1 00:00:08,720 --> 00:00:11,480 Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, I noticed a trend recently that kind of 2 00:00:11,560 --> 00:00:14,240 Speaker 1: worries me. Oh, what's that? I feel like people are 3 00:00:14,360 --> 00:00:18,560 Speaker 1: using the word laser to make things sound more signs. 4 00:00:19,480 --> 00:00:23,040 Speaker 1: You mean, like laser vision correction. I actually think that's legit, 5 00:00:23,120 --> 00:00:26,360 Speaker 1: isn't it? Well, to be honest, I've been doing this, 6 00:00:26,440 --> 00:00:28,520 Speaker 1: I think since the seventies. But the deal I saw 7 00:00:28,560 --> 00:00:31,840 Speaker 1: something that said quit smoking with lasers. I'm not sure 8 00:00:31,840 --> 00:00:36,120 Speaker 1: about that. What are they zapping exactly? Maybe they zap 9 00:00:36,159 --> 00:00:40,040 Speaker 1: you every time you smoke a cigarette ouch, or maybe 10 00:00:40,040 --> 00:00:42,600 Speaker 1: they just zap your wallet. That wouldn't really stop you 11 00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:45,520 Speaker 1: from smoking, though, wouldn't You wouldn't have any more money 12 00:00:45,560 --> 00:00:48,040 Speaker 1: to buy cigarettes, but then your wallet would be smoking. 13 00:01:03,520 --> 00:01:05,840 Speaker 1: Hi am or handmade cartoonists and the co author of 14 00:01:05,880 --> 00:01:09,319 Speaker 1: Frequently Asked Questions about the Universe. Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm 15 00:01:09,360 --> 00:01:12,760 Speaker 1: a particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine, and 16 00:01:12,800 --> 00:01:16,240 Speaker 1: I've never purposely zapped myself with a laser. Oh, but 17 00:01:16,319 --> 00:01:21,600 Speaker 1: you've done it accidentally. I try to talk about that. 18 00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:26,120 Speaker 1: What are you trying to do with a laser? I mean, 19 00:01:26,160 --> 00:01:28,000 Speaker 1: you are a particle physicist, so I wouldn't put it 20 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:30,600 Speaker 1: past you to you know between around with giant lasers. 21 00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:33,759 Speaker 1: Lasers are a low energy man for me, Lasers like whatever, 22 00:01:34,200 --> 00:01:37,520 Speaker 1: what I guess nice to a particle collider, a laser 23 00:01:37,600 --> 00:01:40,160 Speaker 1: is what like a tiny little you know, baby gun 24 00:01:40,840 --> 00:01:43,640 Speaker 1: pew pew pew. You're like, give me the giant death 25 00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:47,320 Speaker 1: star ray. But a laser beam is going at the 26 00:01:47,319 --> 00:01:50,480 Speaker 1: speed of light. That's faster than what your gun is doing. 27 00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:53,600 Speaker 1: At the large hadron collider, That's true. My accelerated protons 28 00:01:53,600 --> 00:01:56,640 Speaker 1: would lose a race to lasers. Son, you know, high 29 00:01:56,640 --> 00:01:58,880 Speaker 1: new and gunfight. You know, the guy with the laser 30 00:01:58,920 --> 00:02:03,280 Speaker 1: would get to you first. He would fry me one 31 00:02:03,440 --> 00:02:05,760 Speaker 1: bill a second before I zapp his brain with the 32 00:02:05,800 --> 00:02:08,800 Speaker 1: proton beam. Yeah, they would have time to, you know, 33 00:02:08,880 --> 00:02:10,640 Speaker 1: get out of the way. I don't think physics is 34 00:02:10,680 --> 00:02:15,080 Speaker 1: nearly as exciting as you'd like to imagine. Well, you 35 00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:17,720 Speaker 1: don't know my imagination, Daniel. Isn't it always high noon 36 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:20,959 Speaker 1: at the larger patron collider? This collidering big enough for 37 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:24,560 Speaker 1: the two of us. But anyways, welcome to our podcast 38 00:02:24,680 --> 00:02:27,280 Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I 39 00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:29,800 Speaker 1: Heart Radio in which we try to zapp your brain 40 00:02:29,880 --> 00:02:32,799 Speaker 1: with all of the amazing and incredible things going on 41 00:02:32,960 --> 00:02:36,240 Speaker 1: in our universe. We heat up your cerebellum a little 42 00:02:36,240 --> 00:02:39,200 Speaker 1: bit by talking about all the incredible mysteries about the 43 00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:42,160 Speaker 1: nature of the universe, how it works, how it came together, 44 00:02:42,280 --> 00:02:45,360 Speaker 1: how we can harness what we've learned to improve our 45 00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:49,399 Speaker 1: everyday lives. Yeah, because it's a big universe and there's 46 00:02:49,400 --> 00:02:52,040 Speaker 1: a lot going on in it. There are things out 47 00:02:52,040 --> 00:02:56,600 Speaker 1: there exploding, sucking stuff into black holes, and also fusing together, 48 00:02:57,400 --> 00:03:02,079 Speaker 1: taking lots of material out there in space and smushing 49 00:03:02,120 --> 00:03:04,480 Speaker 1: them all together to make something new. Because the universe 50 00:03:04,639 --> 00:03:08,560 Speaker 1: is not static, it's incredible. It's dynamic, it's chaotic. There 51 00:03:08,600 --> 00:03:11,200 Speaker 1: are powerful things going on in the hearts of stars 52 00:03:11,200 --> 00:03:14,720 Speaker 1: and the collisions of neutron stars, and mysterious things happening 53 00:03:14,919 --> 00:03:18,480 Speaker 1: in the centers of black holes. And by understanding how 54 00:03:18,520 --> 00:03:21,440 Speaker 1: those things work, we cannot just reveal the true nature 55 00:03:21,520 --> 00:03:24,320 Speaker 1: of space and time and the universe itself, we can 56 00:03:24,360 --> 00:03:27,200 Speaker 1: hope to better our lives down here on Earth. Yeah, 57 00:03:27,240 --> 00:03:30,160 Speaker 1: and if anything at all, it's entertaining, sort of like 58 00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:34,399 Speaker 1: a big battle in a Star Wars movie with lots 59 00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:36,920 Speaker 1: of lasers. It is pretty fun to watch stars collide 60 00:03:36,920 --> 00:03:39,520 Speaker 1: and imagine what else you could smush together. But as 61 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:42,840 Speaker 1: you said, it's interesting to understand things about the universe 62 00:03:42,840 --> 00:03:44,920 Speaker 1: and know more about that because sometimes we can use 63 00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:47,800 Speaker 1: that knowledge for our benefit. We can use it to 64 00:03:47,800 --> 00:03:53,280 Speaker 1: create better medical devices and new procedures and better devices 65 00:03:53,320 --> 00:03:56,640 Speaker 1: for our phones, and also maybe even in the future, 66 00:03:56,760 --> 00:03:59,560 Speaker 1: solve all of our energy needs. That's right. Physics and 67 00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:03,440 Speaker 1: particle physics is not just about abstract understanding of the 68 00:04:03,520 --> 00:04:06,720 Speaker 1: nature of the universe, although that is a lot of fun, 69 00:04:06,920 --> 00:04:10,000 Speaker 1: it also gives us the power to solve real world problems, 70 00:04:10,080 --> 00:04:12,520 Speaker 1: and by understanding how energy flows in the rest of 71 00:04:12,520 --> 00:04:15,200 Speaker 1: the universe, we can try to learn how to better 72 00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:18,160 Speaker 1: harness and tap into it here on Earth. Yeah, because 73 00:04:18,160 --> 00:04:20,480 Speaker 1: I guess humans, you know, use up a lot of energy. 74 00:04:20,560 --> 00:04:22,680 Speaker 1: You know, we need to charge up our phones, we 75 00:04:22,720 --> 00:04:25,200 Speaker 1: need to heat our bodies up in the winter, and 76 00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:27,400 Speaker 1: so we consume a lot of energy. But so far, 77 00:04:27,520 --> 00:04:30,000 Speaker 1: most of the energy we use sort of comes from 78 00:04:30,360 --> 00:04:33,920 Speaker 1: pretty sloppy methods. That's right. Most of the energy produced 79 00:04:33,960 --> 00:04:37,920 Speaker 1: in the universe is via fusion, squeezing together protons at 80 00:04:37,920 --> 00:04:39,680 Speaker 1: the hearts of sun to release a little bit of 81 00:04:39,760 --> 00:04:42,479 Speaker 1: energy as they become heavier. Elements, but down here on 82 00:04:42,520 --> 00:04:45,440 Speaker 1: Earth were mostly doing other stuff like burning fossil fuels 83 00:04:45,560 --> 00:04:48,640 Speaker 1: or or capturing the Sun's rays. We haven't yet managed 84 00:04:48,680 --> 00:04:52,200 Speaker 1: to take advantage of the most common, the most prolific, 85 00:04:52,279 --> 00:04:54,839 Speaker 1: the most amazing process out there. Yeah, it seems like 86 00:04:54,880 --> 00:04:57,840 Speaker 1: we sort of use mostly chemistry for energy here down 87 00:04:57,839 --> 00:05:00,839 Speaker 1: on Earth. You know, we combine moll kulls or break 88 00:05:00,920 --> 00:05:04,159 Speaker 1: apart giant long molecules, and it seems like the universe 89 00:05:04,160 --> 00:05:07,120 Speaker 1: has have a better idea for maybe a cleaner idea 90 00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:11,000 Speaker 1: for how to create or release energy, and it's happening 91 00:05:11,120 --> 00:05:13,080 Speaker 1: all the time in the sun, for example. Many of 92 00:05:13,120 --> 00:05:16,360 Speaker 1: our techniques have advantages, but all of them have disadvantages. 93 00:05:16,480 --> 00:05:19,359 Speaker 1: You know, renewable energy is wonderful, but it's not always 94 00:05:19,360 --> 00:05:21,800 Speaker 1: easy to predict when the sun will shine or when 95 00:05:21,839 --> 00:05:25,000 Speaker 1: the wind will blow. Even things like fission based nuclear 96 00:05:25,040 --> 00:05:27,200 Speaker 1: power that we've talked about recently on the podcast can 97 00:05:27,240 --> 00:05:30,920 Speaker 1: produce a lot of really toxic nuclear waste. So fusion 98 00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:33,919 Speaker 1: is always been something we've hoped for, something we've strived 99 00:05:33,960 --> 00:05:37,000 Speaker 1: for as an energy source of the future, but for 100 00:05:37,040 --> 00:05:40,200 Speaker 1: a long time it's remains stubbornly in the future. Yeah, 101 00:05:40,200 --> 00:05:43,400 Speaker 1: and it's an almost very elegant way of getting energy, right, Like, 102 00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:47,960 Speaker 1: you just take two basic protons s mush them together 103 00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:52,239 Speaker 1: and you get a slightly bigger atom. And it seems 104 00:05:52,279 --> 00:05:54,440 Speaker 1: like a pretty clean way to get energy. It is, 105 00:05:54,520 --> 00:05:57,440 Speaker 1: and the fuel that's required, it's not something complicated and 106 00:05:57,600 --> 00:06:00,520 Speaker 1: nasty like uranium or even thorium you have to dig 107 00:06:00,600 --> 00:06:04,480 Speaker 1: up from the Earth's crust. Protons are literally everywhere. It's 108 00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:07,240 Speaker 1: the most common thing in the universe, so we're not 109 00:06:07,279 --> 00:06:10,000 Speaker 1: going to run out of protons for fuel for fusion, 110 00:06:10,160 --> 00:06:13,159 Speaker 1: and hardly produces any waste because the byproducts are also 111 00:06:13,320 --> 00:06:16,200 Speaker 1: light elements, which are not dangerous. So there are so 112 00:06:16,279 --> 00:06:19,680 Speaker 1: many advantages, so many reasons to hope that we might 113 00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:22,920 Speaker 1: get fusion to work. It could basically make energy free. 114 00:06:23,320 --> 00:06:27,000 Speaker 1: Imagine how our society would be transformed if energy cost 115 00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:30,600 Speaker 1: literally nothing. Yeah, but as you said, fusion is hard 116 00:06:30,640 --> 00:06:32,520 Speaker 1: to do. I mean, it's done at the center of 117 00:06:32,560 --> 00:06:35,440 Speaker 1: the Sun, but that's hard to replicate here on Earth. 118 00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:37,960 Speaker 1: But there is a sort of relatively new way to 119 00:06:38,080 --> 00:06:40,520 Speaker 1: create fusion, an idea that's been around for a while 120 00:06:41,040 --> 00:06:43,400 Speaker 1: that has been making a lot of progress lately. You're 121 00:06:43,440 --> 00:06:47,560 Speaker 1: probably familiar with our attempts to replicate fusion by replicating 122 00:06:47,560 --> 00:06:50,160 Speaker 1: the conditions at the heart of the sun, heating things 123 00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:53,000 Speaker 1: up and storing them in magnetic bottles, for example. But 124 00:06:53,080 --> 00:06:54,880 Speaker 1: that's not the only way to do fusion. We can 125 00:06:54,960 --> 00:06:58,760 Speaker 1: also take advantage of lasers. So today on the podcast, 126 00:06:58,760 --> 00:07:07,760 Speaker 1: we'll be tackling the question what is laser fusion and 127 00:07:07,839 --> 00:07:10,360 Speaker 1: are you sure that's the way to pronounce it? Yeah? 128 00:07:10,400 --> 00:07:12,920 Speaker 1: I know, right, it's two s. Is it should be 129 00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:18,280 Speaker 1: laser fuse fusion. That sounds like a French thie restaurant 130 00:07:19,920 --> 00:07:22,760 Speaker 1: where they what they cook your food with lasers. Yeah, 131 00:07:22,760 --> 00:07:26,560 Speaker 1: it's new fusion cuisine with lasers and they lace it 132 00:07:26,600 --> 00:07:32,320 Speaker 1: with thie basil. That sounds pretty good. Actually, yeah, I know. Alright, 133 00:07:32,440 --> 00:07:35,840 Speaker 1: Suddenly I'm like Mayne, I'll go get some tie for lunch. 134 00:07:35,960 --> 00:07:38,160 Speaker 1: I love when our jokes on the podcast are actually 135 00:07:38,200 --> 00:07:41,000 Speaker 1: seriously good business ideas. Somebody out there, I hope is 136 00:07:41,040 --> 00:07:44,840 Speaker 1: taking it. I'm not sure restaurants are great business ideas, 137 00:07:45,760 --> 00:07:48,160 Speaker 1: but maybe one with lasers is maybe we should just 138 00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:50,880 Speaker 1: have a food truck, right, Let's have a Daniel and Horror. Hey, 139 00:07:50,920 --> 00:07:53,080 Speaker 1: explain the universe food truck where we try out all 140 00:07:53,080 --> 00:07:55,640 Speaker 1: of these things is an experiment coming soon to a 141 00:07:55,760 --> 00:07:59,080 Speaker 1: university near you. Mostly we just sell bananas, you know, 142 00:07:59,440 --> 00:08:02,320 Speaker 1: every day. This special is something different, you know, black 143 00:08:02,360 --> 00:08:05,120 Speaker 1: hole donuts, or we can use lasers to write the 144 00:08:05,160 --> 00:08:09,760 Speaker 1: podcast logo on the banana skin. Oh interesting, So the 145 00:08:09,800 --> 00:08:15,640 Speaker 1: bananas are lazed with lasers, lazier bananas and then it 146 00:08:15,680 --> 00:08:19,080 Speaker 1: gets peeled also by lasers. Or just your graduated grand 147 00:08:19,120 --> 00:08:21,200 Speaker 1: students have plenty to do when not putting them to 148 00:08:21,320 --> 00:08:24,000 Speaker 1: work in the food truck. You gotta you gotta pay 149 00:08:24,080 --> 00:08:28,480 Speaker 1: them somehow, physics paying the bills. That's true. Maybe a 150 00:08:28,480 --> 00:08:30,880 Speaker 1: food truck will raise more money than my latest grand 151 00:08:30,920 --> 00:08:33,800 Speaker 1: application to the National Science Foundation. Actually, you know, the 152 00:08:33,880 --> 00:08:36,800 Speaker 1: National Science Foundation requires an outreach component. Maybe I should 153 00:08:36,800 --> 00:08:39,600 Speaker 1: propose a physics based food truck as a way to 154 00:08:39,679 --> 00:08:43,120 Speaker 1: reach the public. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there you go. But 155 00:08:43,240 --> 00:08:45,920 Speaker 1: this is an interesting technique and maybe the way of 156 00:08:45,960 --> 00:08:49,360 Speaker 1: the future. This idea of creating fusion with lasers. This 157 00:08:49,440 --> 00:08:51,840 Speaker 1: is an idea that's been around for a little while, right, Yeah, 158 00:08:51,840 --> 00:08:54,560 Speaker 1: this idea has been around almost as long as the 159 00:08:54,600 --> 00:08:57,520 Speaker 1: other ideas for fusion. Back in the days when people 160 00:08:57,559 --> 00:08:59,880 Speaker 1: were still really not sure how we could achieve the 161 00:09:00,040 --> 00:09:04,920 Speaker 1: conditions necessary to squeeze protons together and release their nuclear energy. 