In the third and final part of our series, Fusion Industry Association director Andrew Holland tells Asia Times’ correspondent Jonathan Tennenbaum how the private sector is leap-frogging government programs in the race to develop commercial fusion power plants.
Andrew Holland: So now the private sector is coming in. You mentioned high-temperature superconductors. That’s an important new thing. There’s a whole range of new developments that come from outside of the fusion space that are now being applied.
So, for example, high-speed computing — the fact that you can model a lot of plasma science before you actually have to do the experiment, means that you can design your machine and know a lot better what it’s going to do.
There’s a whole range of other things. Advanced manufacturing, 3D printing, things that allow you to have a lot more confidence that you can build it, build it faster and build it cheaper.