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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, I'm back. I first heard about Eider, which

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Speaker 1: is the nuclear fusion reactor being built in Europe, from

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Speaker 1: a New Yorker article called Star in a Bottle by

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Speaker 1: Rathi Kachadourian. And if you find this episode floats your boat,

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Speaker 1: I highly recommend reading that article too. The whole idea

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Speaker 1: of what they're trying to do, which is to contain plasma,

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Speaker 1: that crazy intense fourth state of matter that the sun

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Speaker 1: and lightning are made up of, into a chamber here

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Speaker 1: on Earth where it has no business being really really

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Speaker 1: caught my attention. And if they can do it, extremely cheap, abundant,

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Speaker 1: climate friendly energy will be unlocked for all, and who

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Speaker 1: knows what will follow after that. The Eider group was

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Speaker 1: shooting for twenty twenty five to start, but recently changed

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Speaker 1: their date to twenty thirty four. You can pass the

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Speaker 1: time while you wait by enjoying this episode.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.

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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's

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Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry, who's Barrel laughs, And

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Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know.

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Speaker 3: She gave us the old quick start. Yeah, like, I

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Speaker 3: don't want to hear any more impressing record.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, she knows that it shuts me up, or at

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Speaker 1: least cuts off whatever conversation I'm chiding her.

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Speaker 3: It's great. I'm telling you. If we could release the

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Speaker 3: twenty seconds before each show as its own show, yeah,

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Speaker 3: that would be terrible. Yeah, no, one who cares.

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Speaker 1: No, we'd think it was funny and everybody else would

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Speaker 1: be like, you edit this out for a reason. Yep,

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Speaker 1: So Chuck, how you doing great? Have you ever been

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Speaker 1: to as on Provence, France? No? Is that a place?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? No, I haven't.

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Speaker 1: It is a rustic little town in Provence, and it

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Speaker 1: is strangely, maybe even ironically, in the non hipster you've

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Speaker 1: been in.

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Speaker 3: The actual Yeah, it's a real word.

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Speaker 1: Definition of the word also cite to one of the

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Speaker 1: most futuristic engineering projects humanity's ever undertaken.

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Speaker 3: Meat or meat that's a sound it makes.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I thought you're mocking me. No, no, no, for being

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Speaker 1: thrilled by the thought of this thing.

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Speaker 3: No, it is kind of funny that this thing's in

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Speaker 3: a sleepy little town. It's like a Hamlet may Bee

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Speaker 3: Cern in Switzerland. That's not in the city, is it No,

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Speaker 3: you can't build these things in cities. That's why they're

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Speaker 3: in sleepy towns exactly, because no one knows they're being poisoned.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can push the mare around pretty easy, exactly.

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Speaker 1: This thing is called eider ITER, which is an acronym

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Speaker 1: for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. That's right, which really

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Speaker 1: gets the point across.

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Speaker 3: Did you know the word acronym is an acronym. That's

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Speaker 3: not true. Okay, I just want to see how long

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Speaker 3: you would try and sort it out in your head.

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Speaker 1: I would have kept going on what it means thirty seconds?

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Speaker 3: Maybe that would have been a great joke. Could it

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Speaker 3: just kept it going. I'm not gonna tell you.

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Speaker 1: I would have been. I would have it maybe fifteen seconds,

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Speaker 1: because you would have gotten that much more sure. So

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't have looked it up. I would have figured

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Speaker 1: it out myself. Anyway. EIDER is this colossal engineering project.

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Speaker 1: Somebody compared it to the pyramids at Giza. Oh wow, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's exciting stuff.

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Speaker 3: Sure.

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Speaker 1: The thing is is it's a nuclear fusion reactor, and

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Speaker 1: it's the culmination of decades of attempts to create a

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Speaker 1: nuclear fusion reactor. Because we've got fission down and we'll

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Speaker 1: talk about the difference in a minute, but fusion has

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Speaker 1: been very elusive, and nowhere is it more apparent than

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Speaker 1: in the Eider project. Because this thing is going to

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Speaker 1: cost it approximately fifty billion dollars when it's completed, fifty

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Speaker 1: billion dollars. They started in nineteen ninety three. They're hoping

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Speaker 1: to turn on the switch in twenty twenty, but it's

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Speaker 1: looking like twenty twenty three or twenty twenty four, and

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Speaker 1: it won't be starting to produce anything until the two

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Speaker 1: thousand and forties at the earliest.

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Speaker 3: So what's the.

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Speaker 1: Point, I'll tell you the point. Yeah, if we can

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Speaker 1: figure out nuclear fusion chucking the world's literally the world's

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Speaker 1: energy problems will be solved for millennia. If we can

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Speaker 1: just figure this out, we will have a almost no

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Speaker 1: radioactivity nuclear option, almost limitless fuel supply, yeah, totally green,

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Speaker 1: yeah clean.

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Speaker 3: No pollution, no greenhouse emissions, right.

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Speaker 1: And with plenty of energy to spare using the already

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Speaker 1: extant infrastructure we have to supply power like, you don't

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Speaker 1: have to completely rebuild everything. You can just to the

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Speaker 1: electrical cables outside. It'll be the exact same thing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you can just go to a nuclear fission reactor

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Speaker 3: and press the button that says fusion and it'll all

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Speaker 3: of a sudden join atoms instead of split them.

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Speaker 1: Exactly.

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Speaker 3: It's that easy.

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Speaker 1: That's what the difference is. With fission, you're splitting atoms

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Speaker 1: and you're gaining energy from that. With fusion, you're smacking

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Speaker 1: them together. Yeah, and you're gaining even more energy because

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Speaker 1: we're you're exploiting a different fundamental force.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and that I was being coy Clearly there is

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Speaker 3: no button because we would have pushed it a long

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Speaker 3: time ago.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And when I say no pollution and no greenhouse emissions

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Speaker 3: before the pedantic among you right in we know that

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Speaker 3: just even shipping something from here to there causes pollution

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Speaker 3: and greenhouse emissions.

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Speaker 1: Good, but we're.

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Speaker 3: Talking about that the output of the reactor itself is

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Speaker 3: very green.

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Speaker 1: So if you want to know all about Eider, well

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about it here or there, because

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Speaker 1: it's just you just can't talk about nuclear fusion reactors

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Speaker 1: and not mentioned Eider. But if you want to know

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Speaker 1: a lot about Eider, there is a really great article

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Speaker 1: called A Star and a Bottle, and it's by a

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Speaker 1: person named rock Fee cutcha Duran or Durian. And it

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Speaker 1: was written in the New Yorker not too long ago. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and man, it is every detail you want to know

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Speaker 1: about the IDE project written really well, and it's long,

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Speaker 1: but it's totally worth the read.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all over the news lately, and for good reason.

