
Yeah, it's just nothing happens. You just don't
hit the target. There's noimplosion, there's no energy,
there's just nothing.
JMill (20:25):
So there's no like, death rate laser beam. I'm
picturing like the Deathstargone wild?
Forrest Meyen (20:30):
Or you point it the wrong way?
Pravesh Patel (20:32):
But I think there's still like an
JMill (20:32):
Right.
educational hurdle—that that'sone of the things where we,
along with the other fusioncompanies, and the whole fusion
community is trying to do Ithink is educate public and
people on the differencesbetween fission and fusion, and
that they're really like worldsapart in terms of like, safety,
(20:55):
and hazards.
The private sector issomething that... let me say it
differently... um, you know, wehave safety, certainly, I mean,
and educating the market is veryimportant, of course. But then
there was a decision that eachof you must have made, and to
(21:17):
say, you know, this is time tomake a for-profit company, as
opposed to, you know, as opposedto, you know, nonprofit or
maintaining a government orresearch lab somewhere saying,
you know, it's time to kind ofquote unquote, sort of spin out.
And that could be an incredibleway to access the power of the
(21:38):
private markets to manifestsomething that actually will
make an impact. Right. So it'snot just sitting in a lab. But
could you walk us through themindset that you've had, and
maybe some of the decisionpoints, because I think there's
a lot of entrepreneurs, some area little bit too quick to spin
out, others, researchers thatmay be like, well, let's just
(21:59):
stay in the lab and just keepworking on like whiteboard
equations. How'd you decide?
Pravesh Patel (22:05):
And for me, you know, as I said, this has been a
50 year kind of endeavor toachieve ignition by like
inertial fusion, to achieve aburning plasma and plasma that
can produce more energy than youput into it, like for the first
(22:26):
time on Earth. So there's been,especially in the US, there's
been a huge amount of governmentinvestment in national labs, and
in these kinds of facilities,like I was saying, in the codes,
in the underlying science, inthe underlying technology,
particularly for laser-basedinertial fusion, which is what
(22:49):
we're pursuing. So for me, Ithink when we actually kind of
hit that milestone of ignitiontwo years ago, then, you know,
then all the attention was okay,we've done it once. Now, you
need to do it repeatedly. Now,the discussion was all about
(23:10):
fusion energy, and how toproduce fusion energy, you know,
to address climate change. Andso for me, you know, then I was
looking at how you do thatwithin the national lab, within
the government, kind of, youknow, infrastructure. And it
(23:33):
takes a long time, you know,you're writing proposals, you're
developing the community, you'retrying to get government
funding, because this is allgovernment funded. And the
thing, it takes a long time todo that in government, then with
(23:56):
private industry I could for me,I could see that, you could, the
benefits of trying to pursue acommercialization strategy. In
the private industry side, youcan spend money fast, you can
(24:18):
make decisions fast, you cantolerate much more risk in the
private sector than you can inthe public sector. So you can
move... so I kind of becameconvinced that you could
actually move several timesfaster, and you could do what
might take, you know, 30 or 40years in the public sector, you
(24:41):
could do it in 10 or 12 years inthe private sector.
Forrest Meyen (24:48):
So, kind of to follow on that, like, on your
own journey. Can we rewind alittle bit, maybe even a few
weeks before that ignitionexperience happened to the
founding of Focused Energy.
Thomas, can you tell me like,what were you thinking when you
decided to found a fusioncompany? You know, you have a
very diverse background and alot of different industry and
(25:10):
you woke up one day and yousaid, today's the day we're
going to, we're going to solvethe world's energy crisis.
Thomas Forner (25:19):
Kind of but not really. So I was working for
with other investors andstartups on deep tech, different
technologies. So and thencoincidentally, came to fusion,
and I got to know Marcus, so mycofounder, Marcus Roth, and he
(25:39):
is one of the most amazing guysI've ever met. He, and it's
like... it was feeling likesomething really, really, really
big, probably something, if youlook back in 50 years, it's the
point in time in humankind, whenthere was probably the biggest
change that ever occurred. So wewill have the chance the first
(26:03):
time on the holy grail ofenergy, and really increase the
availability of energy by amillion times over. And this is
going to change anything that weare doing today. And being part
of this is the best thing I canimagine. And having a broad
(26:24):
overview of differenttechnologies and how they come
together means laser developmenton the one hand, data, quantum
computing, AI on the other hand,material science, nanotechnology
is the third pillar. So this isseem to be for the first time
that different technologies aremature enough to make it happen.
(26:49):
And now the only thing that weneed is to start integrating it.
And then we were betting on NIF.
So Marcus was also working atNIF 20 years ago. And our bet
was that NIF would show ignitionand net energy gain, and we
thought our goal must be to hirethe best people in this space
(27:12):
from the renowned labs. Andthat's exactly what we did. And
then it was coincidence that NIFwas demonstrating the first
ignition shot. And then a yearafter, a bit more than a year
after the first net energy gain.
This was really coincidence. Butthis was our bet from the very
(27:34):
beginning. And yeah it could nothave been more exciting, as it
was, to have such fantasticpeople around us. And wherever
it leads us, we are going tocontribute that we unveiled
fusion.
JMill (27:56):
That's really incredible. Two locations, two
different countries, twodifferent continents. I'd like
you to walk us through thestrategy of that. And I suspect
has to do with the legs of thestool that you mentioned before
in terms of sort of relevanttechnical domain. So what is the
(28:18):
US-Germany? How... why and howdo you do that?
Thomas Forner (28:23):
Um, so we started with University of Darmstadt. So
we took over IP and the targetlab of University of Darmstadt,
this is where the Marcus has hisprofessorship. And then we knew
that we need to work with the USlabs as they are the most
advanced in science, and wewanted to build on their
(28:46):
breakthroughs. And that's whenwe reached out to Livermore.
That's when we reached out toPrav. We got Prav on board very
early, we got Bill Goldstein,the former director of Lawrence
Livermore, at the very beginningon our board, we have Teddy
Callahan also in our team fulltime, she was designing the
targets, she was also in theprogram lead with Prav together.
(29:08):
So we have two of fourscientific leaders of Livermore
on our team. And it's really acombination of strengths in the
US, mainly the science and alsothe regulation which was much
more advanced at this time inthe US; and German engineering,
(29:31):
where you have fantastic lasercompanies, where you have the
leading laser companies in solidstate lasers, so like Trumpf
Laser Systems is one of them.
You've Fraunhofer, where laserdevelopment is taking place and
bringing hese advantages orthese opportunities together was
(29:51):
our idea. And also we thoughenergy is or has always been,
it's global. Then we have, ofcourse, geopolitics today, but
still, it's a global good. Andwe need regulation in all major
(30:12):
countries. So we need to solveit in Europe, you need to solve
it in the UK, we need to solveit in the US, that's what we are
supporting as well. And we knew,or we were also betting that
governments will startinvesting. And it then turned
out that the DOE is setting up aprogram, now Germany is setting
(30:36):
up a program, UK already has aprogram. And we created a
structure that allows us toapply with different parts of
what we're doing in differentcountries or even on different
continents. And that's what wehave been doing. And we have
succeeded in that. So we haveraised public funding from US,
(30:56):
from Germany and from theEuropean Union so far.
