WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: Can Nuclear Fusion Reactors Save The World? 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:03.720 M. Hey everyone, it's me Josh and for this week's 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:07.640 S Y s K Selex, I've chosen Can nuclear fusion 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:11.920 reactors save the world? Well, it turns out probably if 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:15.040 we can just figure out how to build one properly. Well, 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:19.279 sit back, buckle up, and prepare to be titillated with 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:23.520 what I find to be the most arousing, amazing form 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:32.479 of future energy around. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:41.520 a production of five Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:45.240 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:50.159 to Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry, there's Barrel laughs. Uh, and 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:51.960 this is stuff you should know. She gave us the 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:54.600 old quick start. Yeah, like I don't want to hear 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:57.400 any more impression record. Yeah, she knows that shuts me up, 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.240 or at least cuts off whatever station on chiding her. 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:03.240 It's great. I'm telling you, if we could release the 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:07.520 twenty seconds before each show as its own show, that 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.679 would be terrible. No one would care, We'd think it 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:13.360 was funny and everybody else would be like, you edit 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:17.960 this out for a reason. Uh So, Chuck, how you 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:23.080 doing great? Have you ever been to Azen Provence? France. 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.160 No is that a place. Yeah, No, I haven't. It 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:33.880 is a rustic little town in Provence. And it is strangely, 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.679 maybe even ironically in the non hipster use, but in 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:41.280 the actual Yeah, it's a real word definition of the 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:46.240 word um. Also site to one of the most futuristic 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:51.360 engineering projects humanity has ever undertaken. Meat. Meat. It's a 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.720 sound it makes. Oh, I thought you're mocking me. No, 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.120 no for being thrilled by the thought of this thing. No, 0:01:57.280 --> 0:01:58.720 it is kind of funny that this thing is in 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.560 a sleepy little town like a hamlet, maybe evencern in Switzerland. 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:05.280 That's not in the city, is it. No, you can't 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:07.240 build these things in cities. That's whether in sleepy towns 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:09.480 exactly because no one knows they're being poisoned. Yeah, and 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:12.359 you can push the mare around pretty easy, exactly. This 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:15.560 thing is called either I T e R, which is 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:22.480 an acronym for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactors, which really 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:24.160 gets to the point across. Did you know the word 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:29.480 acronym is an acronym M. That's not true. Okay, I 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:30.800 just want to see how long you would try and 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:32.440 sort it out in your head. I would have kept 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:34.840 going on what it means seconds. Maybe that would have 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:36.680 been a great joke. I could have just kept it going. 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.800 I'm not gonna tell you I would have been I 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:43.040 would have it was maybe fifteen seconds, because you would 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.600 have gotten that much more. So I wouldn't have looked 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:49.480 it up. I would have figured it out myself. Anyway. 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:55.200 EID is this colossal engineering project. Somebody compared it to 0:02:55.360 --> 0:03:01.920 the pyramids at Giza. Yeah, that's that's exciting stuff. Sure. Um. 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:06.320 The thing is is it's a nuclear fusion reactor, and 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:11.679 it's the culmination of decades of attempts to create a 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:14.760 nuclear fusion reactor because we got fussion down and we'll 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:18.280 talk about the difference in a minute, um, but fusion 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:22.760 has been very elusive, and nowhere is it more apparent 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:27.000 than in the EIDER project. Because this thing is going 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.760 to cost an approximately fifty billion dollars when it's completed, 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:36.400 fifty billion dollars. They started. They're hoping to turn on 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:39.560 the switch in two thousand twenty, but it's looking like 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:43.000 two thousand twenty three or two thousand twenty four, and 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.640 it won't be starting to produce anything until the two 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:50.880 thousand forties at the earliest. So what's the point. I'll 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.840 tell you the point. If we can figure out nuclear fusion, Chuck, 0:03:55.400 --> 0:04:00.840 the world's literally the world's energy problems will be solved 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:05.320 for millennia. If we can just figure this out, we 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:12.240 will have a almost no radio activity nuclear option um, 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:19.080 almost limitless fuel supply, totally green clean, no no pollution 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:23.640 of greenhouse emissions, and with plenty of energy to spare 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:30.320 using the already extant infrastructure