While I understand the scientific excitement about advances that move us closer to achieving sustained fusion here on Earth, I am confused about the investor excitement.
Fusion might well be "the holy grail" of energy and worthy of gripping tales of pursuit in the Indiana Jones genre. But for revenue-producing innovations that actually move the needle for clean energy production fission offers more certain success.
It's about half as energy dense as fusion, but it still releases 2 million times as much energy per unit mass as burning oil. Its uranium or thorium fuel might seem less abundant than hydrogen, but its easier to obtain than tritium, which is needed in equal parts to naturally occurring deuterium.
Can you help me understand why there is so much more excitement about fusion science than there is about fission engineering innovations that have the strong potential to dramatically reduce cost and improve deployment schedules?
Paulina:
While I understand the scientific excitement about advances that move us closer to achieving sustained fusion here on Earth, I am confused about the investor excitement.
Fusion might well be "the holy grail" of energy and worthy of gripping tales of pursuit in the Indiana Jones genre. But for revenue-producing innovations that actually move the needle for clean energy production fission offers more certain success.
It's about half as energy dense as fusion, but it still releases 2 million times as much energy per unit mass as burning oil. Its uranium or thorium fuel might seem less abundant than hydrogen, but its easier to obtain than tritium, which is needed in equal parts to naturally occurring deuterium.
Can you help me understand why there is so much more excitement about fusion science than there is about fission engineering innovations that have the strong potential to dramatically reduce cost and improve deployment schedules?
Rod Adams
Managing Partner, Nucleation Capital