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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And it's Friday. That

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Speaker 1: means it's time for a classic episode of tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: And this one originally published on April fIF two thousand thirteen.

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Speaker 1: It's called tex Stuff Experiments with Fusion. So let's listen in.

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Speaker 1: We're talking nuclear fusion and to uh kind of give

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Speaker 1: you an idea of what nuclear fusion is, how we

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Speaker 1: are trying to harness nuclear fusion as a source of

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Speaker 1: energy production, really electricity production. Uh, and it's it's being

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Speaker 1: tended as one of the technologies of the feature that

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Speaker 1: is going to give us unlimited energy. And how far

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Speaker 1: away is it? Twenty to thirty to fifty years And

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Speaker 1: every year it seems like we're still at the lead

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Speaker 1: to fifty years. Yeah, yeah, it's that's one of those

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Speaker 1: things that scientists will often Riley kind of joke about

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Speaker 1: that the technology is always twenty years away. And uh,

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Speaker 1: and you know, it's because the challenges that we need

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Speaker 1: to overcome are quite impressive. Doesn't doesn't mean we won't

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Speaker 1: do it because human beings are amazing, you know, we innovate,

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Speaker 1: we event but but let's let's kind of first of

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Speaker 1: all talk about the difference between fusion and fission. Fission

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Speaker 1: is the kind of a nuclear process that is used

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Speaker 1: in our nuclear power plants today. So if you are

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Speaker 1: familiar with the nuclear power plants things like you know there,

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Speaker 1: of course they're the famous ones that have suffered catastrophic

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Speaker 1: failures like Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. Uh. But these

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Speaker 1: are the the reactors where they split up larger atoms

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Speaker 1: into smaller atoms and as a result, a great deal

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Speaker 1: of energy is given off really in the form of heat,

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Speaker 1: which is then harnessed to convert water into steam, which

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Speaker 1: turns steam turbines which are connected to electrical generators generating electricity.

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Speaker 1: So really it's just a very very efficient way of

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Speaker 1: heating up a lot of water really quickly and making

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Speaker 1: it do work. Yes, a very efficient, very radioactive steam generator. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And that's one of the big issues with the fission

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Speaker 1: power plants obviously, is that it uses nuclear radioactive material,

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Speaker 1: not just nuclear material, radioactive material, and that it doesn't

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Speaker 1: the radioactivity is still very much a factor once that

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Speaker 1: reaction is finished four thousands and thousands of years, right. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Generally speaking, only about three percent of the uranium in

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Speaker 1: a uranium rod is used up in a fission reactor

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Speaker 1: before the waste has to be disposed of because it

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Speaker 1: will continue to heat up until it reaches a point

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Speaker 1: that's too hot and the reactor itself can suffer a failure.

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Speaker 1: You have, that's what you have, the meltdown. Yeah. Uh.

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Speaker 1: There are some uh, some approaches that are suggesting that

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Speaker 1: we take another pass at that nuclear waste and use

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Speaker 1: that in a second round by immersing it in a

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Speaker 1: molten salt the waist annihilating molten salt reactor, which I

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Speaker 1: still I just can't I can't get over the the

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Speaker 1: annihilator part of the waist annihilator. Uh. Yeah. So this

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Speaker 1: this reactor would it's still a fission reactor, but it

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Speaker 1: would immerse the radioactive material the uranium in a molten

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Speaker 1: salt and use that to control the heat in a

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Speaker 1: in a way that would allow you to use that

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Speaker 1: material for longer, so you'd be able to get more

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Speaker 1: use out of the same radioactive material and reduce the

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Speaker 1: life of the actual radioactive elements at the at the

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Speaker 1: final output, I think it would only be radioactive. It

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Speaker 1: would only be reactive for another years. Yeah, so still

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Speaker 1: well beyond our lifetimes right now. But not something that

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Speaker 1: you would say, alright, generation and generations and generations are

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Speaker 1: going to have to be aware of that. You don't

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Speaker 1: have to start, you know, programming things that people, you know,

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Speaker 1: languages that don't exist yet want to be able to understand.

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Speaker 1: How do I how do I create a pictograph that

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Speaker 1: shows exactly do not go in here? Wessed it up

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Speaker 1: really hard? Right in ten thousand years, English may not

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Speaker 1: even be a thing anymore. So, um so yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean that's that's one of those possible solutions. But fusion

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Speaker 1: is very different. Fission all about splitting atoms apart. Fusion

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Speaker 1: is about being buddy buddy and bringing atoms together. This

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Speaker 1: is this is the kind of of process that we

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Speaker 1: see happening in stars, including the sun. Did the sun

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Speaker 1: being a star? Yes, yes, Well I'm just making sure

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Speaker 1: people know that. And despite what my one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite bands has said in a cover of a song,

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Speaker 1: actually the sun is not really a massive incandescent gas,

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Speaker 1: the gigantic nuclear fulness. But they did correct it in

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Speaker 1: a later song and say it was a miasma of

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Speaker 1: incandesc and plasma. So they did go back and correct it,

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Speaker 1: but they were actually quoting an old song from a

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Speaker 1: science album for kids, which was to explain the process

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Speaker 1: of fusion and how the Sun generates energy and light

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Speaker 1: and uh. And the way it happens is it takes

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Speaker 1: these hydrogen atoms, and because the Sun is so massive

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Speaker 1: and dense, there's a huge amount of gravity there and

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Speaker 1: it's creating an enormous amount of pressure and heat. So

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Speaker 1: the heat is stripping those hydrogen atoms of their electrons,

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Speaker 1: creating ions. Um that creates ions, and in a pure

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Speaker 1: hydrogen atom is just a proton and an electron, so

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Speaker 1: that electron goes away. Now you've just got a proton there.

