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Speaker 1: So many of the problems facing humanity today come down

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Speaker 1: to one basic issue. Power. Do you need to stay

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Speaker 1: warm in the winter? Power solves that problem. Do you

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Speaker 1: need to find shelter? Power makes it cheap and fast

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Speaker 1: to make concrete or build structures. You need to drink

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Speaker 1: some water. Electricity can turn seawater into drinking water if

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Speaker 1: you have the power. You need to keep your food cold.

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Speaker 1: Refrigeration requires power. You want to run a factory in

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Speaker 1: manufacture clothing. Power you want to travel around your town

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Speaker 1: or country. Power you want to grow food in the winter.

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Speaker 1: Power power, power, power, power power. If we had a

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Speaker 1: plentiful source of cheap power that didn't cause pollution or

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Speaker 1: produce toxic waste, it would transform society. It would uplift

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Speaker 1: the poor, It would make being human a completely different experience.

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Speaker 1: And for a long time, fusion research has promised exactly that. Fusion,

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Speaker 1: the process that powers the sun, doesn't need exotic heavy

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Speaker 1: elements for fuel the way our nuclear plants do, and

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Speaker 1: doesn't make deadly toxic waste. It doesn't produce climate impacting

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Speaker 1: gases the way fossil fuels do, and it runs NonStop,

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Speaker 1: unlike wind and solar, So it'd be great if we

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Speaker 1: get fusion to work. Of course, fusion has been a

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Speaker 1: few decades in the future, or an embarrassing number of

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Speaker 1: decades now. But it turns out that there's another question looming.

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Speaker 1: Before we solve the physics puzzles and make the technology work,

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Speaker 1: there's a surprisingly difficult task of getting enough fuel that

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Speaker 1: we can use to power those yet to be made

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Speaker 1: fusion plants. So today on Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe,

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Speaker 1: we'll be asking do we have enough fuel for fusion?

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Speaker 2: Hello?

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Speaker 3: I'm Kelly water Smith and I love power.

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Speaker 1: Why that was awesome, Kylie? Toleeupguard there. Hi, I'm Daniel Whitson.

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Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist now, but as a youth I

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Speaker 1: dreamed of being a plasma physicist, though not because I

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Speaker 1: wanted power myself. So why because I wanted to bring

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Speaker 1: power to the masses. I thought, Wow, fusion is the future.

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Speaker 1: We're going to change the world. We're going to solve

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Speaker 1: all the problems. Oh my gosh, it's going to be

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Speaker 1: so exciting.

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Speaker 3: And I find fusion that exciting as well. And we

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Speaker 3: wrote about it a little bit for a book my

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Speaker 3: husband and I wrote called Soonish. So I know a

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Speaker 3: little bit more about fusion than you might expect from

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Speaker 3: a parasitologist. But one of the things about fusion that

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Speaker 3: I came across while doing my interviews is that everybody

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Speaker 3: would be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, fusion. I know it's

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Speaker 3: the power of the future, and it always will be,

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Speaker 3: because it always feels like it's ten years out, no

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Speaker 3: matter when you talk to people as ten years out.

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Speaker 3: But I feel like I've been hearing some exciting fusion

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Speaker 3: related news lately that makes the discussion we're going to

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Speaker 3: have today like timely and relevant. So what is your

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Speaker 3: sense how much longer till we have fusion?

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Speaker 1: I know I'm gonna go on the record and predict

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Speaker 1: when fusion will be commercially viable. We have a long

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Speaker 1: way to go between now and fusion being a big

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Speaker 1: part of how humans get power. We've also made a

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Speaker 1: lot of progress, Like where we are today relative to

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Speaker 1: where we were in the nineties when I was thinking

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Speaker 1: about doing fusion research, like we are light years ahead

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Speaker 1: of those nineties physicists, But I think we're also under

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Speaker 1: selling how far we have to go. One of the

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Speaker 1: things we're going to talk about on the podcast today

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Speaker 1: is what you do after you make fusion work finding

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Speaker 1: the fuel for it, and there are other technical problems

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Speaker 1: that make it challenging to actually integrate fusion into our lives.

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Speaker 1: But that's actually not the reason that I didn't become

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Speaker 1: a plasma physicist. Why I didn't realize as a young

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Speaker 1: scientist that you needed more than just the big questions

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Speaker 1: of this field seem exciting, where the lofty goals of

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Speaker 1: this project are worthwhile. To actually enjoy the work day

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Speaker 1: to day, you need to have fun. And I didn't

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Speaker 1: really like playing with vacuum chambers and lasers and all

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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff day to day. I wasn't good

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Speaker 1: at it. I didn't enjoy it, and we weren't bringing

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Speaker 1: energy to the masses every single day. It doesn't really

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Speaker 1: bother me these days in particle physics that I'm not

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Speaker 1: discovering a new particle every day because I am having

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Speaker 1: fun writing programs and solving little mental puzzles. I think

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Speaker 1: a lot of people don't realize how important it is

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Speaker 1: to actually enjoy the day to day grind of your science,

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Speaker 1: not just the Nobel prize winning moments.

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Speaker 3: I totally agree with you, so I for my PhD,

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Speaker 3: I was doing some like molecular biology stuff, trying to

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Speaker 3: figure out how a parasite that lived on the brain

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Speaker 3: of a fish was manipulating its behavior.

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Speaker 2: So I was measuring like hormones and neurotransmitters.

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Speaker 3: And I hate pipets, and I thought i'd love them,

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Speaker 3: Like I have friends who just like they're having like

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Speaker 3: they're in the zone, man, listening to music, and there's

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Speaker 3: one with the pipette and I.

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Speaker 2: Just got angry.

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Speaker 3: And so, yeah, no, you've got to love the day

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Speaker 3: to day otherwise it's not going to work out.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's very personal. Some people love sitting in

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Speaker 1: front of a computer all day long, and other people

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Speaker 1: think that's not doing science. If you don't have a

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Speaker 1: screwdriver in your hand, you're not feeling greasy at the

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Speaker 1: end of the day, you're not doing science. But you know,

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Speaker 1: everybody's got to find their bit. And the thing I

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Speaker 1: love about science is that it takes all kinds. It

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Speaker 1: takes computer nerds like me, and it takes screwdriver nerds,

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Speaker 1: and it takes people who want to dive into dumb

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Speaker 1: trucks full of smelly fish on a sunny day.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I.

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Speaker 3: Can't say I enjoyed that part either, but it was

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Speaker 3: nice actually, you know, learning about new species of fish

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Speaker 3: you find in Lake Eary.

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Speaker 2: That was fun.

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Speaker 1: So my number one piece of advice to like young

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Speaker 1: scientists is to try a lot of different kinds of

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Speaker 1: science because you can be excited about the big picture

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Speaker 1: questions of cosmology or parasitology or geology, but if you

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Speaker 1: don't enjoy the day to day work, you're not going

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Speaker 1: to be inspired and creative because you're not having fun.

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Speaker 1: And this can be really hard to tell in advance.

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Speaker 1: So you got to dabble before you find your jam.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And it can be so hard to feel like

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Speaker 3: you have time to dabble because I know, you get

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Speaker 3: into grad school and you're like, I have to publish

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Speaker 3: all the papers or you know, depending on what job

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Speaker 3: you want. But I always tell students like, yes, dabble.

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Speaker 3: My advisor was really good about encouraging me to dabble,

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Speaker 3: and who knows where it would have ended up if

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Speaker 3: I didn't dabble. Got a fun combo of things going on.

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Speaker 1: But today we're not going to dabble. We're going to

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Speaker 1: do one of our deep dives into a topic in

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Speaker 1: physics to understand how fusion works, what we actually need

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Speaker 1: to make fusion work, and where we can find that

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Speaker 1: fuel if we even can.

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Speaker 3: So when you sent me the idea for this topic,

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Speaker 3: it kind of blew my mind because I thought we

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Speaker 3: had plenty.

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Speaker 2: Of fuel for funds all over the place.

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Speaker 3: And so I'm personally very excited about this discussion because it,

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Speaker 3: you know, I like discussions where the angle is something

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Speaker 3: that really kind of throws me off, and I wasn't expecting.

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Speaker 3: And so here we go, and let's see if our

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Speaker 3: listeners were thrown off or not. And if you would

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Speaker 3: like to be the people who answer the questions at

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Speaker 3: the beginning of the podcast, please send us an email

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Speaker 3: at questions at Danielankelly dot org and we'll send you

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Speaker 3: the question. You can send us an audio file and

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Speaker 3: then we'll put it on the show. All right, let's

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Speaker 3: see what the listeners thought.

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Speaker 4: I had no idea there was a fuel availability question

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Speaker 4: for fusion, but from what I understand, it uses hydrogen

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Speaker 4: and that's pretty much the most plentiful thing out there,

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Speaker 4: So I would assume, no, there's not unless there's some

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Speaker 4: challenge with making the hydrogen usable for fusion.

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Speaker 5: To find fuel for fusion, we need only look to

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Speaker 5: the universe. Hydrogen is the most abundant thing in the universe,

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Speaker 5: so surely there's plenty of it in our rocks and

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Speaker 5: water on Earth. And once we figure out fusion, we

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Speaker 5: can probably just go to the local styles and suck

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Speaker 5: them dry like a sci fi dystopian novel.

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Speaker 6: I believe I've heard mentioned on the show that we

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Speaker 6: do not have enough hydrogen to create fusion like the

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Speaker 6: sun does. However, if we are talking about cold fusion,

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Speaker 6: then I believe that we would have more than enough

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Speaker 6: to accomplish this using seawater to pull the hydrogen from

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Speaker 6: for that purpose.

