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Fusion Energy: A Deep Dive with Sir Stephen Cowley · Simmer Down

• 0:18
  Kathleen Biggins: Welcome and thank you for joining us.
• 0:20
  Kathleen Biggins: My name is Kathleen Biggins, and I am the president and founder of SeaChange Conversations.
• 0:26
  Kathleen Biggins: Since 2014, our team has been pulling people together to educate them on the science and implications of climate change.
• 0:35
  Kathleen Biggins: Today we continue those efforts with our new solution series.
• 0:40
  Kathleen Biggins: We plan to bring you interviews with experts who can explain the new innovative ideas, new products, processes, policies, even new science that give us hope that we can address this challenge.
• 0:55
  Kathleen Biggins: Today we are going to focus on nuclear fusion, the power of the stars that humans are recreating right here on the planet.
• 1:05
  Kathleen Biggins: For many, it promises to be the Holy Grail, because it could offer limitless, carbon-free, clean energy for a wide range of applications, from electricity to manufacturing, even transportation.
• 1:20
  Kathleen Biggins: But others call it a pipe dream because after 70 years of fairly intensive research and investment, it remains slightly out of reach.
• 1:30
  Kathleen Biggins: So what is it?
• 1:32
  Kathleen Biggins: The Holy Grail or a pipe dream?
• 1:35
  Kathleen Biggins: Is fusion part of the answer to this challenge?
• 1:38
  Kathleen Biggins: How quickly could it come on board and how expensive would it be?
• 1:42
  Kathleen Biggins: How does it compare to other solutions we are pursuing?
• 1:45
  Kathleen Biggins: To help us answer these and other questions, we've invited a world-renowned expert on fusion energy, Sir Steve Cowley.
• 1:54
  Kathleen Biggins: Steve is the director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab for Fusion Energy.
• 1:59
  Kathleen Biggins: Earlier, he was the Chief Executive Officer of the United Kingdom's Atomic Energy Authority.
• 2:04
  Kathleen Biggins: And in 2018, Steve was knighted by the Queen of England for his work in the area of fusion.
• 2:11
  Kathleen Biggins: Steve, thank you for joining us.
• 2:12
  Kathleen Biggins: It is such a pleasure to have you with us.
• 2:15
  Steve Cowley: It's a pleasure to be here.
• 2:17
  Kathleen Biggins: So, Steve, set the table for us.
• 2:19
  Kathleen Biggins: Explain to us what nuclear fusion is and how it is different from nuclear energy we currently use.
• 2:26
  Steve Cowley: So nuclear fusion is what stars do.
• 2:28
  Steve Cowley: It joins small atoms, the nuclei, the atoms together to make larger ones.
• 2:35
  Steve Cowley: And what's different about this is we have the fuel for it on Earth to power the planet for billions of years in seawater.
• 2:45
  Steve Cowley: And if we can make it work in a commercial way, it has no waste that we have to worry about.
• 2:54
  Steve Cowley: It makes helium and in very small quantities.
• 3:01
  Kathleen Biggins: It is literally unleashing the power of the stars for our electricity grids to power our homes, to move our cargo.
• 3:10
  Kathleen Biggins: It sounds almost too good to be true.
• 3:13
  Steve Cowley: Well, you know, it's sort of the perfect way to make energy, except one thing.
• 3:20
  Steve Cowley: You have to create the conditions in the middle of a star.
• 3:23
  Steve Cowley: And that means it has to be incredibly hot, hundreds of millions of degrees, and you have to hold it while it's very hot, while it it does this reaction, and make that little star on Earth.
• 3:37
  Steve Cowley: We've done it.
• 3:39
  Steve Cowley: We've done it in science labs, and we've successfully created those conditions, but we've got quite a way to go before it's commercially viable.
• 3:51
  Kathleen Biggins: And how does it compare with other so-called solutions to the climate crisis, such as wind and solar energy or even the emerging battery storage sector?
• 4:00
  Kathleen Biggins: How does it compare?
• 4:01
  Kathleen Biggins: How does it work with or compete?
• 4:04
  Steve Cowley: Well, I don't think any of this is competing in the sense that we have to do everything we can to wean ourselves of fossil fuels.
• 4:11
  Steve Cowley: And this is one of the tools that we need to be able to put in place.
• 4:17
  Steve Cowley: But the key thing that fusion can do that wind and solar can't do is that it can generate electricity when the sun doesn't shine, the wind doesn't blow, and um that's going to be very important.
