Fusion Forward
Fusion Forward
Podcast Description
Fusion Forward is a podcast hosted by Alex Borovskis of Helixos (helixos.co) that dives into the future of fusion energy through engaging and insightful conversations with the people shaping the field.
Each episode features an interview with a guest - whether a scientist, engineer, policymaker, investor, or thought leader - exploring their journey into fusion and unpacking key ideas across science, technology, economics, and politics.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast delves into various themes including advancements in fusion technology, policy implications, and economic factors influencing the fusion landscape. Episodes cover subjects like the role of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in fusion research and breakthrough innovations such as the Materials Plasma Exposure eXperiment, aiming to provide insights into the complex interplay of science, technology, and societal impact.
Fusion Forward is a podcast hosted by Alex Borovskis of Helixos (helixos.co) that dives into the future of fusion energy through engaging and insightful conversations with the people shaping the field.
Each episode features an interview with a guest – whether a scientist, engineer, policymaker, investor, or thought leader – exploring their journey into fusion and unpacking key ideas across science, technology, economics, and politics.
In this episode, Sam Wurzel discusses his career journey from plasma physics to co-founding the electronic component search engine Octopart, and his eventual return to the fusion industry to develop better methods for measuring scientific progress. Wurzel details the approach to a peer-reviewed paper that analyzes decades of fusion experiments against the Lawson criteria, utilizing the ”triple product” – ion temperature, density, and energy confinement time – as a unified metric for tracking incremental progress toward net energy gain.
The discussion highlights how this transparency has helped investors allocate capital more effectively, inspired students to join the field, and encouraged fusion companies to share more scientific data. Looking forward, Wurzel introduces Fusion Energy Base, a comprehensive digital clearinghouse designed to accelerate the ecosystem through a company database, jobs board, and interactive simulators.
https://www.fusionenergybase.com
Links to papers:
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0083990
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0297357
About the guest
Sam Wurzel is the founder of Fusion Energy Base, a website dedicated to providing comprehensive information on organizations advancing fusion energy and its supply chain. From 2021 to 2024, Sam served as a Technology-to-Market Advisor at ARPA-E and co-lead of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fusion Crosscut Team, where he facilitated the commercialization of ARPA-E-funded projects and contributed to the development of the Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program. Prior to this, he co-founded and served as CEO of Octopart, a search engine for electronic components. Sam studied experimental plasma physics in graduate school at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
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