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Speaker 3: You said a lot of energy. I have a stat

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Speaker 3: I'm going to throw back to the old days here.

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Speaker 3: Per kilogram of fuel, if we're talking fusion and fission,

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Speaker 3: fusion produces four times more energy than fission.

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Speaker 1: I saw seven.

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Speaker 3: It's probably only things where it's like four to five

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Speaker 3: to ten or something. I found four times and ten

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Speaker 3: million times more than coal. Yeah, ten million times. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: the energy is coal. And that's with equal fuel per

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Speaker 3: kilogram of fuel. Right, It's just I mean, it is

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Speaker 3: the future.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And you can say, well that's great because we

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Speaker 1: want eighteen million times the amount of power that coal provides.

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Speaker 1: You can say, weather buddy, you can also bring it

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Speaker 1: backwards because you can supply an awful lot of power

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Speaker 1: then with a lot less fuel. Yeah, where we're like

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Speaker 1: the advantage of nuclear fusion are mind boggling.

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Speaker 3: Sure, and very few downsides, which we'll get to, of course.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, like really genuinely, it's not just

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Speaker 1: like some like here's all the great stuff about it

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Speaker 1: and just don't pay attention to all these like really

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Speaker 1: horrible aspects. Yes, like there really aren't too many downsides.

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Speaker 1: The downside is we are at this moment incapable of

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Speaker 1: successfully creating a commercially viable nuclear fusion reactor. That's right,

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Speaker 1: But we've got an an understanding of what the challenges

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Speaker 1: are ahead of us thanks to the last fifty or

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Speaker 1: so years of really really really smart physicists working on

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Speaker 1: the problem of nuclear fusion. And the great inspiration for

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Speaker 1: nuclear fusion is the Sun. The Sun and all stars

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Speaker 1: like it are enormous, immense nuclear fusion reactors. So if

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Speaker 1: you are building a nuclear fusion reactor here on Earth,

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Speaker 1: you're essentially creating a star, and that is a very

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Speaker 1: difficult thing to do.

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Speaker 3: It turns out, yeah, the Sun creates I know, we

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Speaker 3: talked about the Sun in our very famous episode on

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Speaker 3: the Sun. The Sun creates six hundred and twenty million

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Speaker 3: metric tons. It fuses six hundred and twenty million metric

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Speaker 3: tons of hydrogen at its core every second, So every

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Speaker 3: second at the Sun's core. It produces enough power to

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Speaker 3: light up New York City for one hundred years, New

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Speaker 3: York City every second. And that's the Sun. And all

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Speaker 3: we want to do is do the same thing on

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Speaker 3: a much smaller scale. Cret. I think the guy there's

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Speaker 3: this kid who built one in his garage and he

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Speaker 3: said he wanted to cress all this ted talk. He

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Speaker 3: wanted to create a star in a box is what

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Speaker 3: he called it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen it, like this New Yorker called it

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Speaker 1: a star in a bottle.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. This kid's name is Taylor Wilson, and he's nuclear

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Speaker 3: physicist and he's like sixteen, wow. And he created Yeah,

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Speaker 3: he created a successful one. And the key, though, is

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Speaker 3: not to be able to create the fusion. The key

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Speaker 3: is to be able to harness enough plasma, which we'll

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Speaker 3: get to at a high enough temperature and density for

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Speaker 3: there to be a net power gain. Right, you can

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Speaker 3: create fusion, but in order to get out more than

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Speaker 3: you're putting in is the only thing that matters, because

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Speaker 3: what you want to do is create electricity exactly.

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Speaker 1: That's there's two huge challenges right now to nuclear fusion.

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Speaker 1: We pretty much understand it enough to start it going

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Speaker 1: and get energy from it. The problem is is material

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Speaker 1: science isn't at a point where it can build a

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Speaker 1: containment vessel to really house a thermonuclear reactor.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And then the other big obstacle is, like you said,

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Speaker 1: net energy gain, Like if you're putting in as much

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Speaker 1: or more energy then you're getting out of your nuclear reactor.

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Speaker 1: Then you're wasting energy and it's the opposite of what

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Speaker 1: you're supposed to be doing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they're not just trying to impress people with their

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Speaker 3: science knowledge, no, but up to trying to create energy.

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Speaker 1: Up to now, though, Chucklake, every single thermonuclear reactor that's

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Speaker 1: ever been built has just been impressing people with knowledge.

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Speaker 1: Like they haven't gotten any net energy out of a

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Speaker 1: single thermonuclear fusion reactor.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, would see, I have that they have there right now.

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Speaker 3: They're up to like ten presently they're at ten megawatts.

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Speaker 1: Oh is that right? Yeah, and that's more than they

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Speaker 1: put into.

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Speaker 3: A net gain of ten megawatts currently.

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Speaker 1: Everything I saw was when we turn this thing on,

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Speaker 1: it should have a net gain. Yeah, but I didn't

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Speaker 1: see that they've actually done it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, ten megawatts now in Eider is going to produce

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Speaker 3: five hundred megawatts right once it's fully operational.

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Speaker 1: Right. So the next challenge then is this, if we're

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Speaker 1: already getting a net energy gain out of it, then

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Speaker 1: that means that the net energy gain is it's not sustainable.

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Speaker 1: Like you said, you want to keep the thing going,

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Speaker 1: so you don't have to keep starting from scratch to

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Speaker 1: power it up. You want it to basically be self sustaining,

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Speaker 1: so you just have to add a little more fuel.

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Speaker 3: To that's the dream.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk about the history of fusion reactors.

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Speaker 3: Chuck, Yeah, it kind of goes back to this guy

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Speaker 3: named Lyman Spitzer. He's a thirty six year old Princeton

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Speaker 3: astrophysicist and this was in the nineteen fifties and he

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Speaker 3: was recruited to work on the H bomb and went

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Speaker 3: out and got a copy of a paper that was

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Speaker 3: released from Germany.

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Speaker 1: I think, right that Argentina.

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Speaker 3: Oh, Argentina.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they announced that they had to get that wrong.

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Speaker 1: They had successfully built a fusion reactor.

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Speaker 3: Right. So he gets this paper, goes on a ski trip,

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Speaker 3: starts thinking about how he can do this, takes a

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Speaker 3: little break from his job building the H bomb, and

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Speaker 3: figures out, you know, I think it's possible if we

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Speaker 3: can harness this plasma, I guess we should just go

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Speaker 3: ahead and to find what plasma is. Since we keep saying.

