Leaders in Cleantech Leaders In Cleantech #116 - Dr Nicholas Hawker & Dr Robert Trezona - First Light Fusion
What’s it all about?
Cheap, abundant, low carbon energy. Looking at a Deeptech that has huge and literally game-changing capabilities. There has been much excitement, investment, and some key milestones in Nuclear Fusion in the last year. This week I have not one, but two guests, a Fusion founder and CEO, Dr Nick Hawker, and his investor, Dr Robert Trezona of Kiko Ventures. This is such an exciting space, and things are happening now that give rise to great optimism we can achieve Fusion power within a couple of decades. In the meantime, let’s get as much solar and wind in the ground as we can, but here could be cheap, abundant, safe, baseload.
About Nicholas Hawker:
Nicholas is the Co-founder and CEO of First Light Fusion. Nick’s research into fusion began in 2007 as part of his Master’s thesis, where he worked at the University of Oxford with Yiannis Ventikos. This work continued into a DPhil, where he performed hydrodynamic simulations of shock-driven cavity collapse. These simulations showed that cavity collapse leads to inertial confinement of the gas inside the cavity and revealed that extreme states of matter could be reached, possibly entering the regime for fusion. To explore the concept of energy generation via this process, Nick and Yiannis co-founded First Light Fusion Ltd in 2011. Nick also spent three years tutoring at Lady Margaret Hall during his studies. After finishing his DPhil in 2012, Nick joined First Light Fusion as CEO and CTO, and continues to oversee the technical vision of the company.
About First Light Fusion:
First Light Fusion was founded by Professor Yiannis Ventikos, Head of the Mechanical Engineering
Department at University College, London, and Dr Nicholas Hawker, formerly an Engineering lecturer at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
The company was spun out from the University of Oxford in July 2011, with seed capital from IP Group plc,Parkwalk Advisors Ltd and private investors. Invesco and OSI provided follow-on capital.
The business has grown from a research-focused university project to a fully-fledged company that has developed not only a strategy for how to make fusion energy work, but also a sustainable business model based on the technology.
The team comprises experts in relevant scientific and engineering fields plus the management experience necessary to ad
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