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Speaker 1: And so you have these protons now that are zipping

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Speaker 1: around an incredible um and being pressed together really tightly

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Speaker 1: by the amazing force of gravity. And at the Sun's

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Speaker 1: core where this is the strongest, these atoms are banging

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Speaker 1: up against each other so fast and so close that

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Speaker 1: one of the other fundamental forces in the universe overacts

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Speaker 1: the electromagnetic force. Now, the four forces in the universe

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Speaker 1: include gravity, which is the weakest, but is the it

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Speaker 1: is the most effective over huge distances. You have electromagnetic force,

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Speaker 1: and then you have the strong and weak nuclear forces. Now,

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Speaker 1: the strong force is what holds nucleic particles together. It's

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Speaker 1: like the glue that keeps a nucleus together, right, right,

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Speaker 1: So if you were able to get two protons close

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Speaker 1: enough to each other, uh, the strong nuclear force would

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Speaker 1: be strong enough to counteract the electromagnetic force. That's it's

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Speaker 1: naturally driving them apart. Because protons both have a positive charge.

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Speaker 1: And if you've ever taken to magnets and tried to

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Speaker 1: stick the two positive ends together, it resists to you.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't want to do that thing. But when you

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Speaker 1: get them to within one alliant of a millimeter of

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Speaker 1: each other, yeah, then that will that will go away,

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Speaker 1: or it will be overcome by the strong exactly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so you have to get them really really close together. Now,

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Speaker 1: at that pomp point, when you have fused to hydrogen

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Speaker 1: protons together, you have created a different element. Hydrogen has

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Speaker 1: now become helium at a temperature millions of degrees. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: we can't see we might both be that, they might

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Speaker 1: be giants. I'll be seeing them in a week to

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Speaker 1: come into Atlanta. By the time you guys hear this,

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Speaker 1: I've already seen it and the show was awesome, I guess.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, the the protons have fused together to form helium.

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Speaker 1: But here's the interesting thing. In that process. The mass

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Speaker 1: of that helium atom is slightly less than the combined

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Speaker 1: masses of the two hydrogen atoms that fused together to

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Speaker 1: make the helium. Why is that, Jonathan, Some that mass

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Speaker 1: gets converted into energy. Now, there's a little equation you

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Speaker 1: may have heard of called E equals MC squared. I

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Speaker 1: think I think some some guy named Einstein was talking

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Speaker 1: about that. I don't know. Listen here Einstein. Yeah, Einstein

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Speaker 1: came up with this idea where he came up with

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Speaker 1: the theory and and turns out that it looks like

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Speaker 1: it's true energy equals mass times this square or the

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Speaker 1: speed of light squared, rather not the square speed of light,

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Speaker 1: but the speed of light squared. So speed of light

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Speaker 1: is a big, big, big, big number. Then you square

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Speaker 1: it and it's even bigger, bigger, and you multiply financially bigger. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and multiply that times whatever the mass is. You get

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Speaker 1: your energy output and so essentially, what this equation tells

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Speaker 1: us is that a tiny little bit of mass, once

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Speaker 1: converted into energy, will be an enormous amount of energy

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Speaker 1: the same thing. And also the mass and energy never

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Speaker 1: really go way, and they are simply converted. Exactly. We

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Speaker 1: cannot create or destroy energy, but what we can do

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Speaker 1: is convert energy to mass and mass to energy. At

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Speaker 1: least in theory. Now, if we were to convert energy

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Speaker 1: to mass, it would take an awful lot of energy

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Speaker 1: to make just a little bit of mass. Which is

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Speaker 1: why I always go crazy when I read the Harry

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Speaker 1: Potter books and people conjure stuff out of thin air,

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Speaker 1: because I think, do you you just destroyed like three

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Speaker 1: solar systems in order to do that, clearly pulling them

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Speaker 1: from a parallel dimension or something like that. Yes, so

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Speaker 1: there's just a people in a parallel dimension' Like it's

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Speaker 1: so cold, there's a there's a really huge room of

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Speaker 1: requirement somewhere. That's all right, Now you're talking about language.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, a little bit of mass creates a lot

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Speaker 1: of energy. So even though we're talking tiny atomic measurements

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Speaker 1: here where we have the helium atom, which has got

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Speaker 1: a lower mass than the two combined hydrogen atoms that

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Speaker 1: still puts off quite a bit of energy. And and

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Speaker 1: the Sun is doing this all the time with tons

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Speaker 1: of hydrogen converting to helium every day. All right, so

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Speaker 1: massive amount of energy that's being that's being admitted, I mean,

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Speaker 1: and if it weren't being emitted, then there would be

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Speaker 1: a life on this planet. And we know it works,

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Speaker 1: you know, so we conserve this. This is this is

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Speaker 1: as far as we can tell real science. Yes, so

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Speaker 1: we know it works, we know we can do it.

