WEBVTT - Can Nuclear Fusion Reactors Save The World? 0:00:01.600 --> 0:00:04.840 Hey, everybody, I'm back. I first heard about Eider, which 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:08.280 is the nuclear fusion reactor being built in Europe, from 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:11.160 a New Yorker article called Star in a Bottle by 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:14.760 Rathi Kachadourian. And if you find this episode floats your boat, 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.279 I highly recommend reading that article too. The whole idea 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.400 of what they're trying to do, which is to contain plasma, 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:25.160 that crazy intense fourth state of matter that the sun 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:29.080 and lightning are made up of, into a chamber here 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:33.240 on Earth where it has no business being really really 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:37.360 caught my attention. And if they can do it, extremely cheap, abundant, 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:40.560 climate friendly energy will be unlocked for all, and who 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.440 knows what will follow after that. The Eider group was 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.200 shooting for twenty twenty five to start, but recently changed 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.400 their date to twenty thirty four. You can pass the 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:53.159 time while you wait by enjoying this episode. 0:00:55.000 --> 0:01:04.960 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com. 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:08.720 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:14.039 Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry, who's Barrel laughs, And 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:15.160 this is stuff you should know. 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:17.920 She gave us the old quick start. Yeah, like, I 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:19.560 don't want to hear any more impressing record. 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:22.080 Yeah, she knows that it shuts me up, or at 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:25.119 least cuts off whatever conversation I'm chiding her. 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:27.120 It's great. I'm telling you. If we could release the 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:31.080 twenty seconds before each show as its own show, yeah, 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:33.759 that would be terrible. Yeah, no, one who cares. 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:36.640 No, we'd think it was funny and everybody else would 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:38.640 be like, you edit this out for a reason. Yep, 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:44.039 So Chuck, how you doing great? Have you ever been 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:49.480 to as on Provence, France? No? Is that a place? 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:50.680 Yeah? No, I haven't. 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:55.680 It is a rustic little town in Provence, and it 0:01:55.760 --> 0:02:01.280 is strangely, maybe even ironically, in the non hipster you've 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:01.640 been in. 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:04.360 The actual Yeah, it's a real word. 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:08.920 Definition of the word also cite to one of the 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:13.440 most futuristic engineering projects humanity's ever undertaken. 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:15.960 Meat or meat that's a sound it makes. 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:19.359 Oh, I thought you're mocking me. No, no, no, for being 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:20.840 thrilled by the thought of this thing. 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:22.600 No, it is kind of funny that this thing's in 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:25.120 a sleepy little town. It's like a Hamlet may Bee 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.799 Cern in Switzerland. That's not in the city, is it No, 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:30.440 you can't build these things in cities. That's why they're 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:32.960 in sleepy towns exactly, because no one knows they're being poisoned. 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:35.960 Yeah, and you can push the mare around pretty easy, exactly. 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:40.079 This thing is called eider ITER, which is an acronym 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:46.320 for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. That's right, which really 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:47.320 gets the point across. 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:51.919 Did you know the word acronym is an acronym. That's 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.160 not true. Okay, I just want to see how long 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:55.560 you would try and sort it out in your head. 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:58.120 I would have kept going on what it means thirty seconds? 0:02:58.120 --> 0:02:59.799 Maybe that would have been a great joke. Could it 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:01.440 just kept it going. I'm not gonna tell you. 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:06.440 I would have been. I would have it maybe fifteen seconds, 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.040 because you would have gotten that much more sure. So 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:11.400 I wouldn't have looked it up. I would have figured 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:16.400 it out myself. Anyway. EIDER is this colossal engineering project. 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:22.200 Somebody compared it to the pyramids at Giza. Oh wow, Yeah, 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:24.239 that's that's exciting stuff. 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:24.600 Sure. 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:30.160 The thing is is it's a nuclear fusion reactor, and 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:35.560 it's the culmination of decades of attempts to create a 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.640 nuclear fusion reactor. Because we've got fission down and we'll 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:42.600 talk about the difference in a minute, but fusion has 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:47.240 been very elusive, and nowhere is it more apparent than 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:51.040 in the Eider project. Because this thing is going to 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.280 cost it approximately fifty billion dollars when it's completed, fifty 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:59.160 billion dollars. They started in nineteen ninety three. They're hoping 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.960 to turn on the switch in twenty twenty, but it's 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.840 looking like twenty twenty three or twenty twenty four, and 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.520 it won't be starting to produce anything until the two 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.320 thousand and forties at the earliest. 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:13.520 So what's the. 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.880 Point, I'll tell you the point. Yeah, if we can 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:22.160 figure out nuclear fusion chucking the world's literally the world's 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:27.520 energy problems will be solved for millennia. If we can 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.839 just figure this out, we will have a almost no 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:41.000 radioactivity nuclear option, almost limitless fuel supply, yeah, totally green, 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:42.320 yeah clean. 