Meet the ‘fusionista’ ready to deliver on the promise of fusion energy
Kelvin Ross
Posted on: 13 January 2026
Milena Roveda highlights the innovation, investment and industrial know-how that’s driving fusion energy breakthroughs.
Stephen Hawking once said that nuclear fusion will "provide an inexhaustible supply of energy without pollution or global warming”.
Few people would disagree – the promise of fusion is widely acknowledged, yet for so long it was seen as a fuel of the far-distant future.
However, what was once science fiction has now become engineering fact, and in Europe there is significant momentum – and investment – in the technology.
One person at the forefront of that progress is self-confessed ‘fusionista’, Milena Roveda, chief executive of Gauss Fusion.
In this episode of the Energy Transitions Podcast, recorded at Enlit Europe in Bilbao, Roveda tells me why her ambition to build the first of several commercial fusion plants by 2040 is grounded in realism and methodically-planned process.
In this episode, you will learn more about:
- Why fusion is becoming increasingly attractive to investors;
- What the ‘known unknowns’ are for the technology;
- How collaboration is underpinning the success of fusion?
- Why Europe’s fusion race “will be won not by the size of a single fund-raise, but by the depth of industrial know-how”;
- And why she is driven by hope: “we’re not talking about taking out jobs and reducing costs: we’re working to make the future brighter.”