we have to supply power. Like, 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:32.560 you don't have to completely rebuild everything. You can just 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:37.280 to the electrical cables outside. It'll be the exact same thing. Yeah, 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:39.680 you can just go to a nuclear fission reactor and 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:42.320 press the button that says fusion, and it'll all of 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.600 a sudden joint atoms instead of split them exactly. That's 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.000 what the difference is. With fission, you're splitting atoms and 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.520 you're gaining energy from that. With fusion, you're smacking them 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:54.880 together and you're gaining even more energy because we're you're 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.960 exploiting a different fundamental force. Yeah, and that I was 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:01.080 being KOI clearly there is no button because we would 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.320 have pushed it a long time ago. Yeah. And when 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:07.839 I say no, pollution and no greenhouse emissions before the 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.640 pedantic among you right in, we know that just even 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:16.240 shipping something from here to there causes pollution and greenhouse emissions, 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.000 but we're talking about the The output of the reactor 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.840 itself is very green. So if you want to know 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:24.360 all about Ider, well, we're gonna talk about it here there, 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:27.040 because it's just you just can't talk about nuclear fusion 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.200 reactors and not mention Eider. But if you want to 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:31.880 know a lot about Eider, there is a really great 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.880 article called A Star in a Bottle um, and it's 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:38.800 by a person named Rathi Kacha Duran durian Uh. And 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.280 it was written in the New Yorker not too long ago. 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.720 And man, it is every detail you want to know 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:49.039 about the Eider project written really well um and it's long, 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.160 but it's totally worth the read. Yeah, it's all over 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:53.599 the news lately. And for good reason. You said a 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.880 lot of energy. I have a stat I'm gonna throw 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:00.559 back to the old days here. Per kilogram, I'm a fuel. 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:06.400 If we're talking fusion and fission, fusion produces four times 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:10.880 more energy than fission. I saw seven. It's probably one 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:12.279 of the things where it's like four to five to 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:15.479 ten or something. Right, I've found four times and ten 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:20.320 million times more than coal. Yeah, ten million times the 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:24.240 energy as coal, and that's with equal fuel per kilogram 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:27.960 of fuel. It's just I mean, it is the future. Yeah. 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:29.760 And you can say, well, that's great because we want 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:32.679 eighteen million times the amount of power that coal provides. 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:35.159 You can say, well, there, buddy, you can also bring 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:39.039 it backwards because you can supply an awful lot of 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:44.200 power then with a lot less fuel. Yeah, we're like 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.440 the advantage of nuclear fusion or mind boggling and and 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:50.880 very few uh downsides, which we'll get to of course, 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.320 but yeah, I mean, like really genuinely, it's not just 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:56.680 like some like here's all the great stuff about it 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:58.919 and just don't pay attention to all these like really 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:03.160 horrible aspect us. Um, Like, there really aren't too many downsides. 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:08.000 The downside is we are at this moment incapable of 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:13.680 successfully creating a commercially viable nuclear fusion reactor. That's right, 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.920 But we've got an understanding of what the challenges are 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:19.880 ahead of us thanks to the last fifty or so 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:24.640 years of really really really smart physicists working on the 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:28.800 problem of nuclear fusion. Uh, and the great inspiration for 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:33.239 nuclear fusion is the Sun. The Sun and all stars 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:39.000 like it are enormous, immense nuclear fusion reactors. So if 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.480 you are building a nuclear fusion reactor here on Earth, 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.480 you're essentially creating a star, and that is a very 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:50.760 difficult thing to do. It turns out, Yeah, the Sun creates. 