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Speaker 7: I think, is this a true question? Yeah, Well, hydrogen

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Speaker 7: is the most abundant element in the universe, and plenty

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Speaker 7: of hydrogen around, and that's what basically we're gonna be doing,

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Speaker 7: is turning hydrogen and helium, you know, via our tokemac

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Speaker 7: shape or whatever nuclear fusion reactor. So yeah, hydrogen would

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Speaker 7: be very easy to come by. If I'm missing something,

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Speaker 7: Am I missing something?

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Speaker 2: I like that somebody else was like, is this a

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Speaker 2: trick question?

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Speaker 1: What I take away from this is everybody has heard

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Speaker 1: the propaganda that fusion just requires hydrogen. Most of the

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Speaker 1: universes hydrogen. Obviously, that's not a problem. Let's move on

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Speaker 1: to the real stuff.

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Speaker 2: I think we've all drank the hydrogen kool aid.

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Speaker 1: Ooh, there's a new product we've unlocked, right there, hydrogen

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Speaker 1: kool aid. I guess all kool aid contains hydrogen already, right,

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Speaker 1: because it has water. But we could sell it as

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Speaker 1: fancy kool aid.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, if people are buying bottled water,

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Speaker 3: we can sell this too. And I buy a bottle

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Speaker 3: of water sometype, So no judgment to the people who

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Speaker 3: are buying it. Let's start at the basics. What is

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Speaker 3: fusion and how does it work?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, in order to understand the challenges for finding fuel

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Speaker 1: for fusion, we have to understand how fusion works. And

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Speaker 1: some of the details are actually really important, but the

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Speaker 1: basics are that fusion is sticking protons together. We know

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Speaker 1: that elements are defined by the number of protons in

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Speaker 1: the nucleus. The reason we call hydrogen hydrogen is because

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Speaker 1: it has one proton. The reason we call carbon carbon

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Speaker 1: it's because there are six protons. Yeah, another proton, it's

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Speaker 1: no longer carbon. This is my least like subject in

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Speaker 1: science high school. Chemistry I'm currently now teaching my second

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Speaker 1: child who's going through high school chemistry. But basically it's alchemy. Right.

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Speaker 1: You can take elements, you can squeeze them together, you

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Speaker 1: get a new element. Right. That would like blow the

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Speaker 1: minds of people from the sixteen hundreds that we really

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Speaker 1: can change elements from one to the other by squeezing

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Speaker 1: their nuclei together and getting those protons to stick together.

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Speaker 3: It's like magic because not only do you get something new,

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Speaker 3: but you also get energy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you can try to capture it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's not the kind of thing that protons

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Speaker 1: like to do. Right, you have an hydrogen atom, it's

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Speaker 1: a proton and an electron. The proton and electron attract

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Speaker 1: each other because they're opposite charge, and so they fall

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Speaker 1: into a stable pattern. Right, there's a bound state there

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Speaker 1: of the electron of the proton neutral hydrogen. But if

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Speaker 1: you're trying to take two protons together, like the nuclei

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Speaker 1: of those hydrogens and squeeze them together, what happens, Well,

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Speaker 1: they are like charges. They're both positively charged, so they resist. Right.

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Speaker 1: It's like trying to put two North magnets near each other.

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Speaker 1: You know, they squirm and they slide and they try

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Speaker 1: to avoid, and it's really hard to get them to

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Speaker 1: actually touch. And the same thing happens with protons, which

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Speaker 1: is why fusion is so hard. You can't just take

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Speaker 1: hydrogen gas and watch it and see fusion happen, because

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Speaker 1: those protons avoid each other.

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Speaker 2: If you can't actually get them close enough, then they

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Speaker 2: stop repelling.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, there are two things going on here at

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Speaker 1: sort of a larger distance. The way hydrogen normally is. Basically,

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Speaker 1: the electromagnet force repels the nucleid. They stay apart from

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Speaker 1: each other. But if you get the protons close enough together,

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Speaker 1: then they start to feel the strong nuclear force from

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Speaker 1: inside them. And this is a little bit confusing because

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Speaker 1: a proton is neutral in the strong nuclear force. So

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Speaker 1: let's back up. We have a few fundamental forces in nature.

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Speaker 1: You have electromagnetism, you have the strong nuclear force, the

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Speaker 1: weak force, and gravity. Mostly it's electromagnetism that we talk

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Speaker 1: about when we talk about elements and chemicals and bonds

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Speaker 1: and all this kind of stuff, and it's those positive

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Speaker 1: and negative charges that determine what sticks to each other

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Speaker 1: and what repels. But these other forces are also powerful.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the strong nuclear force is much much more

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Speaker 1: powerful than electromagnetism, but mostly it's already neutralized. Like, a

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Speaker 1: proton has quarks inside of it, and those quarks feel

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Speaker 1: this strong nuclear force, but together all the quarks inside

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Speaker 1: a proton are neutral, like they all add up to

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Speaker 1: basically zero strong charge, which confusingly we call color. So

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Speaker 1: a proton is neutral from the strong force and another

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Speaker 1: done as neutral from the strong force. But if you

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Speaker 1: bring them close enough together, then the quarks inside one

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Speaker 1: start to feel the quarks inside the other, because like overall,

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Speaker 1: on average, they're neutral. But if one of the quarks

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Speaker 1: is sort of like near the edge of the proton,

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Speaker 1: another one is near the edge, they will start to

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Speaker 1: feel each other. So if you get them close enough together,

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Speaker 1: that strong force attraction between the quarks inside the protons

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Speaker 1: will take over and they will snap together and make

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Speaker 1: a new nucleus.

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Speaker 3: And what gives you the energy when that happens is

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Speaker 3: it the snapping.

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Speaker 1: If you put your ear really close to fusion, you

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Speaker 1: can hear the snapping. It's amazing. It's just like pouring

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Speaker 1: milk onto rice crispies.

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Speaker 2: Oh what a pleasant experience.

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Speaker 1: No, that part was a joke. It's a really good

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Speaker 1: question where does the energy come from? And it's confusing

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Speaker 1: because we have two forms of nuclear energy. We have fission,

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Speaker 1: where you take really heavy elements and you break them

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Speaker 1: up into lighter elements and you get energy. And then

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Speaker 1: we have fusion, where you take lighter elements like hydrogen

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Speaker 1: and you squeeze them together to make heavier elements and

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Speaker 1: you get energy. And you might think, hold lot a second,

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Speaker 1: isn't that cheating? How do you get energy in both directions?

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Speaker 1: Making heavier stuff gets your energy, making lighter stuff gets

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Speaker 1: your energy. Well, the answer is that those are very

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Speaker 1: different configurations because if you start with anything heavier than iron,

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Speaker 1: then making it lighter you get energy. If you start

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Speaker 1: with anything lighter than iron, making it heavier, you get energy.

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Speaker 1: If you take two uranium atoms, for example, and squeeze

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Speaker 1: them together to something crazy super uranium, you don't get energy.

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Speaker 1: And if you take two helium atoms and you break

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Speaker 1: them apart, you don't get energy. So fusing light stuff

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Speaker 1: together or breaking heavy stuff you get energy. And where

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Speaker 1: does that energy come from? Well, in the case of fission,

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Speaker 1: it comes from internal energy stored in the nucleus. It

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Speaker 1: was like a spring that was compressed and it was

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Speaker 1: bound up and you released it and the energy is released.

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Speaker 1: In the case of the lighter stuff, it's a little

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Speaker 1: bit more complicated. Basically, it was the energy of those

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Speaker 1: hydrogen atoms and you could think of them as like

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Speaker 1: flying around in space really really fast, and now they're stuck.

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Speaker 1: They stuck together, and that where does the energy of

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Speaker 1: their motion go. It gets kicked off as photons and

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Speaker 1: other kinds of stuff. So they've sort of fallen into

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Speaker 1: a lower energy state, a bound state together, and they've

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Speaker 1: given up that energy when they do it. But that's

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Speaker 1: very handwavy. The truth is, like it's really complicated in

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Speaker 1: nuclear physics that we don't one hundred percent understand.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so the lighter stuff is what you use for fusion.

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Speaker 3: It must be harder to join things together than break

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Speaker 3: things apart, because we already use fission in nuclear power plants.

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Speaker 1: And because you're a parent and you know that, like

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Speaker 1: breaking a glass is much much easier than putting it

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Speaker 1: back together.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so much easier, So much easier, or a.

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Speaker 1: Lego tower or something, Yes, exactly, it's pretty easy to

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Speaker 1: have fusion happen. You just like have a nucleus, it

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Speaker 1: wants to break apart. Like uranium is pretty unstable, you

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Speaker 1: knock it with a neutron, it's just going to fall apart.

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Speaker 1: It's not that complicated, but getting fusion to happen is

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Speaker 1: hard because these protons will repel each other. Think of

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Speaker 1: it like mini golf and you're trying to get the

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Speaker 1: golf ball into the top of a volcano. If you

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Speaker 1: get it right on the very middle, it's going to

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Speaker 1: go to the top of volcano into the hole. But

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Speaker 1: if you miss at all, it's just going to slide

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Speaker 1: right back down the side. So to get these protons together,

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Speaker 1: you have to have like the perfect shot, the right speed,

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Speaker 1: the right direction. It's very unlikely for this to happen,

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Speaker 1: even in like the Sun. Mostly protons avoid each other,

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Speaker 1: even in the crazy high temperature, high density conditions of

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Speaker 1: the Sun. The reason the Sun lasts so long is

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Speaker 1: that fusion is very hard to do, and most of

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Speaker 1: the Sun is not fusing.