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Speaker 1: In fact, we have done it. We've reproduced it here

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Speaker 1: on Earth. We'll get into that in a little bit.

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Speaker 1: But the question was if the Sun does this, if

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Speaker 1: that's how the Sun does this, could we create energy

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Speaker 1: here on Earth using a similar method, Knowing that on

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Speaker 1: Earth the conditions are very different from the core of

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Speaker 1: the Sun. We don't have that gravity or that heat

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Speaker 1: that is allowing the Sun to overcome the right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this and this, and the gravity is the really important part,

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Speaker 1: because that gravity is what's allowing that this nuclear fusion

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Speaker 1: process to happen at a temperature that would actually be

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Speaker 1: lower than it we would need here on Earth because

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Speaker 1: we don't have that gravity. We don't have the ability

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Speaker 1: to compress the atoms as tightly together as we would

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Speaker 1: if if we had the Sun's gravity. We have to

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Speaker 1: we have to overcome that with even more heat. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the Sun only needs about fifteen million degrees kelvin. Only

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Speaker 1: am easily fifteen million kelvin. Sorry sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: my my bad. I always do that. I did it

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Speaker 1: once and one of our great listeners corrected me. And

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Speaker 1: that's the only reason, because our listeners are awesome and

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Speaker 1: they let me know when I've done something silly like that,

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Speaker 1: completely ridiculous, the only reason I know, So, thank you listeners.

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Speaker 1: Um so, so, yeah, the Sun only needs about fifteen

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Speaker 1: million kelvin. In order to do this here on Earth,

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Speaker 1: it would be something like a hundred million. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: we're talking massive amounts of energy that we would need

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Speaker 1: here on Earth to compensate for the fact that we

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Speaker 1: don't have that gravity there to help us with this reaction. Um. Now,

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Speaker 1: in the Sun, you're talking about the pure hydrogen encountering

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Speaker 1: other pure hydrogen. So one proton, one electron, the electrons

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Speaker 1: get stripped away, the protons get fused together. But on Earth,

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Speaker 1: we've discovered that there's a better combination to go with

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Speaker 1: it requires less energy than it would if we were

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Speaker 1: to use pure hydrogen. Right, It's it's relatively difficult to

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Speaker 1: run into pure hydrogen here. Yeah, you would have to

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Speaker 1: you would have to essentially split the hydrogen off of

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Speaker 1: something else. There's lots of hydrogen on Earth. We have

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Speaker 1: no shortage of it. Yeah, it's just connected to lots

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Speaker 1: of other stuff. So. Um. The two types of the

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Speaker 1: two isotopes of hydrogen and isotope by the way, means

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Speaker 1: that you have more or fewer neutrons than whatever the

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Speaker 1: the atom typically has. But it's or it's it's a

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Speaker 1: different number of neutrons than the base version of that atom,

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Speaker 1: but it's um same number of protons, same number of electrons.

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Speaker 1: So an isotope is one isotope of hydrogen is a deuterium,

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Speaker 1: which is also known as heavy hydrogen, and it has

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Speaker 1: one proton and one neutron, So typically you would not

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Speaker 1: have a neutron with hydrogen. Deuterium does have a neutron.

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Speaker 1: And then you have tritium, which is called also called

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Speaker 1: heavy heavy hydrogen, so it's extra heavy. He's not heavy,

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Speaker 1: he's my tritium. Uh. And this is a proton that

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Speaker 1: has two neutrons. Uh so the same still the same element,

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Speaker 1: it's just a different isotope. Now deuterium, we've got a

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Speaker 1: lot of that here on Earth. Yeah, it can be

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Speaker 1: extracted from seawater. It's not radioactive or anything. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: not dangerous um that but yeah, you can. You can

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Speaker 1: find deuterium in in ocean water. Um. You cannot find

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Speaker 1: tritium very easily, mostly because it's not completely stable. It

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Speaker 1: does tend to decay and it's just it has a

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Speaker 1: half life of about ten years. But you can. You

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Speaker 1: can get it from lithium. Yeah, you you if you

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Speaker 1: take lithium, the metal lithium, not the medication, the metal lithium,

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Speaker 1: and you bombard it with neutrons, then one of the

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Speaker 1: things you get out of that is tritium. So that

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Speaker 1: is one way to get the treatium and it we

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Speaker 1: found out that treaty um and deuterium, if you try

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Speaker 1: to fuse those two together, then you get helium and

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Speaker 1: a neutron out of that reaction, and uh, it requires

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Speaker 1: less energy than than other combinations. Do write these are

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Speaker 1: the current forms of fusion that are possible on our planet.