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.599 No pollution, no greenhouse emissions, right. 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:49.960 And with plenty of energy to spare using the already 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.520 extant infrastructure we have to supply power like, you don't 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:57.520 have to completely rebuild everything. You can just to the 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.599 electrical cables outside. It'll be the exact same thing. 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.440 Yeah, you can just go to a nuclear fission reactor 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.160 and press the button that says fusion and it'll all 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:08.120 of a sudden join atoms instead of split them. 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:08.480 Exactly. 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:09.239 It's that easy. 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:11.799 That's what the difference is. With fission, you're splitting atoms 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:15.240 and you're gaining energy from that. With fusion, you're smacking 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:18.240 them together. Yeah, and you're gaining even more energy because 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:20.839 we're you're exploiting a different fundamental force. 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.279 Yeah, and that I was being coy Clearly there is 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:25.680 no button because we would have pushed it a long 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:26.680 time ago. 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:27.880 Yeah. 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:30.400 And when I say no pollution and no greenhouse emissions 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.200 before the pedantic among you right in we know that 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:39.040 just even shipping something from here to there causes pollution 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:40.040 and greenhouse emissions. 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:41.120 Good, but we're. 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.359 Talking about that the output of the reactor itself is 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:43.919 very green. 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.880 So if you want to know all about Eider, well 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:48.559 we're going to talk about it here or there, because 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.360 it's just you just can't talk about nuclear fusion reactors 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:53.200 and not mentioned Eider. But if you want to know 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.200 a lot about Eider, there is a really great article 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.240 called A Star and a Bottle, and it's by a 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:02.800 person named rock Fee cutcha Duran or Durian. And it 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.600 was written in the New Yorker not too long ago. Yeah, 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.599 and man, it is every detail you want to know 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:12.920 about the IDE project written really well, and it's long, 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:14.240 but it's totally worth the read. 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:16.599 Yeah, it's all over the news lately, and for good reason. 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.760 You said a lot of energy. I have a stat 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:21.839 I'm going to throw back to the old days here. 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.919 Per kilogram of fuel, if we're talking fusion and fission, 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.600 fusion produces four times more energy than fission. 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:33.280 I saw seven. 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:36.039 It's probably only things where it's like four to five 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.359 to ten or something. I found four times and ten 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:44.040 million times more than coal. Yeah, ten million times. Yeah, 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:47.520 the energy is coal. And that's with equal fuel per 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.839 kilogram of fuel. Right, It's just I mean, it is 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:51.400 the future. 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:53.400 Yeah. And you can say, well that's great because we 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:56.560 want eighteen million times the amount of power that coal provides. 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.159 You can say, weather buddy, you can also bring it 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:03.279 backwards because you can supply an awful lot of power 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:08.120 then with a lot less fuel. Yeah, where we're like 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.080 the advantage of nuclear fusion are mind boggling. 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.720 Sure, and very few downsides, which we'll get to, of course. 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:17.200 But yeah, I mean, like really genuinely, it's not just 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.520 like some like here's all the great stuff about it 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:22.800 and just don't pay attention to all these like really 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:27.040 horrible aspects. Yes, like there really aren't too many downsides. 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.920 The downside is we are at this moment incapable of 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:37.559 successfully creating a commercially viable nuclear fusion reactor. That's right, 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:40.680 But we've got an an understanding of what the challenges 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.600 are ahead of us thanks to the last fifty or 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:48.320 so years of really really really smart physicists working on 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:52.680 the problem of nuclear fusion. And the great inspiration for 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:57.080 nuclear fusion is the Sun. The Sun and all stars 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:02.880 like it are enormous, immense nuclear fusion reactors. So if 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.440 you are building a nuclear fusion reactor here on Earth, 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:10.440 you're essentially creating a star, and that is a very 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:11.520 difficult thing to do. 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:15.240 It turns out, yeah, the Sun creates I know, we 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:17.720 talked about the Sun in our very famous episode on 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:22.160 the Sun. The Sun creates six hundred and twenty million 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.320 metric tons. It fuses six hundred and twenty million metric 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:28.760 tons of hydrogen at its core every second, So every 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:33.000 second at the Sun's core. It produces enough power to 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.079 light up New York City for one hundred years, New 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:39.240 York City every second. And that's the Sun. And all 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.480 we want to do is do the same thing on 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.320 a much smaller scale. Cret. I think the guy there's 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:49.040 this kid who built one in his garage and he 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.360 said he wanted to cress all this ted talk. He 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:53.280 wanted to create a star in a box is what 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:53.800 he called it. 