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Speaker 3: When we think about doing fusion on Earth, we're using hydrogen.

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Speaker 3: As you said, why hydrogen and not carbon? Is it

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Speaker 3: even harder to smooth together carbons because it's low enough

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Speaker 3: in that like break them apart to get energy. Divide

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Speaker 3: that you mentioned. So why hydrogen and not like carbon?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, great question. Well, yeah, you get more energy from

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Speaker 1: fusing hydrogen together than helium. You get less and less

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Speaker 1: energy as you go up, and when you get to

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Speaker 1: iron you get no energy and then it turns over

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Speaker 1: and it costs energy to fuse them. So hydrogen fusion

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Speaker 1: give you the most energy, and hydrogen is the easiest

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Speaker 1: to combine and also requires lower temperatures. That's really the key. Like,

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Speaker 1: to fuse helium together, you have to be even hotter

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Speaker 1: than fusing hydrogen, and to fuse carbon together, you got

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Speaker 1: to be even hotter. And fuse neon together, you got

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Speaker 1: to be even hotter. That's why out there in the universe,

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Speaker 1: some stars are big enough to make iron, but most

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Speaker 1: of them aren't. Most of them will die out after

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Speaker 1: the make helium or carbon and they never get hot

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Speaker 1: enough to fuse that carbon together. It just stays there

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Speaker 1: inert until the star dies. So the key is temperature.

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Speaker 1: If you can get super duper hot and super duper dense,

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Speaker 1: yeah you can fuse and make iron, but that's like

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Speaker 1: elite stars, only some of those can make that. So

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Speaker 1: here on Earth, where we're like doing a little baby fusion.

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Speaker 1: We start with the first easiest steps, Like we have

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Speaker 1: made fusion work here on Earth. We have fusion bombs.

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Speaker 1: It's not great, it's how wonderful that we can do it.

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Speaker 1: But fusion bombs start with a fission reaction, so it's

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Speaker 1: like a classic atomic bomb, which then creates the necessary

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Speaker 1: conditions for fusion and you get a massive release of energy.

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Speaker 1: So a hydrogen bomb, for example, is a fusion bomb.

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Speaker 1: So we know the physics, we know we can make

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Speaker 1: it happen. The challenge is creating the conditions to make

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Speaker 1: it happen long term, so you can keep pouring fuel

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Speaker 1: in and keep getting energy out. And to do that

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Speaker 1: you really have to get things hot or dense, or

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Speaker 1: do it all really really quickly before it disperses.

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Speaker 2: That sounds hard.

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Speaker 3: I'm feeling like, if you to kick off this reaction,

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Speaker 3: you need a fission bomb that doesn't bode super well

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Speaker 3: for ability to contain it and use it to like

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Speaker 3: power toasters. And so before we jump into how do

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Speaker 3: you contain those conditions so that you can make power

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Speaker 3: and send it out onto the grid, We're going to

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Speaker 3: take a quick break, all.

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Speaker 2: Right, We're back.

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Speaker 3: So we've discussed how hydrogen bombs use fission to create

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Speaker 3: the kind of conditions that you need for fusion to happen.

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Speaker 3: But since we don't want to be setting off nuclear

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Speaker 3: bombs and neighborhoods, how are we trying to create the

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Speaker 3: conditions for fusion in a and friendlier ways.

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Speaker 1: So, if you want fusion to happen, the critical things

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Speaker 1: are temperature, density, and time. Like if you can make

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Speaker 1: your protons really really hot, meaning they're going really really

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Speaker 1: fast and they're more likely to overcome this electromagnetic repulsion

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Speaker 1: and fuse together, to get close enough to fuse together.

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Speaker 1: Another trick is density, because the more protons you have

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Speaker 1: jammed in there, the more they can't avoid each other

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Speaker 1: and will eventually fuse. And then there's time. The longer

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Speaker 1: you can maintain this hot, dense soup of protons, the

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Speaker 1: more likely you are to get fusion going. And so

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Speaker 1: basically we try all these different strategies. Like out in

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Speaker 1: the universe, the stars use gravity. They're like, Okay, if

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Speaker 1: we just get enough hydrogen together, it'll have enough mass.

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Speaker 1: That is, the gravity is going to do the job

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Speaker 1: for us, and it's going to make things hot it's

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Speaker 1: going to make things dense, and it's going to trap

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Speaker 1: it there forever. So starts sort of have it easy

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Speaker 1: because they went big, and here on Earth we can't

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Speaker 1: go that big. We can't just use gravity. So one

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Speaker 1: classic strategy is to use magnets instead of using gravity

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Speaker 1: to create the conditions where all the hydrogen gets squeezed together.

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Speaker 1: What if we use magnets because magnets can bend the

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Speaker 1: path of charged particles, Like that's basically what a magnetic

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Speaker 1: field is. You have an electron flying through space, you

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Speaker 1: put a magnet near it, it will bend the path

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Speaker 1: of the electron. So now imagine you have a plasma

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Speaker 1: which is basically just charged particles. You take hydrogen, heat

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Speaker 1: it up, so the protons electrons are now flying free.

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Speaker 1: It's a gas that has electric charge, and that means

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Speaker 1: that you could use a magnetic bottle to contain it.

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Speaker 1: So the classic strategy is basically a donut. Get the

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Speaker 1: plasma moving in a doughnut and use magnets to keep

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Speaker 1: bending it. It's like a racetrack and just zooms around

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Speaker 1: and around and around. You have this hot, flaming plasma

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Speaker 1: contained in a magnetic bottle and nothing has to touch it, right,

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Speaker 1: You don't need something which can withstand three thousand calvin.

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Speaker 1: So magnetized fusion is like heat it and then try

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Speaker 1: to contain it in a bottle and keep it there

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Speaker 1: long enough that you get some fusion going.

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Speaker 3: And so my brain has lost track of the names

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Speaker 3: of some of the projects, but I think there's the

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Speaker 3: biggest international project. Is this delicious doughnut shape doing the

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Speaker 3: magnetized confinement fusion, right, And that's EATER, I think. And

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Speaker 3: what does that acronym stand for.

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Speaker 1: What is EATER stand for? It stands for International Thermonuclear

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Speaker 1: Energy Reactor. No, I just made that up.

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Speaker 3: Well, I was convinced you said it with the right

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Speaker 3: level of confidence, and I was in.

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Speaker 1: No, EATER actually stands for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, so

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Speaker 1: I was pretty close. But you're right. The EATER is

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Speaker 1: sort of the big Mama version of the classic strategy,

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Speaker 1: which we call a tokomac. And the Russians were leaders

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Speaker 1: in this for many years, and so a lot of

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Speaker 1: the words in this field come from Russian, so I

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Speaker 1: don't actually understand the origin of the word tokmac. But

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Speaker 1: it's basically a magnetic donut and as you said, magnetically

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Speaker 1: confined fusion. And the challenge is keeping it there and

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Speaker 1: keeping it hot. Because plasmas are crazy. It's really hard

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Speaker 1: to keep them stable. And as people watch them, they're

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Speaker 1: all sorts of like fluid dynamics that's going on. So

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Speaker 1: you have like electromagnetism with all these charges, and you

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Speaker 1: have all the issues of like liquids and keeping things

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Speaker 1: flowing without creating vortices and turbulence, and it's very unstable.

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Speaker 1: Once you get like something spinning in a little vortex forming,

436
00:21:30,840 --> 00:21:33,200
Speaker 1: you have electric charges in the mix, and then the

437
00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:35,960
Speaker 1: whole thing just spins out of control and collapses. So

438
00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:38,439
Speaker 1: mostly the last few decades have been spent trying to

439
00:21:38,760 --> 00:21:41,800
Speaker 1: keep these plasmas calm, get them hot, get them spinning,

440
00:21:42,240 --> 00:21:44,960
Speaker 1: keep them going for long enough that you can put

441
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:47,840
Speaker 1: fuel in there. It will fuse, and then the energy

442
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:50,840
Speaker 1: from that fusion will keep the plasma hot. So this

443
00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:53,360
Speaker 1: is called ignition. It's like when you're trying to start

444
00:21:53,359 --> 00:21:55,360
Speaker 1: a fire, right, It's first it's really hard to get

445
00:21:55,359 --> 00:21:57,800
Speaker 1: that log going. Once you've got a hot logo, you

446
00:21:57,840 --> 00:21:59,840
Speaker 1: can throw anything in there and it's just going to

447
00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:04,000
Speaker 1: baby burn. Right. So the trick is getting this plasma

448
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:05,680
Speaker 1: hot enough that it sustains itself.

449
00:22:05,920 --> 00:22:08,719
Speaker 3: I am really bad at starting fires. Another reason it

450
00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:11,000
Speaker 3: not be stuck with me in the apocalypse. Okay, so,

451
00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:15,240
Speaker 3: if I'm remembering my fusion stuff correctly, what you want

452
00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:18,800
Speaker 3: is to pass break even. And break even is the

453
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:21,239
Speaker 3: point where the energy that you put in to get

454
00:22:21,280 --> 00:22:25,119
Speaker 3: this really complicated system going matches the energy that the

455
00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:28,960
Speaker 3: system outputs. And ideally then you get way past that

456
00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:32,359
Speaker 3: because now you can start powering new things. Has any

457
00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:35,160
Speaker 3: tokamac hit break even?