Forrest Meyen (31:03):
Awesome. Yeah, that's a very good strategy. So
you can you can build on grantmoney, and you're not diluting
yourself out.
Thomas Forner (31:12):
Yeah, and you know, you need to, because the
amount of money that is going tobe needed for fusion is huge.
And as I said, we arepre-product, we are pre-revenue,
we don't... I mean, we aretrying to make a difference in
commercialization, but still,it's a challenge. It's a
challenge to build the firstproduct, and it's always
hardware. And for buildinghardware, you always need a lot
(31:35):
of money early on.
Forrest Meyen (31:37):
Yeah, how do you keep your teams connected as
they work on different parts ofthe world?
Thomas Forner (31:44):
Yeah, well, it turned out to be one of the
major challenges for a while. Someanwhile, I would say we found
each other. So we are kind ofworking virtually from the very
beginning on so we do teams, wehave created structures that
allow us to do projectmanagement. I mean, actually, we
use the same as in softwaredevelopment, there's obviously,
(32:08):
Jira, Confluence, forengineering projects, of course,
MS Project if you do a designfreeze, and then detail it out,
there are different methodsstill. But to keep the overview,
the software industry has toldus how we can work agile, and
(32:29):
keep people from differentcities, different continents
together, and the time zoneseven help because we never stop
working. When we stop inGermany, we start in the US.
Forrest Meyen (32:46):
It's like shift work.
JMill (32:47):
Yeah, that's incredible. I find it really
inspiring for I mean, some ofthe toughest of tech that is
like, where there are someaspects that are able to be done
in silicon and like, you know,simulating a digital twin or
whatever, that when theequivalent for fusion energy
development, but there are verysophisticated site specific kind
(33:10):
of work that also needs to occurand that you are finding that
kind of maybe that new normal ofa hybrid, a way of doing that.
It's something that may beforced with your efforts... just
been growing in terms ofmultiple sites multiple clients.
Forrest Meyen (33:26):
Yeah, we've definitely employed a similar
strategy, the lunar roverbusiness. So we have an office
in Luxembourg, focusing on aparticular technology that's
interested to the LuxembourgSpace Agency and European Space
Agency, and we've office inAustralia, also kind of for some
technologies that they'reinterested in. So but it really
(33:48):
helps, I think, you know, itkind of helps the nations and
the company itself worktogether, but helps the nations
kind of feel like they're kindof all collaborating towards a
goal that really, you know, infusion and kind of in my passion
space, I think really should bea global goal of, you know,
solving some of these challengesthat face humanity. Energy is
(34:11):
probably more important thanspace exploration, but they're
tied.
Thomas Forner (34:16):
As you've just seen the US Department of Energy
and the UK Department of Energyhave started in collaboration.
Forrest Meyen (34:23):
Exactly. Yeah, that's great.
JMill (34:26):
The science is all the same. Right?
Forrest Meyen (34:29):
Science. So speaking of collaboration, I
would like to learn a little bitmore about how you collaborate
with other other companies inthe industry because like you
said, you know everyone and youfound ways to kind of like
provide targets for somecompanies, and how do you
balance you know, cooperationand competition, to something
(34:53):
that works for everyoneinvolved?
Thomas Forner (34:55):
I would say it's easy the more different the
approaches. So collaboratingwith tokamaks and stellerators
is easy, but also the overlay isnot that big. So we have maybe
kind of similar challenges whenit comes to reactor design.
First of all tritium breeding,the fuel cycle. So this is where
(35:19):
definitely collaboration is veryeasy. It's more difficult in the
IoT space, but we even maybe,Prav, you had recently some
context, but there are someinteresting approaches maybe.
Pravesh Patel (35:33):
Yeah, I think we're at such an early stage,
and there's been this hugegrowth of new fusion companies
in the last few years. Still,most of them have been in kind
of magnetic based systems; inthe inertial fusion space, it's
(35:53):
still really just a handful ofcompanies around the world. So I
think right now we see far morebenefits from from sharing and
working together and trying topromote inertial fusion as a
really viable route tocommercial energy than we do by,
you know, competing.
JMill (36:16):
With you mentioned earlier the need to educate the
market. And also that there'sbecoming more abundant
government origin, like nondilutive sources of capital or
grants. Have you found as acompany that you've needed to
(36:40):
develop say regulatory strategy,maybe even like hiring of
lobbyists to go to sort ofrespective, like nation state
capitals to talk with eitherCongress people or whoever,
regulators broadly and also tobe able to kind of get sort of
written into upcoming requestsfor proposals? Could you like...
(37:03):
because I know that regulatoryaspect is something that a lot
of startups face. And it's kindof like a black box for a lot of
us.
Thomas Forner (37:11):
That's what we've been doing from the very
beginning... so both in US andin Germany, in Europe. So we are
very well connected to politics,we have someone sitting in
Washington here in the US,permanently taking part in all
the meetings. And of course,that's why we collaborate, by
(37:33):
the way, also with otherstartups to work together on
regulation, to work together onthe fundings that are available,
or that maybe become available.
And same in Germany, so you needto have a close contact to
politics, and in the US, to theDemocrats as well as to the
(37:56):
Republicans because in the nextelection, we definitely want
everyone to pursue fusioninvestments. Same in Germany on
the different levels with thedifferent parties, and Europe is
the most complicated thing. Sothe European Union but you have
(38:18):
too many people at the table.
JMill (38:24):
It does take a lot of signatures to get something
done. But we've seen with likethe NATO Innovation Fund, that's
you know, raising a billioneuros, that was what... I think
they got 27 signatures. And sostuff happens. There's a lot of
sort of capital, just kind of alot of colors of money tucked
(38:47):
here and there and Germany havea different driver. It's
fascinating. So would you saythat, would you go as far as
saying that, that yourregulatory strategy is kind of a
competitive advantage forFocused Energy, in contrast to
plenty of others?
Thomas Forner (39:06):
No, I don't think so. I mean, it's a competitive
advantage being connected topoliticians and being known as,
so we definitely want to be theleader in inertial fusion
energy, and we want to be seenas that. And that is paving the
way to get additional funding.
That's definitely going to becompetitive advantage. And
(39:29):
that's why you then can profitfrom programs that come up as
soon as they come up. But interms of regulation, it's more
for the market as a whole. Andit's pretty much... we've seen
it in the UK (39:45):
they have demonstrated how this might work
out so they have put fusion intoenvironment and medical. So it's
now treated as a proton therapycenter, and not as nuclear
anymore, and that's what we aimfor.
Forrest Meyen (40:10):
So are you ready for this question? You got an
awesome whiteboard behind you.
May ask what's on it? Or is itthe secrets to fusion energy?
Thomas Forner (40:22):
It's our secret formula.
Pravesh Patel (40:25):
I was debating whether to wipe the whiteboard
just before.
JMill (40:30):
You see we did not.
Forrest Meyen (40:33):
It's someone's mechanical engineering homework,
we got some stress and straingoing on.