• 4:30
  Steve Cowley: We see renewables right now sometimes producing huge amounts of energy and powering almost everything that we need.
• 4:37
  Steve Cowley: But a couple of years back in Britain, December was a month, if you've ever been December in Britain, there was no sun, obviously, and the wind didn't blow for the whole of December.
• 4:49
  Steve Cowley: There's no way you can store energy for that time over that length of period in any of the ways we know right now.
• 4:56
  Steve Cowley: And so, of course, we had to burn lots of fossil fuels during during December.
• 5:01
  Steve Cowley: We've got to replace that.
• 5:02
  Steve Cowley: We've got to change that situation.
• 5:04
  Steve Cowley: And fusion could do that.
• 5:08
  Kathleen Biggins: That's interesting you say that because I think some of the detractors from fusion say we have these technologies in hand.
• 5:14
  Kathleen Biggins: We have wind, we have solar, we have emerging batteries that are coming down in cost.
• 5:18
  Kathleen Biggins: Shouldn't we be spending our investment there because we know we can achieve it, versus on fusion, which holds so much promise yet still is somewhat far off and may not come online quickly enough to help us address this?
• 5:32
  Steve Cowley: Yeah, and and I think, you know, we do have to, it's all hands-on-deck to get as much renewables online as fast as possible.
• 5:42
  Steve Cowley: But that gap that you have from intermittency is a major issue if you want to go to net zero.
• 5:55
  Steve Cowley: If you want to reduce our emissions by 50%, then renewables will get us there.
• 6:00
  Steve Cowley: And that's helpful.
• 6:01
  Steve Cowley: But we need to get to net zero, and that means having energy when we need it as cheaply as we need it.
• 6:08
  Steve Cowley: Now, developing fusion may cost of 10 costs tens of billions of dollars.
• 6:14
  Steve Cowley: But in a world energy market that's seven trillion, tens of billions ain't much money.
• 6:19
  Steve Cowley: Right?
• 6:20
  Steve Cowley: And we should do it, right?
• 6:21
  Steve Cowley: We should put that option on the table and see how it works its way into the market.
• 6:26
  Steve Cowley: The market will find its niche, its niche when it's when it's there.
• 6:32
  Kathleen Biggins: So you've talked about the fact that it's clean, you've talked about the fact that it could power us for the rest of our time, that this earth still exists.
• 6:39
  Kathleen Biggins: What are the downsides?
• 6:41
  Kathleen Biggins: What do you think are the complications in moving forward?
• 6:45
  Steve Cowley: Well, there's really only one downside, and that is that it's really difficult to do.
• 6:51
  Steve Cowley: This business that you have to have be able to contain the fuel at these immense temperatures means that we've had to invent technologies that there is no natural analog for.
• 7:02
  Steve Cowley: There are very few technologies in which there's no natural analog.
• 7:07
  Steve Cowley: The airplane has the bird.
• 7:09
  Steve Cowley: Right.
• 7:10
  Steve Cowley: Right?
• 7:10
  Steve Cowley: The, you know, the fire, well, there were natural fires, right?
• 7:14
  Steve Cowley: Um in nuclear fusion, the natural analog is a star, right?
• 7:19
  Steve Cowley: Imagine trying to make a star on Earth.
• 7:21
  Steve Cowley: That's exactly what we're trying to do.
• 7:23
  Steve Cowley: Right?
• 7:24
  Steve Cowley: Um, so the the problem with fusion, there are no problems if we can make it work.
• 7:31
  Steve Cowley: There are only problems making it work.
• 7:34
  Kathleen Biggins: What are the breakthroughs that are enabling us to actually think it is within our reach, within time, to help us address climate change?
• 7:42
  Steve Cowley: So um I think one of the things, let's look at the climate change issue on this one, which is of course renewable energy is coming down in cost, and it's going to play a big part in our future net zero energy system.
• 7:59
  Steve Cowley: But the problem, obviously, with renewables is that the sun doesn't always shine, the wind does not always blow, and storing energy for long periods of time is very hard.
• 8:10
  Steve Cowley: So we need alongside renewables what the experts are now calling firm energy, which is something you can switch on when you need it, and you switch off when you don't need it, and we'll always be there.
• 8:23
  Steve Cowley: Um and fusion is probably the perfect solution to that problem.
• 8:28
  Steve Cowley: So there is a growing awareness that we need to accelerate the delivery of fusion.
• 8:34
  Steve Cowley: We've done a lot of the science.