162 00:09:05,040 --> 00:09:06,920 Speaker 1: And I remember when I first heard about it, I thought, 163 00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:10,199 Speaker 1: that's crazy, that will never work. That's just like throwing 164 00:09:10,280 --> 00:09:13,760 Speaker 1: lasers at the problem to try to solve it. Isn't 165 00:09:13,800 --> 00:09:17,439 Speaker 1: throwing lasers at the problem basically physics. I mean, did 166 00:09:17,440 --> 00:09:20,000 Speaker 1: you use lasers for everything? I can't seem to fall 167 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:23,199 Speaker 1: asleep at night? Have you tried lasers that it works 168 00:09:23,200 --> 00:09:28,840 Speaker 1: in every situation? I mean, like most physics experiments use lasers, right, 169 00:09:28,920 --> 00:09:32,160 Speaker 1: My goo uses lasers. All these experiments use lasers. Right. 170 00:09:32,280 --> 00:09:35,880 Speaker 1: Lasers are very cool. They're very clean. They're single frequency 171 00:09:35,960 --> 00:09:39,079 Speaker 1: source of photons that are all in phase and highly collimated. 172 00:09:39,280 --> 00:09:41,679 Speaker 1: So they're very powerful because they'd let you touch something 173 00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:44,640 Speaker 1: really basic about the universe, right, which is that the 174 00:09:44,679 --> 00:09:47,080 Speaker 1: speed of light is a constant. It's sort of like 175 00:09:47,200 --> 00:09:50,280 Speaker 1: pure and clean and simple in that way. And also 176 00:09:50,360 --> 00:09:52,480 Speaker 1: people like them. They're cool, and so it's a nice 177 00:09:52,480 --> 00:09:55,640 Speaker 1: thing to write in your grand proposal. That doesn't necessarily 178 00:09:55,679 --> 00:09:58,160 Speaker 1: mean that it solves every problem. Like you know, are 179 00:09:58,200 --> 00:10:01,440 Speaker 1: your kids fighting? Not? Lasers are the answer, but they 180 00:10:01,440 --> 00:10:03,880 Speaker 1: could be. Have you tried just give a couple of 181 00:10:03,920 --> 00:10:08,880 Speaker 1: laser guns and they'll be quiet and entertained for hours, 182 00:10:08,679 --> 00:10:11,280 Speaker 1: that's right. And when you smell charred flesh, maybe you 183 00:10:11,320 --> 00:10:15,400 Speaker 1: know you've gone too far. Well, little powered lasers of course, 184 00:10:15,520 --> 00:10:18,640 Speaker 1: right right, we'll try that in your kids first. But 185 00:10:18,679 --> 00:10:20,840 Speaker 1: it is an intriguing idea, and that one that's been 186 00:10:20,840 --> 00:10:23,360 Speaker 1: around for a while and one that maybe people will 187 00:10:23,400 --> 00:10:25,440 Speaker 1: be surprised to learn is happening right here in the 188 00:10:25,480 --> 00:10:28,440 Speaker 1: US in California. That's right. We are the world leader 189 00:10:28,520 --> 00:10:32,559 Speaker 1: in zapping stuff with enormous big lasers. How american is that? 190 00:10:32,640 --> 00:10:34,800 Speaker 1: But you can't have anybody else be the world leader 191 00:10:35,080 --> 00:10:38,920 Speaker 1: of laser snapping. There'll be a national security risk, that's true. 192 00:10:38,920 --> 00:10:42,160 Speaker 1: And actually these huge lasers are not just for studying fusion, 193 00:10:42,240 --> 00:10:45,360 Speaker 1: are also for making sure that our nuclear weapons are 194 00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:49,040 Speaker 1: not degrading as they sit on the stockpile. All right, 195 00:10:49,080 --> 00:10:51,400 Speaker 1: we'll get into that. But as usually, we were wondering 196 00:10:51,400 --> 00:10:54,000 Speaker 1: how many people out there had heard of laser fusion 197 00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:57,160 Speaker 1: or knew how it works. So thanks very much to 198 00:10:57,160 --> 00:11:00,960 Speaker 1: everybody who volunteers to answer these silly questions over the podcast. 199 00:11:01,120 --> 00:11:03,040 Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun for us and very helpful 200 00:11:03,080 --> 00:11:05,920 Speaker 1: for the listeners to hear what other people are thinking 201 00:11:06,160 --> 00:11:08,400 Speaker 1: and if you'd like to participate, please don't be shy. 202 00:11:08,600 --> 00:11:11,200 Speaker 1: Just right to us. Two questions at Daniel and Jorge 203 00:11:11,240 --> 00:11:13,680 Speaker 1: dot com. We'd love to hear from you. Think about 204 00:11:13,679 --> 00:11:16,480 Speaker 1: it for a second. How do you think laser fusion worked? 205 00:11:17,480 --> 00:11:19,880 Speaker 1: Here's what people had to say. As I understand that 206 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:26,400 Speaker 1: laser is light amplification by stimulated emicious radiation, So I 207 00:11:26,440 --> 00:11:31,840 Speaker 1: suppose that laser fusion can either amplify the laser further 208 00:11:32,960 --> 00:11:39,240 Speaker 1: or somehow produce energy similar to solar power. I heard 209 00:11:39,240 --> 00:11:43,880 Speaker 1: about this some lab achieved what was it, some benchmark 210 00:11:44,160 --> 00:11:48,160 Speaker 1: recently with laser fusion, and it was all over this 211 00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:53,400 Speaker 1: science news. Laser fusion is when several lasers are all 212 00:11:54,120 --> 00:12:00,600 Speaker 1: pointed at one small spot containing the hydrogen itoms in 213 00:12:00,640 --> 00:12:04,760 Speaker 1: that spot and heating them up. The heat causes the 214 00:12:04,840 --> 00:12:08,760 Speaker 1: hydrogen atoms to move faster and faster, and they eventually 215 00:12:08,840 --> 00:12:15,440 Speaker 1: crash into each other, merging, creating helium and fusion. Laser 216 00:12:15,480 --> 00:12:20,320 Speaker 1: fusion is the fusion that is being done that just 217 00:12:20,440 --> 00:12:25,320 Speaker 1: achieved a new energy level, and the laser provides the 218 00:12:25,480 --> 00:12:29,160 Speaker 1: energy to help cause the hydrogen items atoms to bond 219 00:12:29,160 --> 00:12:31,600 Speaker 1: together to form the helium. I have never heard of 220 00:12:31,920 --> 00:12:35,120 Speaker 1: laser fusion. But if I were to guess, I would 221 00:12:35,160 --> 00:12:40,040 Speaker 1: guess it's something where you can focus enough lasers um 222 00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:44,360 Speaker 1: and get the conditions just right to meet the starting 223 00:12:44,400 --> 00:12:49,360 Speaker 1: conditions of nuclear fusion, and then from there it's kind 224 00:12:49,400 --> 00:12:54,320 Speaker 1: of a self sustaining process. I have no idea laser fusion. 225 00:12:54,600 --> 00:13:01,000 Speaker 1: Probably the research this type of fusion for or future 226 00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:05,640 Speaker 1: clean energy. Alright, a lot of great answers like the 227 00:13:05,640 --> 00:13:10,560 Speaker 1: one that said it's fusion with lasers basically, and it's not. 228 00:13:10,679 --> 00:13:13,120 Speaker 1: It's not wrong, right, Nobody thought it was a tie 229 00:13:13,160 --> 00:13:17,120 Speaker 1: basil restaurant. That's surprising. That means it's a great idea 230 00:13:17,200 --> 00:13:20,960 Speaker 1: that oh yeah, nobody's had this idea yet. It's fresh 231 00:13:21,440 --> 00:13:27,760 Speaker 1: fresh laser fusion cuisine. Even better, organic fresh laser fusion cuisine. Yes, 232 00:13:27,880 --> 00:13:30,640 Speaker 1: lasers to table. That's a very common thing people want. 233 00:13:32,320 --> 00:13:37,360 Speaker 1: If he's ask something with a laser, is it still organic? Well, 234 00:13:37,400 --> 00:13:39,760 Speaker 1: I don't know where did the energy that power the 235 00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:45,719 Speaker 1: laser come from. Interesting from a free range horse on 236 00:13:45,760 --> 00:13:52,199 Speaker 1: a treadmill. Maybe that's still organic. Free range horse a treadmill, 237 00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:55,840 Speaker 1: that's your most organic source of energy, A free range 238 00:13:55,840 --> 00:14:01,640 Speaker 1: horse from the treadmille brain storm I'm just bit balling here. Yes, 239 00:14:01,679 --> 00:14:04,679 Speaker 1: in that case, it's an organic laser to table restaurant. 240 00:14:04,840 --> 00:14:08,760 Speaker 1: Yeah all right, yeah, yeah, maybe ethnically questionable unless I 241 00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:11,280 Speaker 1: guess the horse likes to work out on a treadmill 242 00:14:11,679 --> 00:14:14,040 Speaker 1: and all the servers have very long beards that are 243 00:14:14,080 --> 00:14:18,080 Speaker 1: elegantly trimmed with our new laser beard trimming technique. But 244 00:14:18,120 --> 00:14:21,840 Speaker 1: then how do you power that laser? More horses? More? 245 00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:26,120 Speaker 1: We need more horses, man, this this business idea is 246 00:14:26,160 --> 00:14:29,040 Speaker 1: getting more complicated by the second. Maybe we should stick 247 00:14:29,080 --> 00:14:31,680 Speaker 1: to our core competencies. I think we just need more 248 00:14:31,760 --> 00:14:34,160 Speaker 1: layers to the spreadsheet. That's always the answer. I see 249 00:14:34,200 --> 00:14:37,920 Speaker 1: more spreadsheets. Yes, yes, that's always the answer. But anyways, 250 00:14:38,040 --> 00:14:40,000 Speaker 1: a lot of people seem to have no idea how 251 00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:41,680 Speaker 1: this works, and some people had not even heard of 252 00:14:41,960 --> 00:14:44,760 Speaker 1: the idea of laser fusion. I guess it hasn't been 253 00:14:44,800 --> 00:14:46,960 Speaker 1: on the headlines a lot. Yeah, it doesn't seem to 254 00:14:47,040 --> 00:14:50,360 Speaker 1: be as popular an idea as the other forms of fusion. 255 00:14:50,360 --> 00:14:51,840 Speaker 1: And that's why I thought it'd be fun to dig 256 00:14:51,880 --> 00:14:54,720 Speaker 1: into and to share people the basic ideas, the challenges, 257 00:14:54,800 --> 00:14:56,800 Speaker 1: and the potential future. All right, well, you talked a 258 00:14:56,840 --> 00:15:00,000 Speaker 1: little bit about what a laser is. So now let's 259 00:15:00,120 --> 00:15:02,920 Speaker 1: um start at the basics and talk about what fusion is. 260 00:15:03,080 --> 00:15:05,640 Speaker 1: So the basics of fusion are fairly simple. You start 261 00:15:05,720 --> 00:15:10,320 Speaker 1: with two light elements like hydrogen. Take two protons for example. 262 00:15:10,360 --> 00:15:13,280 Speaker 1: Those are just the nuclei of the hydrogen atom, and 263 00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:17,440 Speaker 1: squeeze them together. Now, protons are positively charged, right, they 264 00:15:17,440 --> 00:15:19,880 Speaker 1: had the same positive electric charge, which means they will 265 00:15:19,920 --> 00:15:23,160 Speaker 1: repel each other the way to electrons would, and so 266 00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:25,600 Speaker 1: it's not easy to squeeze them together. But if you 267 00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:29,040 Speaker 1: squeeze them together close enough, then that repulsive charge gets 268 00:15:29,160 --> 00:15:33,520 Speaker 1: overwhelmed by a new attractive force. The strong force, which 269 00:15:33,520 --> 00:15:36,640 Speaker 1: only operates over these very short distances. Now pulls these 270 00:15:36,640 --> 00:15:40,400 Speaker 1: protons together and squeezes them together to make a nucleus, 271 00:15:40,680 --> 00:15:44,600 Speaker 1: bonds them together into something new. So now you get helium, 272 00:15:44,640 --> 00:15:47,600 Speaker 1: and in the process you also release some energy. The 273 00:15:47,680 --> 00:15:50,320 Speaker 1: state of two protons being bound together into a nucleus 274 00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:53,760 Speaker 1: is lower energy than the protons flying around free m 275 00:15:54,480 --> 00:15:56,160 Speaker 1: It's interesting to think that, you know, there's all this 276 00:15:56,280 --> 00:15:58,840 Speaker 1: hydrogen out there in space, floating around here on Earth. 277 00:15:58,880 --> 00:16:01,280 Speaker 1: There's hydrogen in the air and and and all that, 278 00:16:01,480 --> 00:16:04,040 Speaker 1: and it has the potential to fuse together, Like it 279 00:16:04,120 --> 00:16:07,040 Speaker 1: could at any moment fuse together and release a huge 280 00:16:07,040 --> 00:16:09,400 Speaker 1: amount of energy. But it doesn't because, as you said, 281 00:16:09,480 --> 00:16:13,040 Speaker 1: there's the electromagnetic force, which kind of keeps everything from 282 00:16:13,480 --> 00:16:17,000 Speaker 1: squeezing together, keeps everything apart. Yeah, the strong force is 283 00:16:17,080 --> 00:16:20,520 Speaker 1: so much more powerful than the electromagnetic force, but it 284 00:16:20,600 --> 00:16:23,840 Speaker 1: typically only operates over very short distances or reasons that 285 00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:26,200 Speaker 1: we talked about in some of our episodes about gluons 286 00:16:26,240 --> 00:16:28,960 Speaker 1: and why quarks can't be alone. But if you get 287 00:16:28,960 --> 00:16:32,239 Speaker 1: those protons close enough, then the gluons that are inside 288 00:16:32,280 --> 00:16:34,200 Speaker 1: each of them start to talk to each other, and 289 00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:36,360 Speaker 1: then they realize, hey, we actually do like to hang 290 00:16:36,400 --> 00:16:38,800 Speaker 1: out next to each other. But it only happens when 291 00:16:38,800 --> 00:16:42,320 Speaker 1: the protons really get squeezed together, Otherwise they repel each 292 00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:44,640 Speaker 1: other and they never get close enough to discover this 293 00:16:44,760 --> 00:16:47,760 Speaker 1: amazing potential they have. Yeah, it's like the strong force 294 00:16:47,920 --> 00:16:50,720 Speaker 1: is super super duper strong, but it has a very 295 00:16:50,760 --> 00:16:53,680 Speaker 1: short range, Like it only kicks in when the two 296 00:16:53,680 --> 00:16:56,440 Speaker 1: protons are super duper close to each other. Yeah, and 297 00:16:56,480 --> 00:16:59,080 Speaker 1: it's worth thinking for a moment about like why nuclei 298 00:16:59,240 --> 00:17:02,440 Speaker 1: stick together at all? Right, Why, for example, can you 299 00:17:02,480 --> 00:17:05,760 Speaker 1: have a lead nucleus with so many positive protons in it, 300 00:17:06,080 --> 00:17:09,040 Speaker 1: what's holding it together? And it should be blown apart 301 00:17:09,119 --> 00:17:12,000 Speaker 1: by the electromagnetic repulsive forces. And the answer is, while 302 00:17:12,040 --> 00:17:14,639 Speaker 1: you can think of a nucleus as a bunch of protons, 303 00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:17,720 Speaker 1: really those protons are talking to each other. The boundary 304 00:17:17,760 --> 00:17:20,880 Speaker 1: between the protons is a little bit fuzzy. Each proton 305 00:17:21,040 --> 00:17:25,080 Speaker 1: technically has no overall color charge from the strong force, 306 00:17:25,400 --> 00:17:27,520 Speaker 1: but in reality it does leak out a little bit 307 00:17:27,560 --> 00:17:30,320 Speaker 1: and that's enough to hold them together. So you can 308 00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:32,560 Speaker 1: sort of think of a nucleus is like a really 309 00:17:32,680 --> 00:17:36,000 Speaker 1: large bound state of all the quarks and protons inside, 310 00:17:36,359 --> 00:17:39,159 Speaker 1: sort of grouped into protons, but that boundary becomes a 311 00:17:39,160 --> 00:17:42,920 Speaker 1: little bit fuzzy once they're inside the nucleus. It's a 312 00:17:42,960 --> 00:17:44,600 Speaker 1: little bit like your kids, you know, they always run 313 00:17:44,600 --> 00:17:46,639 Speaker 1: away when you try to hug him. They're repelled by 314 00:17:46,680 --> 00:17:48,960 Speaker 1: you once you hug him. Once they get close enough, 315 00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:50,960 Speaker 1: you can grab him in your arms and then hug 316 00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:53,360 Speaker 1: him and then they hug you back. Right, Yeah, sort 317 00:17:53,400 --> 00:17:56,199 Speaker 1: of like that. And there's also an analogy in chemistry, right, 318 00:17:56,280 --> 00:17:59,560 Speaker 1: like hydrogen and oxygen or independent atoms. But if you 319 00:17:59,560 --> 00:18:01,520 Speaker 1: bring them close enough together you can form a new 320 00:18:01,560 --> 00:18:04,880 Speaker 1: state water. And the boundary between the hydrogen the oxygen 321 00:18:04,960 --> 00:18:07,120 Speaker 1: atom is a little bit fuzzy because now, for example, 322 00:18:07,280 --> 00:18:10,439 Speaker 1: they're sharing an electron, and that's what a chemical bond is. 323 00:18:10,600 --> 00:18:12,960 Speaker 1: Right here, in the case of the inside of the nucleus, 324 00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:15,280 Speaker 1: we're talking about not a chemical bond, but a bond 325 00:18:15,320 --> 00:18:18,560 Speaker 1: from the strong force. But still they're exchanging gluons, so 326 00:18:18,640 --> 00:18:21,719 Speaker 1: the overlap between the protons is a little bit less crisp. 