01:19:53 · John Coogan, Kyle Schiller, Adam
[01:19:53] S1: Okay. [01:19:53] S5: We're now talking about the execution window that is, like, news cycle relevant, that is Twitter relevant, and most importantly, where people can feel like they are a part of the story, that they are actually watching us progress. They don't just have to take our word for it and be like, another billion dollars, bro. This is actually going to happen. [01:20:07] S1: Yes. So doubling every month, incredibly powerful. We all know the power of exponential growth. But if you're 20 ooms away from where you need to be, this could still take a long time. How far away are you from actually reaching, what what do they call it, q greater than one? Isn't that the the phrase for these things? [01:20:28] S5: Yeah. Well, I I love that you have this perspective because nuclear physics is a matter of many, many ohms. [01:20:32] S1: It's way [01:20:33] S5: that's largely counterintuitive. [01:20:35] S1: Okay. [01:20:35] S5: So on power density, we are way, like, five five fooms maybe now from setting the record. And on gain, historical reactors have gotten to within a factor of two. Yeah. So that's why I say that is the area on which we are much closer to commercial performance. [01:20:49] S1: Yes. [01:20:49] S5: We're actually going [01:20:49] S7: to save that for last. Yeah. [01:20:51] S5: It's the most capital intensive thing. It's the most scientifically intensive thing. It's not the only important thing. So let's, like, catch up on the rest of the industrial base. Yeah. And then once we're there, we can do confinement.
01:20:51 · Kyle Schiller, John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Adam
[01:20:51] S5: It's the most capital intensive thing. It's the most scientifically intensive thing. It's not the only important thing. So let's, like, catch up on the rest of the industrial base. Yeah. And then once we're there, we can do confinement. [01:21:00] S1: And take us through the gold piece of this story. Like, why was that relevant? Why is that is that just because it's so tangible to the audience that anyone can understand that? [01:21:12] S0: We will perform it, and now we will perform a trick Yeah. [01:21:14] S1: To the audience. It's alchemy. But but is this actually part of the business plan, or is this just, like, a really tangible scientific milestone? [01:21:21] S0: That's how they're gonna finance, you know Yeah. The rest the business. [01:21:25] S7: You know, like, eighteen months ago, Marathon announced this seemingly crazy thing that is real, that, you know, fusion can coproduce electricity and gold at scale. And this is, you know, at the power plant scale, this is how we're gonna make fusion energy the most cost competitive. And this was just the beginning. Basically, right now, we're focusing on making materials that are the most valuable materials in the world, like billions of times more valuable than gold. And so we're basically producing the roadmap for fusion energy. Instead of just making electricity ten years away, we're gonna be making medical radioisotopes right now with these very high power density reactors.
01:21:25 · Adam, Jordi Hays
[01:21:25] S7: You know, like, eighteen months ago, Marathon announced this seemingly crazy thing that is real, that, you know, fusion can coproduce electricity and gold at scale. And this is, you know, at the power plant scale, this is how we're gonna make fusion energy the most cost competitive. And this was just the beginning. Basically, right now, we're focusing on making materials that are the most valuable materials in the world, like billions of times more valuable than gold. And so we're basically producing the roadmap for fusion energy. Instead of just making electricity ten years away, we're gonna be making medical radioisotopes right now with these very high power density reactors. [01:21:59] S0: Mhmm. What kind of pushback did you guys get on on the launch or or the video? And, like, how would you, you know, respond to some of the more common pushback?
01:21:59 · Jordi Hays, Kyle Schiller, John Coogan
[01:21:59] S0: Mhmm. What kind of pushback did you guys get on on the launch or or the video? And, like, how would you, you know, respond to some of the more common pushback? [01:22:12] S5: I I was pretty amazed how positive the reception was, to be quite honest with you. I think the vibes have gone really, really positive. I think we nailed the timing and the tone in the launch. And where we have seen pushback is mostly on these issues, like mercury materials compatibility that are just nonissue. Like, mercury is corrosive to copper. It's a good thing that there's no copper in Europe for '97. Okay. It's also a good thing that we have been operating with copper, like, in the nuclear industry for almost a hundred years. So in the nineteen forties, mercury was used as a coolant in nuclear reactors. Throughout the nineteen hundreds, it was used in, like, ACDC conversion systems that powered most of the London underground. GE has deployed mercury turbines. Even the super conservative European programs, baselined, like, their their default is mercury fusion power plants. [01:22:55] S1: Sure. [01:22:55] S5: And so what we're proposing is, like, radical from an economic perspective. The materials actually don't concern me that much. We'll have to do a lot more qualification from here on out. We address that in the video, but it is it is tractable. It is like a really highly tractable series of engineering problems.
01:22:55 · Kyle Schiller, John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Tyler, Thomas Wright, Joe Lonsdale
[01:22:55] S5: And so what we're proposing is, like, radical from an economic perspective. The materials actually don't concern me that much. We'll have to do a lot more qualification from here on out. We address that in the video, but it is it is tractable. It is like a really highly tractable series of engineering problems. [01:23:09] S1: So that's the that... That's the scientific pushback. The... For the person that was just, like, scrolling by and saying Yeah. Oh, they're making infinite gold. The critique was, like, you're not producing gold economically yet because you have to put more energy into the system. That has cost. And so That's right. Even if you're able... And and... But that is something that you've already addressed that you will be solving by scaling up the efficiency of the system. Yeah. I mean, [01:23:32] S5: it's true. We're really far away. That's why we [01:23:34] S1: have to go super quickly. So you probably spent, like, thousands of dollars to make, like, 1p of gold or something like that at this point. But then you double that and double that [01:23:41] S0: and double that. Yeah. [01:23:43] S1: You spend... [01:23:44] S2: Yeah. And there [01:23:44] S3: are always comments that are like, [01:23:45] S6: but but they would have to [01:23:46] S5: do a million times better. And it's like, yeah, man. That's that's [01:23:48] S1: a good Yeah. That's the goal. Just give us, you know, 40 doublings or something. [01:23:52] S0: Yeah. Say that about the models years '26. [01:23:56] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You should be very inured to this concept of
01:23:56 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Adam, Kyle Schiller
[01:23:56] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You should be very inured to this concept of [01:23:59] S0: You need to be oom maxing. [01:24:00] S1: Yeah. [01:24:01] S7: That's right. [01:24:01] S1: That's right. What is... What... What's the actual lab look like? You don't need to use any radioactive material. Right? So it's like a pretty safe lab to just walk around? [01:24:11] S5: We do operate this currently in Downtown San Francisco. [01:24:14] S1: Okay. [01:24:14] S5: And we generate a very tiny number of X rays, which we're able to shield with lead much like you get at the doctor's office. [01:24:20] S1: Yeah. So we [01:24:21] S5: have a radiation safety officer. We take diagnostics. We make sure that everyone's operating safely. Yeah. We will, at some point, have to upgrade from here. And much like the vision companies that set criticality in Idaho, we have a number of other facilities where we can go and do that next phase of scale up. [01:24:35] S0: Oh. And how big how big is the team? [01:24:37] S5: We're 30 people right now. [01:24:39] S0: Wow. Very cool. [01:24:39] S1: Well, congratulations. Thank you so much. Yeah. [01:24:43] S0: Thanks for sharing, guys. [01:24:43] S1: Bringing it down. [01:24:44] S0: We appreciate you. Come back on We'll talk to on the next Zoom.