458
00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:38,720
Speaker 1: It depends on exactly how you do the accounting from

459
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:42,200
Speaker 1: a commercial perspective. No, if you account like how much

460
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 1: it costs to run the whole thing, including like the

461
00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:48,960
Speaker 1: facility and the electronics and everything, then nobody has hit

462
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:53,600
Speaker 1: break even. If you're really creative with your accounting where

463
00:22:53,600 --> 00:22:55,480
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm only going to account the actual energy

464
00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:58,159
Speaker 1: I spent that went into the plasma or something, then

465
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:01,920
Speaker 1: there are some places that have achieved break even briefly, right,

466
00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:04,080
Speaker 1: So briefly is the key there, Like they have put

467
00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:06,560
Speaker 1: in fuel and it has fused and it has released energy.

468
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:09,159
Speaker 1: They have not captured that energy. Like, it's not like

469
00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:12,000
Speaker 1: they turn that into electricity. That's a whole other issue

470
00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:13,480
Speaker 1: for like, what do you do with his energy? How

471
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:16,160
Speaker 1: do you capture it and efficiently turn it into electricity. Nobody's

472
00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:19,840
Speaker 1: done that even but we have achieved fusion with tokeomacs,

473
00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:23,560
Speaker 1: and the idea is that this eater, this huge reactor,

474
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:25,560
Speaker 1: is going to scale it up and solve all these

475
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:29,240
Speaker 1: problems because these tokemacs actually get better as they get bigger,

476
00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:31,840
Speaker 1: because their volume grows more quickly than your surface area.

477
00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 1: It's the reason that like an elephant has to cool

478
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:37,000
Speaker 1: itself with its big ears, is because there's so much

479
00:23:37,040 --> 00:23:40,000
Speaker 1: meat inside and so much less surface area that it's

480
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:42,040
Speaker 1: hard to keep it cool. Well, that actually works in

481
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:44,800
Speaker 1: the benefit of plasmas. As they get bigger, they don't

482
00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:46,800
Speaker 1: cool down as easily, and so there's like a hot,

483
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:50,080
Speaker 1: dense core the center that stays fusing. So that's why Eater,

484
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:53,840
Speaker 1: which is like twelve meters high, this massive doughnut. All

485
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:56,080
Speaker 1: the projections are that it will hit break even and

486
00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:59,320
Speaker 1: actually generate power. Of course, it's taking like decades to

487
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:02,120
Speaker 1: build and zillions of dollars, so whether it's commercial it's

488
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:04,960
Speaker 1: another question, but it's sort of tried and true.

489
00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, that's what I was wondering.

490
00:24:06,320 --> 00:24:08,199
Speaker 3: If it's that expensive, is it really going to be

491
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 3: feasible to like PLoP one of these in you know,

492
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 3: every state to power stuff. But you know, I guess

493
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:15,200
Speaker 3: you get better at it and then you can get

494
00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:17,000
Speaker 3: economies of scale and stuff like that.

495
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:18,960
Speaker 1: But okay, you could just build them in space. Everything's

496
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 1: easier in space, right Kelly.

497
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:21,960
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, yeah great.

498
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:24,760
Speaker 3: Where is the We need to find an angel investor

499
00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:26,720
Speaker 3: for you, because you, I think are onto something.

500
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:30,240
Speaker 1: Everybody should invest in my fusion AI crypto startup.

501
00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:32,480
Speaker 2: That's all the words. You've got this.

502
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 3: I get all the monies, right, well, I helped you

503
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:37,560
Speaker 3: think about it, so I get half the monies. Okay,

504
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:43,120
Speaker 3: so we've done. Okay, so magnetized fusion, this is clear.

505
00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:45,520
Speaker 3: The tokemacs are clearly the most delicious way to think

506
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:47,800
Speaker 3: about fusion. But maybe the most epic way to think

507
00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:51,440
Speaker 3: about fusion is the laser version. And so how does

508
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:52,520
Speaker 3: the laser version work?

509
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 1: The laser version says, let's give up on keeping the

510
00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 1: fusion going for a long time. Instead, let's go for

511
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: super high density like this, have really brief fusion, but

512
00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:05,879
Speaker 1: make it really good because we have high density because

513
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 1: fusion happens more rapidly at higher densities, Like as you

514
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 1: squeeze those stars together and the cores get hot, you

515
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: get more fusion faster. This is why like big stars

516
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:18,560
Speaker 1: burn out faster in the universe than slow stars. They

517
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:21,280
Speaker 1: have more fuel, but they burn hotter. The fusion happens

518
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:24,359
Speaker 1: more rapidly. They burn out in a few brilliant million years,

519
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:27,639
Speaker 1: whereas small stars can burn for like billions or trillions

520
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:30,760
Speaker 1: of years. The idea of laser fusion, sometimes called inertial

521
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:34,440
Speaker 1: confinement fusion, is you just take a pellet of fuel

522
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:37,480
Speaker 1: and you zap it with intense lasers, like one hundred

523
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 1: and ninety six lasers from all directions. It's like super

524
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 1: futuristic and awesome looking. And if you zap it from

525
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 1: all sides simultaneously, basically the outer layer explodes, which compresses

526
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:50,199
Speaker 1: the whole pellet, and then you get the density you

527
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: need for fusion. So you have this shockwave. It's like

528
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:56,440
Speaker 1: a mini supernova. The shockwave travels inwards at like three

529
00:25:56,520 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty kilometers per second. We're talking these tiny

530
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,399
Speaker 1: little pellets in this super fast shockwave, and this fuel

531
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 1: goes from like the density of water, you know, one

532
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:09,720
Speaker 1: gram per middle liter, to one hundred times the density

533
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:11,960
Speaker 1: of lead, and that's where the fusion happens.

534
00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:15,119
Speaker 3: That this method works at all kind of blows my

535
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:18,359
Speaker 3: mind because anything that requires like incredible amounts of coordination.

536
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 3: Like I think about my family and there's just four

537
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:22,159
Speaker 3: of us, and I'll be like, we all need to

538
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,959
Speaker 3: meet at the same place in fifteen minutes, and nobody's

539
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:27,719
Speaker 3: there at the right time. But somehow you're getting like

540
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,199
Speaker 3: all of these lasers to sort of time up and

541
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 3: shoot the same exact tiny spot at the It's kind

542
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:35,880
Speaker 3: of amazing to me that the coordination problem here has

543
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:38,119
Speaker 3: been solved or is working on being solved.

544
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:41,120
Speaker 1: Well, it turns out electronics are more reliable than children.

545
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:43,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess that's not surprising.

546
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, But the whole thing happens in like ten to

547
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:50,200
Speaker 1: thirty nanosecond time period. It's super fast, and the reason

548
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 1: it works is like you're squeezing the fuel by huge factor,

549
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: so you're not containing it for very long because now

550
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 1: it's super tiny, but the density goes up much more

551
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 1: quickly than you're losing seeing the time, and the fusion

552
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 1: goes up with the density. It's another one of these

553
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 1: dimensional arguments, like if you squeeze things down by a

554
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:09,159
Speaker 1: factor of ten, it lasts for ten times less long.

555
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:12,359
Speaker 1: But the density goes up by a factor of ten cubed,

556
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 1: as does the fusion. So higher density also means the

557
00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 1: heat is not lost, like the alpha particles that you're

558
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,520
Speaker 1: creating in this fusion don't escape. And so the calculation

559
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:24,680
Speaker 1: suggests this should actually work. And in the last few

560
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 1: years they made huge progress and the National Ignition Facility,

561
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,119
Speaker 1: Lawrence Livermore National Lab, actually made this work and like,

562
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:33,200
Speaker 1: got fusion happen from these little pellets?

563
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 2: Whoo? And so do you blast the pellets with the lasers?

564
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,119
Speaker 3: And then how so we were talking about how you

565
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 3: want this reaction to keep going and take more time

566
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:44,959
Speaker 3: so that you're getting more energy out of it. Do

567
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 3: you just keep blasting pellets over and over and over

568
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 3: and over again or do you blast once and that

569
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:50,440
Speaker 3: gets something going?

570
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 2: And then you contain that yes.

571
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 1: So basically each pellet is a one shot operation. And

572
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 1: if this ever were to work, you zap the pellet,

573
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:01,199
Speaker 1: you get the fusion, replace it with new pellet, zappit

574
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 1: get fusion. This approach is giving up on time, right,

575
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 1: the magnetic confinement is saying, let's try to keep this

576
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 1: going as long as possible so it builds on itself.

577
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 1: Here they've given up on that, and they're like, let's

578
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 1: just have a rapid series of fusion, each one independen,

579
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:17,160
Speaker 1: so don't benefit from the previous one. You start from

580
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 1: scratch with a new pellet every time. But it means

581
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 1: you have to have these pellets and you have to

582
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:25,879
Speaker 1: prepare them. They're these like tiny little fragile dots of

583
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: special hydrogen and they're not cheap to make.

584
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:32,159
Speaker 3: All right, So some economic problems that also need to

585
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 3: be solved. But is that the two ways to do

586
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:35,440
Speaker 3: it or is there a third way?

587
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:39,240
Speaker 1: Those are the two main ways, magnetic confinement or inertial confinement,

588
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 1: basically like magnets or lasers. These days, there's lots of

589
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 1: clever ideas out there in the business world, and you

590
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 1: start to see startups coming up with their own idea

591
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 1: for fusion. They're like, these big government funded ideas are

592
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: too slow and too conservative. I have my billion dollar

593
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 1: fusion idea. And so there are some companies out there

594
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: that have private funding that are working on variations of this.

595
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 1: Like there's a company called Commonwealth Fusion, and their idea is,

596
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:06,480
Speaker 1: you don't need to make your magnetic confinement so big,

597
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: you just make the magnets more powerful. So they're using

598
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,800
Speaker 1: like super conducting magnets to make like a smaller version

599
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: of eater that they think also is going to work.