327 00:18:22,200 --> 00:18:24,560 Speaker 1: And so that's what fusion is, is getting the protons 328 00:18:24,600 --> 00:18:27,520 Speaker 1: close enough to take advantage of that and at least 329 00:18:27,520 --> 00:18:31,000 Speaker 1: some of the energy that they otherwise have. Yeah. Yeah, 330 00:18:31,119 --> 00:18:34,040 Speaker 1: and then this happens in stars all the time. That's 331 00:18:34,080 --> 00:18:36,560 Speaker 1: what powers are a son. It's also what happens in 332 00:18:36,760 --> 00:18:39,680 Speaker 1: nuclear bombs. Yeah, it happens in stars naturally. And that's 333 00:18:39,680 --> 00:18:42,600 Speaker 1: for example, where all the heavy elements are made, the helium, 334 00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:45,359 Speaker 1: the neon, the carbon, the oxygen. All this happens through 335 00:18:45,400 --> 00:18:48,879 Speaker 1: steady progressions of fusion. You confuse more than just hydrogen. 336 00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:52,040 Speaker 1: You confuse helium together, you confuse carbon together. You confuse 337 00:18:52,119 --> 00:18:54,280 Speaker 1: things all the way up to iron. And as you said, 338 00:18:54,320 --> 00:18:57,040 Speaker 1: we have replicated this process here on Earth we understand 339 00:18:57,119 --> 00:18:59,200 Speaker 1: the physics of it. It's at the heart of our 340 00:18:59,359 --> 00:19:01,360 Speaker 1: nuclear web. Yeah, and you know, one thing that I've 341 00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:03,840 Speaker 1: never really repped my head around is the the idea 342 00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:05,600 Speaker 1: of where does this energy come from? Like when you 343 00:19:05,640 --> 00:19:09,760 Speaker 1: smosh two protons together, I know that um the end 344 00:19:09,760 --> 00:19:13,080 Speaker 1: result has a lower energy state and so therefore energy 345 00:19:13,119 --> 00:19:15,399 Speaker 1: has to be released. Where where does this energy actually 346 00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:18,399 Speaker 1: come from? So it's like two hydrogen atoms are repelling 347 00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:20,800 Speaker 1: each other by the electromagnete force, but once they get 348 00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:23,240 Speaker 1: close enough to each other, the strong force grabs them 349 00:19:23,240 --> 00:19:25,560 Speaker 1: and squishes them together. But where does the energy come from? 350 00:19:25,680 --> 00:19:28,720 Speaker 1: Their energy comes from the original arrangement of the protons 351 00:19:28,760 --> 00:19:32,280 Speaker 1: as separate objects. It costs more energy to build two 352 00:19:32,320 --> 00:19:35,760 Speaker 1: separate protons than to build a pair of protons together 353 00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:38,080 Speaker 1: into a nucleus. And you might think like, well, why 354 00:19:38,240 --> 00:19:40,760 Speaker 1: is that. Let's just due to the complicated nature of 355 00:19:40,760 --> 00:19:43,159 Speaker 1: the nuclear interaction. You can think about it sort of 356 00:19:43,160 --> 00:19:45,199 Speaker 1: the other way, Like if you have a helium nucleus, 357 00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:48,639 Speaker 1: which is like two protons stuck together, it costs energy 358 00:19:48,720 --> 00:19:51,840 Speaker 1: to break them apart, to take them apart into separate protons. 359 00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:55,560 Speaker 1: So reversing that taking two separate protons and turning them 360 00:19:55,560 --> 00:19:59,560 Speaker 1: into a helium nucleus that releases that energy. Core idea 361 00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:02,160 Speaker 1: there the is that it's just a lower energy state, 362 00:20:02,280 --> 00:20:04,119 Speaker 1: and that's just due to the way that the quarks 363 00:20:04,119 --> 00:20:06,920 Speaker 1: and the blue ones like to arrange themselves. Yeah, I 364 00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:09,920 Speaker 1: know it sort of makes sense logically, but I still 365 00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:11,960 Speaker 1: sort of wonder where the energy comes from, Like it 366 00:20:12,119 --> 00:20:15,919 Speaker 1: just comes out of where, like what's getting transformed into 367 00:20:16,040 --> 00:20:18,639 Speaker 1: energy or like photons that come out the original energy 368 00:20:18,720 --> 00:20:20,960 Speaker 1: comes from the Big Bang, which is where these protons 369 00:20:20,960 --> 00:20:23,119 Speaker 1: were ford You know, think about these protons is like 370 00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:25,800 Speaker 1: a type bundle of springs. They have all this energy 371 00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:28,240 Speaker 1: stored in them. Where does that energy come from? Well, 372 00:20:28,280 --> 00:20:31,399 Speaker 1: whatever process made those protons in the very early universe 373 00:20:31,440 --> 00:20:35,640 Speaker 1: be remember protons last basically forever those protons are flying around. 374 00:20:35,680 --> 00:20:38,719 Speaker 1: They have that energy already inside them. And then you 375 00:20:38,720 --> 00:20:40,840 Speaker 1: give them this option when they can relax a little bit. 376 00:20:40,920 --> 00:20:43,480 Speaker 1: They can like let one of those springs go and 377 00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:46,040 Speaker 1: hang out with one of their buddies and together it 378 00:20:46,119 --> 00:20:48,520 Speaker 1: takes less energy for them to be in a stable state. 379 00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:50,919 Speaker 1: So they can relax some of those springs and release 380 00:20:50,960 --> 00:20:54,120 Speaker 1: that energy. In terms of very high energy neutrons which 381 00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:57,080 Speaker 1: fly out during the fusion process. Oh. Interesting, that's a 382 00:20:57,080 --> 00:20:58,880 Speaker 1: good way to put it. Yeah, Like at the beginning 383 00:20:58,880 --> 00:21:01,760 Speaker 1: of the universe, protons were made with like maybe three 384 00:21:01,760 --> 00:21:04,320 Speaker 1: springs holding them together. But once they meet up with 385 00:21:04,359 --> 00:21:07,400 Speaker 1: another proton and they get close and they're like, hey, 386 00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:09,720 Speaker 1: we only need you know, four between us or three 387 00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:12,080 Speaker 1: between us. Let's throw away all these other springs and 388 00:21:12,119 --> 00:21:14,800 Speaker 1: that's where the energy comes from. Yeah, we're releasing the 389 00:21:14,920 --> 00:21:17,040 Speaker 1: energy of the Big Bang. That's a pretty cool way 390 00:21:17,040 --> 00:21:19,160 Speaker 1: to put it. Yeah. And the sun that's pretty cool. Yeah, 391 00:21:19,320 --> 00:21:21,160 Speaker 1: Like every time you walk outside and you get bathed 392 00:21:21,560 --> 00:21:24,000 Speaker 1: by sunlight, part of that was that all came from 393 00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:26,159 Speaker 1: the Big Bang. It's so much more efficient than the 394 00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:29,159 Speaker 1: chemical processes that we usually rely on. Like, if you 395 00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:31,600 Speaker 1: had a gram of fuel and you could efficiently use 396 00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:34,320 Speaker 1: it for fusion, it would release as much energy as 397 00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:38,920 Speaker 1: eighty thousand tons of oil. It's just mind boggling how 398 00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:42,560 Speaker 1: much more energy is released in fusion than in burning oil. 399 00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:45,800 Speaker 1: Whoa you mean, like a gram of hydrogen has as 400 00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:49,520 Speaker 1: much energy as eighty tons of oil. Eighty thousand tons 401 00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:54,360 Speaker 1: of oil eight Wow, And it's like freely available here 402 00:21:54,359 --> 00:21:57,320 Speaker 1: on Earth, right Hydrogen is pretty easy to get relatively 403 00:21:57,440 --> 00:21:59,439 Speaker 1: Hygroen is everywhere. It's in water, so you can just 404 00:21:59,440 --> 00:22:01,560 Speaker 1: like takes sea water and split it up and you 405 00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:03,760 Speaker 1: get hydrogen. I mean that takes a little bit of 406 00:22:03,800 --> 00:22:06,480 Speaker 1: energy in order to do that, but the energy released 407 00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:09,560 Speaker 1: from the hydrogen when you use it infusion is much 408 00:22:09,640 --> 00:22:12,960 Speaker 1: much more When technical detail is that the most efficient 409 00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:15,399 Speaker 1: fusion comes not from the kind of hydrogen that we 410 00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:18,439 Speaker 1: find in our water, but comes from hydrogen isotopes like 411 00:22:18,480 --> 00:22:21,640 Speaker 1: deuterium and tritium. We find that still here on Earth 412 00:22:21,680 --> 00:22:23,320 Speaker 1: in terms of heavy water. But it's a bit of 413 00:22:23,359 --> 00:22:25,160 Speaker 1: an overstatement to say you just like take a cup 414 00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:27,040 Speaker 1: of sea water and all of that is fuel. But 415 00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:29,560 Speaker 1: you can still find heavy water here on Earth to 416 00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:31,960 Speaker 1: use for fuel infusion. Right, you have to do something 417 00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:33,440 Speaker 1: to it, but at the end you sort of get 418 00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:36,399 Speaker 1: enough energy to do that and also get energy to 419 00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:39,080 Speaker 1: power your phone. All right, well, let's get into a 420 00:22:39,119 --> 00:22:41,399 Speaker 1: little bit of the details of how fusion works and 421 00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:44,399 Speaker 1: how you can use lasers to make it happen. But 422 00:22:44,560 --> 00:22:59,720 Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. Right, we are fusing 423 00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:02,080 Speaker 1: to get other ideas here, we're having a mind meld. 424 00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:07,000 Speaker 1: We are releasing a lot of energy and knowledge talking 425 00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:09,439 Speaker 1: about fusion and how we could maybe do it with 426 00:23:09,600 --> 00:23:13,480 Speaker 1: lasers because that would be I guess cool. It would 427 00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:15,600 Speaker 1: be pretty cool. Anything with lasers is fun. Yeah, And 428 00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:17,840 Speaker 1: it'd be nice to have a laser fusion source at 429 00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:20,920 Speaker 1: the back of your laser based restaurant and barber shop. 430 00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:22,879 Speaker 1: I mean, if you have lasers anyway, you might as 431 00:23:22,920 --> 00:23:26,000 Speaker 1: well have like multiple businesses. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you 432 00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:29,000 Speaker 1: could uh, I don't know, they do a nice light 433 00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:33,600 Speaker 1: show in the sky with your meal. Alright. We talked 434 00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:37,520 Speaker 1: about how to make fusion happen. You're smushing together protons 435 00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:41,240 Speaker 1: close enough that the strong force takes over, squeezes them together, 436 00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:43,680 Speaker 1: releases all out of that pent up energy they don't 437 00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:46,280 Speaker 1: need anymore. And that's the energy we get it from fusion. 438 00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:50,240 Speaker 1: And that sounds awesome and great, and because hydrogen is 439 00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:52,880 Speaker 1: relatively easy to get here on Earth, but it's it's 440 00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:56,640 Speaker 1: hard because it's hard to squish them together that much. Right, 441 00:23:56,720 --> 00:23:58,720 Speaker 1: You need to get them close in order to make 442 00:23:58,760 --> 00:24:00,520 Speaker 1: it work. It's sort of like a really hard hole 443 00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:02,639 Speaker 1: in mini golf. You need to roll the ball like 444 00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:05,160 Speaker 1: up an incline. If you get it close enough, it'll 445 00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:06,840 Speaker 1: fall in the hole. But if you just missed by 446 00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:09,080 Speaker 1: a little bit, it's going to roll off in the 447 00:24:09,119 --> 00:24:11,439 Speaker 1: wrong direction. So you gotta get these protons to shoot 448 00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:14,639 Speaker 1: like right at each other really high speeds for this 449 00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:16,679 Speaker 1: to happen. Otherwise they're just going to veer off in 450 00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:21,880 Speaker 1: another direction. Wait what what what mini golf? What you mean? Like, um, 451 00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:24,359 Speaker 1: it's hard to get them to smooth because they are 452 00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:28,480 Speaker 1: being repelled by the electromenamtic force. And even if they're 453 00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:31,240 Speaker 1: on a collection course with each other, the two protons, 454 00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:33,400 Speaker 1: and they're even off by a little bit, then that 455 00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:37,360 Speaker 1: electromagnetic force is gonna basically get worse and repel them 456 00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:39,840 Speaker 1: right and veer them off course. In order to make 457 00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:41,800 Speaker 1: it happen, you have to get really close, just like 458 00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:43,920 Speaker 1: you've got to get the ball basically into the hole 459 00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:47,040 Speaker 1: before you get any points anywhere, not exactly run on target, 460 00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:49,199 Speaker 1: it's just going to roll right off. Imagine like a 461 00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:51,160 Speaker 1: mini golf hole where the hole is at the top 462 00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:56,000 Speaker 1: of a volcano. Whoa like a literal volcano, like a 463 00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:59,520 Speaker 1: mini golf volcano. You know, like the paper michee covered 464 00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:01,879 Speaker 1: in ast turf, and it's like allow, that'd be a 465 00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:04,240 Speaker 1: really hard minigolf hole if you put it at the 466 00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:06,040 Speaker 1: top of a volcano and you have to shoot it 467 00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:10,600 Speaker 1: from the bottom or you have to climb up either 468 00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:12,440 Speaker 1: one sounds difficult, but I guess it's sort of like 469 00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:15,080 Speaker 1: putting two magnets together, right, Like, if you take two 470 00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:17,560 Speaker 1: magnets and point them in the you know, the two 471 00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:20,080 Speaker 1: plus sides together, it's really hard to like, you know, 472 00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:23,400 Speaker 1: get them to touch right exactly, because the forces keep 473 00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:27,040 Speaker 1: trying to like move into the side. They certainly do. Now, 474 00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:29,960 