What today’s headlines don’t tell you about Fusion Energy

Fusion energy promises almost unlimited, inexpensive, clean energy.

That's a pretty big promise.

Today we sit down with Satoshi Konishi, co-founder and CEO of Kyoto Fusioneering, and we talk about what it is really going to take to develop commercially viable fusion power and the role that startups have to play in that process.

We talk about the emerging public-private research partnerships, who is pulling ahead in the fusion race, and we dig into the long history and near future of fusion energy

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

Why fusion energy is much older than you think Why fusion energy dropped out of the news and why it’s back How to raise venture capital for moonshot startups The three core components to a fusion power that form Kyoto Fusioneering's business model A strategy for standardizing when technology moves quickly How recent fusion energy headlines have been misleading Why we have a fusion energy startup cluster in Japan The Japanese public attitude towards fusion How the fusion industry will develop over the next five to ten years The biggest misconception about fusion in Japan One way to solve Japan’s deep tech scaling problem

Links from the Founder

Everything you ever wanted to know Kyoto Fusioneering

Connect with them on LinkedIn

Check out some videos of the experimental fusion equipment Satoshi's ResearchGate page

Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan. Straight Talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today we're going to talk about fusion energy. Now, for the past several decades, fusion has been touted as the best possible solution to the world's energy needs. It's a promise of clean, safe, inexpensive, and virtually limitless energy. So, what's not to love? Of course, making that dream a reality is not exactly a simple matter. Today, we sit down with Satoshi Konishi, founder and CEO of Kyoto Fusioneering, and we talk about the state of fusion energy today, the problems that still need to be solved and the role that startups have to play in making fusion energy a commercial reality. And if during our interview, it sounds like I'm sometimes kind of bubbling over in geeky excitement, well, it's because I am. Fusion energy is something that's fascinated me since I was in high school. It's just such an interesting and important set of technologies, and it's some genuinely cool physics as well. Anyway, Satoshi and I dig into both the history of fusion power and the current challenges being faced by both universities and startups alike in bringing it to commercialization. Why the most viral headlines about fusion energy tend to be really misleading, what’s needed for more effective public private partnerships and fusion, and of course, we also dive into how Satoshi sees fusion energy developing over the next 10 years and the real trigger that will determine when and if we will see a world powered by fusion. But, you know, Satoshi tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview Tim: So, I am sitting here with Satoshi Konishi of Kyoto Fusioneering, who's working with researchers and startups around the world to make fusion energy a reality. So, thanks so much for sitting down with us. Satoshi: I'm very happy to just talk with you. Thank you very much. Tim: Well, it's my pleasure. And before we get deep into the fusion technology, my understanding is that Kyoto Fusion hearing's focus is on the materials and the precision engineering that are needed for fusion research. Satoshi: Yeah, that is partially true, but what we intend to do ultimately is that to make the anti-fusion plant to make fusion energy. But what makes fusion energy well is not resource, but small amount hydrogen, but big machines very precisely made. So, when need special materials, we a special fabrication technology. We have a very precise assembling, and we also have to be very careful to make the plan to be safe. So, everything just needs very careful, very dedicated, sometimes exotic technologies that everything needed for fusion energy is our business. Tim: Well, that's what I find so fascinating. So, much of fusion research is really, everyone is building their own components. Everyone is on the cutting edge of research. But Kyoto Fusioneering is not only doing the research and developing this, but you're actually selling these components to other researchers, right? Satoshi: Yes, because our company is still small, we still have about a little over a hundred people that is not a huge, huge company. So, that we can start with the sales of the, say, a small piece of the material small device to facilitate the fusion experiment. And at the other end of our business, we provide a consultation, how we can make a fusion plant to be safe, how we can evaluate the value of the fusion energy economically. So, the kind of the consultation, again, does not need a fortune to spend. Tim: So, tell me about your customers. Are they research labs or the universities? Are they other fusion startups? Satoshi: Yes. So, we do have business with all of the customers, as you have suggest. We just work with the universities, the researchers, small business mid-size, big companies. And even for the national project, everywhere that they are pursuing a fusion, we can provide the materials, component design, and the consultations. Tim: And before we dive into the energy, I want to talk a little bit about you. Satoshi: Myself. Tim: Yes. You've been involved with fusion research for a long time now, right? Satoshi: Yes. Yes. I'm sorry to say that I have spent it four decades, 45 years almost on fusion. Tim: Well, actually, and let's clear that up for our listeners. That fusion being used to produce energy is not new. The first reactors were in the 1950s, I think. Satoshi: Ah, yes. And believe it or not, fusion was found earlier than the fission. Tim: Really? Satoshi: Yes. Some smart guy had found that that sun is broadening by the fusion energy and also fusion reaction to make the hydrogen atoms get together makes the energy that was also found in 1930s. So, very many people has known it for a long time. Tim: But like the first fusion reactors, the first Tokamak reactors were in the fifties, right? Or was it before that? Satoshi: Yes. Even before that, people started to try the fusion by making some kinds of plasma discharge back in the late forties, early fifties. And Tokamak was one of the early invention. But before Tokamak came, Americans had started to study the discharge machine that was called pinch was still a letter, and develop very many different types of plasma devices that intended to make a fusion energy to be real. Tim: So, why was there relatively little progress, or at least the public is not aware of much progress well over the last 60 years? Satoshi: That it's partially our fault, but not our fault. We made a progress, but that just target for a little too far. Then we have expected a little more difficult. It was a little too distant, but now we are approaching the real top now. Yes. Tim: So, yes. What's led to this sudden, seemingly sudden, what's led to this recent interest and excitement about fusion then? Satoshi: That does not come from the technical scientific reason that we believe that the technical scientific progress has been a kind of a study. Yes, as you say, sometimes it stopped, sometimes that was fast, sometimes slow. But one of the big step that we are experiencing now comes from the business world, not the science. So, businessmen are aware that now that we can no longer burn oil and coals and other fossil fields in the recent, say 10 years or so, that we are aware now that we will not run out of fossil surface, but run out of the room for the carbon dioxide emission. Tim: I see. Actually, getting back to your own experience, so you're a professor at Kyoto University and Kyoto Fusioneering was spun out of Kyoto University about five years ago. Satoshi: Four and a half, yes. October, 2019. Tim: And the startup and the university, are they still doing joint research? Are there research agreements or IP sharing agreements in place between them? Satoshi: It is collaborating with the universities and other top level researchers in the world is one of our major missions still. Tim: Is there ever any conflict between the pure research and the startup side? And what I mean by that is the pure research is all about sharing and being open and publishing results. And on the startup side it's a lot about engineering and intellectual property and trade secrets. Do you ever find those in conflict? Satoshi: I do not really believe so. There are certainly some kinds of difference of the view on discoveries, the scientific achievement, but we are very keen to publish our findings to the public in academic conferences and journals. And there was something that we have to just keep as intellectual property for share because we are spending our money for that. But the discovery to make our finding to be available for other researchers who to make a much faster progress. So, we're not hiding much, only just a small part of the key of the technology that is intellectual property to be protected. Tim: How do you focus on what's going to be protected and what's going to be shared? How do you make that determination? Satoshi: For instance, if we have invented our new material that would survive in a very harsh environment in the fusion device. The material itself, it's content even is not a secret. We report it in the academic meetings, but how to make it that's risky is a kind of a secret. And also the supply chain, we can prepare the high purity of the material, how we can control the quality and how we can fabricate that kind of supply chain organization is our property.