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Speaker 1: It, Well, there's the normal three energy states that we're

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Speaker 1: familiar with, water solid and gas, liquid solid and gas.

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Speaker 1: Right right, there's a fourth one. It's plasma. And plasma

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Speaker 1: is basically like an energetic gas where the temperatures are

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Speaker 1: so high that whatever atoms you put into it, the

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Speaker 1: electrons are stripped off and allowed to move around freely. Basically,

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Speaker 1: the surface of the Sun is plasma. That's what plasma is.

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Speaker 1: It's a gas. It's a roiling gas that's really hard

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Speaker 1: to control and is really unpredictable.

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Speaker 3: Which is when you see the Sun like that rippling,

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Speaker 3: wavy looking thing.

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Speaker 1: That's plasma, right, And the reason the Sun manages to

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Speaker 1: stay together is because it is enormously massive and has

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Speaker 1: a ton of gravity at its core.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't have that advantage here on Earth.

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Speaker 1: We don't, so we try to make up for that

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Speaker 1: by increasing the temperature.

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Speaker 3: That's right. He was onto it way back then in

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Speaker 3: the nineteen fifties. If we can just harness this, if

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Speaker 3: we can just get it hot enough and he created

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Speaker 3: a tabletop device called the Stellar Raider, and it was

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Speaker 3: in a figure eight position. It was a pipe and

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Speaker 3: a figure eight. Yeah, and this would keep things from

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Speaker 3: banging into walls theoretically. Yeah, and he was onto something

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Speaker 3: because well, we'll get to Lockheed later, but they're using

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Speaker 3: a similar device now, a figure eight.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Well I didn't realize that was a

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Speaker 1: figure eight it is, which is weird because what they

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Speaker 1: eventually found out was that a donut shape was really

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Speaker 1: the key to get that net gain. So and the

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Speaker 1: reason that they found out that a donut shape worked

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Speaker 1: was because in the I think the late fifties, the

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Speaker 1: US had run up against the wall. They're saying like, okay,

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Speaker 1: we've got this, but we can't control the plasma because

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Speaker 1: think about it, what you're trying to do is create

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Speaker 1: a star inside something, but it can't touch any of

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Speaker 1: the vessel that it's in or else it'll just completely

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Speaker 1: erupt it. Right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. They compared it to holding jelly and rubber bands, right.

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Speaker 1: It was just like you can't They couldn't figure out

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Speaker 1: how to control the plasma. So when when the US

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Speaker 1: ran up against this wall, they said, hey, rest of

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Speaker 1: the world we're going to declassify what spitz limon Spitzer

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Speaker 1: has been doing us out and like we'll share if

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Speaker 1: you guys share. And it turns out that the Russians

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Speaker 1: had already come up against this problem and licked it.

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Speaker 1: They figured out that if you put the thing in

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Speaker 1: what's called the toroidal shape, a donut shape using electromagnets,

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Speaker 1: you con tame the plasma essentially, And the donut shape

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Speaker 1: itself was pretty ingenious, but the real stroke of genius

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Speaker 1: was by running electromagnets in rings around the donut. So

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Speaker 1: it's like you have a donut and you put a

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Speaker 1: bunch of ear rings around it, right, and those are electromagnets.

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Speaker 1: So you're creating an electromagnetic force field which contains the plasma.

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Speaker 1: But then you also put an electromagnetic force field in

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Speaker 1: the middle of the plasma. So not only does it

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Speaker 1: heat it up to the temperatures you want, it also

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Speaker 1: stabilizes it further. So the Russians have invented what they

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Speaker 1: call the TACOMAC, which is this doughnut shape nuclear fusion

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Speaker 1: reactor that basically became the standard for the next fifty

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Speaker 1: years or so.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you basically could achieve a really dense, super hot plasma.

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Speaker 3: And we'll get into temperatures and stuff in a bit.

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Speaker 3: But since we can't create that kind of pressure that

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Speaker 3: they have in the Sun due to their gravity, their gravity,

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Speaker 3: the Sun's gravity, right, you know, the Sun, all those people. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: like you said, we had to make up for it

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Speaker 3: here on Earth with temperatures.

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Speaker 1: Right, because apparently if you are in a in the

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Speaker 1: middle of a nuclear reactor, a nuclear fusion reactor, you're

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Speaker 1: going to find that the temperatures inside are about six

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Speaker 1: times hotter than the core of the Sun, not even

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Speaker 1: the service of the Sun, the core of the Sun.

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Speaker 1: And the reason why it has to be so much

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Speaker 1: hotter is because, like you said, we can't replicate that density.

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Speaker 1: We can get to those temperatures that we need, but

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Speaker 1: we can't get to the density, so we have to

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Speaker 1: make up for it. So we'll talk about kind of

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Speaker 1: the physics of what's going on here and why you

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Speaker 1: have to have high temperatures and what we're making up

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Speaker 1: for with density and everything right after this. So, Chuck,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about nuclear fusion, and it's actually surprisingly understandable

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Speaker 1: at its most basic core.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you're fusing atoms. It's not the hardest thing in

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Speaker 3: the world to wrap your head around. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So with fission, we're splitting atoms. You're taking an atom

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Speaker 1: and you're splitting its nuclei apart. You're splitting the neutrons

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Speaker 1: and the protons apart from one another. And when you

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Speaker 1: do that, one of the four fundamental forces, electromagnetic force,

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Speaker 1: pushes them away and you get this burst of in energy.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: With fusion, you're taking nuclei from different atoms. You're taking

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Speaker 1: protons and neutrons, and you're smashing them together. And when

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Speaker 1: you do that, you're unleashing what's called the strong force,

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Speaker 1: which appropriately enough is stronger than electromagnetic force, which is

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Speaker 1: why nuclear fusion yields more energy than nuclear fission.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Einstein himself said, you know, each time you smash

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Speaker 3: these things together, you're gonna lose a little bit of mass,

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Speaker 3: and that little bit of mass is a ton of energy.

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Speaker 3: As it turns out.

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Speaker 1: That's right, the famous equals MC squared.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and I don't think he realized in nineteen oh five,

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Speaker 3: or maybe Einstein did.

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Speaker 1: Einstein probably did.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Einstein probably did.

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Speaker 1: I would guess he did.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So the problem is, even though it is very easy.

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Speaker 1: Just smash some protons together. There is a tremendous amount

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Speaker 1: of resistance to that smashing together.

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Speaker 3: They don't want to smash together.

