Max Monange is bringing nuclear technologies back into the spotlight
The SHACK15 Journal spoke with member Max Monange, who leads U.S. operations of EX-Fusion, Japan's first private laser nuclear fusion company with the goal to build the first laser-powered commercial nuclear fusion reactor. Raised in Paris & Singapore, Max graduated from King's College London with a First Class Honours in Physics (BSc). He went on to pursue a Master’s at UC Berkeley in the Nuclear Engineering department where he worked on space nuclear technologies along with capstone company, USNC tech. At 21, Max founded his first company SWiiFT after graduating from UC Berkeley, a platform that enables anyone to form connections abroad.
SHACK15: Can you tell us about your background and what led you to become interested in nuclear technologies as a career route?
Max Monange: The first time the term “nuclear energy” really captured my attention was in high school, courtesy of Mr. Mews, my physics teacher. I distinctly recall a lesson when he asked the class to compare the specific energies—energy generated per kilogram of fuel—of different fuels in our textbook: wood, hydrogen, coal, petrol, natural gas and uranium. So what did I discover? There is a whopping one million times more energy generated in one kilogram of uranium than in one kilogram of coal! I grabbed a piece of paper and performed the calculation a second time to make sure. And there it was again: nuclear energy is the densest form of energy available on earth, and the best part about it? We know how to harness it.
I went on to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Physics at King’s College London in 2018. Surely enough, four years later I ended up in the Bay, graduating from UC Berkeley with a Master’s in Nuclear Engineering.
During my Master’s, I worked with USNC-tech, a company pioneering the development of micro-modular reactors (MMRs) aimed at transporting them to the moon to provide on-site power for future manned lunar & martian missions. Subsequently, I transitioned to the realm of renewables, working for EDF North America, a leading French energy giant with a presence in California. Yet, while working in renewables, I encountered the persistent challenges faced by this sector—issues of intermittence, seasonal variability, grid integration, and economic viability.
Therefore, I joined EX-fusion, a newly established Japanese nuclear fusion start-up, returning to my roots in the nuclear industry. Presently, I oversee their U.S. Operations, spearheading efforts in reactor research and development, fostering strategic partnerships, and fundraising for our series A in the U.S. This role places me at the crossroads of engineering and business where my ultimate goal is to bring nuclear fusion to commercialization.
SHACK15: What does nuclear technologies refer to?
Monange: Nuclear technologies encompass the array of tools and methodologies designed to harness energy from splitting or merging atoms. Their applications extend across various sectors, notably in aerospace, medicine, and most prominently, the electricity industry.
Splitting a heavy atomic nucleus is called “nuclear fission” while combining two lighter atomic nuclei is called "nuclear fusion”. Both processes unleash enormous amounts of energy (fusion slightly more so than fission). This energy is transferred to the daughter products (the remnants of the split atom in fission; or the novel products formed in fusion), often referred to as radiation. The energy of these particles is characterized by Einstein's renowned equation, E=mc².
(left) nuclear fission reaction
(right) nuclear fusion reaction
These energetic particles are captured in a liquid (most of the time water), housed within a reactor. As this liquid absorbs the high-velocity daughter particles, it heats up, evaporates, drives a sizable turbine rotation, and subsequently condenses back into liquid form after transferring its energy to the turbine. This rotational motion of the turbine translates into the production of electricity—entirely carbon-free. Nuclear fission engineering is a very well understood field. In fact, approximately 20% of California's electricity is sourced from nuclear power, while in countries like France, this figure reaches a striking 70%.
Commonly, the term "nuclear" invokes negative connotations, particularly tied to "nuclear waste." Essentially, this waste consists of the daughter nuclei generated during the nuclear reaction. The paradox lies in the fact that nuclear reactions generate copious amounts of energy requiring minimal fuel quantities for reactor operation. To illustrate, consider the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California, operating solely on a mere couple of kilograms of Uranium per year, consequently producing a similar quantity of waste annually. The Diablo Canyon plant has been powering 3 million American homes for the past 40 years. Astonishingly, if one's lifetime energy consumption solely relied on nuclear energy, the resultant nuclear waste would fit within a can of coke.