Pravesh Patel (40:41):
No, it's just our strategies for our approach to
basically like our science andtechnology research parts to
kind of de-risk science andtechnology. And one of the
(41:03):
advantages of inertial fusion isbecause it's very modular, you
know, the lasers are separatefrom the targets are separate
from the reactor chamber, youcan work in parallel on these
things, and kind of bring themall together into a single
integrated system. But you candevelop the technologies
(41:25):
independently before bringingthem together.
Thomas Forner (41:29):
And the milestones help us to measure
technology readiness levels. Andwhat we want to do is we want to
increase the TRLs and ultimatelythen build, what you call in
other branches a minimum viableproduct that allows us to
demonstrate all the technologiesthat we ultimately need for a
fusion power plant, but for muchless cost. And that's what we
(41:53):
aim for.
Forrest Meyen (41:54):
What's your number one technology priority?
Like, what's the thing thatneeds the most attention to
increase the TRL?
Pravesh Patel (42:04):
It's hard to choose between... inertial
fusion like is... the two keythings, ingredients, are lasers
and targets. And so we're kindof working hard on both of them
in parallel, but they're bothbig challenges, like, for each
of them, we know how to buildone, you know, once, in kind of
(42:27):
low quantities, you know, so forlasers, we can build a laser to
the right specifications thatyou need to achieve inertial
fusion. Livermore hasdemonstrated that. But then what
you need for commercial energyis a laser system that's much
more energy efficient, that'smuch lower cost, that's much
(42:51):
more reliable, that will shoot amillion times a day, very
robustly and reliably. So that'sthe technology challenge there.
And then similar for targets, weknow how to produce these
targets, one at a time. Andagain, we have to produce those
a million at a time, a million aday. Again, you know, high
(43:12):
production volume, low cost. Soboth of those, you know, are big
technology challenges that arekind of independent and that we
can work on in parallel.
Forrest Meyen (43:29):
Can you paint a mental image for me of like,
what one of these targets lookslike? Like, really curious on
the size of it, is there ageometry that matters or is it
just kind of a materialcomposition?
Pravesh Patel (43:43):
Yeah, so and this is one of... magnetic fusion and
inertial fusion are verydifferent in lots of different
scales. So in magnetic fusion,you have a big machine, that you
fill with DT gas, over a verylarge volume, maybe like several
cubic meters of volume of gasthat you try and heat up and
(44:06):
achieve fusion. In inertialfusion, these pellets are, you
know, perhaps size of apeppercorn? Yeah, a few
millimeters diameter capsules ofDT that contain just a few
milligrams, very smallquantities of DT, and that's
(44:30):
what we shot on NIF, a tinylittle pellet, around two
millimeters in diameter filledwith some DT gas. And on NIF,
that was placed in the center ofthe chamber, very carefully
inside the center of like a 10meter diameter vacuum vessel,
(44:52):
and 200 laser beams came in andfired on it. They use this
scheme called indirect trybefore they hit the capsules
inside a cam, they hit the can,it produces x rays, the x rays
kick the capsule, heat up theouter surface of lates. And you
have this rocket reaction thatthen compresses the inside of
(45:14):
that tiny little pellet of gas.
And if you get that to thepressure and temperature higher
than the center of the Sun, itwill start fusing. And if you
could get it to high enoughpressure and temperature, it
will fuse, produce energy, thatenergy will self-heat that
implosion to where you no longerhave to provide energy, that DT
(45:38):
will just heat by itself,increase in temperature and
produce very large neutronyield. And that's what happened
on NIF with one pellet. And sonow to go to commercial fusion,
our targets kind of look thesame. But now you have to inject
them, you have to inject them atsomething maybe like 10 times a
(46:04):
second, and fire the lasers 10times a second. And if you can
do that, with these tiny littlequantities of DT, you can get to
like gigawatt electric powerlevels.
Thomas Forner (46:17):
So if you want we build the nuclear combustion
engine.
Forrest Meyen (46:23):
Basically, yeah.
Pravesh Patel (46:25):
But that's one of the kind of inherently safe
features of this is you're usingtiny tiny amounts of fuel, a
short time, repetitively.
JMill (46:39):
You had mentioned earlier about how you're able to
take, I think it was nuclearwaste and be able to do like an
inspection on that. I don'tunderstand how that kind of
inspection is related to theother aspects of fusion.
Thomas Forner (46:56):
It's mainly depending on our approach. So
our approach is a bit differentfrom what NIF is doing. So we
compress the pellet directlywith lasers. And we then have
divided this whole process intotwo steps. The first step is
compressing with lasers andcreating this dense plasma. And
(47:19):
the second step is igniting itwith a sparkplug. That's why I
called it the combustion engine.
And the spark plug is a microaccelerator. So we shoot with a
different pair of lasers into acone that is sticking in the
target. And we shoot on a foilthat is in the cone and
accelerate the protons from thebackside of the foil and create
(47:42):
a proton beam and the protonbeam then hits the dense fuel
and ignites it. The reason whyyou don't use lasers directly
because the lasers don't get inanymore, because it's too dense.
So you need ions to get in. Andthe best ions to do this are
protons. And this is a microaccelerator that we built. And
(48:03):
the same concept can be used foraccelerating other particles. So
we can accelerate neutrons, wecan create X rays, we can create
muons with the same concept. Andthat's what we call the modular
concept. This allows us to buildthis accelerator early on and
(48:25):
build a different product out ofit.
JMill (48:30):
Well, you know, I think something that with... as
we come towards the end of theepisode I'd like to offer....
are there certain kinds of whatyou're looking for, as a
company, are there certain kindsof people, whether it's by
demographics, specialty, etc,that would be helpful. Or any
(48:51):
other sort of points that you'dlike to make advocating for
fusion and Focused Energy'sapproach to it. It's your time.
Thomas Forner (48:59):
Sure, I mean, talent is crucial. Scientists as
well as engineers. And we justneed people that bring along the
experience or at leastexcitement, and ideally from
(49:20):
also not from... it's alwaysdifficult to bring in someone
who has too long worked in acorporate environment. It always
takes a while to adapt to astartup because it's very
different way of working. Andtherefore, ideally, deep tech
(49:40):
startups, engineers from deeptech startups who want to join a
fusion company. That's exactlywhat we're looking for.
JMill (49:47):
Closing words, Forrest?
Forrest Meyen (49:48):
No, I just really want to extend my thanks and
appreciation for having both ofyou on our show today. I think
Thomas Forner (49:52):
Thank you.
all of our listeners have beenreally excited to see another
perspective from fusion,especially for a completely
different approach than thatthey've learned about so far. So
Forrest Meyen (50:08):
Thanks so much.
It was great talking.
thanks again for joining us andbest of wishes on your endeavor.
We definitely need the energy.
So go make it happen.
Thank you.
JMill (50:21):
Thank you so much.
Hi, I'm Prav. You have to say...
Thomas Forner (00:04):
I'm Tom, and we need to stay tough to solve
fusion.
JMill (00:09):
Awesome. Okay.
Announcer (00:11):
Welcome to Tough Tech Today with Meyen and Miller.