600
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: And those are serious scientists, Like these guys know what

601
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 1: they're doing. They publish academic papers, they have real money.

602
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 1: This could really work. And then there are other crazier ideas.

603
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:27,280
Speaker 1: There's one here in southern California called tri Alpha Energy

604
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: where they have a plasma which is contained magnetically and

605
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: then they shoot a particle beam into it because they

606
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: think they can make this like special resonance coil happen

607
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: where it like spins in a certain way that makes

608
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 1: magnetic fields that help stabilize it instead of destabilizing it.

609
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: The basic idea for that whole company was created by

610
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: a professor here at UC Irvine a few decades ago,

611
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:48,400
Speaker 1: and so a lot of people believe that that could

612
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: really work. Then there's the one Sam Altman is funding

613
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 1: Helion Energy, and they're using some combination of these two

614
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 1: ideas lasers and magnets simultaneously. But the bottom line is

615
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 1: that all these differ and approaches all use the same fuel.

616
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:04,960
Speaker 1: It's all hydrogen, and it's all the special version of

617
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: hydrogen that you need. In every case. The challenge is

618
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 1: getting the high temperature, maintaining the high temperature, or creating

619
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 1: that high density to make fusion happen. But it turns

620
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: out that doing fusion with pure hydrogen, like the kind

621
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:18,480
Speaker 1: that most of the universe is made out of, is

622
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 1: actually much much harder than doing it with special fancy hydrogen.

623
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 3: Tell me about this special fancy hydrogen. Am I going

624
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 3: to like try to capture it in a locket?

625
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 2: Is it that kind of fancy? What does it look like?

626
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, give it to your partner on their birthday. So

627
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: we heard at the top a lot of people thought, well,

628
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 1: fusion is great because the inputs are hydrogen, and hydrogen

629
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:39,440
Speaker 1: is everywhere, and it's true that most of the universe

630
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 1: is hydrogen. Like way back in the beginning of the universe,

631
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 1: things were still cooling down. You had protons and electrons

632
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:48,440
Speaker 1: flying around mostly that just cooled into hydrogen. Very briefly,

633
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 1: there were the conditions to make heavier elements a little

634
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 1: bit of helium was made, but mostly from the beginning

635
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 1: of the universe was hydrogen. And stars have come along

636
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 1: and fused a bunch of stuff to make heavier stuff,

637
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:00,959
Speaker 1: so that it's me and you and lava and kittens

638
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:03,520
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. And we have iron now, but

639
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:05,840
Speaker 1: that's still a tiny fraction of the universe. Most of

640
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 1: the universe is still hydrogen. So this seems great. We

641
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 1: have a power source which requires a fuel, which is

642
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:14,160
Speaker 1: most of the universe. How could it be any better? Right?

643
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: And often you hear fusion's fuel described as abundant, virtually inexhaustible,

644
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: and equally accessible to everyone. So this seems amazing, right,

645
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:25,720
Speaker 1: And we have like oceans of water water has filled

646
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 1: with hydrogen. So in principle this sounds great, but as

647
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: always with science and with commercializing science, the details are

648
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 1: important because it turns out that fusion is hard to

649
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:40,760
Speaker 1: do with sort of vanilla hydrogen. You have this two protons,

650
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 1: you us squeeze them together. You can do it, but

651
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:45,640
Speaker 1: it's gotta be really hot or really dense. It turns

652
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: out it's a lot easier to make it happen if

653
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 1: one of those protons has a neutron friend along. For

654
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: the ride. So if you have hydrogen, but you add

655
00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 1: a neutron to the nucleus, so now the nucleus is

656
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: like a proton and a neutron. It's still hydrogen, right,

657
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 1: It's still just one proton, but now it has a

658
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:04,240
Speaker 1: neutron friend, and that makes it a lot easier to

659
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: squish together with another proton because the neutron helps mediate it.

660
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 1: Neutrons make nuclei more stable. They're neutral. They don't play

661
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: a role electromagnetically, but for the same reason, like they

662
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: have quarks inside of them, and those quarks have the

663
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 1: strong force that neutrons help things happen. And so it

664
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 1: turns out that using deuterium, which is what we call hydrogen,

665
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 1: with an extra neutron, makes fusion a lot easier. It

666
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 1: can happen at lower densities, it can happen at lower temperatures.

667
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 3: So how many hydrogen protons have neutron friends? How often

668
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 3: does that happen? I hope they're not lonely that often.

669
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 1: So not very often. It turns out that out there

670
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 1: in the universe, one in about sixty five hundred hydrogen

671
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:49,240
Speaker 1: atoms has the neutron friends. So deuterium is not very common,

672
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:51,959
Speaker 1: but deuterium is actually not even the best source. What

673
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 1: we really want for fuel for fusion is something called tritium.

674
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:58,880
Speaker 1: So deuterium we call deuterium, has that prefix in it

675
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 1: from Latin, which tells so there are two particles in

676
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 1: the nucleus, the proton and the neutron. Tritium is if

677
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 1: you have a proton with two neutron friends, that's tritium

678
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: and tritium. Deuterium fusion together is like the best. If

679
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:15,200
Speaker 1: you have deuterium and tritium, you got like two protons

680
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: three neutrons to help out. This thing is the easiest

681
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:20,160
Speaker 1: to make happen. So a lot of the fusion that

682
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 1: we've succeeded to do here on Earth, what we talked

683
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: about for the ignition facility, those pellets have deuterium and

684
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 1: tritium in them, and the tokamax also use deterium and

685
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 1: tritium for fuel. So even to make it work here

686
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 1: on Earth, we've relied on doing it the easy way,

687
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: which means using these rare special kinds of hydrogen.

688
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:45,400
Speaker 3: So why wouldn't tritium and tritium be even easier than

689
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 3: deuterium and tritium.

690
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:49,840
Speaker 1: Tritium tritium, you can make that work also, I think

691
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 1: deuterium and tritium work better. This is complicated stuff like

692
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 1: getting the neutrons to play along and how that all happens.

693
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of complicated strong force interactions

694
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: that we still don't understand. We still don't really understand

695
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:04,320
Speaker 1: what makes a nucleus stable. This is a really cool

696
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: theory about the shell model, about how these things slide

697
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 1: into each other, sort of like electrons. How you want

698
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:12,720
Speaker 1: to fill orbitals and make them complete to make something inert,

699
00:34:13,200 --> 00:34:14,960
Speaker 1: and in the same way you want like the same

700
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 1: number of protons and neutrons they like complete shells. Anyway,

701
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:21,279
Speaker 1: the short answer is it's very complicated. But there's one

702
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: other fuel we can use to make fusion easier than

703
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 1: like vanilla hydrogen, and that's actually a form of helium

704
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:30,759
Speaker 1: called helium three. Helium is two protons, but it's actually

705
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:33,239
Speaker 1: not even stable that way. Like you have just two protons,

706
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:35,839
Speaker 1: they will not stay together. You need neutrons to hold

707
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 1: that guy together. So if you add a neutron, you

708
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 1: can have something called helium three. So it's two protons

709
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 1: and a neutron, and this is a lot of the

710
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 1: fusion that happens in the sun. For example, helium three

711
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 1: fusion produces helium four and hydrogen, and it's actually great

712
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 1: for fusion because it's low temperature, it produces a lot

713
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 1: of energy. It doesn't produce dangerous neutrons which can fly

714
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 1: through everything and kill people, and so helium three fusion

715
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:01,640
Speaker 1: is fantastic. So the bottom line is vanilla hydrogen hard

716
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 1: to fuse with. You need really high temperatures and pressures.

717
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:07,759
Speaker 1: Heavy hydrogen or helium three are the best. That's what

718
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:09,240
Speaker 1: we really need to do fusion.

719
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:15,120
Speaker 3: So two different questions. First, you talked about the neutrons

720
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:18,359
Speaker 3: shooting out and killing people. This whole process still has

721
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 3: less like radioactive waste and danger than fission, right, but

722
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 3: with hydrogen you still have some rogue stuff you gotta

723
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 3: worry about.

724
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: Well, you don't have the byproducts in the same way.

725
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: Like when you start from big messy radioactive nuclear like

726
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,880
Speaker 1: uranium or plutonium, they're going to break down into big, messy,

727
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:40,000
Speaker 1: poisonous stuff. And that's the problem with fission fusion. You

728
00:35:40,040 --> 00:35:43,240
Speaker 1: start with hydrogen, which is basically innocuous, and you make helium,

729
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 1: which like ya makes you talk like a squirrel, so

730
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 1: there's no like dangerous byproducts that way. But sometimes when

731
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:51,719
Speaker 1: the energy comes out, it doesn't come out in the

732
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 1: form of photons like light that you can just gather,

733
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:56,719
Speaker 1: comes out in the form of really high speed neutrons

734
00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:59,800
Speaker 1: that are ejected in these processes, and neutrons are bad,

735
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 1: like if you heard of a neutron bomb. Neutron bombs

736
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 1: kill people, and they do it without destroying a lot

737
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 1: of the buildings. It's really terrifying because neutrons don't have

738
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: a charge, so they can fly through a lot of material,

739
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:14,399
Speaker 1: but if they fly through your body, they like tear

740
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:18,480
Speaker 1: your delicate biological machinery to shreds, and so neutron bombs

741
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:21,360
Speaker 1: really insidious, which means if you're going to like capture

742
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:23,600
Speaker 1: the energy from some of these reactions, you need a

743
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:26,719
Speaker 1: way to like capture these neutrons and slow them down

744
00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 1: and extract their energy. But they're also going to end

745
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:34,759
Speaker 1: up irradiating your facility, so you will produce irradiated materials,

746
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 1: like your fusion reactor will become irradiated. It's not as

747
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: bad as what fission makes, and some people argue, hey,

748
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 1: even fission isn't that bad, but it's not true that

749
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:45,840
Speaker 1: fusion produces like no dangerous radiation.