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:53.239 And we talked about the Sun in our very famous 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:57.960 episode on the Sun. Um. The Sun creates six twenty 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.440 million metric tons a few six and twenty million metric 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:04.880 tons of hydrogen at its core every second. So every 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.480 second at the Sun's core, it produces enough power to 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:12.200 light up New York City for a hundred years New 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.360 York City every second. And that's the Sun. And all 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.600 we want to do is do the same thing on 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:22.520 a much smaller scale. I think the guy there's this 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.440 kid who built one in his garage and he said 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:27.720 he wanted to Chris saw this Ted talk. He wanted 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:29.520 to create a star in a box is what he 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:31.960 called it. Yeah, I've seen it, like this New Yorker 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:33.840 called it a star in a bottle. Yeah. This kid's 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:38.160 name is Taylor Wilson and he's a nuclear physicist and 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:42.800 he's like sixteen and he created Yeah, he he created 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:46.440 a successful one. And the key, though, is not to 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:49.000 be able to create the fusion. The key is to 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.440 be able to harness enough plasma, which we'll get to 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:55.959 at a high enough temperature and density for there to 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:58.800 be a net power gain. Right, you can create fusion, 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:01.480 but in order to get out more than you're putting 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:03.680 in is the only thing that matters, because what you 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:06.439 want to do is create electricity exactly. That's there's two 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.600 huge challenges right now to nuclear fusion. We pretty much 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:13.959 understand it enough to start it going and and get 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.800 energy from it. The problem is is material science isn't 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:21.400 at a point where it can build a containment vessel 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:27.080 to really house a thermonuclear reactor. And then the other 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.320 big obstacle is, like you said, net energy gain, Like 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.959 if you're putting in as much or more energy then 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:38.120 you're getting out of your nuclear reactor, then you're wasting energy, 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.959 and it's the opposite of what you're supposed to be doing. Yeah, 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.280 they're not just trying to impress people with their science knowledge, no, 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.040 but up to trying to create energy. Up to now, though, Chuck, 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.920 like every single thermonuclear reactor that's ever been built has 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:55.000 just been impressing people with knowledge, Like they haven't gotten 0:09:55.800 --> 0:10:00.840 any net energy out of a single thermonuclear usion reactor, 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:02.960 you see, I have that they have their right now 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:09.400 they're up to like tin uh presently, they're at tin megawatts. Yeah, 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:12.480 and that's more than they put into a net gain 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.280 of tin mega watts currently. Everything I saw was when 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.760 we turn this thing on, it should have a net gain, 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:21.320 but I didn't see that they've actually done it. Yeah, 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:23.839 tin mega watts now and Eider is going to produce 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:29.640 five hundred megawatts once it's fully operational. Right. So the 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:33.080 next challenge then is this, if we're already getting a 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.120 net energy gain out of it, then that means that 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:40.760 the net energy gain is it's not sustainable. Like you said, 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:42.760 you want to keep the thing going so you don't 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.760 have to keep starting from scratch to power it up. 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.400 You wanted to basically be self sustaining, so you just 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:50.880 have to add a little more fuel to the dream. 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:55.840 So let's talk about the history of of fusion reactors Chuck. Yeah, 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.800 it kind of goes back to this guy, name Lyman Spitzer. 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:03.320 He's a thirty six year old Princeton astrophysicist. And this 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.120 was in the nineteen fifties, and he was recruited to 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.600 work on the H bomb. And UH went out and 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.800 got a copy of of a of a paper that 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:19.960 was released from Germany. I think, right that Argentina. Argentina. Yeah, 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:22.439 they announced that they had get that wrong. They had 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:26.960 successfully built a fusion reactor. Right. So he gets this paper, 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:30.440 UH goes on a ski trip, starts thinking about how 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.760 he can do this, takes a little break from his 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:37.160 job building the H bomb, and figures out, you know, 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:41.280 I think it's possible if we can harness this plasma. 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:43.680 I guess we should just go ahead and find what 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.319 plasma is. Since we keep saying it, Well, there's there's 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:50.040 the normal three energy states that were familiar with, water, 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:54.680 solid and gas, liquid solid and gas. Right, there's a 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.120 fourth one. It's plasma. And plasma is basically like an 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:02.840 energetic gas where the temperatures are so high that whatever 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.240 atoms you put into it, the electrons are stripped off 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:09.320 and allowed to move around freely. Basically, the surface of 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.720 the Sun is plasma. That's that's what plasma is. It's 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.240 a gas, it's a roiling gas that's really hard to 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:17.439 control and is really unpredicted, which is when you want 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.160 to see the Sun like that rippling, wavy looking thing. 