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:56.160 Yeah, I've seen it, like this New Yorker called it 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:57.080 a star in a bottle. 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:01.360 Yeah. This kid's name is Taylor Wilson, and he's nuclear 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.840 physicist and he's like sixteen, wow. And he created Yeah, 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:10.080 he created a successful one. And the key, though, is 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.600 not to be able to create the fusion. The key 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.040 is to be able to harness enough plasma, which we'll 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:19.560 get to at a high enough temperature and density for 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:21.520 there to be a net power gain. Right, you can 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.880 create fusion, but in order to get out more than 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.360 you're putting in is the only thing that matters, because 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:29.319 what you want to do is create electricity exactly. 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.760 That's there's two huge challenges right now to nuclear fusion. 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:36.800 We pretty much understand it enough to start it going 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:40.480 and get energy from it. The problem is is material 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:44.040 science isn't at a point where it can build a 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:49.360 containment vessel to really house a thermonuclear reactor. 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:50.040 Yeah. 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:52.760 And then the other big obstacle is, like you said, 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.319 net energy gain, Like if you're putting in as much 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.920 or more energy then you're getting out of your nuclear reactor. 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.600 Then you're wasting energy and it's the opposite of what 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:04.559 you're supposed to be doing. 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:06.960 Yeah, they're not just trying to impress people with their 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.760 science knowledge, no, but up to trying to create energy. 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:13.640 Up to now, though, Chucklake, every single thermonuclear reactor that's 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:17.360 ever been built has just been impressing people with knowledge. 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:22.000 Like they haven't gotten any net energy out of a 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.680 single thermonuclear fusion reactor. 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:26.880 Yeah, would see, I have that they have there right now. 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:32.000 They're up to like ten presently they're at ten megawatts. 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.079 Oh is that right? Yeah, and that's more than they 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:36.000 put into. 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:37.720 A net gain of ten megawatts currently. 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:40.200 Everything I saw was when we turn this thing on, 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.680 it should have a net gain. Yeah, but I didn't 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:44.840 see that they've actually done it. 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.720 Yeah, ten megawatts now in Eider is going to produce 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:51.400 five hundred megawatts right once it's fully operational. 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:56.079 Right. So the next challenge then is this, if we're 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:59.360 already getting a net energy gain out of it, then 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:04.000 that means that the net energy gain is it's not sustainable. 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:05.920 Like you said, you want to keep the thing going, 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:08.959 so you don't have to keep starting from scratch to 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:11.559 power it up. You want it to basically be self sustaining, 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:13.880 so you just have to add a little more fuel. 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:14.720 To that's the dream. 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:17.640 So let's talk about the history of fusion reactors. 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.360 Chuck, Yeah, it kind of goes back to this guy 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.960 named Lyman Spitzer. He's a thirty six year old Princeton 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:30.080 astrophysicist and this was in the nineteen fifties and he 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:34.199 was recruited to work on the H bomb and went 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.840 out and got a copy of a paper that was 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:40.080 released from Germany. 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:42.600 I think, right that Argentina. 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:43.520 Oh, Argentina. 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:45.920 Yeah, they announced that they had to get that wrong. 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.280 They had successfully built a fusion reactor. 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:53.040 Right. So he gets this paper, goes on a ski trip, 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:55.800 starts thinking about how he can do this, takes a 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.960 little break from his job building the H bomb, and 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.160 figures out, you know, I think it's possible if we 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:06.880 can harness this plasma, I guess we should just go 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:09.400 ahead and to find what plasma is. Since we keep saying. 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.960 It, Well, there's the normal three energy states that we're 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:17.240 familiar with, water solid and gas, liquid solid and gas. 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.880 Right right, there's a fourth one. It's plasma. And plasma 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:25.080 is basically like an energetic gas where the temperatures are 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.880 so high that whatever atoms you put into it, the 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.560 electrons are stripped off and allowed to move around freely. Basically, 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:36.480 the surface of the Sun is plasma. That's what plasma is. 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:38.960 It's a gas. It's a roiling gas that's really hard 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.200 to control and is really unpredictable. 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:42.760 Which is when you see the Sun like that rippling, 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:44.040 wavy looking thing. 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.760 That's plasma, right, And the reason the Sun manages to 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:51.520 stay together is because it is enormously massive and has 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:53.200 a ton of gravity at its core. 