Commentary on 'the interplay of the innovation cycle, build time, lifetime, and deployment rate of new energy technologies: a case study of nuclear fusion energy' designing innovation strategies for rapid feasible technological change

Review article, 2024

How fast can new technologies come online and what is the most effective policy strategy to accelerate their growth? A recent articleby Lopes Cardozo and Ward contribute to shedding light on this very interesting question particularly tricky to answer for technologieswhich are not yet commercial. Taking the case of nuclear fusion, the authors aim to identify the best innovation strategy for thetechnology. They embed this analysis in a useful concept of a ‘forced transition’ which echoes the general belief that energy transitionswill need to be driven by policies rather than pure market forces. Their work introduces two significant theoretical advances: the FastestFeasible Growth (FFG) model and foregrounding generational changes for analyzing technological deployment. While the authors’insights offer valuable contributions to both growth modeling and experience curve analysis, their work raises important questions forfuture research. These include the empirically validating of the relationship between technological generations and growth; identifyingthe conditions under which technological expansion would be faster then their FFG model; the duration of the exponential growthphase; the applicability of the model beyond the global scale; and conceptualising technological generations.