This is the premiere showfeaturing trailblazers who are
building technologies today tosolve tomorrow's toughest
challenges.
Forrest Meyen (00:26):
Let's go. Welcome to Tough Tech Today. Today is
the third part in our series onfusion. And today we're honored
to have with us two guests fromFocused Energy. We have Prav
Patel and Thomas Forner. FocusedEnergy is enabling secure energy
harvesting from directlaser-driven fusion, and
(00:51):
developing a completely novelrange of non-destructive testing
for industry based on the sametechnology. Their technology is
also very modular, which enablesits use throughout industry. So
we have Thomas Forner here. He'sthe CEO and founder of Focused
Energy. Prior to Focused Energy,Thomas was a serial entrepreneur
(01:12):
who loves working with data andpeople; he has run various
ventures in the fields ofe-commerce, nutrition, and
software; building and scalingcompanies of various sizes. We
also have Prav Patel, he's theChief Technology Officer of
Focused Energy. Previously, hespent 20 years at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory oninertial fusion, and is one of
(01:35):
the program leads at theIgnition Experiment at the
National Ignition Facility thatgenerated net positive fusion.
Thomas, Prav. Thank you verymuch for joining JMill and today
on Tough Tech Today.
Thomas Forner (01:47):
Thanks for having us.
Pravesh Patel (01:48):
Thank you.
Forrest Meyen (01:50):
So let's kick it off. With really quickly, like,
how would you summarize... we'vetalked with a bunch of fusion
companies so far, and how wouldyou summarize kind of your
approach to fusion. And based onall the other companies out
there and kind of what makesyour company unique and special?
Thomas Forner (02:13):
Focused Energy is special because we really look
for commercializing fusion asearly as possible; as we see,
one of the biggest challenges infusion is to raise enough
capital, and also not to buildanother national lab, that to
build a company and focus oncustomers and products. That's
(02:34):
why we have developed a modularapproach to fusion that allows
us to untap markets early on togenerate revenues already this
year, and ramping up revenues to100 million by the end of the
20s, and then really paving ourway to fusion and unveil fusion,
ultimately, in the 30s.
Forrest Meyen (02:56):
Amazing. Yeah, that is definitely a contrast to
what we've seen on some of theother companies where we've
talked to as they're very, veryfocused on the end goal. But
they do acknowledge that ittakes a huge amount of capital
to get there. And if you're notgoing to, you know, have this
unlimited source of capital,like how do you, you know, how
(03:17):
do you sustain yourself ifthat's your business plan? So
that's, that's very unique.
What's been the hardest partabout...? Or has there been a
big challenge and kind offinding the alignment between
near term markets and kind ofyour long term goal and making
sure that you're still pointingin the right direction of the
ultimate goal, while you weserve the near term customers?
Thomas Forner (03:41):
Of course, I guess this was the biggest
challenge, but also our conceptfrom the very beginning. So we
see fusion companies as let'scall them wave makers, not wave
riders. And so what we need todo is we need to build a whole
new ecosystem. And this cannotonly be done by just one company
(04:05):
and you also need strongpartners, industry partners. And
these industry partnerstypically are risk averse. So
you need something that attractsthem to invest into these
markets. And this is technologythat we are developing, and that
we productize and market earlyon. So first step is that we
(04:27):
have started with a completelyoutfitted and operating target
lab. So we build our proprietarytargets, but at the same time we
produce targets for other labs.
That's a small revenue stream,but a growing revenue stream.
Second step is that we use thelasers that we build that we
develop, the targets that wedevelop, and diagnostics that we
(04:48):
develop anyhow for fusion andjust assemble it differently. So
like with Lego bricks and builda non-destructive testing
machine early on, a neutronsource, immune source and X ray
source with a micro acceleratorbusiness. And this is going to
(05:09):
be the product that we arelaunching in two and a half
years from now. We already havea first customer, pilot
customer, a German energycompany. And we do
non-destructive testing fornuclear waste. So we analyze
nuclear waste barrels, so we canlook through them with our
machine, and can detect what isin the inside. And this is just
(05:34):
a huge change for this market.
Because today, the only way toanalyze it is open the barrels,
this is expensive, this is timeconsuming, this is dangerous.
And we found a completely newway to do this. And also, this
is the way how we develop thelaser for fusion and ultimately
(05:55):
build our fusion power plantwith a combination of lasers,
targets, and diagnostics aswell.
JMill (06:07):
That's really interesting. Is this an approach
that has less direct heritage tothe famed WX-7 facility and
reactor than some of the othersort of approaches to fusion
that would be maybe like sort ofdirect lineage to team members
(06:28):
or to the discoveries of thatreactor?
Pravesh Patel (06:30):
WX-7, you mean that stellarator?
JMill (06:35):
That is correct. Yeah.
Is there any sort ofrelationship other than the fact
that they're also workingbroadly in the fusion realm?
Pravesh Patel (06:45):
Oh, yeah. Our kind of heritage goes back to
NIF (National IgnitionFacility).
JMill (06:52):
Completely separate.
Pravesh Patel (06:53):
Yes.
JMill (06:54):
Yeah.
Pravesh Patel (06:54):
Yeah so WX-7 is a magnetic fusion device. And
we're studying... our approachis inertial fusion energy.
JMill (07:06):
Okay, does that then make it so that in terms of, you
know... I liked to understandthe access to talent for fusion
systems then. So it's notnecessarily that someone who may
have had as much experience on astellarator design, it's not
like they can just moveorganizations over to Focused
(07:28):
Energy and plug right in,there's actually a lot of sort
of separate sort of physics atplay, then to further the
approach that you're pursuingversus some of the other kind of
companies that we have looked atin the past?
Pravesh Patel (07:41):
Yeah, so there's, there's two kind of big
Forrest Meyen (07:42):
Yeah. So when you talk about that moment of
approaches to fusion. There's amagnetic fusion, and there's an
inertial fusion. So magneticfusion has been principally
funded through government labs,pursuing fusion energy, and
nationally, and theninternationally with projects
(08:05):
like ITER. They're pursuingtokamaks and stellarators and
devices like that. Inertialfusion comes from a history of
work on high energy densityphysics. And basically ever
since the laser was invented,back in the 1960s. Physicists
(08:25):
realized that they could uselasers to create very high
energy density matter. And backin 1972, there's a very famous
guy, John Nuckolls from LawrenceLivermore National Lab, who
published this concept for thefirst time of using these high
(08:46):
energy lasers to implode smallpellets of deuterium and
tritium. And calculated that,you know, if you did this
implosion, just right, you couldcompress deuterium and tritium
to densities and temperatureshigher than the center of the
(09:07):
Sun. And you could initiate afusion reaction. And that fusion
reaction could potentiallyproduce hundreds of times more
energy out than you put in. Sothat concept was first published
in 1972. And national labs,particularly national security
(09:28):
labs, in the US, in all over theworld in France, in the UK, in
China and Japan, have beenpursuing this concept of
laser-based inertial fusion, andit's taken 50 years to do. But
the National Ignition Facilitywas kind of like the final
(09:48):
machine in a series ofincreasingly larger laser
machines that were builtspecifically to try and achieve
this, and to try and achieveignition—that is, producing a
thermonuclear explosion thatproduces more energy than then
you put into it in a laboratory.