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:22.880 That's plasma, right. And the reason the Sun manages to 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:27.640 stay together is because it is enormously massive and has 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.160 a ton of gravity at its core. Yeah, we don't 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:32.559 have that advantage here on Earth. We don't, so we 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.199 try to make up for that by increasing the temperature. 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:37.280 That's right. And he was onto it way back then 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.880 in the nineteen fifties. If we can just harness this, 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:43.000 we can just get hot enough. And he created a 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:47.920 tabletop device called the uh Stellarator and it was an 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.240 a figure eight position. It was a pipe and a 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.360 figure eight uh. And this would keep things from banging 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:57.640 into walls theoretically. Yeah, and he was onto something because well, 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.160 we'll get to lockeed later, but they're using some or 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:04.960 device nowg eight. Oh yeah, I didn't realize that was 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.439 a figure eight it is, which is weird because what 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:09.360 they eventually found out was that a donut shape was 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:13.160 really the key, uh to get that net gain. So 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:15.839 the and the reason that they found out that a 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:18.880 donut shape worked was because in the I think the 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:23.280 late fifties, UM, the US had run up against the wall. 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.120 They're saying, like, okay, we've got this, but we can't 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:29.000 control the plasma because think about it, what you're trying 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:33.520 to do is create a star inside something, but it 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.760 can't touch any of the vessel that it's in or 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:40.120 else it'll just completely erupt it. Right. Yeah. They compared 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.640 it to holding jelly and rubber bands. Right, it was 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.280 just like you can't. They couldn't figure out how to 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.840 control the plasma. So when when the US ran up 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.240 against this wall, they said, hey, the rest of the world, 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:57.040 we're gonna declassify what Lyman Spitz Lyman Spitzer has been 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:00.240 doing and like we'll share if you guys are And 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.960 it turns out that the Russians had um already come 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.960 up against this problem and licked it. They figured out 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:08.920 that if you put the thing in a what's called 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:15.079 the toroidal shape, a donut shape UM using electro magnets, 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:19.840 you contame the plasma essentially, and the the the donut 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.280 shape itself was pretty ingenious, but the real stroke of 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:27.840 genius was by running electromagnets in rings around the doughnut. 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:29.920 So it's like you you have a donut, and you 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:33.200 put a bunch of earrings around it, right, and those 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.720 are electromagnets, So you're creating an electro magnetic force field 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:41.280 which contains the plasma. But then you also put an 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.400 electro magnetic force field in the middle of the plasma. 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:46.800 So not only does it heat it up to the 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:50.120 temperatures you want, it also stabilizes it further. So the 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:54.000 Russians had invented what they call the tacomac um, which 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:58.560 is this donut shape nuclear fusion reactor that basically became 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:02.480 the standard for the next fifty years or so. Yeah, 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:07.160 you basically could achieve a really dense, super hot plasma. 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:09.440 And we'll get into temperatures and stuff in a bit. 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.680 But since we can't create that kind of pressure that 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:15.880 they have in the Sun due to their gravity, their gravity, 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:19.560 the Sun's gravity, you know, the Sun and all those people. Yeah, uh, 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:21.000 like you said, we had to make up for it 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:23.840 here on Earth with temperatures, right, because apparently if you 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:28.280 are in a in the middle of a nuclear reactor, 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:31.880 a nuclear fusion reactor, um, you're going to find that 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:36.000 the temperatures inside are about six times hotter than the 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.360 core of the Sun. Not even the services and the 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.680 core of the sun. And the reason why it has 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:42.400 to be so much hotter is because, like you said, 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.600 we can't we can't replicate that density. We can get 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:47.840 to those temperatures that we need, but we can't get 0:15:47.840 --> 0:16:09.920 to the density, so we have to make up for it. So, Chuck, 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:15.640 we're talking about nuclear fusion, and there's it's actually surprisingly 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:21.360 understandable at its most basic core. Yeah, you're fusing atoms. 