Framing fusion regulations to stimulate acceptance, diversity, and equity in early fusion markets
December 6, 2023
2:00 – 3:30 PM GST
The fusion sector is already transforming our energy landscape, reducing reliance on fossil fuels. The sooner we establish agreement on its regulatory framework, the faster commercial fusion will join all renewable energy, storage, and grid technologies addressing the climate crisis. The urgent need for scaling fusion manufacturing capacity now highlights the importance of a robust public health and safety framework to ensure transparent and climate neutral supply chains.
Moderator:
Professor Dr Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, DPhil (Oxon), MEM (Yale), BCL & LLB (McGill), BA Hons (Carl/UVic) FRSC FRSA WIJA is a world-leading scholar and jurist in the field of sustainable development law and governance. She serves as visiting chair in sustainable development law and policy in the University of Cambridge where she is also a law fellow, director of studies and programme director in Lucy Cavendish College, and a full professor of international law at the University of Victoria, Canada. Further, as senior director of the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, executive secretary of the Climate Law and Governance Initiative for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and chair of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity Biodiversity Law and Governance Initiative, she lectures and leads global collaborations for climate law and governance, biodiversity and natural resources stewardship, human rights, indigenous peoples rights and future generations, trade and investment law and other international law contributing to the global Sustainable Development Goals.
Panelists:
Dr. Matteo Barbarino is currently the lead fusion scientist at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He is also responsible for the Agency’s cooperation in the area of fusion energy with ITER, PPPL and ASIPP and around AI with ITU. Matteo works for the IAEA since 2017. Before joining the Agency, he worked at laser fusion laboratories in the USA and in Europe.
Matteo is the technical adviser for the International Group of Legal Experts on Fusion Energy (FELEX) and a member of the ITPA Coordinating Committee, the IEA Fusion Power Coordinating Committee, the CICLOP Group, and the UN HLCP InterAgency Working Group on AI (IAWG-AI).
Matteo holds a PhD and MSc in Physics from Texas A&M University and a BSc in Electrical Engineering from University of Catania.
Randolph Bell is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center and an Associate Partner at Dentons Global Advisors, an expert-led multidisciplinary advisory firm, where he supports clients as they navigate the increasingly complex intersection of energy security, climate action, and sustainability.
Previously, he was head of international government affairs at Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), and he continues to support their international government affairs strategy at DGA.
From 2018 to 2022, Bell was the Global Energy Center’s senior director and the inaugural holder of the Richard Morningstar Chair for Global Energy Security. In this capacity, he set the center’s strategy and oversaw the center’s research and programs, including the annual Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi, through a period of remarkable growth. His research and writing focused on hydrogen policy, advanced technologies and innovation, oil and gas in the energy transition, and energy geopolitics. He joined the Global Energy Center in 2017 as its director of business strategies. From 2014 to 2016, Bell led the launch of the center in his capacity as director of business development and new ventures for the Atlantic Council.
From 2011 to 2014, Bell was managing director at the International Institute for Strategic Studies–US, where in addition to holding overall responsibility for the operations and programming of the IISS’s Washington office, he published extensively on African, South Asian, and cyber-security issues. From 2010 to 2011, he was manager of national security at the Markle Foundation, where he worked on cyber security, intelligence community information sharing, and technology policy issues.
Bell has an MPP from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he was a Public Service and Belfer International and Global Affairs fellow, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College.
Jane Hotchkiss has spent 30 years working on climate solutions in energy, beginning in the late 80’s in CA working with former regulatory staff and with CEOs focused on building markets for the renewable industry. She became known for green energy in MA and CO, as the first renewables advocate at both the Conservation Law Foundation and the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies. In addition to her pro-renewable advocacy, policy, and regulatory work, Jane worked to highlight the fossil problem, developing a national field of anti-coal campaigns, as co-founder of the Clean Air Task Force (CATF). As a climate consultant to PG&E on the Madison Wind Project and their national energy team, she was the only external consultant to the first utility wind project in the East.
In the mid 2000s, Jane served as Managing Director of the solar company CEI, where she combined market incentives with a growing green municipal electric interest to secure JPMorgan financing and site control for a 30 MW project, only to face the municipal utilities’ preference for short term natural gas in 2012. Looking for a solution supportive of expanding renewable and climate energy solution markets brought Jane to the promise of fusion energy. The need for fusion’s potential steady state, safe, zero carbon energy supply had never been clearer. Its ability to balance renewable grids and disrupt fossil’s hold on electricity, meet industrial needs, and even produce transportation fuels is compelling. Fusion was the natural place to utilize her energy market experience and climate knowledge. With ECG she now dedicates her expertise to building a roadmap for fusion as a regulated, accepted, and welcomed green commercial choice.
As a citizen, Jane served two terms as an elected member of the Concord Select Board in Concord, MA, completing her civic duties in June 2021.
Dr. Michel Laberge is a physicist with overall practical experience in plasma physics and modern plasma diagnostic techniques. He has extensive knowledge of the latest technologies related to electronics, computers, materials, lithography, optics and fabrication and is experienced in designing and constructing test apparatuses to evaluate technical concepts.
Prior to establishing General Fusion, Michel spent nine years at Creo Products in Vancouver as a senior physicist and principal engineer. His roles included inventor, designer, and scientific project leader on projects that resulted in more than $1 billion worth of product sales.
Ms. Amy Roma is a Partner and the Global Energy Practice Leader at leading international law firm Hogan Lovells. In her practice, Ms Roma advises clients on a wide range of legal, business, and policy matters involving energy projects, including nuclear fission and fusion. Ms. Roma’s broad experience and innovative thinking makes her particularly adept at advising on “first of a kind” energy projects. Ms. Roma has testified before the U.S. Congress several times on energy issues, including fusion; she was a speaker at the White House fusion summit in March 2021; and she serves on the U.S. Secretary of Commerce’s Civil Nuclear Trade Advisory Committee (CINTAC). Ms. Roma has been recognized as one of the Top 10 most innovative lawyers in North America by the Financial Times. The National Law Journal has declared her to be one of the Top 50 “great minds impacting the crucial intersection of energy production and the environment.” She was recently short-listed for another Financial Times innovation award, in Energy Transition, for her work on commercial fusion activities.
Ms. Roma has also lead a number of high impact pro bono humanitarian initiatives. Included among those, she lead the legal team to send the New England Patriots private team plane to China in March 2020 to pick up and donate nearly two million N95 masks to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. She has also performed extensive pro bono work with refugees. She began her legal career at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.