750
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 3: At all, But would it produce no dangerous radiation at

751
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 3: all if you use helium three?

752
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:52,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are no neutrons that'll come out if you

753
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: just use helium three, So that's nice. It comes out

754
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 1: in terms of photons, and you can capture the energy

755
00:36:57,120 --> 00:36:59,400
Speaker 1: more easily. And I'll say that like, in almost none

756
00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:03,439
Speaker 1: of these fusion efforts have people really spent significant time

757
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:05,799
Speaker 1: figuring out how to capture this energy. It's mostly like

758
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 1: how to make the energy, how to like actually turn

759
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: that energy into electricity and factoring and that inefficiency and

760
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: the difficulty is not even like really begun. People are

761
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:17,799
Speaker 1: just still working on step one, which is like get

762
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:20,440
Speaker 1: fusion happen, And they were like, oh, we'll figure that out.

763
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:22,680
Speaker 1: That's an engineering problem, but like the whole thing is

764
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 1: an engineering problem.

765
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:27,239
Speaker 2: It's engineering problem stacked on top of each other.

766
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 1: Really exactly.

767
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:30,439
Speaker 3: Let's take a break and then we're going to talk

768
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 3: a little bit about how and where we find these

769
00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:52,959
Speaker 3: things on Earth. Okay, we're back, and first I actually

770
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 3: want to start with another helium three question for Daniel,

771
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:58,520
Speaker 3: because I'm kind of obsessed with helium three. So my

772
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:01,279
Speaker 3: question is, I think you mentioned that most of the

773
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:06,840
Speaker 3: reactors that are running today are using like deuterium and tritium.

774
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 3: If that creates some radioactive waste and doesn't work as

775
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:13,200
Speaker 3: well as helium three, why aren't we using more helium

776
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 3: three in reactors right now?

777
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, great question. Well, the answer is that helium three

778
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:19,440
Speaker 1: is rare. You know, we don't have a lot of it,

779
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: as we'll talk about it in a minute. I'm sure

780
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 1: like there's some on the Moon, but there's really not

781
00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 1: a whole lot here on Earth, and so it's easier

782
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:28,800
Speaker 1: to find tritium and deterium. And this is a lesson

783
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 1: that like the easier the source of fuel, the more

784
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: likely you are to use in your research and define

785
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 1: practical solutions. And so there's a whole chain here that's

786
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 1: required to make fusion actually change the way our lives work.

787
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:42,320
Speaker 1: And there's a step in the middle there, like assuming

788
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 1: you have all the fuel and a way to capture

789
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 1: the energy, get fusion to work, and that's like where

790
00:38:46,239 --> 00:38:48,160
Speaker 1: the physics is. So people have focused on that, but

791
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:49,839
Speaker 1: you got to make the whole chain work, and there've

792
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:52,359
Speaker 1: been discussions about like how to do step two, which

793
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:54,440
Speaker 1: is like a have to give fusion work, capture the energy,

794
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 1: but not enough. I think about step zero, which is

795
00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:00,760
Speaker 1: like have the fuel on hand to actually get this going.

796
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 1: And so you need sources of deterium and tritium and

797
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:06,240
Speaker 1: helium three to make this practical.

798
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:07,960
Speaker 2: So where do we get those now?

799
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 1: So deterium we find in seawater, because water is like

800
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:14,880
Speaker 1: one in sixty five hundred atoms zero point zero one

801
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 1: five percent is just naturally deterium. It was like made

802
00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:20,799
Speaker 1: in the early universe, you know, when these protons were

803
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 1: cooling and sometimes they came together and one became a neutron.

804
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 1: This beta decay and inverse beta decay and all this stuff.

805
00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 1: And so some like fraction of hydrogen is just heavy

806
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 1: hydrogen which makes heavy water, and so we can filter

807
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: it out. And India is actually the leading producer of

808
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 1: this stuff. You start with water and you isolate it,

809
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 1: use all sorts of like chemistry tricks because deterium is heavier, right,

810
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:46,480
Speaker 1: and so centrifuges and all sorts of other stuff centrifuges

811
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 1: and complicated distillers, et cetera. But you got to filter

812
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 1: it out of seawater and so it's not like you

813
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:53,880
Speaker 1: can just scoop up water or gather hydrogen and you

814
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:56,920
Speaker 1: have fuel. Your fuel is like one sixty five hundredth

815
00:39:56,960 --> 00:40:00,920
Speaker 1: part of the hydrogen that you've gathered. So that's not easy.

816
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:02,919
Speaker 1: It's like a whole production chain that you need.

817
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 3: So if we could make that process easier. There's loads

818
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:12,919
Speaker 3: of seawater, so there'd probably be enough deuterium to run

819
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:17,600
Speaker 3: fusion for generations, presumably, Is that fair to mm hmm.

820
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:20,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, deterium is probably solvable. There's lots of sea water

821
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 1: and so there's lots of heavy water out there. It's

822
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: just not as accessible as people think. And it's going

823
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:26,840
Speaker 1: to cost energy, you know, so you're gonna have to

824
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:29,320
Speaker 1: factor this in. It's gonna be a huge cost upfront.

825
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:32,640
Speaker 1: You're gonna sink energy in to get your fuel out.

826
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 1: It's not as easy as like I can scoop up

827
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: hydrogen and I'm there. And also deterium is not enough,

828
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 1: Like if you just ran these reactors on deterium, we

829
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:43,719
Speaker 1: couldn't make that work. You really need the tritium to

830
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: make these reactions happen, and tritium much more complicated than deterium. Unfortunately.

831
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:51,360
Speaker 2: All Right, tell us about that, how much more complicated?

832
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:54,600
Speaker 1: Well, the problem is deterium is naturally stable like hydrogen,

833
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:56,840
Speaker 1: as a proton and neutron, it'll hang out forever. A

834
00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: lot of that is billions of years old, but tritium

835
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 1: is not a proton and two neutrons in there. That

836
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:04,680
Speaker 1: falls apart. The half life is only like twelve and

837
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 1: a half years. So even if the universe made a

838
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 1: bunch of tritium, it's like all gone now naturally, And

839
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 1: if you make it, you can't like store it for

840
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 1: a long time. It's just like your bottle of tritium

841
00:41:14,640 --> 00:41:18,400
Speaker 1: just turns into deterium naturally, and so on. Earth is

842
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,840
Speaker 1: like a very tiny amount in the atmosphere made constantly

843
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:25,640
Speaker 1: by cosmic rays. Particles from space common hit a piece

844
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:28,360
Speaker 1: of the atmosphere, and sometimes tritium is made just like

845
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: by chance, one of a thousand things that can happen.

846
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 1: But mostly we get tritium by manufacturing it here on

847
00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: Earth by shooting neutrons at lithium.

848
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:42,360
Speaker 3: Okay, so that sounds like we're talking about typical nuclear

849
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:46,360
Speaker 3: fission reactors, right, So this is a byproduct of that.

850
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 1: Neutrons are a byproduct of fission. And they are byproduct diffusion.

851
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:52,719
Speaker 1: So this is actually a little bit promising because you

852
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 1: can imagine like a fusion reactor that pumps out neutrons.

853
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:59,800
Speaker 1: Then you surround that with a lithium blanket, and the

854
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:02,799
Speaker 1: lithium blanket absorbs the neutrons and makes tritium for you.

855
00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 1: So this's called a breeder reactor, where the reactor itself

856
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 1: helps you make the fuel for the next round.

857
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:10,040
Speaker 2: What a creepy name for reactor?

858
00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:11,879
Speaker 1: A creepy name.

859
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:14,280
Speaker 2: It's kind of a creepy name anyway.

860
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 1: It sounds like a groomer reactor or something. Yeah, you're

861
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 1: gonna come back. There'd be like two reactors because they've

862
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 1: been breeding. No, they don't make more reactors. They just

863
00:42:24,640 --> 00:42:26,799
Speaker 1: make their own fuel, which is cool. So if you

864
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 1: have a special kind of lithium called lithium six and

865
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 1: you shoot it with neutrons, it will make tritium. That

866
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 1: sounds great because neutrons are a byproduct of fusion, and

867
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:38,840
Speaker 1: so if you put your lithium six near your fusion boom,

868
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:40,760
Speaker 1: you get your tritium, which you need for your fusion

869
00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 1: happy days. The problem is that you need lithium six,

870
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:47,319
Speaker 1: which is a special kind of lithium. Most of the

871
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: lithium out there is lithium seven, so lithium six is

872
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:52,240
Speaker 1: much more rare than lithium seven.

873
00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 3: You know, usually I'm the one who's like bumming people out,

874
00:42:55,719 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 3: but I'm I'm feeling a little bit stressed listening to Utah.

875
00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:00,799
Speaker 3: But we're gonna okay. So, but the point is, we

876
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:05,040
Speaker 3: haven't really tried this yet. Lithium six is hard to find,

877
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:07,319
Speaker 3: but it's out there, and maybe we could get good

878
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:07,800
Speaker 3: at this.

879
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 1: Maybe, although you're right that we haven't really tried this.

880
00:43:11,520 --> 00:43:13,799
Speaker 1: Like I asked a plasma physicist in my department, and

881
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:16,719
Speaker 1: he was pretty skeptical. He said, quote hid the list

882
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 1: of fusion reactor items that have worryingly low technical readiness

883
00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 1: levels is the lithium blanket. Can it really produce enough

884
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:27,320
Speaker 1: tritium without requiring too much surface area around the reactor.

