Everybody in the Pool

Fusion has been “ten years away” for decades — but one corner of the field just crossed a line that changes the conversation. In December 2022, Lawrence Livermore National Lab’s National Ignition Facility achieved ignition: a self-sustaining fusion reaction that produced net energy. And they’ve repeated it.So what happens when you take the only fusion approach that’s proven to work, and focus less on new physics… and more on building the industrial supply chain to do it again and again, cheaply and reliably? You get a field trip!In part one of a two-part field trip to Livermore, California, Molly visits Inertia Enterprises’ “House of Fusion” to meet two of the company’s co-founders:Jeff Lawson (yes, that Jeff Lawson — founder of Twilio and majority owner of The Onion) on the business case for commercializing ignition, and why Inertia thinks the economics are finally ready.Mike Dunne, former Lawrence Livermore power-plant designer and Stanford professor, on what it takes to turn a lab breakthrough into a power plant — from a gigawatt-scale “engine” that can follow renewables on the grid, to building a million precision fuel targets a day.We talk about:What “ignition” actually means — and why it’s different from “fusion someday”Why Inertia is starting with the only physics regime that’s been proven to produce net fusion energyThe two big bottlenecks: high-power diode lasers and mass-manufactured fusion targetsHow scaling semiconductor manufacturing could drive laser costs down (and why “1,000x” matters)What a fusion target is: a tiny fuel capsule inside a miniature “oven” (and why lead beats gold for economics)Why a fusion plant looks more like a high-RPM engine than a one-off experiment — and how that changes everythingPotential early markets beyond electricity: high-temperature process heat for steel, cement, and fertilizerWhat it looks like to build a fusion company in Silicon Valley: Apple/Waymo-style process engineers, high-end metrology, and a Nerf gun used as a stand-in for high-speed target trackingThunderdome. Yes, really.Links:Inertia Enterprises: https://inertia.com/Everybody in the Pool: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/Become a member for the ad-free version of the show: https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/Join our Discord! https://discord.gg/2EsDhwQC2z Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you’re on a mission to make your home greener, solar panels might seem like an obvious place to start. But for renters, apartment dwellers, and homeowners who can’t afford a traditional rooftop solar installation, solar has long been out of reach — until now.This week on Everybody in the Pool, Molly talks with Cora Stryker, co-founder of Bright Saver, about a simple climate technology that's already taken Europe by storm: plug-in solar.Also known as balcony solar, these small solar systems can be installed without contractors, plugged directly into a standard outlet, and start generating electricity immediately. More than 4 million systems are already in use in Germany, but in the United States, regulations have kept the technology largely off the market.In this episode, Cora explains how plug-in solar could open up access to clean energy and lower electricity bills for millions of renters and homeowners. She also shares how Bright Saver is driving a wave of legislation across the country aimed at making these systems legal.We talk about:What plug-in solar is and how it worksWhy millions of Europeans already use balcony solar systemsHow renters and apartment residents can benefit from generating their own electricityWhy traditional rooftop solar remains so expensive in the United StatesThe regulatory roadblocks slowing adoption, and whether safety concerns cited by utilities hold up to scrutinyHow Utah, Maine, Maryland, Virginia, and Colorado are leading the way on legalizationWhy affordability may be the key to scaling climate solutionsThe surprising coalition of climate advocates, free-market supporters, and energy-independence champions backing plug-in solarLinks:Bright Saver: https://brightsaver.orgAll episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/Join our Discord! https://discord.gg/2EsDhwQC2zSubscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/Become a member for the ad-free version of the show: https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We need to triple global energy production by 2050. Renewables are scaling fast, but the real wild card that could change everything might just be fusion. The physics and engineering are closer than ever, but there’s a critical materials problem standing between us and unlimited clean energy.This week on Everybody in the Pool, Molly speaks with Dr. John Elling, a Los Alamos chemist turned serial entrepreneur who’s working on a solution that he believes will change the world. Both fusion and next-generation fission reactors rely on enriched lithium isotopes, and existing enrichment methods are slow, expensive, and require massive facilities. Dr. Elling’s company, Molten