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Speaker 1: Are our deuterium tritium. Hey guys, hope you're enjoying this

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Speaker 1: classic episode of tech stuff. We're going to take a

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Speaker 1: quick break to thank our sponsors. All right, let's get

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Speaker 1: back to fusion. So we've got the deuterium in the

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Speaker 1: sea water. We can bombard some lithium with some neutrons

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Speaker 1: and get some tritium out of that. We're ready to

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Speaker 1: introduce the deuterium to the tritium and uh and and

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Speaker 1: make a date and have them fused together in a

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Speaker 1: single unit of helium and shoot off an extra neutron

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Speaker 1: and a lot of energy. What do we need to do?

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Speaker 1: So we know that we're going to be using deuterium

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Speaker 1: and tritium because that's the the most efficient way that

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Speaker 1: we've found so far to be able to do. It's

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Speaker 1: the easiest for for us to use deuterium. Deuterium would

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Speaker 1: actually be more efficient, but it's more difficult to get started.

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Speaker 1: I see, I see so right, So we we might

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Speaker 1: get more energy output with deuterium deuterium, but it would

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Speaker 1: also require more energy to get the whole thing started, right,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of the entire problem with fusion. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's that's the bigges, all right, we'll just go

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Speaker 1: ahead and say that one of the biggest challenges we

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Speaker 1: face with fusion is the fact that in order to

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Speaker 1: make a fusion reaction here on Earth, you have to

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Speaker 1: pour in a great deal of energy so that you

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Speaker 1: can create the the the the situation you need to hear,

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Speaker 1: you're replicating what goes on in a star. That's really

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Speaker 1: a lot of temperature, a lot of pressure. So in

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Speaker 1: order to do that without all that pressure here on Earth,

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Speaker 1: we've got to pour and even more temperature. So that's

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Speaker 1: the big challenge is how do you create a reaction

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Speaker 1: that's going to generate more energy through the output than

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Speaker 1: it required to start it. So if it requires more

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Speaker 1: energy to go in, then you get out. You have

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Speaker 1: an energy sync. You actually you're in the red and

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Speaker 1: that's not really useful. I mean, it's it's pretty it's

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Speaker 1: still pretty cool, yeah, but just doesn't commercially viable. I

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Speaker 1: guess if you want to make helium, uh, they're probably

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Speaker 1: we are running out. I mean, but still that's a

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Speaker 1: lot of energy you're pouring into making some balloons float

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Speaker 1: or cooling the large Hadron collider. However you want to

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Speaker 1: think about it, all right, but so so we do

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Speaker 1: have we do. There's two main ways that we are

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Speaker 1: experimenting with this on Earth, and one of those it's

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Speaker 1: called magnetic confinement. Right, So magnetic confinement is what was

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Speaker 1: used in the joint European Torus or jet fusion reactor.

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Speaker 1: And this was sort of a test reactor. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: meant to be, uh like an electrical generator, right right,

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Speaker 1: It wasn't a power plant. It was more science is

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Speaker 1: cool than anything else. But and this is a good

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Speaker 1: point to say that, you know, ultimately the way we

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Speaker 1: would generate electricity with these is not that we have

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Speaker 1: some magical like power. Yeah. They just dug into the

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Speaker 1: bolts and then it pulls. Yeah. This is still a

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Speaker 1: steam generator. Yeah, which is which is really interesting to

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Speaker 1: me because you know, this is technically this is steam punk.

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Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, we're essentially harnessing the power of the

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Speaker 1: stom the stars themselves to turn water into steam. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's still it's still converting water to steam to turn

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Speaker 1: really efficiently and a lot of water because you're talking

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Speaker 1: about a lot of heat. So then that's the That's

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Speaker 1: the other thing is that if if you could have

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Speaker 1: used the same amount of energy, you used to start

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Speaker 1: the reaction to heat up some water and get a

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Speaker 1: better effect than Obviously, this makes no sense. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's the whole point is that we have to find

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Speaker 1: a way to do a fusion reaction where we're getting

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Speaker 1: more energy than we're putting into it. Otherwise, just take

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Speaker 1: the reactor out and just direct your energy to water directly,

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Speaker 1: take out the middleman. But magnetic confinement you mentioned it

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Speaker 1: uses a really powerful magnetic field to hold the ionized

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Speaker 1: gas in place. An Ionized gas is plasma. So plasma

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Speaker 1: is a gas where you've got free roaming electrons. That

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Speaker 1: is what the sun is. That's you know, all that

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Speaker 1: heat has stripped away the electrons, you've poured energy in,

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Speaker 1: You've pushed the electrons away. You've got these free flowing

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Speaker 1: uh nuclei inside the plasma. And then the magnetic field

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Speaker 1: starts to press all of these nuclei together until you

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Speaker 1: are able to fuse them. And what you get ore

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Speaker 1: helium atoms and free neutrons. The neutrons fly off and

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Speaker 1: they hit what they call blankets, blankets of lithium. Yeah, blankets.