885
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:30,440
Speaker 1: So like, in principle, we can do this shoot neutrons

886
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:32,719
Speaker 1: at lithium six, but like, can we actually make this

887
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 1: effective enough? And can we have enough lithium around the

888
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:39,120
Speaker 1: reactor to make enough fuel? It's like something nobody has

889
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:42,880
Speaker 1: figured out, and it's also complicated to get this lithium.

890
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:45,560
Speaker 1: For another reason, which is that lithium is in high

891
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:50,400
Speaker 1: demand by the electronic car industry. Everybody wants lithium for batteries,

892
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 1: and so most of the lithium in the world goes

893
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 1: towards batteries.

894
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:56,600
Speaker 2: They want lithium six, they.

895
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 1: Don't actually care, they want lithium seven or six, they

896
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 1: don't care, but they just gobble it all up anyway.

897
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 1: So if you wanted to imagine like a best case

898
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 1: scenario where fusion is providing like thirty percent of the

899
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 1: power to the human race, you might think, like how

900
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:14,360
Speaker 1: much lithium do you need. You'd need like ten thousand

901
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:17,840
Speaker 1: tons of lithium six, which would mean you'd need to

902
00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 1: like divert it from the current lithium stream, which is

903
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 1: very complicated and we're not good at that. And mostly

904
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 1: the folks who are selling lithium just want to sell

905
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 1: it to the electric battery folks and not like filter

906
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 1: out the lithium six. But you know, there's ideas here,

907
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:35,520
Speaker 1: like recycling the lithium or something, but you know it's

908
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:38,560
Speaker 1: you see how it's complicated and fragile. Like to do fusion,

909
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:41,759
Speaker 1: you need treatium. To make treatium, you need lithium lithium

910
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:44,440
Speaker 1: is not that easy to find and in high demand

911
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 1: by other folks. Bill Heidebrink told me, quote, there is

912
00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:52,080
Speaker 1: great concern about having enough treatium for deterium tretium fusion.

913
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 1: Like it's basically an unsolved problem. It's not unsolvea bowl,

914
00:44:56,600 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 1: Like potentially we can find solutions to this, but like

915
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 1: people haven't really gotten kracking on this. Been working on

916
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:04,399
Speaker 1: the physics part of it for a long time because

917
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 1: that's fun, but digging into the details of like actually

918
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 1: having a production pipeline for fuel for fusion to get

919
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:13,320
Speaker 1: enough of this going has not really been addressed.

920
00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 3: So how much harder is deuterium deuterium fusion? If the

921
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:22,400
Speaker 3: tritium appears to be the hardest part to solve.

922
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 1: It's possible. It just requires significantly higher temperatures, and so

923
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 1: it makes the whole problem harder. Like we've barely gotten

924
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:31,960
Speaker 1: this going with deuterium and tritium. And if we gave

925
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 1: up on tritium and said we're just going to do

926
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:36,399
Speaker 1: deuterium because you're right, there's more of it and it's

927
00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:38,560
Speaker 1: easier to access and we don't have this whole production

928
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: pipeline issue, it means that we have a much harder

929
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 1: problem to solve on the physics side, So we're like

930
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:47,560
Speaker 1: now more decades away from really getting that to work.

931
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 1: So it's about making the problem easier and deterium by itself,

932
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 1: it just requires much higher temperatures.

933
00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:58,399
Speaker 3: So tritium hard to get. Helium three. Now, let's move

934
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:02,320
Speaker 3: to helium three. So we're stuterium tritium reactors. We're focusing

935
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:05,840
Speaker 3: on helium three. You told us earlier that it is

936
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:09,839
Speaker 3: hard to get on Earth. It does exist on Earth, though,

937
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 3: is there any way we can make it on Earth

938
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 3: or do we need to find it naturally occurring?

939
00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:18,200
Speaker 1: So helium three like existed on Earth a long time ago,

940
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:20,799
Speaker 1: but most of it bubbled out into space, and we

941
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:22,799
Speaker 1: can make it on Earth. Actually, we know how to

942
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:30,799
Speaker 1: do that. You know, you need to make helium three tritium. Yeah,

943
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:33,399
Speaker 1: so if you had plenty of tridium, making helium three

944
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 1: would not be that hard. Fortunately, there's a huge supply

945
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:39,680
Speaker 1: of helium three right next door, and you know, every

946
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 1: problem is easier by going out into space. And so

947
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 1: it turns out that there is a significant amount of

948
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:48,320
Speaker 1: helium three on the Moon because it's been deposited in

949
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:51,400
Speaker 1: the upper layer by the solar wind, like stuff pumped

950
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:53,439
Speaker 1: out from the Sun. Helium three is made in the Sun,

951
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:55,839
Speaker 1: and the Sun is not just pumping out photons. It's

952
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 1: pumping out protons and electrons and sometimes helium three nuclei,

953
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:02,759
Speaker 1: and those are deflected from the Earth because of our

954
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:05,839
Speaker 1: magnetic field or absorbed in the atmosphere. But the Moon

955
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:07,960
Speaker 1: has neither of those, and so it just like gathers

956
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:10,440
Speaker 1: up helium three. So a lot of people who talk

957
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: about going to the moon and say, ooh, another benefit

958
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:15,200
Speaker 1: of going to the Moon is that it's really rich

959
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:18,280
Speaker 1: in this excellent fuel that we desperately need for fusion

960
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:20,920
Speaker 1: here on Earth. So tell us, Kelly, why is that

961
00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:22,720
Speaker 1: actually a terrible idea?

962
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:23,239
Speaker 5: All right?

963
00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:27,360
Speaker 3: Well, so first I'll say there's a space settlement advocate

964
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 3: named Robert Zubrin, and I think he and I disagree

965
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 3: on almost everything, but I think we feel the same

966
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:37,040
Speaker 3: way about helium three, which is to say, if we

967
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 3: get fusion reactors going, and you're already living on a

968
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 3: place like the Moon, then it's great that helium three

969
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:45,839
Speaker 3: is there and you can extract it and you can

970
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:48,600
Speaker 3: use it there, But is it going to be economically

971
00:47:48,680 --> 00:47:51,439
Speaker 3: viable to collect it on the Moon and bring it.

972
00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:54,359
Speaker 2: Back to Earth. All Right, this is going to be tough.

973
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:56,400
Speaker 3: So all right, first of all, the equipment that you

974
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:59,440
Speaker 3: would need to launch is going to be incredibly heavy,

975
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 3: so it's going to be really expensive to get it there.

976
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 1: This is equipment to like take regolith and extract the

977
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 1: helium three out of it, which you're saying is not trivial.

978
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 1: You're not just like finding cannisters of helium three in

979
00:48:08,960 --> 00:48:09,279
Speaker 1: the moon.

980
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's not like helium three ingots that you can

981
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 3: like go and collect and it's in the regolith, but

982
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 3: it's not There's more of it than you find in

983
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:20,840
Speaker 3: like typical dirt here on Earth, but there's not loads

984
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 3: of it. So you're still going to need to like

985
00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:27,000
Speaker 3: sort through like football fields worth of this stuff in

986
00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:29,759
Speaker 3: order to get like small quantities. And we've talked about

987
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:32,840
Speaker 3: that regolith. It's super abrasive. It's going to beat up

988
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:35,760
Speaker 3: your equipment that was probably expensive to send there already.

989
00:48:35,960 --> 00:48:38,440
Speaker 3: It's in this harsh environment, the vacuum of space. If

990
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:40,960
Speaker 3: you're at the equator, there are these massive temperature swings

991
00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:43,920
Speaker 3: that are like really hard to even make lubricants for,

992
00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:46,480
Speaker 3: so that your equipment can run. So this is going

993
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:48,920
Speaker 3: to be a very difficult environment to work in. It's

994
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 3: going to be very far away. It's hard for me

995
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:54,839
Speaker 3: to imagine that this could possibly be economically viable in

996
00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:58,719
Speaker 3: many decades to come. So I'm not convinced by people

997
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 3: who are like, oh, let's go out there and collect

998
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:03,400
Speaker 3: helium three for nuclear reactors that don't even exist yet,

999
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:05,239
Speaker 3: and that's going to make the moon profitable.

1000
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:05,680
Speaker 2: Anyway.

1001
00:49:05,719 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 3: I could go on, but I'm spitting on the screen

1002
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:10,200
Speaker 3: already and all stop there.

1003
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:11,840
Speaker 2: It's gonna be difficult.

1004
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:14,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is a bummer. It feels like all these

1005
00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 1: potential sources of fusion I'm like right around the corner,

1006
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:20,799
Speaker 1: just at our fingertips. But then there's always some frustrating

1007
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:23,520
Speaker 1: technicolity between us and it. The fact that the helium

1008
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 1: three is there and on the moon, and just like

1009
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:28,480
Speaker 1: if we could somehow get it here, it would be

1010
00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:31,319
Speaker 1: so great. But that process of getting it here can

1011
00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:33,879
Speaker 1: just like instantly rearrange the universe the way you want

1012
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:36,919
Speaker 1: it to be, right. Unfortunately, that takes energy, it takes time,

1013
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:39,279
Speaker 1: and it takes money. And these are all the realistic

1014
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 1: obstacles to getting fusion to work.

1015
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:44,760
Speaker 3: All right, so say tomorrow commonwealth fusion is like bam,

1016
00:49:44,880 --> 00:49:47,640
Speaker 3: we hit break even and now we're gonna fly past it.