• 8:37
  Steve Cowley: Here at Princeton in 1994, quite a long time ago now, we actually created 10 million watts of fusion power in a machine here at Princeton.
• 8:47
  Steve Cowley: It was the world record at the time.
• 8:49
  Steve Cowley: And in the center of that machine, we were holding the fusion fuel in a cage of magnetic field at temperatures around 300 million degrees.
• 8:59
  Steve Cowley: And we were holding it steady and it was everything was working.
• 9:04
  Steve Cowley: That's not commercial energy.
• 9:06
  Steve Cowley: That's a scientist experiment.
• 9:08
  Steve Cowley: And what we have to do now is take what is a scientific possibility and turn it into what's a commercial possibility.
• 9:17
  Kathleen Biggins: So it sounds like if we bear down and do the investment and continue to explore the science and continue to scale it, it could indeed be part of the solution as we move towards the middle of the century.
• 9:31
  Kathleen Biggins: When do you actually see it coming onto the grid?
• 9:34
  Kathleen Biggins: What's possible?
• 9:36
  Steve Cowley: So, you know, that depends, of course, on investment levels.
• 9:40
  Steve Cowley: Um just on the 22nd of March, we had a summit in the White House.
• 9:46
  Steve Cowley: And White House leadership on this is has taken a huge step forward.
• 9:51
  Steve Cowley: And I think there are several reasons for this.
• 9:54
  Steve Cowley: Um, first of all, is that realization that we need to find another way to fill the gaps, firm energy.
• 10:01
  Steve Cowley: The second is I think that um there has been huge private sector investment in the last two years, approaching four billion in investment in fusion startup companies.
• 10:13
  Steve Cowley: Those startup companies are taking what we in the science community have been producing and starting to say, okay, how do we engineer this as a commercial source?
• 10:23
  Steve Cowley: And at the summit, the Secretary of Energy, uh Secretary Grant Holm, uh said, let's aim for a decadal timescale into the ring fusion.
• 10:36
  Steve Cowley: Now, decadal, they didn't say decade, uh, which I think means that uh many of us feel that it'd be hard to get you know net energy net electricity production in a decade.
• 10:50
  Steve Cowley: Um, but the National Academy has said towards the end of the 2030s, first electricity from this source.
• 10:58
  Steve Cowley: Which means by the middle of the century we may actually be producing commercial objects that people will buy.
• 11:04
  Steve Cowley: Um not as quick as I'd like.
• 11:07
  Steve Cowley: I mean, we we need it now, um, but I think that you know it's an extraordinary technology.
• 11:14
  Steve Cowley: How do you create a the take the fuel to 200 million degrees, which is sort of the right temperature to optimum temperature for this to happen at 200 million degrees, hold it, make sure that it it exhausts properly, convert that energy into electricity.
• 11:33
  Steve Cowley: These are all things that are sort of ahead of us now.
• 11:36
  Steve Cowley: Um and I'm really pleased that the White House has stepped forward to sort of push this forward and say we want to deliver on this time scale.
• 11:46
  Steve Cowley: Um, and I'm pleased to see commercial companies coming forward to put investment into it.
• 11:53
  Steve Cowley: But there's probably three or four things in which we're looking for young people to come in and innovate so that that part of the problem works better.
• 12:05
  Steve Cowley: We have a solution for almost everything in that step, but some of our solutions are a little less than what you might call optimum.
• 12:13
  Steve Cowley: If we come to market and it it's not at a price that people want to pay for their energy, then it won't be successful.
• 12:24
  Kathleen Biggins: So you gave us a lot of information there.
• 12:26
  Kathleen Biggins: Um first, let's tell our audiences what the other baseload energy uh systems are that we currently use and that fusion would potentially be replacing.
• 12:35
  Kathleen Biggins: Right.
• 12:35
  Kathleen Biggins: Which would be what coal, natural gas, nuclear as we know it.
• 12:41
  Steve Cowley: So baseload at the moment is carried by coal and uh nuclear.
• 12:49
  Steve Cowley: Um natural gas is used a lot more these days to fill in the gaps.
• 12:56
  Steve Cowley: And as we move forward to decarbonizing and removing coal from the equation, I think people will be looking for more natural gas to fill the gaps left by coal.
• 13:11
  Steve Cowley: Um but ultimately if we want to decarbonize, natural gas is also CO2 producing.
• 13:19
  Steve Cowley: So to fill that gap, uh what are the options to fill that gap with zero carbon emissions?