Speaker 1: imagine that if you force them really close together, all 475 00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:32,280 Speaker 1: of a sudden they stepped together and heat it up. 476 00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:35,199 Speaker 1: That would be pretty incredible, But only when you really 477 00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:37,400 Speaker 1: got them next to each other. So that's what we're 478 00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:39,840 Speaker 1: talking about. And in order to make this happen, order 479 00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:42,200 Speaker 1: to make protons fused together, you've got to get them 480 00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:45,000 Speaker 1: close to each other. And to do that, essentially, you 481 00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:46,720 Speaker 1: need to get them going fast enough, and you have 482 00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,359 Speaker 1: to get them very close together, right, And in the 483 00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:52,840 Speaker 1: sun that happens because of just the amazing gravity and 484 00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:56,160 Speaker 1: the amazing pressure and density that's inside of the sun, right, 485 00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:58,240 Speaker 1: that's right. The way fusion scientists think about it is 486 00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:02,440 Speaker 1: that you need temperature, then city and time and stars 487 00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:06,199 Speaker 1: solve this problem using gravitational confinement. They basically make a 488 00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:09,439 Speaker 1: well in space itself and squeeze all that stuff into it, 489 00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:12,040 Speaker 1: and then fusion happens. Because you've got lots of time 490 00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:15,920 Speaker 1: and loss of density and really high temperatures. The temperatures 491 00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:19,280 Speaker 1: were talking about are like a hundred million degrees kelvin 492 00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:22,560 Speaker 1: is what's necessary to get these protons to fuse right 493 00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:25,000 Speaker 1: and density. You need enough of them flying around that 494 00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:27,240 Speaker 1: fast so that every once in a while some of 495 00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:30,679 Speaker 1: them like crash head on right and fuse together. For example, 496 00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:33,760 Speaker 1: there is gas in the universe that's a very high temperature, 497 00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:37,800 Speaker 1: very low density, like the gas between galaxies can be 498 00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,879 Speaker 1: at millions or tens or hundreds of millions of degrees kelvin, 499 00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:43,159 Speaker 1: but it's very very dilute. So you're not going to 500 00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:46,440 Speaker 1: get fusion there because protons aren't close enough together. They 501 00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,240 Speaker 1: need to be crowded together and fast in order to 502 00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:51,680 Speaker 1: get fusion to happen right, And then you need time, 503 00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:54,359 Speaker 1: I guess also, because you know, these things don't happen 504 00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:56,080 Speaker 1: all the time, even if they are going fast, and 505 00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:58,080 Speaker 1: even if there are a lot of them, they still 506 00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:00,160 Speaker 1: sort of miss each other or veer off core Earth. 507 00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:02,919 Speaker 1: You need time for the for that one head on 508 00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:05,600 Speaker 1: collision to happen every once in a while, right, And 509 00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:08,120 Speaker 1: the goal, of course, is that you get fusion started, 510 00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,440 Speaker 1: and then the energy released by the fusion spreads out 511 00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:15,399 Speaker 1: and causes more fusion. And this is what physicists call ignition. 512 00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:18,119 Speaker 1: It's sort of like when you start a campfire. You 513 00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,080 Speaker 1: don't need to continuously start the campfire all evening. You 514 00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:23,520 Speaker 1: can sit back and relax because the bit that you 515 00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:26,280 Speaker 1: started ignites the next bit, which ignites the next bit, 516 00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:28,600 Speaker 1: which ignites the next bit. It's a chain reaction. We 517 00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:31,400 Speaker 1: want to get that same process started in a fusion reactor, 518 00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:33,800 Speaker 1: for example, so you can switch it on by pouring 519 00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:35,919 Speaker 1: in some energy, but then the energy released from the 520 00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:39,240 Speaker 1: fusion maintains itself, right, And so that's in the Sun 521 00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:41,760 Speaker 1: and then in here on Earth. We've try to sort 522 00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:45,440 Speaker 1: of replicate or make those conditions happen, not with gravity, 523 00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:47,720 Speaker 1: because we don't have the gravity of the Sun, but 524 00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:50,760 Speaker 1: they try to do it with magnets, basically like a 525 00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:53,480 Speaker 1: magnetic bottle. So this strategy, which is pretty widely known, 526 00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,880 Speaker 1: it is called magnetic confinement fusion and the idea here 527 00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:59,800 Speaker 1: is to get a long time is to build a plasma, 528 00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:01,879 Speaker 1: making it really really hot, to start with a gas 529 00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:04,840 Speaker 1: of hydrogen heated up, and then keep it confined for 530 00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:07,879 Speaker 1: a long time using a magnetic bottle. Because remember that 531 00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:11,320 Speaker 1: a plasma is charged particles. These are protons, so they 532 00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:14,120 Speaker 1: have a charge, so we can bend their path using 533 00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:16,520 Speaker 1: a magnet. We can they make a particle go around 534 00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:18,280 Speaker 1: in a circle. That's what we do with a large 535 00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:22,000 Speaker 1: hadron collider. We bend the path of particles using magnets, 536 00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:24,560 Speaker 1: so without ever touching them directly. Because the plasma is 537 00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:27,200 Speaker 1: super hot, you can try to keep a plasma contained 538 00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:29,919 Speaker 1: by using magnets to sort of like make a current 539 00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:32,840 Speaker 1: go around in a circle. Yeah, and there are active 540 00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:35,479 Speaker 1: projects right there are. There's a big one in Europe 541 00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:37,960 Speaker 1: called Eater. We've talked about that on the podcast, where 542 00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:41,160 Speaker 1: they build basically these giant magnetic bottle and they are 543 00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:43,320 Speaker 1: trying to get fusion going and they've come pretty close 544 00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:46,120 Speaker 1: to right. There's a long series of these experiments. They're 545 00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,120 Speaker 1: generally called tocamax, and there's sort of like a doughnut 546 00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:52,120 Speaker 1: and you have like a tube of plasma flowing around 547 00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:55,800 Speaker 1: inside of them. It's very challenging because plasma is very unstable. 548 00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:57,800 Speaker 1: It's very hard to keep it flowing in a tube. 549 00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:00,400 Speaker 1: It likes to break out and going crazy direct actions 550 00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:03,200 Speaker 1: and interact with itself very powerfully because these are a 551 00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:06,760 Speaker 1: lot of positively charged particles. So it's very challenging. But 552 00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:09,160 Speaker 1: they are building Eater in France and they hope that 553 00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:12,680 Speaker 1: when it's finished it will achieve fusion and actually create energy. 554 00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:15,000 Speaker 1: But it's you know, it's a decades long project and 555 00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:17,920 Speaker 1: it seems like it's always two decades away. Yeah, it's 556 00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:23,120 Speaker 1: been two decades away for like three decades, right, So 557 00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:25,520 Speaker 1: that's one way to achieve fusion. And it's hard because 558 00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:27,959 Speaker 1: you're basically trying to create a son and then contain 559 00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:30,720 Speaker 1: it in a bottle, which is gonna probably try to 560 00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:33,680 Speaker 1: melt your bottle kind of. Yeah. So you're constantly battling 561 00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:36,240 Speaker 1: keeping the plasma stable, trying to keep it going for 562 00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:38,680 Speaker 1: long enough that you can get ignition and then take 563 00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,160 Speaker 1: advantage of that and burn this thing over and over 564 00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:43,480 Speaker 1: and over again, keep putting in fuel to your hot 565 00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:47,240 Speaker 1: plasma so you can keep extracting energy. It's really hard, yeah, 566 00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:50,000 Speaker 1: and so physicists I guess to hedge their beds have 567 00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:54,240 Speaker 1: been trying another way to create fusion using lasers, all 568 00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:56,400 Speaker 1: sort of at the same time. Right, these are two 569 00:29:56,440 --> 00:30:00,800 Speaker 1: parallel paths of research, two totally different communities of folks 570 00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:04,560 Speaker 1: with different expertise. And so this path using lasers takes 571 00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,960 Speaker 1: a different approach to confinement. Instead of trying to heat 572 00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,360 Speaker 1: a plasma and keep it confined for a long time, 573 00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:12,800 Speaker 1: they take a different approach, and they say, we don't 574 00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:15,200 Speaker 1: care about how long it's confined for. Let's just try 575 00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:18,000 Speaker 1: to get fusion to happen really really fast by getting 576 00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:21,040 Speaker 1: our fuel to be super duper dense. So this is 577 00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:24,720 Speaker 1: called inertial confinement fusion. It's like, let's try to squeeze 578 00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:26,960 Speaker 1: our fuel down and get fusion to happen sort of 579 00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,320 Speaker 1: before it can blow itself up. Interesting, and I guess 580 00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:33,719 Speaker 1: more philosophically, to like the ones with magnets, you're basically 581 00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:37,440 Speaker 1: trying to create a son, like an ongoing sun burning sun. 582 00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:40,200 Speaker 1: But with these laser fusions, it's sort of a different philosophy. 583 00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:42,760 Speaker 1: It's more like a conveyor belt sun, or like if 584 00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:46,160 Speaker 1: you take a son and you string it out into 585 00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:48,800 Speaker 1: a long sort of line right exactly. You would start 586 00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:51,160 Speaker 1: with like a pellet and you can use lasers and 587 00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:53,440 Speaker 1: heat it and create fusion, and then you can use 588 00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:55,840 Speaker 1: up that pellet and then you'd start again from scratch. 589 00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:58,280 Speaker 1: So as you say, the plasma approach is like let's 590 00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:00,880 Speaker 1: have a continuously burning plow when we can just chuck 591 00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:03,360 Speaker 1: in more fuel like a campfire that lasts all night. 592 00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:05,440 Speaker 1: This is more like setting off a series of small 593 00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:09,920 Speaker 1: bombs to keep yourself warm, or like more like bullets right, 594 00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:13,840 Speaker 1: look more like a machine gun kind of exactly. But 595 00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,000 Speaker 1: you know, if you can get enough energy out of 596 00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:19,480 Speaker 1: these fuel pellets and do this rapidly, then potentially that 597 00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:22,560 Speaker 1: could work. All right, Well, let's step people through this here. 598 00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:25,560 Speaker 1: So the ideas to use lasers to create fusion and 599 00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:27,920 Speaker 1: you do it by using pellets. So talk to us 600 00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:30,080 Speaker 1: about this. These pellets, like what are they? What are 601 00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:31,600 Speaker 1: they made out of? So they're made out of the 602 00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,560 Speaker 1: fuel you would need for fusion, you know, like hydrogen 603 00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:38,160 Speaker 1: in its various isotopes, So they're like ices of deuterium 604 00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:41,760 Speaker 1: and tritium. Those are isotopes of hydrogen with extra neutrons, 605 00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:44,280 Speaker 1: and these are the fuels that fuse best and release 606 00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:47,480 Speaker 1: the best energy. We're talking about really really small drops. 