WEBVTT - The Nuclear Tech Breakthrough That Could Make Oil Obsolete 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:06.920 So, like I said, the reactors pretty gold. So it 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:11.719 was commissioned inn and it was really commissioned because of 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:18.919 a scientist whose name was Glenn Seaboor. A few weeks 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.800 ago I made a trip to oak Ridge National Laboratory. 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.880 It's an eastern Tennessee nestled in beautiful green hills and 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:30.160 valleys down a long road flanked by forest. Some of 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:32.880 the things we're working on will not occur during my career. 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:40.000 How does that make you feel? It feels great. This 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:44.400 is Ellen Eisenhower. He's a former nuclear submarine officer and 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:48.440 now helps direct nuclear science research at the lab. The 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:51.960 research done here helped develop the atomic bomb, and its 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.720 scientists are still at it today, working toward a vision 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.840 that's a little bit hard to imagine. Right now. You've 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:03.720 probably heard the story the cathedral building story before. It's 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.640 about two workers laying brick on a cathedral that they'll 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:10.800 never see completed in their lifetimes. It's hard, repetitive work, 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:14.840 but one of them is always cheerful, saying that one day, thousands, 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.600 even millions of people will use what he's building today, 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:22.320 and he could get the vision for what even though 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.200 he knew he'd never see it he knew what he 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:29.039 was enabling for the future. Alan and his peers have 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:31.800 to think like this because what they're working on will 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.559 most likely never be fully realized in their careers, even 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.720 in their lifetimes, and when their cathedral is finally completed, 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:44.000 it will reshape the global economy and transform the power 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:49.800 dynamic between countries. And that is not an understatement. These 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.640 scientists are working on a new source for electricity. They're 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:58.880 trying to achieve nuclear fusion, essentially recreating the Sun on Earth. 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:17.280 M Hi, I'm Akito and I'm Jane caw and this 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.639 week on Decrypted work exploring just how close we are 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:25.160 to realizing the silver bullet for clean, cheap, abundant energy. 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:30.040 While nuclear power plants currently work by splitting atoms apart, 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:33.800 this is called nuclear fission, this other type of nuclear 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.880 energy works by smashing particles together, and that is called 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:42.600 nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion has been a particularly hard nut 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:46.760 to crack. After decades of research, scientists are still years 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:51.000 away from building a commercially viable power plant, but scientists 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:53.840 say they're on the edge of a major breakthrough if 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:56.600 they can find a way to make a nuclear fusion 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:01.400 reaction take place. In a sustainable, controlled environment, the world's 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:05.200 energy needs would be taken care of, possibly forever. Stay 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:16.560 with us, okay, let's we're all signed in. I do. 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:20.400 We do have a couple of rules. Actually, I think 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:22.360 we can take photos today. So you wanted to take 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.079 a picture. Back at oak Ridge National Lab, I caught 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.960 up with Ned southof who oversees a big fusion project. 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.119 This this is not just you know, it's more efficient. 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.839 You know, this is ten million times more efficient. Okay, 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:38.760 So if we could make it work, it would change 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:42.520 the world that has piercing gray blue eyes and a 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:45.960 mop of floppy silver white hair. I spent almost three 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:47.960 hours with him and felt like we could have talked 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.280 for twenty more. Ned's in his sixties and has been 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:55.040 working on nuclear fusion since the nineteen seventies. He's still 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:57.320 an evangelist when it comes to the potential that this 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:01.000 technology has to solve the world's ever grow energy needs. 