1017
00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:50,560
Speaker 3: Do you feel like there could be a way that

1018
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:54,280
Speaker 3: we could have fusion powering every home on the planet,

1019
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:57,600
Speaker 3: or these problems, just like insurmountable fusion at its best

1020
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:00,920
Speaker 3: could only service a small portion of humanity.

1021
00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:03,080
Speaker 1: I think the answer is we don't know yet. There

1022
00:50:03,120 --> 00:50:07,640
Speaker 1: are important technical challenges between us and everybody has a

1023
00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:10,320
Speaker 1: fusion reactor at home or even this like a neighborhood

1024
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:13,640
Speaker 1: fusion reactor or whatever. Can we make enough tritium scaling up?

1025
00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:16,239
Speaker 1: Can we find enough lithium six? Probably? I think the

1026
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:19,239
Speaker 1: answer is probably. But these are hard problems and they

1027
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:22,319
Speaker 1: haven't really been dug into, which means there are hard

1028
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:24,879
Speaker 1: problems we haven't discovered yet. You know, when you really

1029
00:50:24,880 --> 00:50:27,680
Speaker 1: get into the nitty gritty, you're like, oh, wow, actually

1030
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:30,160
Speaker 1: we thought this was going to be dot dot We're there.

1031
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:33,720
Speaker 1: Turns out there's a really tricky bit here that nobody's solved,

1032
00:50:34,120 --> 00:50:35,959
Speaker 1: and you've got to struggle with it for ten years,

1033
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:38,520
Speaker 1: which is why fusion has taken so long. You know,

1034
00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:40,880
Speaker 1: people have like skimmed over the surface of the concepts

1035
00:50:40,920 --> 00:50:43,320
Speaker 1: been like, oh, we understand the physics, it happens in

1036
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 1: the stars. I'm sure we'll figure it out. Well, figuring

1037
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:48,480
Speaker 1: it out has taken decades, and this just means that

1038
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 1: there are decades more than even reasonable moderates about fusion

1039
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:55,080
Speaker 1: tell us, because there are so many more pieces to

1040
00:50:55,200 --> 00:50:58,600
Speaker 1: this chain for actually integrating it into our society.

1041
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:00,960
Speaker 3: But to sort of throw everybody for a loop here,

1042
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:03,360
Speaker 3: I'm going to be a bit of an optimist because, like,

1043
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:05,719
Speaker 3: I know, I know, hold on, even are you well, no,

1044
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:06,880
Speaker 3: it's you know, it's qualified.

1045
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:07,480
Speaker 2: It's qualified.

1046
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:09,640
Speaker 3: So I feel like, you know, if we figure the

1047
00:51:09,640 --> 00:51:12,879
Speaker 3: fusion thing out and it becomes clear that this could be,

1048
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:16,040
Speaker 3: you know, not only a way to provide clean power

1049
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:18,760
Speaker 3: to a bunch of people, but also a source of revenue,

1050
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:21,080
Speaker 3: I imagine that you're gonna get like a bunch of

1051
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 3: startups and a bunch of like, you know, smart people

1052
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:26,400
Speaker 3: working on this problem. And that doesn't solve all the problems,

1053
00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 3: but I bet that once we get to that point,

1054
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:31,200
Speaker 3: we're gonna unleash a lot of excitement and like maybe

1055
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:33,920
Speaker 3: a lot of innovation, and maybe we'll be surprised at

1056
00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:35,440
Speaker 3: how fast this problem gets solved.

1057
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:38,400
Speaker 1: I can hope that'd be wonderful, and I agree with you.

1058
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:40,040
Speaker 1: I think we probably will figure it out. You know,

1059
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:43,319
Speaker 1: we're smart, people work hard. There are brilliant creative people

1060
00:51:43,400 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 1: out there, young minds listening to this podcast inspired to

1061
00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:49,320
Speaker 1: go into fusion thinking I can solve this treating problem.

1062
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:52,239
Speaker 1: Go do it. I think it probably is solvable, but

1063
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:54,440
Speaker 1: it does need to be solved. And so it's not

1064
00:51:54,520 --> 00:51:57,200
Speaker 1: just like once we've cracked the physics case in step four,

1065
00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:00,239
Speaker 1: all the other steps just fall by the wayside. Still

1066
00:52:00,239 --> 00:52:02,759
Speaker 1: got to crack them. But for some people that's their jam,

1067
00:52:02,960 --> 00:52:05,760
Speaker 1: you know, like Ooh, I'm excited about working on lithium blankets.

1068
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:08,879
Speaker 1: I've dreamed about it since I was a kid, or

1069
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:11,279
Speaker 1: you know, these puzzles are exciting to people, which is great,

1070
00:52:11,320 --> 00:52:13,600
Speaker 1: and I love that about science that people who are

1071
00:52:13,600 --> 00:52:16,080
Speaker 1: going to nerd out on how to get these fuels

1072
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:18,080
Speaker 1: or how to extract them, or how to manufacture them,

1073
00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:20,400
Speaker 1: or how to negotiate with the battery industry and make

1074
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 1: sure that our lithium six gets filtered out of the

1075
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:25,400
Speaker 1: mining process and they can have the rest of it.

1076
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:28,680
Speaker 1: You know. So yeah, I think probably we will solve it.

1077
00:52:28,719 --> 00:52:31,520
Speaker 1: I agree with you that once we make the fusion

1078
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:34,279
Speaker 1: step work the physics part of it, we figure that out,

1079
00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:36,680
Speaker 1: the rest will There'll be so much excitement and so

1080
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:39,200
Speaker 1: much pressure and momentum that we will figure it out.

1081
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:41,560
Speaker 3: I mean, I imagine being the person who figures out

1082
00:52:41,600 --> 00:52:45,600
Speaker 3: the lithium six problem, like the implications of your life

1083
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:48,480
Speaker 3: for life on this planet, Like that would just be

1084
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:51,920
Speaker 3: incredible to feel like you had contributed to something so important.

1085
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:53,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be incredible.

1086
00:52:53,680 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 2: But I study bugs.

1087
00:52:56,320 --> 00:52:58,000
Speaker 1: I can't imagine it would be like to work on

1088
00:52:58,040 --> 00:53:01,759
Speaker 1: someone that's actually practically useful both for people day to day.

1089
00:53:02,239 --> 00:53:03,839
Speaker 1: And you know, I have this experience all the time

1090
00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:06,839
Speaker 1: because I meet people with my wife and we talk

1091
00:53:06,880 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 1: about what we do and they're like, oh, yeah, that's interesting.

1092
00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:12,200
Speaker 1: But then there have a million questions for Katrina, who

1093
00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:14,279
Speaker 1: works only you know, like the human health and the

1094
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:17,400
Speaker 1: gut and what people eat, and she's like immediate knowledge

1095
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 1: that's relevant for people's day to day lives and like, hey,

1096
00:53:20,719 --> 00:53:22,799
Speaker 1: you're a nerd about either way the universe works. We

1097
00:53:22,800 --> 00:53:25,360
Speaker 1: can talk, But if you want advice about chia seeds

1098
00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:28,440
Speaker 1: and how to have you know, healthy bowel movements, talk

1099
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:30,839
Speaker 1: to Katrina.

1100
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:31,600
Speaker 2: Oh man, when do I get to meet Katrina?

1101
00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:34,319
Speaker 1: Yeah? Exactly. You see what I mean. She's more more

1102
00:53:34,480 --> 00:53:39,120
Speaker 1: interesting than it's like. It's fine. I've come to terms

1103
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:41,520
Speaker 1: with it. No, I mean. One of reason I'm but

1104
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:44,239
Speaker 1: into particle physics is because it had no immediate applications.

1105
00:53:44,560 --> 00:53:46,640
Speaker 1: My parents work at the laboratory in Los Alamos, the

1106
00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:49,880
Speaker 1: work on weapons programs. That's terrifying. I don't want my

1107
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:52,640
Speaker 1: research to be used to build weapons of mass destruction

1108
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:55,840
Speaker 1: that are pointed at civilian populations. But it also means

1109
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:58,160
Speaker 1: that I can't really help anybody day to day except

1110
00:53:58,160 --> 00:53:59,920
Speaker 1: for stimulating their curiosity of.

1111
00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:02,240
Speaker 2: The universe, which you do so well.

1112
00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:05,840
Speaker 3: And we'll be back next time with more stimulating information

1113
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:06,640
Speaker 3: about the universe.

1114
00:54:06,840 --> 00:54:09,279
Speaker 1: Thanks everyone for taking this ride with us. And I'm

1115
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:11,680
Speaker 1: still in the end an optimist about fusion.

1116
00:54:12,040 --> 00:54:16,240
Speaker 2: Me too. Go fusion people, figure it out please.

1117
00:54:23,120 --> 00:54:26,680
Speaker 3: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio.

1118
00:54:26,880 --> 00:54:29,440
Speaker 2: We would love to hear from you, We really would.

1119
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:32,359
Speaker 1: We want to know what questions you have about this

1120
00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:34,240
Speaker 1: Extraordinary Universe.

1121
00:54:34,320 --> 00:54:37,279
Speaker 3: We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions

1122
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:38,280
Speaker 3: for future shows.

1123
00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:40,759
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1124
00:54:40,960 --> 00:54:44,480
Speaker 1: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

1125
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:47,280
Speaker 1: at Questions at Danielankelly dot.

1126
00:54:47,160 --> 00:54:48,799
Speaker 2: Org, or you can find us on social media.

1127
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:52,759
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1128
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:53,720
Speaker 3: all of those platforms.

1129
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:56,680
Speaker 2: You can find us at D and K Universe.

1130
00:54:56,840 --> 00:55:00,360
Speaker 1: Don't be shy, write to us, really