Boardroom Talk: The good and bad news about Dr Kimberley Budil’s nuclear fusion breakthrough

By Alec Hogg

Many talented people gather in Davos for the annual WEF meetings. But, this January, the smartest one I met was American physicist Dr. Kimberley Budil, the first woman director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. 

The US government established the Lab in 1952 after the Soviets detonated their first atomic bomb. It shot into global prominence in mid-December when Dr. Budil and her team announced a massive breakthrough in the nuclear fusion promise that could provide the world with cheap and plentiful energy.

For the first time, the researchers produced more energy post-reaction than that used to cause it. Dr. Budil explained the groundbreaking development to a small group of us in Davos, resulting from 60 years of work. 

The good news is for first the first time, nuclear fusion – the reaction that makes the stars shine – is no longer just a dream. Instead, it will be in humanity's future. The bad news, Dr. Budil said, is it will take another 30 years before hitting the mainstream. 

For SA, the bad news is that it may have to struggle through the Eskom debacle for three more decades. The good news is human ingenuity can significantly compress official time estimates. Here's hoping.

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