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Speaker 1: No, because it's just like if you take a magnet,

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Speaker 1: two magnets, yeah, and you put the positive poles toward one,

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Speaker 1: they repel one another, right, Yeah, same thing. That's that's

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Speaker 1: the same principle on an atomic level too. If you

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Speaker 1: take protons, which are positively charged particles, and try to

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Speaker 1: put them together, they repel one another. And the closer

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Speaker 1: you get them together, the stronger. The repellent force is

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Speaker 1: the electromagnetic force, right, But if you can get them

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Speaker 1: close enough, the electromagnetic force is overcome by that strong force,

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Speaker 1: the strong nuclear force, and they become bound together because

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Speaker 1: the strong force is that one of those four fundamental

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Speaker 1: forces of the universe, and that is the force that

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Speaker 1: keeps atoms together, and that is that force is stronger

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Speaker 1: than the force that repels like charged particles.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. And when you talk about close, they need to

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Speaker 3: be within one times ten to the negative fifteen meters

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Speaker 3: of one another.

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Speaker 1: Right. So use if you'll indulge.

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Speaker 3: Me, sure you're gonna read a bunch of zero s.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero

361
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Speaker 1: zero zero zero zero zero zero zero one meters apart. Right,

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Speaker 1: that's how close they have to be.

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Speaker 3: That's right, to get them to accept one another in

364
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Speaker 3: to fuse. I think I have a theory that if

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Speaker 3: they they are not fusing because they think they're going

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Speaker 3: to be made into a bomb, And if we told

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Speaker 3: them that when we're creating energy, they might be more

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Speaker 3: willing to fuse together.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because protons are piece next. Everybody knows that. Sure,

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Speaker 1: So when they do fuse together, right, when you do

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Speaker 1: cross that threshold and the strong force takes over and

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Speaker 1: overcomes the electromagnetic force, like we said, a tremendous amount

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Speaker 1: of energy is released, and it's released in part in

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Speaker 1: the form of neutrinos neutrons, right, which are right, neutral

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Speaker 1: particles which suddenly start carrying a tremendous amount of kinetic energy.

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Speaker 1: So let's say you have one atom, you got another atom,

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Speaker 1: and they're both like, I'm not getting close to you.

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Speaker 1: We're not going to get to Okay, we got together. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that force that mass that's displaced is transferred through the

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Speaker 1: neutron that gets kicked off of the atom, right, Yeah,

381
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Speaker 1: And it's carried out. Now, a neutron doesn't have any

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Speaker 1: kind of positive or negative charts. It's neutral. It's a neutrone,

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Speaker 1: which means that it can pass through the very electromagnetic

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Speaker 1: fields that are keeping this plasma where this reaction is

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Speaker 1: taking place together. Once that happens, Chuck, it can go

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Speaker 1: out to what's called the blanket wall and a thermonuclear

387
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Speaker 1: reactor warm it, and then that heat is transferred into

388
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Speaker 1: a water cooling system. The water's warmed up turns steam,

389
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Speaker 1: which generates a which I guess moves the turbine, and

390
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Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, the turbine is producing electricity.

391
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny how just it gets so complex, but

392
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Speaker 3: all you're still trying to do is create steam.

393
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like it's like hooking the iss up to

394
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Speaker 1: a horse, right, you know, move it over there.

395
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Speaker 3: So, so there are a few types of fusion reactions.

396
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Speaker 3: The ultimate goal right now, what we can do on

397
00:21:07,359 --> 00:21:13,440
Speaker 3: a small scale is what's called a deuterium tritium reaction. Yeah,

398
00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:15,840
Speaker 3: that's the one that we can currently achieve. That's one

399
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Speaker 3: atom of deuterium and one atom of tritium combining to

400
00:21:19,840 --> 00:21:23,399
Speaker 3: form a helium four atom and a neutron the ultimate goal.

401
00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:25,800
Speaker 3: I mean, that's good, and that'll create a lot of energy,

402
00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:29,120
Speaker 3: but there are a few downsides. Tritium is radioactive.

403
00:21:29,280 --> 00:21:32,960
Speaker 1: For one, you have to mine it from lithium. Yeah,

404
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:34,240
Speaker 1: and lithium's fairly rare.

405
00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:39,120
Speaker 3: Sure, the ultimate goal is to reach deuterium. Deuterium reactions,

406
00:21:39,119 --> 00:21:42,159
Speaker 3: which is two deuterium atoms combining to form that helium

407
00:21:42,200 --> 00:21:45,200
Speaker 3: three in a neutron, and you can get that from

408
00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:50,919
Speaker 3: the sea water. It's abundant, almost limitless. And I couldn't

409
00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:53,919
Speaker 3: find this, but I think clean water can be a

410
00:21:54,000 --> 00:21:55,960
Speaker 3: residual effect of this. Am I wrong?

411
00:21:56,240 --> 00:21:59,760
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's if well, you're probably not injecting,

412
00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:04,080
Speaker 1: but to get the deuterium, I mean, desalination plants are

413
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Speaker 1: the key to the future as far as supplying the

414
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Speaker 1: world with fresh water.

415
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought I saw somewhere where it was an

416
00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:13,280
Speaker 3: actual byproduct, but yeah, but then I couldn't find it,

417
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Speaker 3: so I'm not sure if that's right.

418
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Speaker 1: You know what, you just drug my memory. I feel

419
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Speaker 1: like in a hydrogen powered car, water is one of

420
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Speaker 1: the by products.

421
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Speaker 3: So maybe so yeah, all right, don't quote me on

422
00:22:23,760 --> 00:22:26,240
Speaker 3: that though. For the very least, it's a great way

423
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Speaker 3: to create energy.

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Speaker 1: Right, And what's you also can get tritium from helium,

425
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Speaker 1: I believe. So even now with the the deuterium tritium

426
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:42,240
Speaker 1: reactions that we're working on, there's there's already a there's

427
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Speaker 1: a workaround, you know, like you can create a thermonuclear

428
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:50,160
Speaker 1: reactor that's a breeding reactor to where the byproduct helium

429
00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:52,640
Speaker 1: can be used to harvest more of the fuel you're

430
00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:53,560
Speaker 1: using tritium.

431
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:55,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, And aren't we running low on helium?

432
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Speaker 1: We are? Which is like remember when we were talking

433
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Speaker 1: about the dirt the Zeppelin, which one was it? How

434
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:03,560
Speaker 1: blimps work?

435
00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:06,320
Speaker 3: Yeah? And then a long time ago we did one

436
00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:09,680
Speaker 3: on the Mars turbine. Yeah, Mars turbine react actually, but.

437
00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:12,520
Speaker 1: Yes, there is very clearly a helium shortage, and the

438
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:16,400
Speaker 1: idea that we're just using it for party balloons rather

439
00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:18,720
Speaker 1: than this yeah, is scary.

