Andrew Côté is a nuclear fusion engineer at Stellerator Systems and a scout at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). He has a Substack called "Ulysses".
Right in time with the release of Marc Andreessen's "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto", this episode has good news: nuclear fusion has a real shot.
There are engineering challenges, but the science has paved the way for some promising methods to achieve energy superabundance from nuclear fusion.
Is fusion even necessary? Isn't nuclear fission enough?
What's great about fusion is that it doesn't start with a regulatory uphill battle. Instead the US Department of Energy (DOE) decided fusion is regulated like particle accelerators, not like nuclear power plants are under the NRC.
This is fantastic news. There is no real anti-fusion political movement, so there's a chance a rapidly accelerating near-permissionless industry can develop.
In this episode, we relish in the major upside for humanity.
Ep. 70: Energy from the Stars - Andrew Côté on Nuclear Fusion’s Path to Unleash Material Superabundance for Humanity