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Speaker 1: Lithium is in the blanket as well, yes, and that

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Speaker 1: that means that because remember, if you bombard lithium with

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Speaker 1: a neutron, you create tritium, which means that you can

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Speaker 1: continually create part of the fuel source you need for

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Speaker 1: this reactually while you're in the middle of the process. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's pretty pretty neat. Yeah, And it's also giving off

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Speaker 1: a lot of energy in the form of heat, which

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Speaker 1: is then heating up the water to turn into steam, etcetera, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: So that's magnetic confinement. Um, and we use different things

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Speaker 1: to heat up the plasma, like we might use microwaves

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Speaker 1: or lasers or electricity or I think that that accelerator

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Speaker 1: driven neutral particle beams are our our integral in the

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Speaker 1: international through nuclear experimental reactor or either which is the

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Speaker 1: one in France. Yes, it comes from France. That one,

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Speaker 1: Yes it does. That one is still being built and

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Speaker 1: it's it's projected to be finished and protected, projected to

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Speaker 1: be online by although whether or not that is a

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Speaker 1: true fact or not is you know, remains to be seen. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So if it stays on target, then we'll be able

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Speaker 1: to say by you know, if this is actually a

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Speaker 1: viable means of generating electricity for us. By the way,

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Speaker 1: the Chamber has a special name. It's a it's a

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Speaker 1: how did how do we decided that this tacomac. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we've got Tacomax here in Atlantic. Yeah, so it keeps

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Speaker 1: throwing me out. Taco Mac is a is a restaurant

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Speaker 1: chain in Atlanta that has obviously tacos. But this is toomac.

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Speaker 1: It's actually a Russian acronym for heroidal chamber with axial

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Speaker 1: magnetic field, which basically means it's a donut. It's a

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Speaker 1: magnetic it's a magnetic donut, magnetic donut. Yeah. And granted

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Speaker 1: this is this is a you know, the Eider version

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Speaker 1: is a is a hundred foot tall, twenty three thousand ton,

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Speaker 1: million part donut, enormous magnetic donut. Yeah. And the reason

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Speaker 1: for the donut shape is they've found that that is

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Speaker 1: the most effective way of of containing the plasma in

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Speaker 1: this really tight field so that you can have these

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Speaker 1: fusion reactions take place. So we've got magnetic confinement. There's

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Speaker 1: another method which has receives some some attention early on,

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Speaker 1: and there's still some labs, like there's some in the

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Speaker 1: United States that are still looking at this approach, and

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Speaker 1: it may even turn out that this ends up generating

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Speaker 1: more energy in the long run than the magnetic confinement.

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Speaker 1: But we're still trying to figure that out. It's called

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Speaker 1: inertial confinement, right, And this is using laser beams or

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Speaker 1: ion beams to squeeze and heat that hydrogen plasma. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In this case, really they take a pellet a frozen hydrogen,

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Speaker 1: so you have deuterium and tritium in an actual physical pellet.

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Speaker 1: So you're talking super cold, yeah yeah, and and and

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Speaker 1: peace sized, I mean like little bitty thing. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: you're using these these lasers or ions to heat that

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Speaker 1: pellet into a plasma almost instantaneously. I mean you're just

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Speaker 1: you're bombarding it with an enormous amount of energy. And

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Speaker 1: essentially what's happening is that all right, if you've ever

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Speaker 1: seen the magic trick where the magician walks up to

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Speaker 1: the the the dining table with all the beautiful glassware

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Speaker 1: and everything that's perched perfectly on the tablecloth, and then

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Speaker 1: he grabs the table cloth because it a quick jerk

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Speaker 1: and anything stays therein bankmen failed to do and Gus

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Speaker 1: Fuster exactly. Yeah, it's the same same sort of idea here,

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Speaker 1: and that you are heating it up so fast that

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Speaker 1: because it's because this is a compressed pellet and the

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Speaker 1: lasers are actually compressing it. Our ions are compressing it

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Speaker 1: even further as it's being heated up. Before the electromagnetic

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Speaker 1: force has the opportunity to push the atoms apart, the

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Speaker 1: strong nuclear force fuses them together and so kind of implodes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so you've gotta do. I mean, it's happening super fast now,

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Speaker 1: the fraction and like one millionth of a second, I think,

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Speaker 1: is how fast this happens. It's insane and and uh,

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Speaker 1: it's there are other differences between the initial confinement and

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Speaker 1: magnetic confinement. With magnetic convironment, the goal is to find

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Speaker 1: a way to have ongoing fusion reactions so that you

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Speaker 1: don't have to just generate electricity or generate heat and spurts.