440
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:21,199
Speaker 3: Yeah. And don't be confused if we say things like

441
00:23:21,240 --> 00:23:24,360
Speaker 3: deuterium and it sounds super complex. All that is hydrogen

442
00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:25,520
Speaker 3: with an extra neutron.

443
00:23:25,640 --> 00:23:26,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an isotope.

444
00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:27,280
Speaker 3: Yeah.

445
00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:30,600
Speaker 1: So there's three isotopes of hydrogen and they're all still

446
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:33,840
Speaker 1: the same element. They're all still hydrogen, but they have

447
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:38,639
Speaker 1: different configurations as far as their neutrons go. So protium

448
00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:42,000
Speaker 1: is a hydrogen isotope with one proton and no neutrons.

449
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:46,280
Speaker 1: Deuterium is a hydrogen isotope with one proton and one neutron,

450
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:49,720
Speaker 1: and tritium is a hydrogen isotope with one proton and

451
00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:53,479
Speaker 1: two neutrons. And like you said, tritium is radioactive. But

452
00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:56,080
Speaker 1: the beauty of it is you need very very very

453
00:23:56,119 --> 00:24:00,480
Speaker 1: little of it to fuel a nuclear fusion reactor, and

454
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:05,960
Speaker 1: it becomes a stable helium, a non radioactive helium in

455
00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 1: the reactor, so you don't have this leftover radioactive fuel.

456
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 1: That's awesome.

457
00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:13,400
Speaker 3: I think they said there's an it would be equivalent

458
00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:16,119
Speaker 3: of the radiation we just see every day and walking

459
00:24:16,119 --> 00:24:16,919
Speaker 3: around on the street.

460
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, the background radiation. I believe I saw that too.

461
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 1: The thing is is the parts to the nuclear reactor

462
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 1: themselves will become irradiated over time. Apparently, though compared to

463
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:33,960
Speaker 1: the kind of radio activity that's generated from nuclear fission,

464
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:37,520
Speaker 1: this stuff you could just disassemble and bury in the

465
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:40,080
Speaker 1: desert for one hundred years, go back and dig back up,

466
00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 1: and it will be totally inactivated. So it's the stuff

467
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: that is radioactive is extraordinarily manageable.

468
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:51,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. And like I said, we don't want

469
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 3: to make it sound like this is perfect. There is.

470
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:57,120
Speaker 3: They do predict the short to medium term radioactive waste

471
00:24:57,200 --> 00:24:59,879
Speaker 3: problem and they say that's due to activation of the

472
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:01,639
Speaker 3: structural materials.

473
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 1: The actual thermonuclear device itself.

474
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:07,399
Speaker 3: Yeah, and while you don't need much tritium, even a

475
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:13,000
Speaker 3: few grams of tritium is problematic. But hopefully you know,

476
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:18,160
Speaker 3: there's no accident, although they say accidents with these as

477
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 3: if you just turn the power off, it stops everything. Yeah,

478
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 3: it's not like a chain reaction can occur like a

479
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:26,359
Speaker 3: fission reactor, there's out of your control.

480
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:29,040
Speaker 1: There's not a meltdown. There's which Also if you want

481
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 1: to know more about that, go listen to how Nuclear

482
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: Meltdowns Work episode. That was pretty good. We released it

483
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:39,560
Speaker 1: right after Fukushima, but it applies to all fission reactors.

484
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 3: That's right.

485
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:44,360
Speaker 1: So the goal is ultimately deuterium deuterium reactions where your

486
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 1: pair together. It does. And the reason why is again

487
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:51,240
Speaker 1: it's abundant fuel. You can get it from desalinating seawater.

488
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:55,199
Speaker 1: And then secondly, it's not radioactive at any point, so

489
00:25:55,240 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 1: it wouldn't make the the thermonuclear reactor itself radioactive, that's right.

490
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 1: The reason why we're not doing that already is because

491
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 1: we can't achieve the temperatures necessary.

492
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 3: That's right, which leads us to the two big stumbling blocks.

493
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:12,119
Speaker 3: Everyone knows this is a great idea. There's no one

494
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:13,960
Speaker 3: out there saying, oh, I don't know about this fusion thing.

495
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 3: Creating a star in a box sounds kind of weird.

496
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 3: The problem is the barriers that we have here on

497
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 3: planet Earth, which is one temperature and two pressure. We

498
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 3: have achieved the temperature, which is the requirements, is one

499
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:34,400
Speaker 3: hundred million kelvin and like you said, that's about six

500
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:37,240
Speaker 3: times hotter than the Sun's core, which is pretty intense.

501
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 3: And the other is pressure, Like we said, we need

502
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 3: to get them within I'm not going to make you

503
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 3: read all those zeros again, but smash them that close

504
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:49,680
Speaker 3: in order to fuse. And since we don't have that

505
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:52,679
Speaker 3: kind of mass and gravity that the Sun does, there

506
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:56,199
Speaker 3: are a few pretty genius ways that we're working around that.

507
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's basically two as it's stands, and then the

508
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:04,880
Speaker 1: locky Martin one, which a lot of people are skeptical about.

509
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:08,240
Speaker 1: We should say it's kind of a variation on one theme.

510
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,440
Speaker 1: But there's basically there's two ways that we've figured out

511
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 1: to create nuclear fusion reactors so far. One is using

512
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 1: magnetic confinement and the other is using inertial confinement. So

513
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:24,560
Speaker 1: magnetic confinement uses that tacomac technology.

514
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's sort of like CERN. You know, it's using

515
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:31,479
Speaker 3: magnets to create pressure. I guess in CERN's case, you're

516
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 3: using it to create speed, right, but in this case

517
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:35,640
Speaker 3: is to create pressure.

518
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 1: Right. So what you're doing is is you have a

519
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 1: you have this donut shaped chamber and that's your reaction chamber,

520
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:45,239
Speaker 1: and then again rings around the donut that go on

521
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: around the inside and outside of the donut. I know,

522
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 1: I'm kind of imagining wonderful donuts.

523
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 3: To doing Homer Simpson area.

524
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: They create electromagnetic fields. Now, remember this plasma is hydrogen

525
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:01,439
Speaker 1: gas that's been heated up to ature so hot that

526
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 1: the electrons just float off and move around freely. And

527
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 1: because of this higher temperature, these particles have become really

528
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: really energized, so they're moving and bouncing all over the

529
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:15,200
Speaker 1: place and the pressure is building up. But because electrons

530
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 1: are negatively charged, and because protons are positively charged, if

531
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 1: you use alternating electromagnetic fields, you can contain this plasma.