• 13:27
  Steve Cowley: There are really only two at the moment.
• 13:29
  Steve Cowley: One is conventional nuclear.
• 13:33
  Steve Cowley: If we can uh keep the price down and we can get the public acceptance of conventional nuclear.
• 13:41
  Steve Cowley: Um nobody's quite sure if that's possible.
• 13:45
  Steve Cowley: And the second is to burn fossil fuels and bury the carbon.
• 13:51
  Kathleen Biggins: Carbon capture.
• 13:52
  Steve Cowley: Carbon capture.
• 13:53
  Steve Cowley: And if you look at something like the Princeton Net Zero project, which looks at how you might construct an energy system that has no cut CO2 emissions, uh those two options are the how you get your base load.
• 14:10
  Steve Cowley: Um and so the problem is, you know, the acceptability of a large amount of of conventional nuclear is is not clear.
• 14:21
  Steve Cowley: And the second is how long do you want to bury CO2 in the ground?
• 14:26
  Steve Cowley: I see it personally as a transition technology.
• 14:30
  Steve Cowley: It's a it's a way to get from A to B, but over decades it's probably not a good solution, right?
• 14:39
  Steve Cowley: Because you're putting an awful lot of liquidized CO2 under the ground.
• 14:46
  Kathleen Biggins: So you mentioned solar and wind and how they currently provide carbon-free energy, and that there's a lot of hope that they can take up a larger portion of our energy load going forward.
• 14:57
  Kathleen Biggins: But there's also a lot of concern about the amount of land that both solar and wind could take if indeed we were going to depend on it for much more.
• 15:06
  Kathleen Biggins: Could you see fusion actually coming in later in the century and allowing us to then reuse that land for agriculture and other things?
• 15:14
  Kathleen Biggins: Could it be something that would replace renewables as well?
• 15:19
  Steve Cowley: Oh, I think that's probably true.
• 15:20
  Steve Cowley: Yeah.
• 15:21
  Steve Cowley: Um I think at the moment um the cost of wind is sufficiently low, particularly wind, but in places like California and Arizona, solar too, um, that it would be difficult to challenge it for some decades.
• 15:37
  Steve Cowley: Um I I also think that the ability, you know, the ability to have your energy when you need it and not sort of when the wind blows, is a major advantage.
• 15:53
  Steve Cowley: And the way we cost their sources at the moment is we don't cost those peripheral things that come with it.
• 16:01
  Steve Cowley: Like when you put in wind, you have to put in something that will you'll be able to turn on when the wind doesn't blow.
• 16:09
  Kathleen Biggins: Or battery storage.
• 16:10
  Steve Cowley: Or battery storage.
• 16:11
  Steve Cowley: Yeah.
• 16:12
  Steve Cowley: Um so uh fusion gets around all of those problems because it will be addressable on the at the moment you need the energy, you can turn on the energy, and the moment you don't need the energy, you can turn it off.
• 16:24
  Steve Cowley: Um that will make a big difference.
• 16:26
  Kathleen Biggins: So how easy will it be to integrate into our grid?
• 16:29
  Kathleen Biggins: I've read fantastic stories of how small ones could potentially be on container ships or they could be put into fossil fuel plants that are already attached to the grid.
• 16:38
  Kathleen Biggins: Is it that flexible or are those indeed the pipe dreams?
• 16:43
  Steve Cowley: Um You know the one of the big advantages of fusion is is its safety.
• 16:51
  Steve Cowley: It doesn't have the possibility of a runaway reaction.
• 16:56
  Steve Cowley: And that's critical, which means that we can put fusion power stations next to houses.
• 17:02
  Steve Cowley: We can put fusion power stations next to cities.
• 17:08
  Steve Cowley: This is a big help because of course most of our energy goes to those large places and big industrial centers.
• 17:16
  Steve Cowley: And uh it means that we can replace coal-fired power stations directly with fusion power stations.
• 17:25
  Steve Cowley: A lot of coal-fired power stations are next to cities, they're in industrial areas, um, and uh fusion would fit right into that slot.
• 17:35
  Steve Cowley: That's very helpful because of course the grid is built around those slots.
• 17:39
  Kathleen Biggins: Right.
• 17:40
  Steve Cowley: Our distribution is built around those slots.
• 17:42
  Steve Cowley: And so, in terms of what would a utility boss want to buy, you most want to buy something that would fit exactly into the slot of the one you're retiring, and fusion can do that.