And that's what the NationalIgnition Facility at Livermore
(10:13):
was built for, and what itfinally achieved, you know, this
last year. And then there'sother other labs around the
world that have been pursuingthat concept as well. So our
scheme kind of directly comesfrom that. So in terms of like,
(10:34):
our team members and our talent,you know, we're drawing from
that community. And we can alsotake advantage of laser
technology developments over thedecades that have been invested
in, like by the US governmentand other governments, target
(10:55):
technology, simulation,co-capabilities, diagnostics,
etc. So we're kind of reallystarting from a very mature, you
know, scientific andtechnological, kind of stepping
stone, and kind of launchingfrom that.
(11:21):
ignition achieved, what reallydid that mean for the industry?
And, you know, especially on thecommercial side, like, how did
it change the landscape andperhaps, you know, enable your
startup to flourish?
Thomas Forner (11:38):
I would say it has not immediately changed it:
it's still about to change it.
So it took some time. That this,there's a lot of education that
is needed for the investorspace. And that's what they all
have been doing for the last 24months, to hire experts, to get
(11:58):
a deeper insight into thedifferent fusion approaches. And
finally, they have seen the netenergy gain from NIF. This
definitely has changed the viewon inertial fusion. So this is
now seen as one of the mainapproaches to fusion, and maybe
the very one of the veryinteresting ones, when it comes
(12:22):
to commercial viability in thelong run. As you build on
lasers, as you build an industrylasers, as you have proven
technology also, that haschanged other industries, like
chip production recently, likeautomotive manufacturing where
it uses lasers, at a high reprate, 24/7 running for seven
(12:42):
years without maintenance.
That's what we want to build forfusion. And this is ultimately
then a cheap source. And yetit's about the cost for the
levelized cost of electricity sowe have a competitive price for
electricity in the end, andthat's how we that's how we
built Focused Energy.
JMill (13:03):
With the idea of building something that's able
to run for such a long duration,is somewhere in there where the
modular concept comes in termsof like how to size for a future
projected grid baseload? And howthen do you build a system that
is kind of more like an elastic?
Thomas Forner (13:25):
Yeah I mean, it's determined by the size of the
target and the amount of laserenergy you need for igniting it
and for getting a net energyout. So there's a sweet spot
that we are aiming at, it'sprobably at the lower end, at
point five gigawatts ofelectricity to the grid, and on
the upper end property, twogigawatt or maybe even more. And
(13:50):
this is determined by physics inbetween. So how much fuel can
you assemble? How many lasers doyou need? And the modular
concept means we areconceptualizing the lasers, so
rather small lasers and many ofthem, so like a couple of 100,
or maybe 500, 600, 700, lasers,and you just add more lasers or
(14:11):
less lasers, depending on howmuch energy you need on the
target.
Forrest Meyen (14:18):
Hey, you mentioned there's a lot of
education needed in kind of theinvestment market. What do you
think the biggest misconceptionabout fusion is from the venture
capital community?
Thomas Forner (14:36):
Yeah, I mean, one very important aspect is timing.
So, I mean, we're all buildingcomplex machines, we're all
building in concrete. So thismeans you have a long time
frames for building that. Thisis typically not in the range of
(14:56):
a typical investment for VCinvestor. So this means you need
to find concepts, how they caninvest and then exit somewhere,
because typically they havetimeframes of maybe 10 years or
10 years plus one or two, if youare the very first investment in
(15:16):
a fund. So that's one hurdle.
The other hurdle is, if it's abinary bet, so if if it's
really, you don't know, today,whether you're going to make it
in 15 years or not. So it's areally binary bet. And I mean,
of course, we are addressing theby far biggest markets that you
can address, but I wouldn't dobinary bets. So this is one more
(15:38):
additional thing. The otherthing is, the community is very,
very small, both in magnet aswell as in inertial fusion. So
you only have, let's say, acouple of 100 people globally,
who know about fusion. And thereare many, many approaches that
(16:00):
are, from our point of view, notscientifically anchored. And we
believe in science, we believethat approaches need to be
scientifically anchored. And wealso believe in publishing it.
And that's one challenge thatinvestors need to overcome to
(16:22):
differentiate in betweenapproaches that might look nice
at the first view, but turn outto be just impossible. And
that's what we see quite a lot.
JMill (16:39):
I think we would all agree that a tough tech company
would be, at the core, isscience advantaged, and thus,
scientifically anchored... someof those other approaches that
feel maybe sort of less backedby science? Is it perhaps an
issue with probably, that theteams around it may not realize
(17:04):
that right, that they may havethe blinders on, so to say, or
not realize that some aspect ofthe science and math and
engineering actually is a bigunknown, and that they're going
ahead anyway, at the risk of itnot being sort of invented in
time, they're kind of drivingalong the road, and it's not
paved, right, you know, too farahead of them. And so is that
(17:29):
something that there would beperhaps some some sort of rough,
maybe painful, sort ofcontractions of some of the
fusion companies, the for profitones, at least, right? That may
not realize until it's hundredsof millions of dollars after
that, they actually didn't havesort of the science figured out
(17:50):
in time.
Thomas Forner (17:51):
Yep.
JMill (17:52):
Okay. That's a tough thing for the industry, and
something that we kind of seeplaying out maybe a couple years
ahead of time, with autonomouscars, you and I were talking
ahead of ahead of recording thatyou know, with the autonomous
car industry there was a lot of,I think, appeal and thought that
(18:14):
it could be sooner than later.
Fusion in some parts, some folksI think will say it may also
have that kind of feeling thatmaybe it's, it's... feel they
could like.... five yearscompared... to like five years
away. However, with autonomouscars, that's analogous to
something that like weexperienced almost every day,
driving a car around. Whereaswith a big project, like an
(18:37):
infrastructure level project issomething that maybe those those
investors and the teams buildingit like you are aware of, that
these are measured in, in halfdecades or multi decade
endeavors, right, compared tothe autonomous car folks, which
maybe had a shorter timeframe inmind.
Forrest Meyen (19:01):
We'll get the autonomous cars soon, but it's
gonna take time.
JMill (19:07):
Full self-driving beta is still very much more like
alpha
Thomas Forner (19:10):
I was in San Francisco two weeks ago, and
it's amazing seeing all thisrobot taxis driving around.
JMill (19:17):
But I think maybe just after you left perhaps. I mean,
Cruise was sort of, I thinkforbidden through regulation to
from from driving because ofvery recent pedestrian injuries
and deaths that happened.
Thomas Forner (19:35):
It happened when I was there.
JMill (19:37):
Yeah, and so that was like a flash in the pan on the
scheme of autonomous cartechnology that Cruise vehicles
are around, no driver, justpaying passengers onboard. And
now they're kind of tucked awayback into corners again on
private lots because people aregetting hurt. But fusion I would
(20:01):
imagine would have, it's acompletely different kind of
risk calculus so to say.One,it's not fission, which we are
aware of kind of, you know,things go wrong and kind of go
boom, it sounds like that withfusion, if things go wrong, the
whole thing just kind of shutsoff.