532
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:27,600
Speaker 1: So that's this incredibly hot gas that's six times hotter

533
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:30,879
Speaker 1: than the core of the Sun can be contained within

534
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 1: the electromagnetic fields.

535
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:36,199
Speaker 3: That's right. And we talked about power and power out.

536
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 3: You need about seventy megawats of power to create this

537
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 3: to start this fusion reaction, but you're going to yield

538
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 3: about five hundred megawats.

539
00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 1: That's the Eider project, I believe.

540
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the Eider and that's only a three hundred

541
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:53,719
Speaker 3: to five hundred second reaction. But like we said earlier,

542
00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 3: the eventual goal is that it's sustaining itself, which is

543
00:28:58,560 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 3: just a beautiful concept.

544
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: Yeah. So basically what they do is they have the

545
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 1: gas is injected into the chamber, the hydrogen gas, and

546
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: then there's the electromagnetic fields that are holding the plasma

547
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:13,680
Speaker 1: in place. But then remember we said, the Russians figured

548
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 1: out that if you put an electromagnetic field in the

549
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 1: middle of the whole thing, it will stabilize that plasma,

550
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 1: but it also heats it up, so it serves this

551
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:25,080
Speaker 1: double purpose. And then just to add a little extra temperature.

552
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 1: They shoot it with microwaves and some other stuff and

553
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 1: then heat it up. And then as the plasma goes

554
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: crazy and all the fusion energy is released, the neutrons

555
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 1: move their way outside of the electromagnetic field into the blanket,

556
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 1: which they heat up, and the heat energy is transferred

557
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 1: to power that turbine or move the horse down the lane.

558
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 3: And it's just creating steam.

559
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's I mean, that's like, that's what Eider

560
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 1: is doing right now. That's what they're trying to prove.

561
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 1: And then also as Eider is spending billions and billions

562
00:29:56,320 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 1: and billions of dollars and running into tons of delaysh

563
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 1: it's an amazing project. Lockheed Martin basically just came out

564
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 1: and said, oh, by the way, this thing that you're

565
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 1: trying to do that's going to be one hundred feet

566
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 1: tall and require staggering amounts of energy and money. We're

567
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 1: doing one that puts out the same amount of energy

568
00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 1: as yours, but it's a tenth of the size, which

569
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 1: means it's almost out of the gate commercially viable.

570
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 3: Yeah. That is their skunk Works division of Lockheed, and

571
00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 3: they announced this like three days ago here in mid October,

572
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 3: and they've gotten a lot of blowback from the scientific community.

573
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 1: Because they wouldn't release data.

574
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 3: They don't have data. They said it's a high beta

575
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 3: device right now, and kind of shut out the scientific

576
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:48,440
Speaker 3: community as far as questions go. And every scientist that

577
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 3: I saw interviewed for this said they're trying to get

578
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 3: some attention, to get some partners to join in.

579
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: Well. Yeah, plus it makes you want to run out

580
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:58,960
Speaker 1: and buy Lockheed Martin stock because if one company you

581
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 1: can figure out how to create a thermonuclear fusion reactor

582
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: here on Earth that's scalable, it fits, Yeah, that that

583
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 1: person would be very wealthy.

584
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's a dubious claim, but they are, you know,

585
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 3: they're working toward a good thing. I'm not like poopooing

586
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 3: the whole thing, right, But until they have hard data

587
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 3: and like some proof, than I think the scientific community's

588
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 3: got their arms holded right now.

589
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean they have released some details, it's

590
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 1: just not detailed enough for a scientist. It's detailed enough

591
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 1: for Aviation Week.

592
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:28,960
Speaker 3: I bought it.

593
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, they wrote an article on it, and basically, what

594
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 1: the what The guy they interviewed was saying was that

595
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 1: over at Eider they have a low beta ratio, which

596
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 1: is the amount of electro magnetism that you need compared

597
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 1: to the amount of plasma you can put into the chamber. Yeah,

598
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: so there's like five percent plasma to ninety five percent

599
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:55,080
Speaker 1: electromagnetivity or electromagnetism just to keep this plasma thing from

600
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 1: just blowing up, right, because that can happen. Sure, they

601
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:00,800
Speaker 1: might not melt down, but if everything went wrong, the

602
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 1: whole thing could blow up.

603
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 3: Well, and you know, you know what an atomic bomb is.

604
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 3: It's a fusion reaction, right, and this.

605
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 1: Is a lot of those all put together in one

606
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 1: hundred foot tower. This guy was saying that the beta

607
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 1: ratio for their machine is like one. So what he

608
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 1: was saying is they figured out a way and again

609
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: it's not very detailed, sure, but they figured out a

610
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: way to contain the plasma, but in a way that

611
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 1: also allows it to expand because if you think about it,

612
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 1: the more plasma there is, the more hydrogen atoms there are,

613
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 1: more hydrogen atoms, more isotopes there are, the more nuclear

614
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 1: fusion reactions or events you can have, the more energy

615
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: you can yield. Right, So they're saying they figured out

616
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:45,040
Speaker 1: how to contain the plasma, but again, like you said,

617
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:49,680
Speaker 1: the scientific community is really skeptical because they think it's

618
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 1: just a pr sign.

619
00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 3: Well, I think they made the mistake by saying they

620
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 3: invented a magicometer to make it all happen and that's

621
00:32:56,760 --> 00:32:57,959
Speaker 3: it and don't ask about it.

622
00:32:58,040 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, right.

623
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 3: I did see though, that we're was using the figure

624
00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 3: eight stellarator configuration. Yeah, and I think that's true. I

625
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 3: tried to. I found a couple of more sources that

626
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:10,360
Speaker 3: were kind of vague about it, and I think the

627
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 3: details on it are just a vague period. But I

628
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 3: don't know why they would abandon the donut shaped if

629
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:19,200
Speaker 3: the Figure eight was you know, nineteen fifties technology that's

630
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 3: sort of been disproven.

631
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 1: Well, supposedly their whole jam was that even in the

632
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: donut in the Tacomac. Yeah, this donut shaped reactor, plasma

633
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 1: has a tendency to just move around and make its

634
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: way out. Sure like it's not. It's still not fully contained,

635
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: and they're using something basically mirrors to catch the plasma

636
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:43,800
Speaker 1: that's getting out and moving it to parts of the

637
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 1: electromagnetic field that are less dense. So there's a bunch

638
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 1: of protons in this part of the field, that field

639
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:52,440
Speaker 1: is being strained, but then maybe there's not that many

640
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 1: protons over here, so they use mers to direct the

641
00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:57,680
Speaker 1: protons to the low density area.