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:55.240 Yeah, we don't have that advantage here on Earth. 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:57.440 We don't, so we try to make up for that 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:59.079 by increasing the temperature. 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:01.240 That's right. He was onto it way back then in 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:03.920 the nineteen fifties. If we can just harness this, if 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.480 we can just get it hot enough and he created 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:11.680 a tabletop device called the Stellar Raider, and it was 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:14.040 in a figure eight position. It was a pipe and 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:16.880 a figure eight. Yeah, and this would keep things from 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.280 banging into walls theoretically. Yeah, and he was onto something 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:23.319 because well, we'll get to Lockheed later, but they're using 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.559 a similar device now, a figure eight. 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:28.920 Oh yeah, yeah, Well I didn't realize that was a 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:31.440 figure eight it is, which is weird because what they 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:33.520 eventually found out was that a donut shape was really 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:38.200 the key to get that net gain. So and the 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:40.720 reason that they found out that a donut shape worked 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:45.440 was because in the I think the late fifties, the 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.240 US had run up against the wall. They're saying like, okay, 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:51.800 we've got this, but we can't control the plasma because 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.800 think about it, what you're trying to do is create 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.960 a star inside something, but it can't touch any of 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.760 the vessel that it's in or else it'll just completely 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:02.880 erupt it. Right. 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.920 Yeah. They compared it to holding jelly and rubber bands, right. 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:09.880 It was just like you can't They couldn't figure out 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:13.319 how to control the plasma. So when when the US 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:15.719 ran up against this wall, they said, hey, rest of 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:20.080 the world we're going to declassify what spitz limon Spitzer 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.360 has been doing us out and like we'll share if 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.680 you guys share. And it turns out that the Russians 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:30.040 had already come up against this problem and licked it. 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:31.960 They figured out that if you put the thing in 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:39.000 what's called the toroidal shape, a donut shape using electromagnets, 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:44.040 you con tame the plasma essentially, And the donut shape 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.680 itself was pretty ingenious, but the real stroke of genius 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:52.080 was by running electromagnets in rings around the donut. So 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.080 it's like you have a donut and you put a 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:58.200 bunch of ear rings around it, right, and those are electromagnets. 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:02.360 So you're creating an electromagnetic force field which contains the plasma. 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:07.080 But then you also put an electromagnetic force field in 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.000 the middle of the plasma. So not only does it 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.280 heat it up to the temperatures you want, it also 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:15.240 stabilizes it further. So the Russians have invented what they 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:20.880 call the TACOMAC, which is this doughnut shape nuclear fusion 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:25.200 reactor that basically became the standard for the next fifty 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:25.920 years or so. 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:31.000 Yeah, you basically could achieve a really dense, super hot plasma. 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:33.320 And we'll get into temperatures and stuff in a bit. 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.600 But since we can't create that kind of pressure that 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:39.760 they have in the Sun due to their gravity, their gravity, 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.560 the Sun's gravity, right, you know, the Sun, all those people. Yeah, 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:44.880 like you said, we had to make up for it 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:46.600 here on Earth with temperatures. 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:50.640 Right, because apparently if you are in a in the 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:54.960 middle of a nuclear reactor, a nuclear fusion reactor, you're 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:58.040 going to find that the temperatures inside are about six 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.240 times hotter than the core of the Sun, not even 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:03.080 the service of the Sun, the core of the Sun. 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:05.120 And the reason why it has to be so much 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.800 hotter is because, like you said, we can't replicate that density. 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:11.000 We can get to those temperatures that we need, but 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:12.960 we can't get to the density, so we have to 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.880 make up for it. So we'll talk about kind of 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:18.960 the physics of what's going on here and why you 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:22.400 have to have high temperatures and what we're making up 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:29.200 for with density and everything right after this. So, Chuck, 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:36.040 we're talking about nuclear fusion, and it's actually surprisingly understandable 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:38.920 at its most basic core. 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:41.760 Yeah, you're fusing atoms. It's not the hardest thing in 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:43.280 the world to wrap your head around. Yeah. 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.480 So with fission, we're splitting atoms. You're taking an atom 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.720 and you're splitting its nuclei apart. You're splitting the neutrons 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.520 and the protons apart from one another. And when you 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:56.760 do that, one of the four fundamental forces, electromagnetic force, 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.320 pushes them away and you get this burst of in energy. 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:01.000 Yeah. 