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The Tidal Financial Group (Tidal) expanded rapidly over the last decade and encompassed multiple ETF related brands including Toroso Investments, Tidal ETF Services, and the ETF Think Tank. Going forward all activity will be unified under the Tidal brand as we become one company, dream, family, and platform focused on holistic ETF customer solutions.

Get Think Tanked Distilled with Klaas de Boer

Clean energy has become a hot topic with a number of groups and companies looking to develop viable solutions. General Fusion, whose goal is a world with clean, limitless energy, is among them. He serves as the Chairman of the company’s board of directors and joined the ETF Think Tank to discuss the possibilities of fusion as an energy solution.

De Boer explains that his company’s purpose is to deliver commercially available fusion power. General Fusion is one of about 50-100 private fusion companies. A lot of the work done up to this point has been strictly scientific projects attempting to advance the technology, but his company has already built a fusion demonstration plant. About $300 million in seed funding has already been made and the company has up to around 200 employees. General Fusion is working on having a power plant add electricity to the grid by the first part of the 2030s.

The potential in clean energy is enormous, but the target of achieving net zero emissions by 2050 is very ambitious. Looking at energy consumption today, de Boer says that the world will need to decarbonize at the rate of one megaton of oil per day every day between now and 2050. It’s a huge goal and one that will likely need to be revised as time goes on.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is achieving commercial scale. During the oil crisis of the 1970s, the search for alternative energies really kicked off, but investment slowed once oil prices came back down. There are structural challenges, but the need for this is clear. Companies are building off a public set of knowledge. 20 years ago, building designs were developed that weren’t viable at the time. Now, they’re viable, which provides a big opportunity.

December 5th was an important date for fusion energy. It was the first time that the amount of energy generated by a fusion reaction exceeded the energy that went into producing it. It validated scientific models that underlie the experiment. On a systems basis, it’s still far away from a net gain, but at an experimental level it was a very positive development. de Boer says he believes that it would have been bigger news if it didn’t happen. For the goal of turning this into a viable power plant and a repeatable process, there’s a long way to go and it’s very complex. To get it to a power plant-necessary output still requires much more work.

De Boer views the development of clean energy technology as the most important thing. If a competitor gets ahead of you, that’s a good thing because the technology is evolving, and the work being done should benefit everybody. There’s some helping out across companies to deal with issues like supply chains, but we’re all trying to accomplish the same goals. We’re just competing for investor dollars and talent.

Other key takeaways:

  • The development of fusion technologies has been phenomenal, and activity is doubling roughly every 18 months. There are tens of billions of dollars being invested in this.
  • The biggest supply chain problem in the nuclear engineering industry is people. In the UK, the average nuclear engineer is in his early 60s. The question is how can we track talent into this industry? The tide is very slowly changing.
  • A lot of the clean energy discussion is aspirational including the thought that there aren’t enough materials or supplies. de Boer says he doesn’t think the same supply constraint exists on the fusion side. He says that fusion is probably the easiest energy to scale.
  • de Boer says he is convinced that fusion will happen. It’d be nice if General Fusion were the first to accomplish it, but he wants to see it happen period because it’s so important.

You can watch a replay of this virtual happy hour on our YouTube channel here. While there, subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on our latest content.

Disclosure

All investments involve risk, including possible loss of principal.

The material provided here is for informational purposes only and should not be considered an individualized recommendation or personalized investment advice. The investment strategies mentioned here may not be suitable for everyone. Each investor needs to review an investment strategy for his or her own particular situation before making any investment decision.

All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice in reaction to shifting market conditions. Data contained herein from third party providers is obtained from what are considered reliable sources. However, its accuracy, completeness or reliability cannot be guaranteed.

Examples provided are for illustrative purposes only and not intended to be reflective of results you can expect to achieve.

The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up and investors may not get back the amounts originally invested, and can be affected by changes in interest rates, in exchange rates, general market conditions, political, social and economic developments and other variable factors. Investment involves risks including but not limited to, possible delays in payments and loss of income or capital. Neither Toroso nor any of its affiliates guarantees any rate of return or the return of capital invested. This commentary material is available for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security and nothing herein should be construed as such. All investment strategies and investments involve risk of loss, including the possible loss of all amounts invested, and nothing herein should be construed as a guarantee of any specific outcome or profit.  While we have gathered the information presented herein from sources that we believe to be reliable, we cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information presented and the information presented should not be relied upon as such. Any opinions expressed herein are our opinions and are current only as of the date of distribution, and are subject to change without notice. We disclaim any obligation to provide revised opinions in the event of changed circumstances.

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Get Think Tanked with Klaas de Boer

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Clean energy has become a hot topic with a number of groups and companies

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