What’s more? We know how to contain and store that waste very well. In the U.S., it just sits at the back of the power plant’s parking lot. In Europe, it’s transported to a European repository in Finland where it is buried underground. So would you rather live next to a coal or a gas power plant, which discharges millions of tons of uncontained greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere daily, or next to a nuclear power plant, which emits none?
Steam rises from cooling towers of the Electricite de France (EDF) nuclear power plant behind houses in Dampierre-en-Burly, France, Oct. 12, 2021. (Reuters Photo)
SHACK15: How did your experience coming from France, a country where nuclear power proliferates, influence your path into the field?
Monange: I was 13 years old when I left France so I wasn’t exactly paying the electricity bills yet. However, after having lived in Singapore, London, and eventually settling in California – it’s become flagrant how the price of energy bills correlates to the level of nuclear power a country operates! With France generating about 70% of its electricity from nuclear, we have some of the cheapest electricity prices in Europe (the cheapest electricity I ever paid for after living in 4 countries) and one of the greenest grids in the world, all while standing as the 7th largest global economy.
During my time at EDF, the French nuclear giant responsible for the country's nuclear fleet, I gained an inside perspective on their operations—an experience that left an indelible impression. EDF's scope is impressive, operating a staggering 56 nuclear reactors within France. To put it into perspective, the United States operates 92 nuclear reactors, despite having a population five times larger and a GDP eight times greater.
At EDF, discussions often circled back to our German neighbors and their decisions. Chancellor Merkel's snap call to shut down all nuclear plants in Germany post-Fukushima Daiichi in 2011 sent them running back to coal and scrambling into shaky renewable investments. The outcome? An energy mess that made them one of Europe's top polluters per capita. Guess who foots the bill? Yep, their citizens, dealing with the highest electricity costs in Europe. The repercussions of this shift were also evident in the wider European Union energy market which saw prices increase due to the lack of local generation, notably during the Ukraine-Russian conflict.
What's intriguing is that despite Germany ditching nuclear power, they still end up importing nuclear electricity from France. It's a glaring lesson on the fallout of rash nuclear phase-outs, revealing the complexities and consequences woven into energy policies.
SHACK15: What are you currently working on?
Monange: I’m currently part of EX-Fusion, a nuclear fusion company led by three brilliant minds in Japan: Kazuki Matsuo, Yoshitaka Mori and Koichi Masuda. We’re working on developing a reactor that would combine atoms to produce energy. Most existing nuclear companies worldwide thrive on "nuclear fission," splitting atoms to yield power. Our mission, combining atoms to produce energy, or fusion, is not something that humankind has entirely figured out yet, but it presents significant advantages compared to fission and other energy sources. For instance, fusion doesn’t generate high level “nuclear waste”. We fuse two hydrogen isotopes to create Helium. Helium is our waste. It’s harmless. In comparison, fission splits a uranium (U) atom to produce Barium (Ba) and Krypton (Kr). Barium and Krypton are two short lived elements, hence they are considered radioactive waste. There are other advantages to fusion, the fuel (Hydrogen isotopes) is abundant, the process is safer (no reactor meltdowns possible) and it generates almost four times as much energy than fission – and just like fission, it is carbon free and reliable.
But let me tell you, cracking the code to bring fusion into the mainstream power grid is a complex matter. One analogy I often like to use is to think of fusion as a “puzzle”. Several vital pieces are required for the final assembly:
A minute fuel pellet akin to the size of your fingernail tip, crafted from deuterium and tritium, two hydrogen isotopes. Deuterium is harvested from the ocean while we produce tritium within our reactors.
A driver, the crucial catalyst that will kick off the fusion process by compressing the tritium and deuterium atoms in the pellet until they merge into a plasma at blistering temperatures—reaching a scorching 100 million degrees Celsius, surpassing even the sun's surface temperature, all replicated here on Earth. This ignition mechanism hinges on two fundamental schools of technologies capable of creating that initial “drive”: lasers and superconducting magnets. EX-Fusion is in the laser fusion school, also known as Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) in the startup community or Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) within the defense sector.