642
00:33:57,520 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 3: To keep it all even of the field.

643
00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:01,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, to even the whole thing out, which makes sense.

644
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 1: But again, if you're not releasing data, don't expect the

645
00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:05,120
Speaker 1: scientific community to buy it.

646
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 3: You got that right.

647
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:10,360
Speaker 1: So there's another way to build a thermonuclear reactor that's

648
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 1: currently being work done too, and we'll talk about that

649
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 1: right after this.

650
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 3: Fish. So, buddy, Magnetic confinement is pretty neat, and we

651
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:31,319
Speaker 3: talked about that, and that's understandable and I love it.

652
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:34,719
Speaker 3: I want to date it. But internal confinement I want

653
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 3: to marry because it has lasers. At the National Ignition

654
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:44,240
Speaker 3: Facility at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, they are actually using laser beams.

655
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:47,040
Speaker 3: They have a device called the NIF device where they

656
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 3: focus one hundred and ninety two laser beams on a

657
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:53,319
Speaker 3: single point and a ten meter diameter target chamber called

658
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 3: a haul realm that's got to be German, and basically

659
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 3: inside that target chamber they have a little tiny pie

660
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:05,000
Speaker 3: sized pellet of deterium, tritium, and a little plastic cylinder.

661
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:07,720
Speaker 3: It's funny that it can be plastic somehow.

662
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:10,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd think it would introduce like impurities or something

663
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:10,840
Speaker 1: into it.

664
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, or it would need to be like iron or something.

665
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:16,279
Speaker 3: I don't know. It just seems unstable. But uh, that

666
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 3: is one point eight million jewels of power from these lasers.

667
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 3: They're going to heat the cylinder up, generate some X rays,

668
00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 3: and then that radiation will convert that pellet into plasma

669
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:30,800
Speaker 3: and compress it. So again they're creating plasma, but instead

670
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:34,440
Speaker 3: of smashing it together with magnets, they're superheating it with lasers.

671
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:36,880
Speaker 1: So that that's your Your money's on that one. You

672
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 1: like that.

673
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:38,840
Speaker 3: I just think it's neat because I like lasers.

674
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:40,879
Speaker 1: But that's your preference of the two.

675
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 3: Yes, well, actually whichever one works is going to be

676
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:44,840
Speaker 3: my preference, okay.

677
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:46,040
Speaker 1: Uh.

678
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:48,880
Speaker 3: And that one'll yield fifty to one hundred times more energy,

679
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:52,399
Speaker 3: more energy out than energy put in, So that's that's

680
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:53,360
Speaker 3: a good goal.

681
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 1: So yeah, I guess basically the whole point of magnetic

682
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:02,319
Speaker 1: confinement is that if you can do without electromagnets, you're

683
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:05,480
Speaker 1: you have a more simple and elegant.

684
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:09,240
Speaker 3: You mean internal confinement or inertial inertial.

685
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:11,959
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I mean, inertial confinement. Basically, the whole

686
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 1: thing just happened so fast. You don't even need these

687
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:19,759
Speaker 1: magnets to confine plasma because you're not creating the sustained ignition, right.

688
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:21,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, I might have said internal confinement before.

689
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 1: By the way, it's inertial.

690
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know.

691
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:24,359
Speaker 1: That's all right.

692
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:26,800
Speaker 3: So what about cold fusion, buddy? That was all the

693
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:28,360
Speaker 3: rage I remember back in the eighties.

694
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:31,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, because in nineteen eighty nine some researchers said that

695
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:39,160
Speaker 1: they successfully created nuclear fusion using just room temperature stuff

696
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:42,360
Speaker 1: like palladium. They took palladium and.

697
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 3: Banana peels and beer cans.

698
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 1: Pretty much heavy water which had deuterium in it, and

699
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 1: they put the whole thing together and created nuclear fusion

700
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:55,920
Speaker 1: without the high temperatures, hence the name cold fusion. And

701
00:36:56,640 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 1: if you can get around these high temperatures, then you

702
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:04,799
Speaker 1: work out the whole material science problem, right, And if

703
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:08,160
Speaker 1: you work out the whole material science problem, then this

704
00:37:08,239 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 1: is it's a desirable thing. They have cold fusion. The

705
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 1: problem is is a lot of scientists tried to replicate

706
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:16,920
Speaker 1: these guys' findings and weren't able to so basically they

707
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:17,880
Speaker 1: were kicked to the curb.

708
00:37:18,160 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 3: So does that mean has cold fusion been abandoned or

709
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:23,239
Speaker 3: are people still trying to get on that train.

710
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 2: No.

711
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:27,120
Speaker 1: In two thousand and five, some UCLA researchers basically said,

712
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:31,680
Speaker 1: we think we might have this thing down, and they did.

713
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 1: It's something called pyroelectric crystal fusion. Pyroelectric fusions, yeah, where

714
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:43,560
Speaker 1: basically it's the same result they do what would be

715
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: called cold fusion. The problem is that has a negative

716
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 1: net energy yield. You have to put in a lot

717
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:50,279
Speaker 1: more energy than you get out of it.

718
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 3: Right, Well, that's no good.

719
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:52,239
Speaker 1: No.

720
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 3: Eider seems like they are making headway more than Lockheed

721
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 3: despite their claim they are, Like we said, it's in

722
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 3: Europe and it's being financed by a bunch of different countries.

723
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:09,359
Speaker 3: The US is in, but they're kicking in. I think

724
00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:13,640
Speaker 3: the least amount only about seventeen million euros last year.

725
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 3: Of course we contributed dollars, but they're giving it to

726
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:20,320
Speaker 3: us in euros. I think the EU spends the most

727
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:24,240
Speaker 3: about eighty million. South Korea and China kicked in about

728
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 3: twenty and nineteen million. Respectively each And I saw earlier

729
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 3: where Russia was involved, but then I didn't see what

730
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:31,880
Speaker 3: they had contributed financially.

731
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:33,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.

732
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 3: Are they still all right? Well, maybe they're just we're

733
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 3: writing a chit for them for later. They'll just pay

734
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:44,480
Speaker 3: us back. But it is a very expensive prospect and

735
00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 3: you need, you know, countries getting together for something like this.

736
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 3: It's not the kind of thing that like the US

737
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 3: can take on on their own, I guess unless you're

738
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 3: Luckheed Martin, right, and you don't have to prove your data, right.

739
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 1: So this nuclear fusion, we'll see what happens.

740
00:38:58,280 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, you got anything else?

741
00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 1: Man? No? I just say everybody should go read a

742
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:06,240
Speaker 1: Star in a Bottle on the New Yorker. It's really

743
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:06,839
Speaker 1: really good.