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:05.280 With fusion, you're taking nuclei from different atoms. You're taking 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:10.160 protons and neutrons, and you're smashing them together. And when 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:13.600 you do that, you're unleashing what's called the strong force, 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:18.720 which appropriately enough is stronger than electromagnetic force, which is 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:22.160 why nuclear fusion yields more energy than nuclear fission. 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.439 Yeah. Einstein himself said, you know, each time you smash 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:28.280 these things together, you're gonna lose a little bit of mass, 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.240 and that little bit of mass is a ton of energy. 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:32.439 As it turns out. 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:34.399 That's right, the famous equals MC squared. 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:36.880 Yeah, and I don't think he realized in nineteen oh five, 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:37.919 or maybe Einstein did. 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:38.960 Einstein probably did. 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:40.320 Yeah, Einstein probably did. 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:41.399 I would guess he did. 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:41.840 Yeah. 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:44.800 So the problem is, even though it is very easy. 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:49.439 Just smash some protons together. There is a tremendous amount 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:51.520 of resistance to that smashing together. 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:52.960 They don't want to smash together. 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:56.479 No, because it's just like if you take a magnet, 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.440 two magnets, yeah, and you put the positive poles toward one, 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:04.280 they repel one another, right, Yeah, same thing. That's that's 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:06.919 the same principle on an atomic level too. If you 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:10.080 take protons, which are positively charged particles, and try to 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.040 put them together, they repel one another. And the closer 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.520 you get them together, the stronger. The repellent force is 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:20.640 the electromagnetic force, right, But if you can get them 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:26.720 close enough, the electromagnetic force is overcome by that strong force, 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:30.119 the strong nuclear force, and they become bound together because 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:33.159 the strong force is that one of those four fundamental 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:35.600 forces of the universe, and that is the force that 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:40.520 keeps atoms together, and that is that force is stronger 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:44.560 than the force that repels like charged particles. 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:46.639 Yeah. And when you talk about close, they need to 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.920 be within one times ten to the negative fifteen meters 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:50.560 of one another. 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:54.240 Right. So use if you'll indulge. 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:55.600 Me, sure you're gonna read a bunch of zero s. 0:18:55.760 --> 0:19:00.440 Yeah, it's point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:06.320 zero zero zero zero zero zero zero one meters apart. Right, 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:07.760 that's how close they have to be. 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:11.000 That's right, to get them to accept one another in 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:14.880 to fuse. I think I have a theory that if 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:17.159 they they are not fusing because they think they're going 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.200 to be made into a bomb, And if we told 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:22.000 them that when we're creating energy, they might be more 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:23.200 willing to fuse together. 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.560 Yeah, because protons are piece next. Everybody knows that. Sure, 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.000 So when they do fuse together, right, when you do 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:32.760 cross that threshold and the strong force takes over and 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:38.560 overcomes the electromagnetic force, like we said, a tremendous amount 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:43.040 of energy is released, and it's released in part in 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:47.560 the form of neutrinos neutrons, right, which are right, neutral 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:51.959 particles which suddenly start carrying a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:55.119 So let's say you have one atom, you got another atom, 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:57.400 and they're both like, I'm not getting close to you. 0:19:57.480 --> 0:19:59.840 We're not going to get to Okay, we got together. Yes, 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:05.679 that force that mass that's displaced is transferred through the 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:09.119 neutron that gets kicked off of the atom, right, Yeah, 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:12.200 And it's carried out. Now, a neutron doesn't have any 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:16.040 kind of positive or negative charts. It's neutral. It's a neutrone, 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:20.280 which means that it can pass through the very electromagnetic 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:24.320 fields that are keeping this plasma where this reaction is 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:28.040 taking place together. Once that happens, Chuck, it can go 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:30.760 out to what's called the blanket wall and a thermonuclear 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:35.760 reactor warm it, and then that heat is transferred into 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:40.520 a water cooling system. The water's warmed up turns steam, 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:44.760 which generates a which I guess moves the turbine, and 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:46.960 then all of a sudden, the turbine is producing electricity. 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:50.600 Yeah, it's funny how just it gets so complex, but 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:52.320 all you're still trying to do is create steam. 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:55.520 Yeah, it's like it's like hooking the iss up to 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:59.080 a horse, right, you know, move it over there. 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.680 So, so there are a few types of fusion reactions. 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:07.280 The ultimate goal right now, what we can do on 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:13.440 a small scale is what's called a deuterium tritium reaction. Yeah, 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:15.840 that's the one that we can currently achieve. That's one 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:19.840 atom of deuterium and one atom of tritium combining to 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:23.399 form a helium four atom and a neutron the ultimate goal. 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:25.800