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:23.040 Is not the hardest thing in the world to wrap 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:26.280 your head around. Yeah. So with fission, we're splitting atoms. 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.080 You're taking an atom and you're splitting its nuclei apart. 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:32.480 You're splitting the neutrons and the protons apart from one another. 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:36.200 And when you do that, one of the four fundamental forces, 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:40.400 electromagnetic force, pushes them away and you get this burst 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:45.560 of energy. With fusion, you're taking nuclei from different atoms. 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:49.960 You're taking protons and um neutrons, and you're smashing them together. 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.480 And when you do that, you're unleashing what's called the 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:58.920 strong force, which appropriately enough is stronger than electromagnetic force, 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:03.760 which is why nuclear refusion yields more energy than nuclear fission. Yeah, 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:06.400 Einstein himself said, you know, each time you smash these 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:08.960 things together, you're gonna lose a little bit of mass, 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:11.919 and that little bit of mass is a ton of energy. 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.440 As it turns out. That's right, The famous equals mc square. Yeah, 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:17.560 and I don't think he realized in nineteen o five, 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.440 or maybe Einstein did. E Instein probably did. Yeah, Einstein 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.600 probably did. I would guess he did. So. The problem is, 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:28.639 even though it is very easy to smash some protons together, um, 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:32.160 there's a tremendous amount of resistance to that smashing together. 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:34.479 They don't want to smash together, no, because it's just 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:38.639 like if you take a magnet to magnets and you 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:43.359 put the positive poles toward one another, they repel one another, right, Yeah, 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:46.880 same thing, that's that's the same principle on an atomic 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.160 level too. If you take protons, which are positively charged particles, 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:52.840 and try to put them together, they repel one another. 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:55.520 And the closer you get them together, the stronger the 0:17:55.520 --> 0:18:00.680 the repellent force is the electromagnetic force, right. But if 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:04.840 you can get them close enough, the electromagnetic force is 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:09.000 overcome by that strong force, the strong nuclear force, and 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:12.359 they become bound together. Because the strong force is that 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.119 one of those four fundamental forces of the universe, and 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:19.040 that is the force that keeps atoms together, and that 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:22.000 is the that force is stronger than the force that 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:26.879 repels like charged particles. Yeah. And when you talk about close, 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.359 they need to be within one times ten to the 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:33.560 negative fifteen meters of one another. So that is, if 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:36.320 you'll indulge me, sure you're gonna read a bunch of zeros, 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:41.600 it's point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:46.960 zero zero zero zero zero zero one meters apart. Right, 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:49.960 that's how close they have to be. That's right to 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:53.000 get them to accept one another and to fuse. Um. 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.239 I think I have a theory that if they they 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:58.040 are not fusing because they think they're going to be 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.679 made into a bomb, and if we told that creating energy, 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:04.760 they might be more willing to fuse together. Yeah, because 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:08.800 protons are peace necks. Everybody knows that. So when when 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:11.280 they do fuse together, right, when you do cross that 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:14.119 threshold and the strong force takes over and overcomes the 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:19.359 electromagnetic force. Um, Like we said, a tremendous amount of 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:23.840 energy is released, and it's released in part in the 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:29.240 form of neutrinos neutrons, right, which are right neutral particles 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:32.639 which suddenly start carrying a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:35.840 So let's say you have one atom, you've got another atom, 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.080 and they're both like, I'm not getting close to you. 