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Speaker 1: That you could actually have a maintained reaction that goes

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Speaker 1: on for an extended amount of time to generate as

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Speaker 1: much electricity as is needed, whereas inertial confinement you'd have

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Speaker 1: to set up multiple essentially multiple targets right right, because

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Speaker 1: the way that the way that one of them works

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Speaker 1: At the National Ignition Facility of Lawrenceville, Livermore, laboratory in

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Speaker 1: the United States in California, I believe UM it uses

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Speaker 1: a hundred ninety two laser beams to focus on a

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Speaker 1: single point in a test chamber UM and this single

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Speaker 1: point is where that little piece sized bit of hy

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Speaker 1: hydrogen is sitting. And and so you know, they're they're

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Speaker 1: working on ways to focus the lasers better and essentially

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Speaker 1: have multiple pellets and and also yeah, and and to

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Speaker 1: have to have chambers, multiple chambers with multiple pellets that

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Speaker 1: are going off in succession so that you create a

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Speaker 1: continuous and quoting quotation marks in the air reaction. So

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Speaker 1: it's it's a challenging thing. And if if they are

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Speaker 1: able to crack it, it has the potential to create

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Speaker 1: quite a bit of electricity, uh so much so that

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Speaker 1: we could start to really take the load off of

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Speaker 1: things like fossil fuel based power plants. Right right Their

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Speaker 1: talk about UM with with inertial confinement a fifty two

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Speaker 1: hundred times more energy UM output than than you would

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Speaker 1: have to put in, whereas the numbers that I've seen

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Speaker 1: for it or anyway are more like seven times. So

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Speaker 1: you know, either way, you're still getting a lot of

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Speaker 1: energy out and we're not there yet no one has

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Speaker 1: No one has created a fusion reactor here on Earth

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Speaker 1: that has been efficient enough for it to be a

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Speaker 1: meaningful way to create electricity. Uh, because you would be

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Speaker 1: losing energy on the deal. So if these work out,

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Speaker 1: it's going to be fantastic. There are there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of challenges here. I mean, you can imagine, if

428
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:39,919
Speaker 1: we're talking about using these incredible amounts of heat, you

429
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:42,159
Speaker 1: have to be able to design a reactor that can

430
00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:44,919
Speaker 1: withstand handle it. Yeah, and that's tough. It's not an

431
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:47,399
Speaker 1: easy thing to do. So that's a big challenge. And

432
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:50,199
Speaker 1: then well we've got other ones as well. And again

433
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:53,800
Speaker 1: scientists will say like it's about twenty years away. Hopefully

434
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 1: they're right right now. I think one of the challenges

435
00:24:56,880 --> 00:25:00,040
Speaker 1: is almost a societal challenge because people here fusion and

436
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:04,240
Speaker 1: they think fission and they think radioactive and meltdown and

437
00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 1: not in my backyard and etcetera. Whereas fusion is potentially

438
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 1: anyway loads safer than a fission reactor, you don't you're

439
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:15,400
Speaker 1: not talking about you know, your output is a neutron

440
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:19,200
Speaker 1: and helium. It's not a heavy radioactive material that's going

441
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 1: to have a half life of several thousand years. It's

442
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:27,719
Speaker 1: stuff that is harmless once you have harnessed it. Uh So,

443
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:29,159
Speaker 1: really the question would be, you know, as long as

444
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 1: the reactor is well made and solid, you don't have

445
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:36,160
Speaker 1: to worry about this heat escaping or the other kind

446
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 1: of of a mechanical failure. Well, like like any other

447
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: steam turbine generator, it's going to have an impact on

448
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 1: the environment and that you know, you're going to be

449
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:47,919
Speaker 1: taking in water and and that's an impact, and it's

450
00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:49,959
Speaker 1: going to be putting off steam, which is an impact.

451
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:51,480
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of there are a lot

452
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 1: of designs I've seen where they have built in a

453
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:57,800
Speaker 1: system where they condense the steam back down into the water,

454
00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: so it becomes a closed loop. So least then you

455
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:03,199
Speaker 1: are I mean, you still probably have a loss. I

456
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,120
Speaker 1: mean it's it's hard to create a perfectly closed loop.

457
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:08,679
Speaker 1: But if you could, then you could just essentially use

458
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:11,359
Speaker 1: the same water over and over and over again, because

459
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:12,680
Speaker 1: you know, the steam is just going to condense in

460
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:14,440
Speaker 1: the water and then the water will go back into

461
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:16,639
Speaker 1: steam once you heat it up. Yeah, and so and again,

462
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:18,080
Speaker 1: you know, even if you do have even if you

463
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:19,920
Speaker 1: do have a loss, you're not going to be having

464
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 1: Blanky the three eyed fish in the river outside, right,

465
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:25,400
Speaker 1: So so yeah, there's you know, and and who knows,

466
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 1: maybe that'll really generate enough helium for us. I mostly

467
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:32,439
Speaker 1: joke about that because I seriously doubt there's any useful

468
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 1: way to harness and a huge amount of helium from

469
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: these reactions. Guys, I hope you're not fused too closely

470
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 1: with this topic because we need to take another quick break,

471
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:52,919
Speaker 1: but we'll be right back. Cold fusion is kind of

472
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 1: what it sounds like. I mean, the idea is what

473
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 1: it sounds like, and it's it's not actually cold. It's

474
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:01,159
Speaker 1: more room temperature room to infusion, but that's less of

475
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:04,879
Speaker 1: a fun buzzword, so compared to a hundred million degree reaction,

476
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: it's comed um, but no. Cold fusion is the idea