Thomas Forner (20:17):
Yeah, it's just nothing happens. You just don't
hit the target. There's noimplosion, there's no energy,
there's just nothing.
JMill (20:25):
So there's no like, death rate laser beam. I'm
picturing like the Deathstargone wild?
Forrest Meyen (20:30):
Or you point it the wrong way?
Pravesh Patel (20:32):
But I think there's still like an
JMill (20:32):
Right.
educational hurdle—that that'sone of the things where we,
along with the other fusioncompanies, and the whole fusion
community is trying to do Ithink is educate public and
people on the differencesbetween fission and fusion, and
that they're really like worldsapart in terms of like, safety,
(20:55):
and hazards.
The private sector issomething that... let me say it
differently... um, you know, wehave safety, certainly, I mean,
and educating the market is veryimportant, of course. But then
there was a decision that eachof you must have made, and to
(21:17):
say, you know, this is time tomake a for-profit company, as
opposed to, you know, as opposedto, you know, nonprofit or
maintaining a government orresearch lab somewhere saying,
you know, it's time to kind ofquote unquote, sort of spin out.
And that could be an incredibleway to access the power of the
(21:38):
private markets to manifestsomething that actually will
make an impact. Right. So it'snot just sitting in a lab. But
could you walk us through themindset that you've had, and
maybe some of the decisionpoints, because I think there's
a lot of entrepreneurs, some area little bit too quick to spin
out, others, researchers thatmay be like, well, let's just
(21:59):
stay in the lab and just keepworking on like whiteboard
equations. How'd you decide?
Pravesh Patel (22:05):
And for me, you know, as I said, this has been a
50 year kind of endeavor toachieve ignition by like
inertial fusion, to achieve aburning plasma and plasma that
can produce more energy than youput into it, like for the first
(22:26):
time on Earth. So there's been,especially in the US, there's
been a huge amount of governmentinvestment in national labs, and
in these kinds of facilities,like I was saying, in the codes,
in the underlying science, inthe underlying technology,
particularly for laser-basedinertial fusion, which is what
(22:49):
we're pursuing. So for me, Ithink when we actually kind of
hit that milestone of ignitiontwo years ago, then, you know,
then all the attention was okay,we've done it once. Now, you
need to do it repeatedly. Now,the discussion was all about
(23:10):
fusion energy, and how toproduce fusion energy, you know,
to address climate change. Andso for me, you know, then I was
looking at how you do thatwithin the national lab, within
the government, kind of, youknow, infrastructure. And it
(23:33):
takes a long time, you know,you're writing proposals, you're
developing the community, you'retrying to get government
funding, because this is allgovernment funded. And the
thing, it takes a long time todo that in government, then with
(23:56):
private industry I could for me,I could see that, you could, the
benefits of trying to pursue acommercialization strategy. In
the private industry side, youcan spend money fast, you can
(24:18):
make decisions fast, you cantolerate much more risk in the
private sector than you can inthe public sector. So you can
move... so I kind of becameconvinced that you could
actually move several timesfaster, and you could do what
might take, you know, 30 or 40years in the public sector, you
(24:41):
could do it in 10 or 12 years inthe private sector.
Forrest Meyen (24:48):
So, kind of to follow on that, like, on your
own journey. Can we rewind alittle bit, maybe even a few
weeks before that ignitionexperience happened to the
founding of Focused Energy.
Thomas, can you tell me like,what were you thinking when you
decided to found a fusioncompany? You know, you have a
very diverse background and alot of different industry and
(25:10):
you woke up one day and yousaid, today's the day we're
going to, we're going to solvethe world's energy crisis.
Thomas Forner (25:19):
Kind of but not really. So I was working for
with other investors andstartups on deep tech, different
technologies. So and thencoincidentally, came to fusion,
and I got to know Marcus, so mycofounder, Marcus Roth, and he
(25:39):
is one of the most amazing guysI've ever met. He, and it's
like... it was feeling likesomething really, really, really
big, probably something, if youlook back in 50 years, it's the
point in time in humankind, whenthere was probably the biggest
change that ever occurred. So wewill have the chance the first
(26:03):
time on the holy grail ofenergy, and really increase the
availability of energy by amillion times over. And this is
going to change anything that weare doing today. And being part
of this is the best thing I canimagine. And having a broad
(26:24):
overview of differenttechnologies and how they come
together means laser developmenton the one hand, data, quantum
computing, AI on the other hand,material science, nanotechnology
is the third pillar. So this isseem to be for the first time
that different technologies aremature enough to make it happen.
(26:49):
And now the only thing that weneed is to start integrating it.
And then we were betting on NIF.
So Marcus was also working atNIF 20 years ago. And our bet
was that NIF would show ignitionand net energy gain, and we
thought our goal must be to hirethe best people in this space
(27:12):
from the renowned labs. Andthat's exactly what we did. And
then it was coincidence that NIFwas demonstrating the first
ignition shot. And then a yearafter, a bit more than a year
after the first net energy gain.
This was really coincidence. Butthis was our bet from the very
(27:34):
beginning. And yeah it could nothave been more exciting, as it
was, to have such fantasticpeople around us. And wherever
it leads us, we are going tocontribute that we unveiled
fusion.
JMill (27:56):
That's really incredible. Two locations, two
different countries, twodifferent continents. I'd like
you to walk us through thestrategy of that. And I suspect
has to do with the legs of thestool that you mentioned before
in terms of sort of relevanttechnical domain. So what is the
(28:18):
US-Germany? How... why and howdo you do that?
Thomas Forner (28:23):
Um, so we started with University of Darmstadt. So
we took over IP and the targetlab of University of Darmstadt,
this is where the Marcus has hisprofessorship. And then we knew
that we need to work with the USlabs as they are the most
advanced in science, and wewanted to build on their
(28:46):
breakthroughs. And that's whenwe reached out to Livermore.
That's when we reached out toPrav. We got Prav on board very
early, we got Bill Goldstein,the former director of Lawrence
Livermore, at the very beginningon our board, we have Teddy
Callahan also in our team fulltime, she was designing the
targets, she was also in theprogram lead with Prav together.
(29:08):
So we have two of fourscientific leaders of Livermore
on our team. And it's really acombination of strengths in the
US, mainly the science and alsothe regulation which was much
more advanced at this time inthe US; and German engineering,
(29:31):
where you have fantastic lasercompanies, where you have the
leading laser companies in solidstate lasers, so like Trumpf
Laser Systems is one of them.
You've Fraunhofer, where laserdevelopment is taking place and
bringing hese advantages orthese opportunities together was
(29:51):
our idea. And also we thoughenergy is or has always been,
it's global. Then we have, ofcourse, geopolitics today, but
still, it's a global good. Andwe need regulation in all major
(30:12):
countries. So we need to solveit in Europe, you need to solve
it in the UK, we need to solveit in the US, that's what we are
supporting as well. And we knew,or we were also betting that
governments will startinvesting. And it then turned
out that the DOE is setting up aprogram, now Germany is setting
(30:36):
up a program, UK already has aprogram. And we created a
structure that allows us toapply with different parts of
what we're doing in differentcountries or even on different
continents. And that's what wehave been doing. And we have
succeeded in that. So we haveraised public funding from US,
(30:56):
from Germany and from theEuropean Union so far.