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:40.119 We're not going to get to Okay, we got together 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:46.240 that force that that mass that's displaced is transferred through 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:49.120 the neutron that gets kicked off of the atom, right 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.920 and is carried out. Now, a neutron doesn't have any 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:56.560 kind of positive or negative charts. It's neutral. It's a neutron, 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:01.000 which means that it can pass through the very electromagnetic 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:05.000 fields that are keeping this plasma where this reaction is 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.719 taking place together. Once that happens, Chuck, it can go 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.440 out to what's called a blanket wall and a thermonuclear 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:16.480 reactor warm it, and then that heat is transferred into 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:21.480 a water cooling system. The water is warmed up, turns steam, 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:25.440 which generates a which I guess moves the turbine, and 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.080 then all of a sudden, the turbines producing electricity. Yeah, 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.480 it's funny how just it gets so complex, but all 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:33.760 you're still trying to do is create steam. It's like 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:35.879 turn a turbine. It's like cooking the I s s 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:39.640 up to a horse, right, you know, move it over there. 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:44.399 So there are a few types of fusion reactions. UM. 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:48.000 The ultimate goal right now, what we can do on 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:53.720 a small scale is what's called a uh deuterium tritium reaction. 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:56.560 That's the one that we can currently achieve. That's one 0:20:56.560 --> 0:21:00.520 atom of deuterium and one atom of tritium combining to 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.199 form a helium four atom and a neutron. Yeah, the 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:05.840 ultimate goal. I mean, that's good and that will create 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.200 a lot of energy, but there are a few downsides. 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:12.200 Tritium is radioactive. For one, UM, you have to mine 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:16.159 it from lithium. Yeah, and lithium is fairly rare. UM. 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:19.840 The ultimate goal is to to reach deuterium deuterium reactions, 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:22.919 which is two deuterium atoms combining to form that helium 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:25.880 three in a neutron. And you can get that from 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:31.240 the sea water. It's abundant, almost limitless um. And I 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.520 couldn't find this, but I think clean water can be 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.320 a residual effect of this. Am I wrong. I don't 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:40.879 know if it's if well, you're probably not injecting water, 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:44.760 but to get the deuterium. I mean, desalination plants are 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:47.960 the key to the future as far as supplying the 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:50.399 world with fresh water. Yeah, I thought I saw somewhere 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:53.160 where it was an actual byproduct, but yeah, but then 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:54.840 I couldn't find it. So I'm not sure if that's 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:56.760 right or you know what, you just chalk my memory. 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:00.600 I feel like in a hydrogen powered car, water is 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:03.640 one of the by products, so maybe so yeah, all right, 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:06.240 don't quote me on that though. Um at the very least, 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:08.720 it's a great way to create energy, right and and 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:13.679 what what's You also can get um tritium from helium, 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:19.440 I believe. So even now with the the deuterium tritium 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:22.960 reactions that we're working on, there's there's already a there's 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:25.960 a work around, you know, like you can create a 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:30.160 thermonuclear reactor that's a breeding reactor to where the byproduct 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:33.160 helium can be used to harvest more of the fuel 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:36.400 you're using tritium. Yeah, aren't we running low on helium? 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:38.800 We are? Which is like remember when we were talking 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:44.600 about the dirigibile the Zeppelin, which one was how blimps work. Yeah, 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:47.199 and then a long time ago we did one on 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:51.240 the Mars turbine Mars turbine reaction. But yes, there's very 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.639 clearly helium shortage, and the idea that we're just using 0:22:54.680 --> 0:23:00.280 it for party balloons rather than this is scary. And 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:02.760 don't be confused. We say things like deuterium and it 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:05.439 sounds super complex. All that is a hydrogen with an 0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:09.439 extra neutron. Yeah, it's an isotope. So there's three isotopes 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:12.200 of hydrogen and they're all still the same element. They're 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:16.600 all still hydrogen, but they have different configurations as far 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:20.920 as their neutrons go. So protium is a hydrogen isotope 0:23:20.960 --> 0:23:24.520 with one proton and no neutrons. Deuterium is a hydrogen 0:23:24.560 --> 0:23:28.040 isotope with one proton and one neutron, and tritium is 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:31.639 a hydrogenitro isotope with one proton and two neutrons. And 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:34.840 like you said, tritium is radioactive, but the beauty of 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:37.359 it is you need very very very little of it 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:43.000 to to fuel a nuclear fusion reactor and it becomes 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:47.359 a stable helium, a non radioactive helium in the reactor, 0:23:47.840 --> 0:23:51.800 so you don't have this leftover radioactive fuel. And awesome, 0:23:51.800 --> 0:23:54.119 I think they said there's an it would be equivalent 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:56.520 of the radiation we just see every day and I'm 0:23:56.520 --> 0:24:00.280 walking around on the street right, Yes, the background radio aation. 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:02.439 I believe I saw that too. The thing is is 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:06.719 the parts to the nuclear reactor themselves will become irradiated 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:11.399