A pellet injection and a laser tracking system. In a meticulous process, we fire our tiny, cryogenic hydrogen pellet through the reactor chamber at 100 mph which then has to be intercepted by our lasers in flight! To avoid melting in those extreme temperatures, nothing must touch the pellets as they implode under the laser's force. Cameras guide laser targeting toward the pellets. Our ultimate objective? Firing approximately 10 pellets per second, promising a colossal energy yield from fusion.
Plasma Physics. We need modeling capabilities to understand the intricate behaviors of the plasma in our chamber. This is necessary to achieve enough fusion events in a given amount of time at a given temperature. Successful fusion ignition is only possible if the plasma confinement is robust enough to yield more energy than the drivers initially input. We draw energy from the grid to power our lasers and the goal is to produce more energy in our plasma than the energy that we draw. Simply put, we need to get more out than we put in. A milestone worth noting: back in December 2022, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) achieved this feat after over 50 years of fusion research! They attained ignition, channeling 2 MJ of laser power to extract 3 MJ from their plasma.
A blanket system. Wrapping around the reactor chamber is what we call a "liquid blanket." This structure circulates a liquid metal, capturing the daughter particles emitted from the fusion plasma. This process serves multiple purposes. First, the liquid metal breeds tritium which is extracted for pellet production. Second, it shields the reactor exterior from fusion-induced radiation. Finally, the liquid metal heats up from absorbing particles’ energy, and then transfers its heat to water, which evaporates and powers a large turbine rotation (akin to fission reactors).
Materials that can endure the extreme fusion environment—a blend of high temperatures and harsh radiation conditions.
Diagnostic capabilities for gauging energy outputs, monitoring plant conditions, and more, enabling a comprehensive understanding of our fusion operations.
EX-Fusion’s fast ignition reactor concept (courtesy of EX-Fusion).
EX-Fusion has developed remarkable IP in its laser technology (puzzle piece #2). In order to fund our engineering endeavors to develop the remaining puzzle pieces, we are actually commercializing our lasers across various sectors: industrial manufacturing (laser cutting), aerospace (space debris removal), environmental (wildfire prevention), biomedical (cancer treatment) and more… Nevertheless, like the dozens of fusion private companies that have emerged over the past 20 years (43 in total), we are also relying on venture capital.
I joined EX-Fusion with the mission to ignite and expand our presence across the US. My days are spent either forging relationships with clients interested in laser technology or engaging with national labs, the DOE, and universities—including our very own UC Berkeley here in the Bay Area (Go Bears!)—to dive into R&D initiatives, focusing explicitly on blanket technology (puzzle piece #5 mentioned earlier). Additionally, I handle our investor outreach efforts, preparing for our next funding round in the U.S. So, if you're a VC in the Climate Tech/DeepTech sphere, don’t hesitate to reach out. Let's link up and make commercial fusion a reality!
SHACK15: What advice do you have for people looking to better understand the benefits and consequences of nuclear energy?
Monange: Understanding the complexities and implications of nuclear energy requires a multi-faceted approach. You have to be well versed in science, engineering, politics and economy to understand the field. Listen to a couple TED talks about nuclear energy on youtube. Pay attention to recent events, especially how nuclear energy is being addressed in COP 28. Look up why billionaires such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Peter Thiels, John Doerr, George Soros etc are investing their funds in the nuclear sector.
Now, when it comes to making a difference in supporting or understanding nuclear energy's role, it's crucial to engage at a local level, especially during elections. No matter where you're from, check your candidate's stance on nuclear power and energy policies during your country’s next elections. A candidate with an anti-nuclear stance will speak for itself.
Ultimately, my message is that anyone can contribute to shaping the trajectory of energy policies and environmental decisions. Engaging with information from various sources, participating in discussions, and considering the stances of your political candidates on nuclear power can empower you to make informed choices and advocate for sustainable energy solutions for the good of our planet.