• 17:56
  Kathleen Biggins: So you mentioned earlier about the fact that the White House has come out very strongly in support of pursuing this new technology.
• 18:04
  Kathleen Biggins: Is this something that has bipartisan support if we have a new administration coming in?
• 18:09
  Kathleen Biggins: Do you expect that fusion will continue to be supported?
• 18:13
  Kathleen Biggins: And then a secondary question is is this a technology that we can lead in and be the leaders in the world, or is it something that, like many other new technologies, we are playing catch-up?
• 18:26
  Steve Cowley: Um first of all, it's clearly very bipartisan.
• 18:32
  Steve Cowley: There's a fusion caucus in in Congress, and this is a new thing, and we are and the fusion caucus has people from both sides of the house.
• 18:44
  Steve Cowley: Um very strong support in the previous administration actually was growing support in the previous administration under the previous Secretary of Energy and the under-secretary, Paul Dabar, was a huge supporter of growing the fusion program, and he's he was very helpful moving into this.
• 19:03
  Steve Cowley: So I don't see it as a partisan issue at all.
• 19:07
  Steve Cowley: Um this administration uh has come on board very strongly on this because I think there's a this growing realization that we need something like fusion, if not fusion itself, uh to fill a hole in the mid-century market.
• 19:26
  Steve Cowley: And while everybody agrees that one day we'll have fusion, this administration is saying we need it faster than you could possibly think.
• 19:35
  Steve Cowley: So we need we need to get going very fast.
• 19:37
  Steve Cowley: We're expecting it to come as public-private partnerships, almost entirely.
• 19:43
  Steve Cowley: I think we've all been impressed how that's worked in in the the space industry.
• 19:48
  unknown: Okay.
• 19:58
  Steve Cowley: And I think, you know, people like me are not experts in how to get something to market that will be really commercially uh competitive.
• 20:09
  Steve Cowley: So that melding of private and public, I think, is going to be critical to the delivery of this.
• 20:16
  Steve Cowley: And we see that in the current administration, and I think it would resonate with any future uh party.
• 20:23
  Steve Cowley: I don't I think it would resonate with the Republican administration too.
• 20:27
  Steve Cowley: So I can see that very strongly.
• 20:30
  Steve Cowley: Um sorry, what was the other part of that question?
• 20:34
  Kathleen Biggins: How do we fit into uh the international activities that are going on?
• 20:39
  Kathleen Biggins: Are we leading?
• 20:40
  Kathleen Biggins: Are we following?
• 20:40
  Kathleen Biggins: Are we creating the partnerships there that will enable us to get where we need to go?
• 20:45
  Steve Cowley: So this is interesting actually.
• 20:46
  Steve Cowley: Um in this area, American science is led, right?
• 20:51
  Steve Cowley: I in my view, and I'm British, so I have a somewhat unbiased view, although I'm running an American lab, um, I think the science has largely been led by the Americans, some good work in Europe, Britain, Japan, and now a growing amount of work in China.
• 21:13
  Steve Cowley: Um and historically, of course, the Russians had a very strong program, but that kind of fell by the wayside.
• 21:19
  Steve Cowley: Um we can't afford not to do this.
• 21:24
  Steve Cowley: I said at the White House summit, I'm not sure if it's a very good quote, but um, I said, look, if we don't do it, somebody else will do it.
• 21:33
  Steve Cowley: And if this is going to be, let's say, 30% of the world energy market, the world energy market is seven, eight trillion a year.
• 21:42
  Steve Cowley: It's a huge market.
• 21:44
  Steve Cowley: It's vast.
• 21:44
  Steve Cowley: And uh you want to pass up 30% of that market?
• 21:48
  Steve Cowley: I don't think so.
• 21:50
  Steve Cowley: Right?
• 21:50
  Steve Cowley: Somebody, and the thing about fusion is it it depends on what you know how to do, not what's under your ground or what really Resources you have, it's very technology dependent, right?
• 22:05
  Steve Cowley: And the people who are going to dominate that market are the people with the highest tech and the best version of a fusion reactor.
• 22:12
  Steve Cowley: And the US should aim to be that, right?
• 22:15
  Steve Cowley: We have that capability, we have the science, we need to deliver that technology.
• 22:20
  Steve Cowley: Just as, you know, we currently dominate the electric car market.
• 22:25
  Steve Cowley: Why does the US dominate that?
• 22:28
  Steve Cowley: Because the US system of innovation is, in my opinion, the best in the world.