Salt Solutions, is developing a simpler, cheaper process and building the US's first commercial production facility for enriched lithium — the ingredient that could determine whether fusion energy ever actually reaches the grid.We talk about:The big problem facing both fusion and advanced fission right now: the unmet demand for fuelA refresher on the science behind enriched lithium and nuclear energyThe world’s growing energy demands, and why fusion will help us meet the 3x demand we’ll face by 2050Why the US dismantled its only enrichment facility and why Russia currently holds the only meaningful supplyHow Molten Salt Solutions' mercury-free, scalable process differs from how governments did it during the nuclear weapons eraThe race to supply fusion developers with material they need now, before commercial reactors even existWhy the current administration's push to reduce regulatory barriers for small modular reactors is accelerating demand for lithium-7John's case for why fusion is the final frontier of humanity’s energy evolutionLinks:Molten Salt Solutions: https://www.moltensaltsolutions.com/All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/Join our Discord! https://discord.gg/2EsDhwQC2zSubscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/Become a member for the ad-free version of the show (and support future field trips): https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You’re doing all the right things to make your home greener: you switched to solar and induction, you remember your reusable bags, and you always compost your scraps. But some of the biggest climate impacts of the building you live or work in? They were locked in the day it was built — in the concrete, the steel, the glass. And that matters, because the built environment accounts for roughly 42% of global emissions.This week on Everybody in the Pool, Molly sits down with Ben Stapleton, the CEO at the U.S. Green Building Council of California, to talk about what it actually takes to make our buildings work for the climate instead of against it. Ben has spent over 20 years at the intersection of sustainability, real estate, and innovation, and he’s got a refreshingly practical outlook: the solutions exist, the business case is there, and the work is already happening, even when the federal government is pulling back.We talk about:Why buildings — not cars — are the biggest source of carbon emissions, and what that means for climate strategyThe difference between operating carbon and embodied carbon, and why that means we need two different performance standards for buildingsHow building performance standards work and why California is building a statewide framework to get there by 2030How to get developers to root for performance standards: sell them on lower energy costs, lower insurance premiums, and higher resale valuesWhat rebuilding after the LA fires could look like if we get it right, and why waiving the all-electric requirement was a missed opportunityUSGBC California's Net Zero Accelerator and the startup trends Ben is tracking in green building techLinks:U.S. Green Building Council of California: https://usgbc-ca.org/All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/Join our Discord! https://discord.gg/2EsDhwQC2zSubscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/Become a member for the ad-free version of the show (and support future field trips): https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Home batteries are having a moment, but for years, getting one meant cobbling together a solar panel from one company, an inverter from another, a smart panel from a third, and hoping they'd all play nice. This week on Everybody in the Pool, Molly takes a field trip to Mountain View, California, to visit Lunar Energy, where founder and CEO Kunal Girotra has built the fully integrated solar-plus-battery ecosystem he always wished existed.Plus: a tour of Lunar's working showroom, where we flip a breaker, watch the app react in real time, and find out what happens when you leave the oven on during a power outage.We talk about:Why Kunal left Tesla Energy to build a fully integrated home energy ecosystemHow Lunar's modular, stackable battery blocks work (think Lego bricks for your garage wall)The real math on savings: how a solar and battery system can cut your bill by $2,000/year, and Lunar's AI adds another $500 on topHow "virtual power plants" are actually very real, and why Lunar wants to rename them "distributed power plants"Why Northeastern states are leading on VPP policy, and what utilities in other regions need to change to keep upLinks:Lunar Energy: https://www.lunarenergy.com/Sunrun (Lunar's leading VPP partner): https://www.sunrun.com/Green Mountain Power: https://greenmountainpower.com/All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/Join our Discord! https://discord.gg/2EsDhwQC2zSubscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/Become a member for the ad-free version of the show (and support future field trips): https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.