477
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:13,720
Speaker 1: that view would be able to create these reactions, these

478
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:18,119
Speaker 1: fusion reactions at essentially room temperature and still get energy

479
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 1: off of them, which, if it were true, would be

480
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 1: huge because that would mean that we wouldn't have to

481
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:25,600
Speaker 1: pour in so much energy to start the reaction. You

482
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: just have to set up the right situation and harnestly

483
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 1: the energy that comes off of it and make free

484
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 1: energy for everybody, right, proponents of it. I like to

485
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 1: call it low energy nuclear reactions. Yeah, because cold fusion

486
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:43,439
Speaker 1: definitely has a stigma against it now. And that's the

487
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 1: reason for that, all right. So, so there were a

488
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 1: pair of scientists, Pons and Fleishman, who published a paper

489
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 1: that was that that became really famous, and it was

490
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 1: that this they were talking about a reaction that that

491
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 1: they observed that gave off more energy than it should

492
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 1: have based upon what they did. Right. What happened was

493
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 1: they put an electrode of pollitium into a thermis of

494
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 1: heavy water of tridium oxide um and charged it with

495
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 1: an electrical current, and I supposedly the pollitium catalyzed fusion

496
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 1: by allowing the du tritium atoms to snuggle up. So,

497
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:25,360
Speaker 1: in other words, they were able to create a fusion

498
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:28,479
Speaker 1: reaction at a at a very low temperature comparatively speaking,

499
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:31,960
Speaker 1: and the temperature and that they observed an excess of

500
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 1: energy being given off by this. So they were like, eureka,

501
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: we have found a way to create electricity or really

502
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 1: to create energy through this reaction. And then a few

503
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 1: labs tried to replicate their results, and early results seemed

504
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: to replicate it at least in a couple of instances,

505
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: but upon further study, it seemed like most of those

506
00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 1: successes were due to either mechanical error like someone someone

507
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: miss read spread that something, or it was a poorly

508
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 1: calibrated sensor, or yeah, exactly like like there was there

509
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: always seemed to be something wrong with the experiment that

510
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: put whatever, the results were within the margin of error,

511
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 1: and if it's within the margin of error, you cannot

512
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 1: really be sure that you've got an actual positive result.

513
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: So Ponds and Flashman continued to talk about their studies

514
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: and continue to be proponents of this idea, but it

515
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:34,600
Speaker 1: increasingly became sort of kind of a pathological science, is

516
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: what other scientists were calling it, you know, which essentially

517
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:40,239
Speaker 1: means joke and science talk. Now they were saying that

518
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 1: there was no real proof of it working, that the

519
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 1: results were not replicable, which is something that's important in

520
00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 1: science as it turns out, and that there doesn't doesn't

521
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: seem to be any support based upon our understanding of

522
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 1: the universe that cold fusion could actually be a thing.

523
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: And this wasn't the only time that it's been attempted.

524
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 1: Back in two th five, E. C. L A researchers

525
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 1: were working without Hyer electric crystals um to to create

526
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: electric fields in in water. Normal normal, old stuff. And

527
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, the U. S. Navy's UH Space

528
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: in Naval Warfare Systems Department was trying some stuff. Yeah,

529
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:20,400
Speaker 1: and just it doesn't seem to have ever panned out.

530
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: Now there are conspiracy theorists who suggests that perhaps big

531
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: energy companies are suppressing information about cold fusion and have

532
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 1: compromised the scientific community as such. Uh and therefore cold

533
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 1: fusion could be a thing, but we don't know about

534
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 1: it because people are actively working against us from learning

535
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 1: about it. I would not go so far as to

536
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:44,040
Speaker 1: say that. I will say that there is enough of

537
00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 1: a stigma against cold fusion and low energy nuclear reactions

538
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:54,719
Speaker 1: within the literature world that most magazines won't scientific publishing right,

539
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:57,240
Speaker 1: so they just they dismiss it out of hand. Now

540
00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: that I think people can make a legitimate argument that

541
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 1: is probably shortsighted, that that they should, they should at

542
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: least consider them so that other scientists have the opportunity

543
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 1: to observe the to to learn about the results, try

544
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 1: and replicate it, and then that's how we can at

545
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 1: least at least make a consideration about it before, rather

546
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: than dismissing it out of hand as Yeah, I think

547
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 1: I think dismissing it out of hand ends up just

548
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 1: creating more fuel for the conspiracy theorists. Now, personally, I

549
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 1: don't think there's anything to it. Counter counter culture. What's

550
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:32,240
Speaker 1: the I was I was lectured about the terminology conspiracy theorists.

551
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:35,959
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that the conspiracy theorists hate the term conspiracy theorist.

552
00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 1: I'm really sorry about that. Um So anyway, Yeah, we're

553
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 1: gonna have Ben and Madden here, Hunter, bring them on.

554
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: I will bends my arch nemesis. Everyone knows that, so

555
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 1: uh And if you didn't know that, now you do.