• 22:34
  Steve Cowley: We drive things into the market faster than almost faster than anybody in the world.
• 22:40
  Steve Cowley: We may not be so good when those technologies get very mature.
• 22:46
  Steve Cowley: I always said this was true about Britain, and I think it's also true about America.
• 22:50
  Steve Cowley: We get bored, you know, delivering the same old thing, the same old thing.
• 22:55
  Steve Cowley: But I always remember when I was a student, and I've been in fusion the whole time, we worried about Japan.
• 23:05
  unknown: Right?
• 23:06
  Steve Cowley: This is the 1980s, right?
• 23:07
  Steve Cowley: In the 1980s, we worried about Japan.
• 23:09
  Steve Cowley: They were going to swallow us.
• 23:10
  Steve Cowley: Their capability of producing cars and ships and things like the technologies of then seemed to be dominating us and swallowing us up.
• 23:22
  Steve Cowley: And yet they didn't.
• 23:23
  Steve Cowley: And why didn't they?
• 23:24
  Steve Cowley: Because actually those weren't the technologies of tomorrow.
• 23:27
  Steve Cowley: The technologies of tomorrow were Microsoft, they were Google, they were, you know, all the information technologies that grew up in that period from the late 80s to the 2000.
• 23:40
  Steve Cowley: Fusion's one of those technologies now, right?
• 23:43
  Steve Cowley: Whoever dominates the technology of Fusion dominates the energy market of the future.
• 23:50
  Steve Cowley: So you cannot afford not to be in it.
• 23:53
  Kathleen Biggins: So, Steve, you have given me a lot of hope here today because I have heard so much about fusion, and it seems like it is within reach if we decide to do the investment and do the hard work of making and have smart scientists like you making the magic happen.
• 24:08
  Kathleen Biggins: Does it give you hope for future generations and that we can meet this challenge of climate change?
• 24:19
  Steve Cowley: We can meet this challenge of climate change.
• 24:22
  Steve Cowley: This will be one of the tools in it.
• 24:25
  Steve Cowley: My guess is that as time goes on, as we know how to do fusion better and better, it may become a bigger and bigger fraction of the energy market.
• 24:37
  Steve Cowley: Because it is very compact.
• 24:41
  Steve Cowley: It is easy to put where you need it.
• 24:43
  Steve Cowley: It is easy to turn on when you and so I see this as an evolving challenge.
• 24:50
  Steve Cowley: You know, the the challenge of getting as much carbon out of the energy system as possible is something we should address right now.
• 24:57
  Steve Cowley: We should be getting as much wind and solar in onto the grid as we can get, right?
• 25:02
  Steve Cowley: Um and reducing coal, all those things.
• 25:08
  Steve Cowley: But to make a truly sustainable energy source, I think we're going to need fusion.
• 25:14
  Steve Cowley: And what I'm so excited about, you know, the White House initiative is that this is going to mean a real stimulus to build the first set of electricity-producing fusion reactors.
• 25:26
  Steve Cowley: The timescale for that, somewhere in the 2030s.
• 25:31
  Steve Cowley: And I'm I'm going to be around in the 2030s, and I'm going to see those first electricity-producing reactors.
• 25:38
  Steve Cowley: And I think once we can show that you can produce electricity, then the market will just would just run towards it.
• 25:48
  Kathleen Biggins: Wonderful.
• 25:49
  Kathleen Biggins: Well, this has been so interesting and uplifting.
• 25:53
  Kathleen Biggins: And thank you for spending this last 45 minutes with us explaining to us about the potential of fusion.
• 26:00
  Kathleen Biggins: I'm sorry to shut the conversation off.
• 26:02
  Kathleen Biggins: And for our audience, I'd like to remind you that this is Sir Stephen Cowley, a world-renowned expert on fusion energy, and currently the director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab.
• 26:14
  Kathleen Biggins: We hope you enjoyed this conversation.
• 26:19
  Kathleen Biggins: We certainly appreciate the fact that you spent this time with us.
• 26:22
  Kathleen Biggins: We look forward to sharing further interviews with you as well.
• 26:26
  Kathleen Biggins: In the meantime, please look to our website, cchangeconversations.org, for more information about climate, including our monthly newsletter that curates news of hope and news of concern in this climate arena.
• 26:39
  Kathleen Biggins: In addition, follow us on social media for information about climate change and things that are happening in our world today.
• 26:47
  Kathleen Biggins: Hope to see you next time.
• 26:49
  Kathleen Biggins: Again, thank you for joining us.