607 00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:50,720 Speaker 1: You shouldn't be imagining like some guy shoveling a huge 608 00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:54,600 Speaker 1: fuel pellet in or something. These things wait like milligrams, right, 609 00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:57,800 Speaker 1: so like ten milligram hydrogen pellets, and they're they're like 610 00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:00,640 Speaker 1: little tiny ones, right, like maybe like sinally the size 611 00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:04,080 Speaker 1: of a babe right there are millimeters wide. They're really 612 00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:07,080 Speaker 1: really small already, And the reason you don't make them 613 00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:09,160 Speaker 1: bigger is that it's much more difficult to make it 614 00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:11,160 Speaker 1: bigger to heat it up and have it be stable. 615 00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:13,600 Speaker 1: Because what you're looking to happen is sort of similar 616 00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:15,840 Speaker 1: to what happens in a hydrogen bomb, is that you 617 00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:18,680 Speaker 1: want to compress the fuel. So you have this fuel 618 00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:21,160 Speaker 1: is hydrogen in this deterium ice, and what you want 619 00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:23,480 Speaker 1: instead of keeping it hot for a long time is 620 00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:26,880 Speaker 1: you want to compress it to incredible densities, because fusion 621 00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:30,960 Speaker 1: happens much more rapidly as density goes up, Like big 622 00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:33,840 Speaker 1: stars out there in the universe have more dense cores, 623 00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,720 Speaker 1: which is why they get hotter and fusion happens more rapidly. 624 00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:39,880 Speaker 1: The idea is to somehow compress this pellet to make 625 00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:42,480 Speaker 1: it really dense at the core, so the fusion is 626 00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:45,560 Speaker 1: easier to happen and happens more quickly. Right, Well, maybe 627 00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:48,080 Speaker 1: take a step back here, and you said it's made 628 00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:51,520 Speaker 1: out of frozen hydrogen or of heavy water. What does 629 00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:54,200 Speaker 1: that mean You actually have to make like little ice pellets. Yeah, 630 00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:56,760 Speaker 1: you have little ice pellets because hydrogen by itself at 631 00:32:56,800 --> 00:32:59,120 Speaker 1: room temperature is just a gas. So you need to 632 00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:04,080 Speaker 1: cool this down. So you start with deuterium and treatium ices, right, 633 00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:06,680 Speaker 1: and so like, yeah, this little frozen pellet of fuel 634 00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:09,880 Speaker 1: at the heart of this enormous facility that's like the 635 00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:12,240 Speaker 1: size of a football field. That's going to zap it 636 00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:16,320 Speaker 1: with lasers, right, Because I guess liquid hydrogen maybe people 637 00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:19,000 Speaker 1: have thought about, but I guess if you keep cooling, 638 00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:22,000 Speaker 1: hydrogen will turn into ice. Yeah, everything in the universe 639 00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:25,520 Speaker 1: eventually will cool down into a solid form, including hydrogen. 640 00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:29,480 Speaker 1: And how do you make these little tiny ice hydrogen pellets? 641 00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:33,280 Speaker 1: You just order them on Amazon like everything else. Oh yeah, okay, 642 00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:34,840 Speaker 1: do you buy the molds. I guess you have to 643 00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:36,880 Speaker 1: buy the molds first. You know, there's a whole industry 644 00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:39,800 Speaker 1: now in making these things. It's really complicated, and you 645 00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:41,640 Speaker 1: have to be really precise about it, because you want 646 00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:45,000 Speaker 1: a very very smooth surface so that when things started 647 00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:49,360 Speaker 1: happen simultaneously everywhere. So it's very high technology industry, and 648 00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:51,480 Speaker 1: it's not something that happens for lots of other reasons. 649 00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:53,880 Speaker 1: So they have to develop this kind of technology specifically 650 00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:57,400 Speaker 1: for this industry. Makes it extra challenging. What's the name 651 00:33:57,440 --> 00:33:59,280 Speaker 1: of that ice cream that comes in like little tiny 652 00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:02,360 Speaker 1: pellets dipping dots, dipping dots? There you go, Is it 653 00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:06,719 Speaker 1: like dipping dots. Yes, Yes, it's just like dipping dots, exactly. 654 00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:09,560 Speaker 1: They're basically fusion dots, right. I always wonder how they 655 00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:13,200 Speaker 1: make those, Maybe use the same technology, it's the same factory, Yeah, exactly. 656 00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:16,480 Speaker 1: They taste a little kunchier sometimes, you know, and sometimes 657 00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:18,200 Speaker 1: they mix it up and they actually again like chocolate 658 00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:20,520 Speaker 1: chip hydrogen fuel, you know, and that's a big disaster. 659 00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:23,400 Speaker 1: They're cleaning that out for weeks. They taste delicious, but 660 00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:25,719 Speaker 1: they're a little explosive, I guess. So the idea is 661 00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:28,320 Speaker 1: that you have these pellets of fuel and I guess, 662 00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:31,359 Speaker 1: you know, just like anything else, if you squeeze it enough, 663 00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:34,440 Speaker 1: things will start to fuse together inside of it and 664 00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:36,239 Speaker 1: so the question is how do you squeeze it. I 665 00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:38,799 Speaker 1: guess enough so that you get fusion, right, because you 666 00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:41,279 Speaker 1: can't just like smash it with the hammer because that 667 00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:43,440 Speaker 1: will just flatten it. You want to squeeze it from 668 00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:45,919 Speaker 1: all directions. Yeah, So the idea is that use zapp 669 00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:50,240 Speaker 1: its simultaneously in all directions using a laser, which turns 670 00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:53,320 Speaker 1: the outer layer of this fuel pellet into a plasma 671 00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:56,040 Speaker 1: that blows out, of course because it's a plasma, but 672 00:34:56,040 --> 00:35:00,360 Speaker 1: it also blows in simultaneously and compresses the your or 673 00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:03,360 Speaker 1: of the pellet. Again, this is the same basic principle 674 00:35:03,440 --> 00:35:05,640 Speaker 1: of how a hydrogen bomb works. How do you achieve 675 00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:08,239 Speaker 1: fusion at the core of a hydrogen bomb is that 676 00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:10,799 Speaker 1: you surround it with a fission bomb, which goes off 677 00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:13,920 Speaker 1: and compresses the fuel to cause fusion. So that's the 678 00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:16,200 Speaker 1: same thing that's happening here, except we're not using fission 679 00:35:16,239 --> 00:35:18,560 Speaker 1: bombs to start this. We're just using lasers to heat 680 00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,279 Speaker 1: the outer shell, which heats up and explodes and compresses 681 00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:24,480 Speaker 1: the inner part of the fuel pellet. Right, And I 682 00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:26,280 Speaker 1: think the idea is that you shoot this little pellet 683 00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:28,839 Speaker 1: with a laser from all directions or at least like 684 00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:31,640 Speaker 1: six six or seven dement directions right, like, you have 685 00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:35,640 Speaker 1: giant lasers pointing at it from different directions like up 686 00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:38,799 Speaker 1: and down, left and right, you know, a little bit 687 00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:40,480 Speaker 1: of at an angle here and there, and so it's 688 00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:44,360 Speaker 1: basically getting squished together by all these lasers down to 689 00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:48,120 Speaker 1: even smaller side. The lasers themselves are not doing the compression. 690 00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:51,200 Speaker 1: They're heating up the outer layer, and that rapid expansion 691 00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:54,440 Speaker 1: of that outer layer is then triggering the compression. And 692 00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:56,920 Speaker 1: in the most modern facilities they have like a hundred 693 00:35:56,920 --> 00:36:00,440 Speaker 1: and ninety two lasers, which is pretty awesome. A hundred 694 00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:04,239 Speaker 1: and ninety two lasers, which makes me wonder like about 695 00:36:04,239 --> 00:36:06,319 Speaker 1: the design process with somebody like, no, we want a 696 00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:10,160 Speaker 1: thousand twenty four lasers, let's go with four thousand lasers. 697 00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:13,960 Speaker 1: And they had some compromise that got them down. May 698 00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:15,520 Speaker 1: they aim for a two hundred, but they run out 699 00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:19,080 Speaker 1: of money at the very last moment. But the idea 700 00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:21,400 Speaker 1: is to get this thing heated up on the outside 701 00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:24,520 Speaker 1: so it compresses it very rapidly. And this compression happens 702 00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:27,480 Speaker 1: in like, you know, tens of nanoseconds in order to 703 00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:30,319 Speaker 1: trigger this. And when it's happening. It's a shock wave 704 00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:32,400 Speaker 1: that's going in, sort of like in a supernova. You know, 705 00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:35,000 Speaker 1: you have a shock wave going in that's compressing the core, 706 00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,000 Speaker 1: and the velocity of this stuff is like three hundred 707 00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:42,080 Speaker 1: and fifty kilometers per second compression waves towards the core 708 00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:44,160 Speaker 1: of this pellet, right right, But I think you skipped 709 00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:46,880 Speaker 1: a step. Okay, So, um, you have this pellet, you 710 00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:48,600 Speaker 1: shoot it with lasers, and if you just shoot it 711 00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:51,680 Speaker 1: with lasers, it'll just heat up. But I think the 712 00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:55,680 Speaker 1: idea is that you code the pellets with another material. 713 00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:58,280 Speaker 1: You code it with various types of material that trigger 714 00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:01,440 Speaker 1: this implosion. It can be like a plastic coating or 715 00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:04,000 Speaker 1: other kinds of things. You just need something which is 716 00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,600 Speaker 1: going to heat up enough and expand rapidly so that 717 00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:09,640 Speaker 1: it compresses the internal core of the pellet. What if 718 00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:11,560 Speaker 1: you don't code it, like what if the lasers just 719 00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:14,920 Speaker 1: hit the hydrogen directly, the frozen hydrogen directly? What happens. 720 00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:17,319 Speaker 1: One of the major challenges here is to get a 721 00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:19,960 Speaker 1: smooth compression, like you're only going to get fusion and 722 00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:23,200 Speaker 1: very high pressures if it's being squeezed simultaneously from all 723 00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:25,480 Speaker 1: sides and so a lot of the research they do 724 00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:28,319 Speaker 1: is to find the best material which heats up sort 725 00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:31,719 Speaker 1: of smoothly and expands smoothly in order to get that compression. 726 00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:34,719 Speaker 1: And that's why they prefer plastics, for example, instead of 727 00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,520 Speaker 1: just more hydrogen, because it tends to have this property 728 00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:40,080 Speaker 1: to remove instabilities. A lot of times, actually they have 729 00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:43,479 Speaker 1: another step between the laser and the fuel pellet because 730 00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:46,000 Speaker 1: they don't want the lasers touching the fuel pellet directly 731 00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:49,439 Speaker 1: because it tends to cause hotspots, which then cause instabilities. 