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Get the latest as our experts share their insights on global energy policy.
Saudi Arabia’s recent moves into the liquefied natural gas (LNG) market may be a sign the giant oil exporter is looking to expand into a rapidly growing and politically influential market it had long ignored.
Hear in-depth conversations with the world’s top energy and climate leaders from government, business, academia, and civil society.
We often associate energy poverty with developing nations, but the reality is that tens of millions of Americans struggle to pay their monthly energy bills. Oftentimes, they forgo...
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Join us for a virtual information session focused on career pathways at the World Bank, one of the world’s leading international financial institutions dedicated to poverty reduction and...
Director, MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center
Nuclear fusion seems like something out of science fiction – a reaction created inside a machine that replicates the sun. But the technology behind this process could be inching closer to reality. And with it, new opportunities to harness electricity.
The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act allocates $280 million for fusion energy science. And experiments in China, the U.K., and California have some scientists feeling hopeful that fusion could play a role in the global energy transition.
But there’s a problem. At lower temperatures, nuclear fusion requires more energy than it produces. It’s only when the plasma used to combine atoms reaches an extremely high temperature that it sets off a chain reaction and makes the process sustainable.
There are different approaches to achieving this chain reaction. But are scientists actually getting close to commercialization? And when will nuclear fusion be powering our homes and businesses?
This week, host Bill Loveless talks with Dr. Dennis Whyte, Hitachi America Professor of Engineering at MIT and director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. He also leads the Laboratory for Innovations and Fusion technology, which has energy company sponsorship to explore early-stage, disruptive fusion technologies.
Dr. Whyte played an integral role in Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a startup out of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center, that recently raised $1.8 billion in funding to commercialize fusion energy.
Bill talks with Dr. Whyte about the science behind nuclear fusion, his work at MIT, and the efforts to bring this technology to market.
We often associate energy poverty with developing nations, but the reality is that tens of millions of Americans struggle to pay their monthly energy bills. Oftentimes, they forgo...
For years, Japan set aggressive decarbonization targets, positioning itself as a climate leader despite limited domestic resources. But recent geopolitical earthquakes like the ongoing war in Ukraine, increasing...
From oil pipelines crossing the border to integrated electricity grids, energy trade has long been a key part of the economic relationship between the United States and Canada....
After more than three years of intense fighting following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the path to end the war has been challenging. President Trump has...
On March 31, 2025, the Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP) at Columbia University SIPA hosted a private virtual roundtable under the Chatham House rule to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the United States pursuing disposal of defense high-level nuclear waste (HLW) and spent nuclear fuel (SNF) before commercial SNF.
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) issued a construction license last week for what would be the first commercial small modular reactor (SMR)[1] in North America.
