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Episode 114 -- Dr Warren McKenzie from HB11 Energy
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Welcome to this special episode of @AuManufacturing Conversations, which is part of our annual Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers campaign.
It's been made possible through the support of Australia Wide Engineering Recruitment, TXM Lean Solutions, the Industry Capability Network, Bonfiglioli Australia, the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre and the SmartCrete CRC.
In this episode we hear from Dr Warren McKenzie, co-founder and Managing Director of fusion energy hopeful HB11 Energy. He tells us about the progress of fusion and the global race to bring it to energy grids, his company's origins in the work of a German-Australian who "defined the field of laser fusion at large", and more.
Episode guide
1:35 – career path and what HB11 does. Making clean energy using lasers, and, more recently, making those lasers.
2:30 – A career in commercialisation, beginning with a new lithography technique using diamonds.
3:30 – “Very few people realise or understand how to commercialise any technology.”
4:22 – Time at ANFF and the importance of science communication.
5:35 – Why Heinrich Hora’s contribution to Australian physics and laser fusion is so important. Plus how Hora and Mackenzie teamed up.
7:18 – “He really defined the field of laser fusion at large”, and started the community that led to the US NIF achieving a net energy gain.
8:04 – How fusion works, for the uninitiated, and its similarities to nuclear fission.
9:45 – The waste product is nothing radioactive. It’s just helium.
10:25 – Helium is in short supply and will become more scarce.
10:57 – Some similarities between the ongoing quests to realise fusion energy and useful quantum computing.
12:40 – The two camps in fusion: magnetic or inertial/laser, and an explanation of their progress so far.
14:52 – The company’s breakthrough in 2022, “when we were cowboys”, demonstrating that laser fusion could potentially work.
16:25 – The role of manufacturing lasers in-house in HB11’s progress.
18:04 – How far along they are with their approach to fusion and their plans to make laser modules.
19:35 – Investors so far.
20:50 – The role of international collaborators, such as ELI ERIC (Extreme Light Infrastructure, part of the European Research Infrastructure Consortium)
22:55 – Plans to commercialise what they do. This includes licensing their design, and manufacturing lasers and fuel pellets.
24:23 – Innovation is about the courage to do something new.
25:15 – The next generation of manufacturing will be very different to what we’re used to.
Further reading
Australia’s HB11 Energy aims for laser fusion energy
Fusion energy quest hots up at Deakin and HB11 Energy
UNSW researchers secure $5.5 million for quantum computing, fusion and other projects
Australian fusion energy company to partner with ELI ERIC
How far has nuclear fusion power come? We could be at a turning point for the technology
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