732 00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:52,520 Speaker 1: So sometimes they surround the pellet with like a gold tube, 733 00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:55,240 Speaker 1: and the lasers hit the gold tube. The gold tube 734 00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:58,120 Speaker 1: then heats up and bathes the pellet in very powerful 735 00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:00,680 Speaker 1: X rays because of its high temper and then not 736 00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,520 Speaker 1: triggers the expansion of the outer core, which then triggers 737 00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:06,319 Speaker 1: the collapse, which then gets you the fusion I see. 738 00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:08,920 Speaker 1: So the pellets are really sort of more like Eminem's 739 00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:11,440 Speaker 1: kind of right. It's like there's a core of a 740 00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:14,160 Speaker 1: hydrogen field, but then there's a coating of something else, 741 00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:16,879 Speaker 1: like a hard coating of of something else, and that's 742 00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:21,640 Speaker 1: what the lasers hit and actually um basically like burn 743 00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:25,400 Speaker 1: up right ignite. Yeah, there's direct to drive laser fusion 744 00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:27,839 Speaker 1: where it directly hits the outer layer, and then there's 745 00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:29,720 Speaker 1: the indirect where you put it in like a little 746 00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:31,960 Speaker 1: gold tube and you hit the tube itself and then 747 00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:34,440 Speaker 1: the X rays from that tube hit the outer layer. 748 00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:37,840 Speaker 1: So there's two different varieties of laser fusion there. And 749 00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:40,080 Speaker 1: so the idea is that the lasers basically make the 750 00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:43,680 Speaker 1: candy shell explode, right, because you got all this energy 751 00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:47,879 Speaker 1: hitting in the candy layer explodes and then that explosion 752 00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:52,600 Speaker 1: basically comprises the chocolate enough to that then get fusion. Yes, 753 00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:55,799 Speaker 1: And the ideas that it happened so rapidly that the 754 00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:57,880 Speaker 1: chocolate doesn't have a chance to blow up, that it 755 00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:01,279 Speaker 1: fuses before it blows up. What do you mean, like 756 00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:03,520 Speaker 1: it fuses and then it doesn't blow up then, or 757 00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:05,480 Speaker 1: what it fuses and it blows up, But the fusion 758 00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:08,520 Speaker 1: happens faster than the blowing up. If the material is 759 00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:11,319 Speaker 1: dense enough, then fusion happens much more rapidly. You can 760 00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:13,520 Speaker 1: get the whole pellette to have a little self sustaining 761 00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:16,800 Speaker 1: reaction that lasts like a hundred trillions of a second 762 00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:19,640 Speaker 1: and get fusion to happen before it has time to 763 00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:22,520 Speaker 1: sort of blow itself up. Because remember, not only does 764 00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:25,279 Speaker 1: fusion happen more rapidly when the fuel is dense, but 765 00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:29,080 Speaker 1: also compressed fuel. Much more dense fuel means that it 766 00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:32,160 Speaker 1: keeps the fusion energy inside. If you have like a 767 00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:34,480 Speaker 1: little bit of fusion starting at the center and the 768 00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:36,520 Speaker 1: fuel around it is very, very dense, it's going to 769 00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:39,239 Speaker 1: absorb that energy and lead to more fusion rather than 770 00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:41,680 Speaker 1: letting that energy leak out. Oh, I see what you're saying. 771 00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:44,719 Speaker 1: You're saying, we zapped with the laser, we kick start diffusion, 772 00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:46,840 Speaker 1: But then you want it to sort of create a 773 00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:51,600 Speaker 1: chain reaction inside of the eminem before I guess the 774 00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:54,680 Speaker 1: eminem breaks apart. It's gonna blow up for sure. Like 775 00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:56,920 Speaker 1: that's definitely the end game. You're gonna be left with 776 00:39:56,960 --> 00:39:59,480 Speaker 1: a little smoking pile of ash. But you wanted to 777 00:39:59,600 --> 00:40:02,560 Speaker 1: fuse before it blows up, or you want to fuse 778 00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:04,839 Speaker 1: as much of the fuel as possible, right, because that's 779 00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:06,480 Speaker 1: kind of what could happen if you if you don't 780 00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:08,759 Speaker 1: get a chain reaction, is you'll just get a little 781 00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:10,719 Speaker 1: bit in the middle of fusing, and then that will 782 00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:13,360 Speaker 1: blow the rest of the fuel away without igniting or 783 00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:15,840 Speaker 1: fusing together. You want like the little bit of fusion 784 00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:18,840 Speaker 1: to ignite more fusion for the rest of the fuel 785 00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:21,640 Speaker 1: before it all sort of blows apart, exactly. And so 786 00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:25,000 Speaker 1: the key there is high density, because high density means 787 00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:28,080 Speaker 1: fusion happens more rapidly and more energy is devoted to 788 00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:30,640 Speaker 1: making more fusion. So it's that density that they think 789 00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:33,799 Speaker 1: will lead to the ignition because otherwise you could just 790 00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:36,879 Speaker 1: heat up a pellet of lower density, but as you say, 791 00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:39,400 Speaker 1: it would just blow itself up before it fuses. So 792 00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:41,799 Speaker 1: you get that condition going that chain reaction. You really 793 00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,360 Speaker 1: need the very high density, but you don't need it 794 00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:47,960 Speaker 1: for very long. So that's the idea behind inertial confinement. 795 00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:51,279 Speaker 1: Instead of long time confinement like you have in plasmas, 796 00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,560 Speaker 1: you have short time but high density confinement. I guess 797 00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:57,640 Speaker 1: you're saying that the aminem is big enough and heavy 798 00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:01,799 Speaker 1: enough that there is time for the chain reaction to 799 00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:05,719 Speaker 1: form before it all breaks apart, exactly. But this whole 800 00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:09,080 Speaker 1: thing happens in like hundreds of nanoseconds, right, I see, 801 00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:12,200 Speaker 1: So by time you mean like a few not a seconds, 802 00:41:13,080 --> 00:41:15,000 Speaker 1: By a long time you mean a few nine a seconds, 803 00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:18,319 Speaker 1: But you achieve incredible density. You know, this stuff goes 804 00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:21,080 Speaker 1: from like the density of water to like a hundred 805 00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:23,040 Speaker 1: times and the dense is lead, all in a very 806 00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:25,240 Speaker 1: short amount of time. You mean, like when the outer 807 00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:28,840 Speaker 1: candy shell explodes and compresses the chocolate down, it's like 808 00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:32,399 Speaker 1: super compresses it. Yeah, it's super chocolate. Yeah, it's it's 809 00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:39,560 Speaker 1: laser chocolate will cure your smoking addiction, and then you 810 00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:41,399 Speaker 1: need to be zapped in a different place to cure 811 00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:43,759 Speaker 1: your chocolate addiction. Yeah, I think that. I think they 812 00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:47,399 Speaker 1: have that in plastic surgery. Yes, all right, well that's 813 00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:50,440 Speaker 1: the basics of how laser fusion works. Let's get into 814 00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:53,760 Speaker 1: how well it actually works and have people actually created 815 00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:56,800 Speaker 1: this on Earth? But first let's take another quick break. 816 00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:12,120 Speaker 1: All right, we're talking about Eminem's. I guess that's the 817 00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:15,239 Speaker 1: future of energy on our not that you do they 818 00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:17,839 Speaker 1: have to beat green Eminem's or can they be any color? 819 00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:22,160 Speaker 1: Does the color of the laser fusion pellets matter? Can 820 00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:24,840 Speaker 1: you write that in your writer contract? Yeah? I think 821 00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:27,520 Speaker 1: that that's a topic for the future. It's not yet 822 00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:30,720 Speaker 1: something that they have explored the flavor of these pellets, 823 00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:33,800 Speaker 1: but you know, maybe your future dipping dots laser fusion 824 00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:38,959 Speaker 1: crossover restaurant research topic will explore that, oh, that would 825 00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:43,960 Speaker 1: be the perfect dessert for our laser fusion restaurant dipping dots. 826 00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:47,359 Speaker 1: But then we bring lasers to your table and zap them, 827 00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:52,120 Speaker 1: zap them in your in your mouth, table side lasing. 828 00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:55,560 Speaker 1: That sounds fantastic. But these are pretty impressive facilities, the 829 00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:57,080 Speaker 1: ones that try to do this, right, because I mean, 830 00:42:57,120 --> 00:42:59,760 Speaker 1: it's a tiny two millimeter pellet, but you can imagine 831 00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:02,600 Speaker 1: like a tiny little ball surrounded by basically like a 832 00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:06,120 Speaker 1: giant warehouse of lasers, right, because you need not just 833 00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:08,279 Speaker 1: like one laser, you need a hundred and nine two 834 00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:11,600 Speaker 1: lasers pointed at this one little tiny pellet. Yeah, and 835 00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:14,480 Speaker 1: the leading facility for doing this is in California at 836 00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:19,040 Speaker 1: Lawrence Livermore National Labs. It's called the National Ignition Facility 837 00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:22,960 Speaker 1: or NIFF, and they started building and turned it on 838 00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:25,560 Speaker 1: two thousand nine. And as you said, it's enormous. This 839 00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:28,440 Speaker 1: thing is like the size of a football field, filled 840 00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:30,480 Speaker 1: with all the optics and the chambers you need to 841 00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:34,080 Speaker 1: make very high powered lasers, and a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah, 842 00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:35,560 Speaker 1: I know, I've been there. I got a tour of 843 00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:37,560 Speaker 1: it one time, Oh did you stick your head in 844 00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:40,719 Speaker 1: the beam? I did, Yes, that is where I get 845 00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:45,439 Speaker 1: all my superpowers. So you weren't nearly as funny before 846 00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:50,880 Speaker 1: that trip, and but now laser funny. But if you're curious, Actually, 847 00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:53,560 Speaker 1: an interesting fact is that they use this facility in 848 00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:56,880 Speaker 1: the movie Star Trek, you know, like the reboot by J. J. Abrahms, 849 00:43:57,600 --> 00:43:59,920 Speaker 1: and when Scotty's down in the engine room and he's say, 850 00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:02,520 Speaker 1: she kind of take anymore, Captain, they actually filmed it 851 00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:06,040 Speaker 1: or they feeled a replica of it. And if I 852 00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:08,920 Speaker 1: have no idea, that's awesome when science makes a cameo 853 00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:12,680 Speaker 1: in science fiction. So check that and I guess. But 854 00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:16,200 Speaker 1: we talked about how fusion works and how laser fusion works, 855 00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:19,400 Speaker 1: and basically you need to zap these little fuel pellets 856 00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,120 Speaker 1: so that they implode and then that creates fusion. But 857 00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:24,160 Speaker 1: I guess my question is how do you make it sustainable? 858 00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:28,080 Speaker 1: You know, like give you zab one pellet, the pellet explodes, 859 00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:30,680 Speaker 1: and then how do you harness that energy. That's a 860 00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:33,160 Speaker 1: really hard problem and not something that's been worked on 861 00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:35,800 Speaker 1: very well. That's also true for other kinds of fusion. 