Dr. Richard Pearson, Kyoto Fusioneering

Progress around the advancement of fusion energy technology has been making the rounds in media circles in recent months and we decided to dive into the fusion energy discussion with this episode of Gener8. Continuing the trend of reaching out to smart friends, we had the opportunity to visit with a former colleague from my time working with environmental NGOs, Dr. Richard Pearson, Co-Founder and Chief Innovator of Kyoto Fusioneering. Richard’s academic career was centered around the challenges associated with fusion energy deployment and Kyoto Fusioneering aims to provide services and equipment to the growing field of fusion energy developers.

After learning a little bit about his background and the aims of Kyoto Fusioneering, our conversation with Richard turned to the recent "breakthrough" announcements at the US National Ignition Facility (NIF), and what that means for the development of commercial fusion technology writ large. We also discussed the explosion in interest and funding for fusion technology before Richard offered us five areas that remain challenging for fusion deployment and how that might translate into timelines and commercialization for future fusion projects. We closed out the conversation with Richard's perspective on applications and what the broader discussion on fusion should mean to companies thinking about the energy challenges of today and tomorrow. We learned a lot about fusion energy chatting with Richard and we hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.