Forrest Meyen (31:03):
Awesome. Yeah, that's a very good strategy. So
you can you can build on grantmoney, and you're not diluting
yourself out.
Thomas Forner (31:12):
Yeah, and you know, you need to, because the
amount of money that is going tobe needed for fusion is huge.
And as I said, we arepre-product, we are pre-revenue,
we don't... I mean, we aretrying to make a difference in
commercialization, but still,it's a challenge. It's a
challenge to build the firstproduct, and it's always
hardware. And for buildinghardware, you always need a lot
(31:35):
of money early on.
Forrest Meyen (31:37):
Yeah, how do you keep your teams connected as
they work on different parts ofthe world?
Thomas Forner (31:44):
Yeah, well, it turned out to be one of the
major challenges for a while. Someanwhile, I would say we found
each other. So we are kind ofworking virtually from the very
beginning on so we do teams, wehave created structures that
allow us to do projectmanagement. I mean, actually, we
use the same as in softwaredevelopment, there's obviously,
(32:08):
Jira, Confluence, forengineering projects, of course,
MS Project if you do a designfreeze, and then detail it out,
there are different methodsstill. But to keep the overview,
the software industry has toldus how we can work agile, and
(32:29):
keep people from differentcities, different continents
together, and the time zoneseven help because we never stop
working. When we stop inGermany, we start in the US.
Forrest Meyen (32:46):
It's like shift work.
JMill (32:47):
Yeah, that's incredible. I find it really
inspiring for I mean, some ofthe toughest of tech that is
like, where there are someaspects that are able to be done
in silicon and like, you know,simulating a digital twin or
whatever, that when theequivalent for fusion energy
development, but there are verysophisticated site specific kind
(33:10):
of work that also needs to occurand that you are finding that
kind of maybe that new normal ofa hybrid, a way of doing that.
It's something that may beforced with your efforts... just
been growing in terms ofmultiple sites multiple clients.
Forrest Meyen (33:26):
Yeah, we've definitely employed a similar
strategy, the lunar roverbusiness. So we have an office
in Luxembourg, focusing on aparticular technology that's
interested to the LuxembourgSpace Agency and European Space
Agency, and we've office inAustralia, also kind of for some
technologies that they'reinterested in. So but it really
(33:48):
helps, I think, you know, itkind of helps the nations and
the company itself worktogether, but helps the nations
kind of feel like they're kindof all collaborating towards a
goal that really, you know, infusion and kind of in my passion
space, I think really should bea global goal of, you know,
solving some of these challengesthat face humanity. Energy is
(34:11):
probably more important thanspace exploration, but they're
tied.
Thomas Forner (34:16):
As you've just seen the US Department of Energy
and the UK Department of Energyhave started in collaboration.
Forrest Meyen (34:23):
Exactly. Yeah, that's great.
JMill (34:26):
The science is all the same. Right?
Forrest Meyen (34:29):
Science. So speaking of collaboration, I
would like to learn a little bitmore about how you collaborate
with other other companies inthe industry because like you
said, you know everyone and youfound ways to kind of like
provide targets for somecompanies, and how do you
balance you know, cooperationand competition, to something
(34:53):
that works for everyoneinvolved?
Thomas Forner (34:55):
I would say it's easy the more different the
approaches. So collaboratingwith tokamaks and stellerators
is easy, but also the overlay isnot that big. So we have maybe
kind of similar challenges whenit comes to reactor design.
First of all tritium breeding,the fuel cycle. So this is where
(35:19):
definitely collaboration is veryeasy. It's more difficult in the
IoT space, but we even maybe,Prav, you had recently some
context, but there are someinteresting approaches maybe.
Pravesh Patel (35:33):
Yeah, I think we're at such an early stage,
and there's been this hugegrowth of new fusion companies
in the last few years. Still,most of them have been in kind
of magnetic based systems; inthe inertial fusion space, it's
(35:53):
still really just a handful ofcompanies around the world. So I
think right now we see far morebenefits from from sharing and
working together and trying topromote inertial fusion as a
really viable route tocommercial energy than we do by,
you know, competing.
JMill (36:16):
With you mentioned earlier the need to educate the
market. And also that there'sbecoming more abundant
government origin, like nondilutive sources of capital or
grants. Have you found as acompany that you've needed to
(36:40):
develop say regulatory strategy,maybe even like hiring of
lobbyists to go to sort ofrespective, like nation state
capitals to talk with eitherCongress people or whoever,
regulators broadly and also tobe able to kind of get sort of
written into upcoming requestsfor proposals? Could you like...
(37:03):
because I know that regulatoryaspect is something that a lot
of startups face. And it's kindof like a black box for a lot of
us.
Thomas Forner (37:11):
That's what we've been doing from the very
beginning... so both in US andin Germany, in Europe. So we are
very well connected to politics,we have someone sitting in
Washington here in the US,permanently taking part in all
the meetings. And of course,that's why we collaborate, by
(37:33):
the way, also with otherstartups to work together on
regulation, to work together onthe fundings that are available,
or that maybe become available.
And same in Germany, so you needto have a close contact to
politics, and in the US, to theDemocrats as well as to the
(37:56):
Republicans because in the nextelection, we definitely want
everyone to pursue fusioninvestments. Same in Germany on
the different levels with thedifferent parties, and Europe is
the most complicated thing. Sothe European Union but you have
(38:18):
too many people at the table.
JMill (38:24):
It does take a lot of signatures to get something
done. But we've seen with likethe NATO Innovation Fund, that's
you know, raising a billioneuros, that was what... I think
they got 27 signatures. And sostuff happens. There's a lot of
sort of capital, just kind of alot of colors of money tucked
(38:47):
here and there and Germany havea different driver. It's
fascinating. So would you saythat, would you go as far as
saying that, that yourregulatory strategy is kind of a
competitive advantage forFocused Energy, in contrast to
plenty of others?
Thomas Forner (39:06):
No, I don't think so. I mean, it's a competitive
advantage being connected topoliticians and being known as,
so we definitely want to be theleader in inertial fusion
energy, and we want to be seenas that. And that is paving the
way to get additional funding.
That's definitely going to becompetitive advantage. And
(39:29):
that's why you then can profitfrom programs that come up as
soon as they come up. But interms of regulation, it's more
for the market as a whole. Andit's pretty much... we've seen
it in the UK (39:45):
they have demonstrated how this might work
out so they have put fusion intoenvironment and medical. So it's
now treated as a proton therapycenter, and not as nuclear
anymore, and that's what we aimfor.
Forrest Meyen (40:10):
So are you ready for this question? You got an
awesome whiteboard behind you.
May ask what's on it? Or is itthe secrets to fusion energy?
Thomas Forner (40:22):
It's our secret formula.