862 00:44:35,800 --> 00:44:38,839 Speaker 1: Remember for magnetic confinement fusion, the energy comes out as 863 00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:42,359 Speaker 1: very high speed neutrons, and that's difficult because neutrons are 864 00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:45,600 Speaker 1: not charged, and so capturing the energy from high speed 865 00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:48,960 Speaker 1: neutrons is tricky. They have these techniques to like surround 866 00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:52,560 Speaker 1: it with these lipium blankets that can absorb the neutrons 867 00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:55,480 Speaker 1: and turn into other more accessible forms of energy. The 868 00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:59,120 Speaker 1: same problem exists here for inertial confinement fusion is that 869 00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:01,800 Speaker 1: the energy comes out in the form of high speed neutrons, 870 00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:04,120 Speaker 1: which has to be somehow captured. For a long time, 871 00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:06,319 Speaker 1: the fusion community has sort of seen that. It's like, well, 872 00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:09,600 Speaker 1: that's a downstream engineering problem. Will produce the energy in 873 00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:11,799 Speaker 1: terms of neutrons, and then somebody will figure out how 874 00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:14,360 Speaker 1: to take advantage of it. Yeah, just a small problem 875 00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:17,319 Speaker 1: of how do you how do you capture a nuclear bomb. 876 00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:19,160 Speaker 1: The other problem, of course with neutrons is that if 877 00:45:19,160 --> 00:45:22,440 Speaker 1: you don't capture them, they make your whole facility radioactive, right, 878 00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:25,960 Speaker 1: because high speed neutrons will trigger radioactive decay and lots 879 00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:28,480 Speaker 1: of stuff, and so you're basically blowing up a neutron 880 00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:31,800 Speaker 1: bomb at the heart of your very expensive, very delicate facility. 881 00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:35,440 Speaker 1: I think the idea for these laser fusion reactors. Is 882 00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:37,319 Speaker 1: that not that you suggest that you use have one 883 00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:39,640 Speaker 1: little pellet, but it's like you have a stream of 884 00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:43,240 Speaker 1: pellets right Like it's almost like an assembly line of pellets, 885 00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:45,279 Speaker 1: and the pellets are moving along in the line, and 886 00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:47,520 Speaker 1: then one of them gets in the you know, the 887 00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:50,239 Speaker 1: center of all these lasers, explodes, and then it moves on, 888 00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:52,320 Speaker 1: and then the next one comes in, moves into the 889 00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:54,719 Speaker 1: middle of the lasers, explodes, and so on. It's on 890 00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:56,960 Speaker 1: almost like if you like a conveyor line, right like 891 00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:00,480 Speaker 1: a factory reactor. Yeah, the idea in the future, if 892 00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:02,480 Speaker 1: we prove that this works and figure out how to 893 00:46:02,520 --> 00:46:06,480 Speaker 1: make it viable, is to have like several pellets per second. 894 00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:08,759 Speaker 1: The good news is that these pellets don't take very 895 00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:11,800 Speaker 1: long diffuse and blow up release their energy, So on principle, 896 00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:14,239 Speaker 1: you could do a lot of them over time and 897 00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:17,000 Speaker 1: produce enough energy to be useful. Is sort of the 898 00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:19,799 Speaker 1: hope and the dream making that actually work has a 899 00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:23,000 Speaker 1: lot of technical issues. Wait, wait, several pellets per second, 900 00:46:23,320 --> 00:46:26,680 Speaker 1: Like you're shooting a machine gun of these pellets and 901 00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:29,160 Speaker 1: they're flying through the middle of the lasers, exploding, and 902 00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:32,879 Speaker 1: then somehow you're capturing that energy. Yeah, so far our 903 00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:35,920 Speaker 1: facilities are like you set up one pellet, you spend 904 00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:39,520 Speaker 1: days tweaking it. Everybody gets set up SIPs her coffee boom, 905 00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:42,200 Speaker 1: you do an experiment, you analyze it for weeks or months, right, 906 00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:45,359 Speaker 1: But the dream is to make it reproducible, to make 907 00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:48,400 Speaker 1: it straightforward, so you could do several per second. Wow. 908 00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:50,279 Speaker 1: And so the idea isn't you have the stream of 909 00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:53,839 Speaker 1: pellets going into the middle of the lasers and somehow 910 00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:56,840 Speaker 1: it releases all this energy and you're capturing somehow that 911 00:46:56,960 --> 00:46:59,920 Speaker 1: energy because the energy comes out as photons or neutrons. 912 00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,719 Speaker 1: What the energy comes at as high speed neutrons. When 913 00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:05,360 Speaker 1: you fuse two protons together, you get helium, but you 914 00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:08,319 Speaker 1: also get neutrons leaving with a lot of energy, and 915 00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:10,640 Speaker 1: so you have to capture those neutrons and steal their 916 00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:14,080 Speaker 1: energy somehow, which is tricky. And you don't also want 917 00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:16,799 Speaker 1: those neutrons to interfere with your lasers or the other 918 00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:19,719 Speaker 1: targets or anything else. And so it's not a small 919 00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:22,240 Speaker 1: problem to solve. But you know, we still haven't figured 920 00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:24,920 Speaker 1: out how to actually make fusion work and these things, 921 00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:27,440 Speaker 1: and so we're not even really there yet. Boy, it 922 00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:30,200 Speaker 1: seems like a big part of it, and you know, 923 00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:32,080 Speaker 1: it sounds like something you might want to be thinking about. 924 00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:34,640 Speaker 1: Right now. People are thinking about it, but you know, 925 00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:36,960 Speaker 1: it's not as sexy a question, and it's not the 926 00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:39,560 Speaker 1: first question. It's that question number four. You gotta answer 927 00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:41,640 Speaker 1: all the questions to make fusion work and to make 928 00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:43,840 Speaker 1: it viable and to you know, get to your final 929 00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:47,120 Speaker 1: goal of providing cheap or free energy for humanity. But 930 00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:49,120 Speaker 1: we're not even there yet. We're still working on question 931 00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:52,040 Speaker 1: number one. All right, Well, so then where are we 932 00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:54,920 Speaker 1: on question number one? Have we achieved fusion and how 933 00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:57,319 Speaker 1: big of a deal was it? So NIFF turned on 934 00:47:57,560 --> 00:48:01,480 Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, and they have achieved fusion. 935 00:48:01,520 --> 00:48:04,120 Speaker 1: Like they have pellets and they have lasers and they 936 00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:06,440 Speaker 1: have zapped it and there has been fusion. There has 937 00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:09,840 Speaker 1: been energy produced in that reaction. They have gotten energy 938 00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:12,800 Speaker 1: out of those pellets. I mean, they produced the energy. 939 00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:15,320 Speaker 1: Didn't like use it to charge their phone or anything, 940 00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:18,240 Speaker 1: but fusion has occurred at the heart of those pellets. 941 00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:21,320 Speaker 1: So they put a pellet in the middle of the lasers. 942 00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:24,680 Speaker 1: It exploded, The eminem exploded. So that's it, right, wouldn't 943 00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:27,440 Speaker 1: that mean that you you get they could get it working, 944 00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:30,120 Speaker 1: So early on they achieved getting some energy out, and 945 00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:32,240 Speaker 1: then in two thousand and thirteen it was very exciting 946 00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:36,080 Speaker 1: because they got more energy out of the fusion than 947 00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:39,320 Speaker 1: went into the fuel. So they're like bathing this fuel 948 00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:42,160 Speaker 1: pellet in these X rays from this gold tube that's 949 00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:44,640 Speaker 1: being zapped by the lasers, right, And how you determine 950 00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:46,879 Speaker 1: whether it's a success depends a lot on how you're 951 00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:49,480 Speaker 1: doing the accounting. So the energy that comes out of 952 00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,120 Speaker 1: the pellet was more than the energy that went into 953 00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:54,280 Speaker 1: the pellet, and that's good news. It's like you started 954 00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:56,600 Speaker 1: a fire. You released some energy. But there's a huge 955 00:48:56,640 --> 00:48:58,759 Speaker 1: amount of energy that went into the whole process that 956 00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:01,399 Speaker 1: was sort of lost along the way that isn't being 957 00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:04,240 Speaker 1: accounted for, you know, So they haven't reached break even 958 00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:07,080 Speaker 1: where they're getting more energy out of the whole process 959 00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:09,799 Speaker 1: than they put into the whole process. For example, there's 960 00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:11,560 Speaker 1: a lot of energy that went into the gold that 961 00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:13,719 Speaker 1: never made it into the pellet, and there's a lot 962 00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:17,160 Speaker 1: of energy in the laser losses and amplifying these lasers 963 00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:20,320 Speaker 1: is very very inefficient. So in two thirteen they reached 964 00:49:20,360 --> 00:49:22,880 Speaker 1: a milestone of sorts in that they got more energy 965 00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:25,160 Speaker 1: out of the pellet than they put into the pellet. 966 00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:26,839 Speaker 1: They didn't get more energy out of the pellet than 967 00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:29,520 Speaker 1: they put into the whole process, right, because you also 968 00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:32,000 Speaker 1: have to account for making that coffee for the physicists too, right, 969 00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:34,840 Speaker 1: Like that's that's the energy that goes in. Yeah, exactly, 970 00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:36,879 Speaker 1: you know, and all the dipping dots and stuff. Yeah, 971 00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:39,160 Speaker 1: all that desserts too. I mean that all count. But 972 00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:41,400 Speaker 1: I think maybe what's confusing is that this idea that 973 00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:43,279 Speaker 1: you're not getting enough energy out of it. And I 974 00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:45,920 Speaker 1: think it goes back to this idea of like how 975 00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:49,440 Speaker 1: much of the eminem are you actually burning up? I 976 00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:51,080 Speaker 1: think it's what you're saying, Like they can shoot the 977 00:49:51,080 --> 00:49:53,680 Speaker 1: pellets with laser and you can get fusion to happen 978 00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:56,960 Speaker 1: in the middle, But maybe the fusion isn't sustained enough 979 00:49:57,000 --> 00:49:59,719 Speaker 1: to fuse the whole eminem out. Maybe we all need 980 00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:02,600 Speaker 1: to open in the middle fuses and then the whole 981 00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:04,840 Speaker 1: thing breaks apart, in which case you don't get as 982 00:50:04,960 --> 00:50:07,239 Speaker 1: much energy as you could. Exactly, And what they're trying 983 00:50:07,239 --> 00:50:09,200 Speaker 1: to do is make the fusion happen a little bit 984 00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:11,720 Speaker 1: longer inside to use more of the fuel to release 985 00:50:11,840 --> 00:50:13,960 Speaker 1: more of that energy. And so then they spent a 986 00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:16,040 Speaker 1: lot of time tweaking it and trying to improve it. 987 00:50:16,320 --> 00:50:19,000 Speaker 1: You know, they change like the material of the container, 988 00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:22,520 Speaker 1: this hygrogen deterium container with change to diamond in order 989 00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:25,880 Speaker 1: to increase the absorbency of the secondary X rays created 990 00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:27,960 Speaker 1: by this laser burst. They also did all sorts of 991 00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:30,920 Speaker 1: other stuff like smoothing the surface of the fuel capsule, 992 00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:35,200 Speaker 1: shrinking the holes in the capsule where they injected, shrinking 993 00:50:35,239 --> 00:50:37,680 Speaker 1: the holes in the gold cylinder that's surround the capsule 994 00:50:37,719 --> 00:50:40,759 Speaker 1: to reduce energy loss, making the laser pulse last a 995 00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:43,879 Speaker 1: little bit longer. They spent years tweaking it, and then 996 00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:46,880 Speaker 1: in two thousand and twenty one they got a big 997 00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:49,920 Speaker 1: increase in the energy output, so it's much more than 998 00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:52,240 Speaker 1: they had in two thousand and thirteen, and they reached 999 00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:55,840 Speaker 1: up to seventy percent of the break even point, meaning 1000 00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:58,000 Speaker 1: now the energy that's coming out of this little pellet 1001 00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:00,920 Speaker 1: is seventy of all the energy that was required to 1002 00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:03,960 Speaker 1: run the whole process, including you know, powering the lasers 1003 00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:06,080 Speaker 1: and the energy lost due to X rays that wins 1004 00:51:06,120 --> 00:51:08,520 Speaker 1: somewhere else right, because I guess the goal is to 1005 00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:11,719 Speaker 1: basically burn up the entire eminem, right, like use up 1006 00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:14,319 Speaker 1: all the chocolate and the fuel pellet, Like, do you 1007 00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:16,399 Speaker 1: have a sense of how much of it we've been 1008 00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:19,439 Speaker 1: able to get into fusion or is it still only 1009 00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:22,000 Speaker 1: a little bit in the middle, or have we sort 1010 00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:24,600 Speaker 1: of maybe are getting close to using up the whole eminem. 