744
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty neat there. You can also go to instructibles.

745
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 3: If you want to build a nuclear fusion reactor in

746
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 3: your garage, you can do so. You're not going to

747
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 3: create energy, because, like we said, you're going to be

748
00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 3: putting more than you get out. But there are instructions

749
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:24,319
Speaker 3: and that kid did it. His was a little more

750
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:27,080
Speaker 3: advanced than the instructibles one, obviously.

751
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 1: But yeah, nice, the sixteen year old kid.

752
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, He's amazing because his was legit. He's done more

753
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:36,240
Speaker 3: than that too. His TED talk was pretty impressive.

754
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: Cool.

755
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 3: He's like working on UH with homemand security already for

756
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 3: various projects that have nothing to do with this.

757
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure, yeah, Well, if you want to learn more

758
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:48,920
Speaker 1: about nuclear fusion, you can type those words in the

759
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 1: search bar at HowStuffWorks dot com. And since I said that,

760
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:55,759
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail and Chuck. Before we

761
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 1: do listener mail, I want to give a shout out

762
00:39:58,239 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 1: to our Kiva team.

763
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, for the that you don't know, we did a

764
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 3: podcast many years back on micro lending in Kiva. Kiva

765
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:12,759
Speaker 3: dot org is an organization where you can loan entrepreneurs

766
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 3: and well it used to be just developing countries. Now

767
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:17,080
Speaker 3: you can do it here in North America as well,

768
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 3: twenty dollars at a time that you can get paid

769
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 3: back for. You can get your money back if you're

770
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:25,280
Speaker 3: not happy, or you can just keep reloaning that money

771
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 3: and it helps them get their small business going. And

772
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:30,040
Speaker 3: we started a Kiva team many years ago and it

773
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 3: is killing it. So you got some stats for us.

774
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:41,520
Speaker 1: So basically, as of October nineteenth, we have loaned our

775
00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: team has loaned two point seven million dollars to people

776
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: in developing countries nice and in the US here there,

777
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 1: And the big one is we've exceeded one hundred thousand

778
00:40:55,080 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 1: loans man by our team. Our team only has eight

779
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:02,240
Speaker 1: seventy nine members, so a eight seventy nine of you guys,

780
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:03,759
Speaker 1: Thank you, way to go.

781
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:07,040
Speaker 3: Congratulations, Yes, and thanks as always to Glenn and Sonia

782
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 3: are de facto Kiva. Uh what would you call them? Presidents? Presidents,

783
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 3: Presidents of the stuff you should know, Team yep, captains

784
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 3: of the stuff you should know Team no presidents, okay,

785
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:20,320
Speaker 3: presidents presidentes. Glenn's like, yes, president.

786
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, they've been really like keeping it going for us.

787
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:27,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, and when you know, sometimes we'll forget and Glenna nudges. Hey, guys,

788
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 3: remember the Kiva team.

789
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 1: We should mention it, right, So the nice though, the

790
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 1: next goal we have is for three million dollars in

791
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:36,120
Speaker 1: loans and we're on our way to it. So come

792
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:39,680
Speaker 1: join us. We uh, don't begrudge people who are late

793
00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 1: to the party. Just go to kiva dot org slash

794
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 1: teams slash stuff you should know and you can sign up.

795
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 3: That's right.

796
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:48,840
Speaker 1: So now it's time for listener mail right.

797
00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 3: Indeed, sir, I'm going to call this sky writing follow

798
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:57,359
Speaker 3: up from Australia. Hey, guys, recently listened to how sky

799
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:00,719
Speaker 3: running works and it reminded me of something. Although this

800
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 3: may not be suitable for listener mail, which I disagree actually,

801
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:06,600
Speaker 3: because I'm reading it clearly. I was maybe eight or

802
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:08,360
Speaker 3: nine when a few friends and I were out on

803
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:11,880
Speaker 3: the street playing and doing things that nine year olds

804
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:14,480
Speaker 3: would do. It's so awkward to say that.

805
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 1: So you're not replacing something right there, No.

806
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 3: Huh, they were just doing nine year old things, okay,

807
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:24,040
Speaker 3: good clean fun. We looked up and saw a plane

808
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:27,040
Speaker 3: starting a skywrite and were instantly intrigued what was being written.

809
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:29,279
Speaker 3: They started with an H and then an O. This

810
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 3: went on for maybe twenty eight minutes until finally the

811
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 3: word Hooters was scrawled across the sky, albeit backwards. So

812
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 3: I guess they have the Hooters restaurant chicken wing chain

813
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 3: in Australia.

814
00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 1: I guess a rich kid, yeah, really immature rich kid yeah?

815
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:50,000
Speaker 3: Or that. My brain couldn't comprehend how this person managed

816
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:53,400
Speaker 3: to screw up writing a word backwards. The best reason

817
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 3: my childish brain could come with is that skywriting took

818
00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:58,799
Speaker 3: place somewhere between us and a group of people that

819
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:01,400
Speaker 3: it was initially intended for, or that I just thought

820
00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 3: it was written up and downwards rather than across the sky.

821
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:08,160
Speaker 3: Until now, I'd never understood or bothered to learn why

822
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:10,080
Speaker 3: it was like that. So thank you for keeping the

823
00:43:10,080 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 3: podcast great and allowing me to figure that out. That

824
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 3: is from Marlin. Oh boy, uh hapourachichi happerachichi.

825
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:23,879
Speaker 1: Nice?

826
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:24,920
Speaker 3: Have you ever seen a word like that?

827
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 1: Ha?

828
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:32,400
Speaker 3: Poor Rachi hapoor rochi Marlin from Sydney, Australia.

829
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 1: Man, thanks a lot, Marlin.

830
00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 3: H And that's Marlin with an a even Oh yeah, Marlan.

831
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:43,279
Speaker 1: Huh, Well, thanks a lot, Marlin. We're gonna say it

832
00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:43,600
Speaker 1: like that.

833
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:44,000
Speaker 3: Sure.

834
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:46,759
Speaker 1: If you have an awesome last name and want to

835
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 1: share it with us, you can tweet to us at

836
00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:52,239
Speaker 1: s YSK podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com,

837
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:54,680
Speaker 1: slash stuff you should Know. You can send us an

838
00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 1: email to Stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com, and as always,

839
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:00,279
Speaker 1: joined us at our home on the webs uf you

840
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:06,440
Speaker 1: should Know dot com.

841
00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 2: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit

842
00:44:09,160 --> 00:44:10,239
Speaker 2: HowStuffWorks dot com.

843
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:16,200
Speaker 1: H