556
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 1: I called him my arch nemesis the very first day

557
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 1: I met him, six years ago. So and it has

558
00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:56,880
Speaker 1: held true. We, by the way, share trains to train

559
00:31:57,000 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 1: rights together and chat all the way and talk about music.

560
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: Very very little actual arch nemesis story. He's about as

561
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 1: lazy a hero as I am, lazy as supervillain. So

562
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 1: really nothing happens, really is that how it works out?

563
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 1: He's he's the hero, you're the villain. I mean, you're

564
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 1: you're You've got that that's that's the problem, right, I mean,

565
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 1: I have to be the villain by default by Star

566
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 1: Trek rules. We got off on a tangent. So anyway,

567
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:21,959
Speaker 1: so anyway, the science does not seem to hold up

568
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 1: cold fusion. It just doesn't seem to be There doesn't

569
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 1: seem to be any support there. Now, maybe there actually

570
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 1: is a way of doing it. Maybe there is, and

571
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:34,440
Speaker 1: it's just that whatever results were found were due to

572
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,640
Speaker 1: something else and it just hasn't been discovered in the

573
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 1: other examples. And maybe it'll turn out that that is

574
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: the answer, which would be amazing, and I think everyone

575
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 1: really wants that world to exist, absolutely, it would. It

576
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 1: would mean that our energy problems, we would we would

577
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:52,959
Speaker 1: be in an energy surplus to the point where when

578
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:57,320
Speaker 1: you have energy surplus, so many things become possible. Yeah,

579
00:32:57,320 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those things that you know that

580
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 1: you kind of start seeing in something like Star Trek,

581
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 1: where it's it's just this perfect utopian universe where a

582
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: lot of people don't have to work anymore because we

583
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: have we have free energy, so we have free transportation,

584
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 1: so we have free food. So yeah, and so obviously

585
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: this would be a pretty great world and I think

586
00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 1: it's pretty cynical, maybe not completely unrealistic to say that

587
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:21,880
Speaker 1: corporations would suppress such a world for their own gain,

588
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 1: because I actually think they would have more to gain

589
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 1: in the utopia version of the world than in the

590
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 1: current one. But I don't know. I'm not a I'm

591
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: not a CEO of a major corporation, so maybe I

592
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 1: would think in a different way if I were. I

593
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:35,320
Speaker 1: can I can see how how changing the status quo

594
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:37,360
Speaker 1: could be a scary thing. Yeah, and I'm too lazy

595
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:42,120
Speaker 1: to try again, super villain lazy, so um yeah, anyway,

596
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:47,360
Speaker 1: it'll I'm interested to see how the the fusion reactors

597
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 1: like it turn turn out over the next couple of

598
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: decades um. If anyone does make advances in the cold

599
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 1: fusion field, that would be phenomenal. And you know, while

600
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,320
Speaker 1: I am a skeptic, and I fully admit that I'm

601
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 1: a skeptic, I'm also a person who if you show

602
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 1: me evidence that really supports the claim and it's replicable,

603
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:10,520
Speaker 1: then I'm going to say, like, Okay, you're right. I mean,

604
00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: that's that's how science works. That's all right. I am

605
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:17,840
Speaker 1: willing to say, like, Okay, my my skepticism was was

606
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 1: not well founded because here we have proofd right, but

607
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 1: until then, yeah, until then, I'm a skeptic. One of

608
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 1: my one of my favorite stories about that, there's a

609
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 1: Scottish physicist named Douglas Morrison who would attend these cold

610
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:33,319
Speaker 1: fusion conferences every year and and and listen and from

611
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 1: what I understand, really genuinely listen to these people who

612
00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:39,719
Speaker 1: had these brilliant ideas about about how these things might

613
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 1: work and how they were supposedly working in their own labs.

614
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: And he would stand up and say, can you please

615
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:48,120
Speaker 1: make me a cup of tea? And they would go, well,

616
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 1: I can't produce that much heat yet, and he would go,

617
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:54,320
Speaker 1: oh yeah. That's the other thing is that if cold fusion,

618
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 1: if these reactions are actually happening, if if there really

619
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:01,319
Speaker 1: is something to it, the problem would be can it

620
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 1: be scaled up to something that's useful? And if it

621
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 1: can't be scaled up, then it may be that all right, well,

622
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 1: we've learned something interesting that we didn't know before, which

623
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: is always valuable. But if it's not practical to use

624
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 1: this in any way of generating electricity, it doesn't actually

625
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 1: meet the problem that we're trying to solve, So that's

626
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:23,520
Speaker 1: something else to keep in mind, although personally I'm always

627
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:28,080
Speaker 1: like knowledge for knowledge sake. Alright, guys, that wraps up

628
00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:30,839
Speaker 1: another classic episode of tech Stuff. Hope you enjoyed it.

629
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:34,320
Speaker 1: If you have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,

630
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 1: let me know. You can send me a message on

631
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 1: Facebook or on Twitter. I'm Text Stuff h s w

632
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 1: at both, and I'll talk to you again really soon.

633
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:51,359
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more

634
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:54,840
Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,

635
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

636
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:00,440
Speaker 1: Eight