1011 00:51:24,680 --> 00:51:26,640 Speaker 1: We're not getting close to using up the whole eminem. 1012 00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:29,839 Speaker 1: Even these successful chain reactions is still pretty short lived. There, 1013 00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:32,480 Speaker 1: like a hundred trillions of a second, and we get 1014 00:51:32,520 --> 00:51:34,080 Speaker 1: them to go a little bit longer, we'd be able 1015 00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:36,359 Speaker 1: to burn more of the fuel. They think that there's 1016 00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:39,200 Speaker 1: a much higher potential. In principle, you could make this 1017 00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:42,040 Speaker 1: implosion happen the same way all the way around the capsule, 1018 00:51:42,120 --> 00:51:45,040 Speaker 1: and you get higher densities, you get faster fusion, you 1019 00:51:45,120 --> 00:51:47,040 Speaker 1: get to burn more of the stuff. So there's a 1020 00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:50,120 Speaker 1: lot of really small details, these technical hiccups that have 1021 00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:52,960 Speaker 1: prevented them from reaching like the maximum power output, which 1022 00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:55,040 Speaker 1: they think is probably a lot higher than what they've 1023 00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:57,919 Speaker 1: achieved so far. I see there's like even a little 1024 00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:00,200 Speaker 1: imperfection in the pellet, or if maybe one of the 1025 00:52:00,280 --> 00:52:02,840 Speaker 1: lasers is a little bit stronger or off by a 1026 00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:06,480 Speaker 1: little bit. You're saying, like the pellet doesn't compress evenly, 1027 00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,640 Speaker 1: like squeezes more on one side, which then I imagine, 1028 00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:12,799 Speaker 1: you know, squeezes things out the other end, and so 1029 00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:16,479 Speaker 1: you don't get this like perfect little compressed ball that's 1030 00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:19,040 Speaker 1: that's ideal for fusion. Yeah, and it's hard to know 1031 00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:21,840 Speaker 1: exactly what's going to work because now we're talking about 1032 00:52:21,920 --> 00:52:25,720 Speaker 1: very high speed, very high temperature, very high pressure conditions. 1033 00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:28,640 Speaker 1: They're difficult for us to solve like with our equations, 1034 00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:30,920 Speaker 1: and also very challenging for us to solve with our 1035 00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:34,400 Speaker 1: computers to like model what should work. You might imagine, 1036 00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:36,480 Speaker 1: why don't the physicists just figure out what the best 1037 00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:38,799 Speaker 1: arrangement is and do that, And we don't know how 1038 00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:40,279 Speaker 1: to figure that out, and so we just have to 1039 00:52:40,320 --> 00:52:42,919 Speaker 1: sort of like tinker and explore and to figure out 1040 00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:45,320 Speaker 1: what might work. So they have these very high speed 1041 00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:47,600 Speaker 1: cameras they used to take pictures of these pellets as 1042 00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:50,600 Speaker 1: they're imploding, trying to figure out exactly what happened. It's 1043 00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:53,560 Speaker 1: a real forefront of research to try to understand high temperature, 1044 00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:56,839 Speaker 1: high pressure conditions. And when you say break even point. 1045 00:52:56,840 --> 00:52:58,480 Speaker 1: I think what you mean is, like, you know, once 1046 00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:01,360 Speaker 1: a pellet explodes, it releases certain amount of energy, but 1047 00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:05,239 Speaker 1: it took a certain amount maybe a more energy to 1048 00:53:05,640 --> 00:53:08,080 Speaker 1: squeeze that pellet, you know, to power all those lasers, 1049 00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:11,160 Speaker 1: to create the pellets, to set it up, and so 1050 00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:14,000 Speaker 1: that even if the pelletics fuses and explodes, it doesn't 1051 00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:16,600 Speaker 1: release as much energy as it took to actually get 1052 00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:19,080 Speaker 1: it to fuse. Right Exactly, if you want to run 1053 00:53:19,120 --> 00:53:21,840 Speaker 1: a power plant, you wanted to produce energy, right, not 1054 00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:24,840 Speaker 1: cost energy. And so if it takes more energy to 1055 00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:27,640 Speaker 1: run your power plant then it's producing then you're not 1056 00:53:27,640 --> 00:53:29,640 Speaker 1: going to make any money. You're not gonna help anybody. 1057 00:53:30,239 --> 00:53:31,960 Speaker 1: And so right now what they're doing is trying to 1058 00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:34,399 Speaker 1: push that output up. And you know there at sev 1059 00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:38,279 Speaker 1: of break even point, which also doesn't even really account 1060 00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:41,360 Speaker 1: for all of the upstream details of how you power 1061 00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:44,800 Speaker 1: all of these lasers and everything. So sometimes this accounting 1062 00:53:44,840 --> 00:53:48,520 Speaker 1: can even be a little bit too optimistic, But I 1063 00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:50,800 Speaker 1: guess the main point is that the energy is there, 1064 00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:53,760 Speaker 1: right like in even in these like two millimeter pellets 1065 00:53:53,760 --> 00:53:57,200 Speaker 1: of how digen fuel, there's you know, eighty thousand tons 1066 00:53:57,200 --> 00:54:00,560 Speaker 1: of oil worth of energy, right, and so like, it's 1067 00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:03,279 Speaker 1: definitely possible in theory that if you if you get 1068 00:54:03,320 --> 00:54:05,600 Speaker 1: to release all of the energy inside of these tiny 1069 00:54:05,600 --> 00:54:08,440 Speaker 1: little pellets, you would have way more energy than what 1070 00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:10,960 Speaker 1: you need to heat up the pellet. Absolutely, the energy 1071 00:54:11,040 --> 00:54:13,680 Speaker 1: is there. They think that they need a factor of 1072 00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:18,160 Speaker 1: ten or more improvement in performance to approach like economically 1073 00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:21,600 Speaker 1: feasible conditions. And that's not even without solving the problem 1074 00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:23,400 Speaker 1: of like how you do this multiple times per second 1075 00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:25,600 Speaker 1: and how you get the energy out just in terms 1076 00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:28,399 Speaker 1: of like theoretical production of the energy. But you're right, 1077 00:54:28,520 --> 00:54:31,440 Speaker 1: it's there, it's harnessed. It's inside these pellets, and you 1078 00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:33,960 Speaker 1: know it's inside me and you, like all the atoms 1079 00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:36,840 Speaker 1: in our bodies have all of this energy stored inside 1080 00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:39,520 Speaker 1: their protons. It's just a question of harnessing it, of 1081 00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:43,000 Speaker 1: creating the right conditions forcing the universe to release all 1082 00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:45,560 Speaker 1: of that energy. Yeah, no, I know my body is 1083 00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:48,160 Speaker 1: full of von ms on any given day. If only 1084 00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:51,080 Speaker 1: I could harness that energy for good And another challenges 1085 00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:53,720 Speaker 1: you have to make these pellets right, and these pellets 1086 00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:56,160 Speaker 1: can't be super duper expensive if you're gonna use many 1087 00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:59,120 Speaker 1: of them. Per second. So people have done calculations to 1088 00:54:59,160 --> 00:55:02,040 Speaker 1: suggest that like each pellet can cost more than a 1089 00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:05,759 Speaker 1: few cents. Otherwise the electricity that comes out would be 1090 00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:08,320 Speaker 1: much more expensive than like solar power. And so to 1091 00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:10,880 Speaker 1: keep it economical, you need to find a way to 1092 00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:15,040 Speaker 1: manufacture these like heavy water pellets that are perfectly smooth 1093 00:55:15,360 --> 00:55:18,520 Speaker 1: for less than ten cents a pop. How much should 1094 00:55:18,520 --> 00:55:21,080 Speaker 1: they cost now? Probably thousands of dollars kind of right, 1095 00:55:21,080 --> 00:55:23,279 Speaker 1: because it's still in the research phase. Yeah, well, you know, 1096 00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:25,279 Speaker 1: they spend billions on this facility. I don't know how 1097 00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:27,880 Speaker 1: many pellets they've made, but it's not a nice number. 1098 00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:30,759 Speaker 1: But I guess if it does show that you can 1099 00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:33,280 Speaker 1: get more energy out of it, and it does replace 1100 00:55:33,360 --> 00:55:36,800 Speaker 1: all of our you know, oil and solar and wind, 1101 00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:39,680 Speaker 1: then it would be a huge industry and probably they 1102 00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:42,600 Speaker 1: would be mass producing these pellets like crazy, exactly, And 1103 00:55:42,680 --> 00:55:44,680 Speaker 1: nobody's really working on figuring out how to make that 1104 00:55:44,760 --> 00:55:47,200 Speaker 1: cheap yet, as you say, if there really was an 1105 00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:49,920 Speaker 1: energy opportunity here, there'd be a huge market and a 1106 00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:51,680 Speaker 1: lot of effort there, and I'm sure people could figure 1107 00:55:51,680 --> 00:55:53,879 Speaker 1: it out because hey, there's lots of smart engineers out there, 1108 00:55:54,239 --> 00:55:56,520 Speaker 1: ones that haven't had their head zapped by a big laser, 1109 00:55:56,560 --> 00:55:59,719 Speaker 1: for example. Maybe they should and they would figure it out. 1110 00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:03,000 Speaker 1: That's been the problem the whole time. Yeah, yeah, Do 1111 00:56:03,200 --> 00:56:06,000 Speaker 1: you need those ideas diffuse together in your head, you know, 1112 00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:08,759 Speaker 1: and then to leak out of a little hole in 1113 00:56:08,800 --> 00:56:11,319 Speaker 1: the back of your head made by the Yeah, so 1114 00:56:11,360 --> 00:56:13,640 Speaker 1: that people can make use of it, you know. But 1115 00:56:13,719 --> 00:56:17,160 Speaker 1: you can always plug it up with a little eminem 1116 00:56:17,160 --> 00:56:20,200 Speaker 1: al Right, Well that's laser fusion. I guess it's a 1117 00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:23,560 Speaker 1: work in progress. You know. It seems super duper difficult 1118 00:56:23,600 --> 00:56:26,280 Speaker 1: and maybe even impossible, but hey, if you get it working, 1119 00:56:26,360 --> 00:56:29,960 Speaker 1: you could solve all of our energy needs for eternity basically, right, 1120 00:56:30,040 --> 00:56:32,080 Speaker 1: or at least until hydrogen runs out in the universe 1121 00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:35,560 Speaker 1: it does end. For a while, maybe twenty years ago, 1122 00:56:35,600 --> 00:56:37,719 Speaker 1: it seemed really promising and really exciting and like we 1123 00:56:37,800 --> 00:56:40,040 Speaker 1: might really make this work. The fact that it hasn't 1124 00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:42,359 Speaker 1: achieved the success that people hoped has put a little 1125 00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:44,919 Speaker 1: bit of damper on the enthusiasm for this. But there's 1126 00:56:44,920 --> 00:56:46,879 Speaker 1: still lots of people out there who think that it's 1127 00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:49,000 Speaker 1: the right way forward. I see people are getting a 1128 00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:53,959 Speaker 1: little miffed at their expectations have been zapped. Yeah, maybe 1129 00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:57,239 Speaker 1: that the dreams are growing up in smoke. Maybe it's 1130 00:56:57,320 --> 00:56:59,880 Speaker 1: zapping their enthusiasm. But good luck to them, and and 1131 00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:02,279 Speaker 1: please keep on working on it because you know the 1132 00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:05,560 Speaker 1: world needs a cleaner and better source of fuel. I mean, 1133 00:57:05,600 --> 00:57:07,360 Speaker 1: you know, we can't sort of keep burning up stuff 1134 00:57:07,400 --> 00:57:10,680 Speaker 1: and in ruining our environment. It's absolutely vital. Let we 1135 00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:13,240 Speaker 1: figure that out, all right. Well, we hope that zapped 1136 00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:16,720 Speaker 1: your curiosity and you learn more about an interesting idea 1137 00:57:16,800 --> 00:57:19,000 Speaker 1: for the future. And maybe some of you listening could 1138 00:57:19,040 --> 00:57:21,440 Speaker 1: be the engineers to the scientists that figure out how 1139 00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:23,520 Speaker 1: to make all of this work. Please get to it. 1140 00:57:23,600 --> 00:57:25,440 Speaker 1: That's right. There's plenty of mysteries out there for you 1141 00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:27,720 Speaker 1: to solve and plenty of impacts for you to make. 1142 00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:30,880 Speaker 1: You hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us, See 1143 00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:41,120 Speaker 1: you next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel 1144 00:57:41,160 --> 00:57:43,680 Speaker 1: and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of I 1145 00:57:43,920 --> 00:57:47,320 Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio, visit 1146 00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,880 Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 1147 00:57:50,960 --> 00:58:02,680 Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.