Pravesh Patel (40:25):
I was debating whether to wipe the whiteboard
just before.
JMill (40:30):
You see we did not.
Forrest Meyen (40:33):
It's someone's mechanical engineering homework,
we got some stress and straingoing on.
Pravesh Patel (40:41):
No, it's just our strategies for our approach to
basically like our science andtechnology research parts to
kind of de-risk science andtechnology. And one of the
(41:03):
advantages of inertial fusion isbecause it's very modular, you
know, the lasers are separatefrom the targets are separate
from the reactor chamber, youcan work in parallel on these
things, and kind of bring themall together into a single
integrated system. But you candevelop the technologies
(41:25):
independently before bringingthem together.
Thomas Forner (41:29):
And the milestones help us to measure
technology readiness levels. Andwhat we want to do is we want to
increase the TRLs and ultimatelythen build, what you call in
other branches a minimum viableproduct that allows us to
demonstrate all the technologiesthat we ultimately need for a
fusion power plant, but for muchless cost. And that's what we
(41:53):
aim for.
Forrest Meyen (41:54):
What's your number one technology priority?
Like, what's the thing thatneeds the most attention to
increase the TRL?
Pravesh Patel (42:04):
It's hard to choose between... inertial
fusion like is... the two keythings, ingredients, are lasers
and targets. And so we're kindof working hard on both of them
in parallel, but they're bothbig challenges, like, for each
of them, we know how to buildone, you know, once, in kind of
(42:27):
low quantities, you know, so forlasers, we can build a laser to
the right specifications thatyou need to achieve inertial
fusion. Livermore hasdemonstrated that. But then what
you need for commercial energyis a laser system that's much
more energy efficient, that'smuch lower cost, that's much
(42:51):
more reliable, that will shoot amillion times a day, very
robustly and reliably. So that'sthe technology challenge there.
And then similar for targets, weknow how to produce these
targets, one at a time. Andagain, we have to produce those
a million at a time, a million aday. Again, you know, high
(43:12):
production volume, low cost. Soboth of those, you know, are big
technology challenges that arekind of independent and that we
can work on in parallel.
Forrest Meyen (43:29):
Can you paint a mental image for me of like,
what one of these targets lookslike? Like, really curious on
the size of it, is there ageometry that matters or is it
just kind of a materialcomposition?
Pravesh Patel (43:43):
Yeah, so and this is one of... magnetic fusion and
inertial fusion are verydifferent in lots of different
scales. So in magnetic fusion,you have a big machine, that you
fill with DT gas, over a verylarge volume, maybe like several
cubic meters of volume of gasthat you try and heat up and
(44:06):
achieve fusion. In inertialfusion, these pellets are, you
know, perhaps size of apeppercorn? Yeah, a few
millimeters diameter capsules ofDT that contain just a few
milligrams, very smallquantities of DT, and that's
(44:30):
what we shot on NIF, a tinylittle pellet, around two
millimeters in diameter filledwith some DT gas. And on NIF,
that was placed in the center ofthe chamber, very carefully
inside the center of like a 10meter diameter vacuum vessel,
(44:52):
and 200 laser beams came in andfired on it. They use this
scheme called indirect trybefore they hit the capsules
inside a cam, they hit the can,it produces x rays, the x rays
kick the capsule, heat up theouter surface of lates. And you
have this rocket reaction thatthen compresses the inside of
(45:14):
that tiny little pellet of gas.
And if you get that to thepressure and temperature higher
than the center of the Sun, itwill start fusing. And if you
could get it to high enoughpressure and temperature, it
will fuse, produce energy, thatenergy will self-heat that
implosion to where you no longerhave to provide energy, that DT
(45:38):
will just heat by itself,increase in temperature and
produce very large neutronyield. And that's what happened
on NIF with one pellet. And sonow to go to commercial fusion,
our targets kind of look thesame. But now you have to inject
them, you have to inject them atsomething maybe like 10 times a
(46:04):
second, and fire the lasers 10times a second. And if you can
do that, with these tiny littlequantities of DT, you can get to
like gigawatt electric powerlevels.
Thomas Forner (46:17):
So if you want we build the nuclear combustion
engine.
Forrest Meyen (46:23):
Basically, yeah.
Pravesh Patel (46:25):
But that's one of the kind of inherently safe
features of this is you're usingtiny tiny amounts of fuel, a
short time, repetitively.
JMill (46:39):
You had mentioned earlier about how you're able to
take, I think it was nuclearwaste and be able to do like an
inspection on that. I don'tunderstand how that kind of
inspection is related to theother aspects of fusion.
Thomas Forner (46:56):
It's mainly depending on our approach. So
our approach is a bit differentfrom what NIF is doing. So we
compress the pellet directlywith lasers. And we then have
divided this whole process intotwo steps. The first step is
compressing with lasers andcreating this dense plasma. And
(47:19):
the second step is igniting itwith a sparkplug. That's why I
called it the combustion engine.
And the spark plug is a microaccelerator. So we shoot with a
different pair of lasers into acone that is sticking in the
target. And we shoot on a foilthat is in the cone and
accelerate the protons from thebackside of the foil and create
(47:42):
a proton beam and the protonbeam then hits the dense fuel
and ignites it. The reason whyyou don't use lasers directly
because the lasers don't get inanymore, because it's too dense.
So you need ions to get in. Andthe best ions to do this are
protons. And this is a microaccelerator that we built. And
(48:03):
the same concept can be used foraccelerating other particles. So
we can accelerate neutrons, wecan create X rays, we can create
muons with the same concept. Andthat's what we call the modular
concept. This allows us to buildthis accelerator early on and
(48:25):
build a different product out ofit.
JMill (48:30):
Well, you know, I think something that with... as
we come towards the end of theepisode I'd like to offer....
are there certain kinds of whatyou're looking for, as a
company, are there certain kindsof people, whether it's by
demographics, specialty, etc,that would be helpful. Or any
(48:51):
other sort of points that you'dlike to make advocating for
fusion and Focused Energy'sapproach to it. It's your time.
Thomas Forner (48:59):
Sure, I mean, talent is crucial. Scientists as
well as engineers. And we justneed people that bring along the
experience or at leastexcitement, and ideally from
(49:20):
also not from... it's alwaysdifficult to bring in someone
who has too long worked in acorporate environment. It always
takes a while to adapt to astartup because it's very
different way of working. Andtherefore, ideally, deep tech
(49:40):
startups, engineers from deeptech startups who want to join a
fusion company. That's exactlywhat we're looking for.
JMill (49:47):
Closing words, Forrest?
Forrest Meyen (49:48):
No, I just really want to extend my thanks and
appreciation for having both ofyou on our show today. I think
Thomas Forner (49:52):
Thank you.
all of our listeners have beenreally excited to see another
perspective from fusion,especially for a completely
different approach than thatthey've learned about so far. So
Forrest Meyen (50:08):
Thanks so much.
It was great talking.
thanks again for joining us andbest of wishes on your endeavor.
We definitely need the energy.
So go make it happen.
Thank you.
JMill (50:21):
Thank you so much.
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