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:05.120 In sixteen, the world used more than thirty billion barrels 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:09.160 of oil, and more than eight of energy used for 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:13.680 things like powering homes came from fossil fuels, which are coal, oil, 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:18.159 and natural gas. Not only are these finite resources, but 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.160 The need for countries to maintain a steady supply has 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:26.640 sparked recessions, riots, and even wars around the world. Goddamn government, 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:29.720 he's gonna police this goddamn police situation. I will not 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:31.560 take the plan for this thing. I will not take 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.840 the crap and the harassment from these customers. Now let 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:38.320 him police it or stop telling gas anger and bewilderment 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.279 are growing. Is more and more Americans cope with gasoline 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:49.880 lines and empty pumps. Let himself experienced the turmoil the 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:53.960 follow the energy crisis of the nineteen seventies. I grew 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.159 up in the mid seventies when they add gas lines 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:59.159 because of the oil embargo. If we can solve this 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:04.000 challenging scientific problem, we can solve the world's energy problem forever. 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:08.080 That's how Ned turns to nuclear fusion, and decades later 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:11.359 he's still a true believer. So you go by a 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.960 typical power point. Did you know that to keep it 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:21.039 powered and cold takes roughly railroad cars of coal every 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:29.920 day to produce the same energy by fusion? Ready, three 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:34.839 pounds of tradium and two pounds of deuterium. Yeah, that's 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:41.359 a game change. Tridium deuterium. These are all parts of 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.760 nuclear fusion that will explain in just a moment. For now, 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:47.520 when that's trying to say is that if scientists can 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:50.599 make nuclear fusion work, will have found a source of 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:55.800 energy that comes with no carbon emissions, much less radioactive 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:59.640 waste than the nuclear reactors we have today, and most 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:04.000 importan hortuntly and almost unlimited supply of raw materials that 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:11.640 can be accessed basically anywhere. Okay, so let's explain how 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:15.359 it works. First, a quick review of the periodic table. 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.880 Remember that from high school chemistry, the first element is hydrogen. 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:24.280 It's the latest, simplest element in the universe, with one proton, 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:30.279 one electron, and usually one neutron. Hydrogen is also the 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:34.119 most abundant element in the universe, so unlike crude oil, 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:37.159 we won't be running out of it anytime soon. Protons 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:41.159 have a positive charge, electrons a corresponding negative charge, and 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:46.240 neutrons are well neutral. Protons and neutrons usually sit together 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.200 in the center of an atom, while electrons fly around 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:53.960 orbiting them. I mean, as you know, the Sun million 0:06:54.080 --> 0:07:01.400 miles away produces power by transforming hydrogen into helium. Okay, well, 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:03.559 we want to do the same thing. Down here on Earth. 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:09.400 Nuclear fusion occurs naturally in stars, including our own Sun, 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:13.600 where hydrogen atoms are placed under extreme heat and pressure 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.360 two seventy four thousand times hotter than the human body 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:23.679 and pressure that's like being crushed under a mountain. These 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:28.680 conditions allows something extraordinary to happen. Normally, atoms would never 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:32.840 come close enough to fuse together right, but under the 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.680 intense conditions at the center of the Sun, the atomic 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:40.400 structure of the hydrogen starts to break down. The gas 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:44.720 turns into something called plasma, which enables the particles to 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:49.600 move faster and more freely because the positive particles, which 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:54.360 are the nuclei, things like deuterium and tridium, which normally 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:58.600 repel each other because they're both positive, can now get 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:03.960 close enough together, like ten to the minus twelve centimeters 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:07.240 that's a millions of a millions of a centimeter together, 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:13.840 Suddenly they stick. Deuterium and tritium, by the way, are 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:18.960 what's known as heavy hydrogen, basically hydrogen with extra neutrons. 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:23.000 They're the raw materials used in fusion reactions and can 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.600 be sucked out of sea water or produced in nuclear reactors, 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.280 and then they form this complene nucleus for a very 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.400 very short period of time, and then they break apart. 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.000 When that happens, a whole lot of energy is released, 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:41.840 mostly carried by the extra neutrons, super hot moving super quickly. 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:48.679 That energy is what we'd harness to make electricity. So 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.360 it's nuclear fusion reactions happening inside the Sun that make 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.600 it so hot. But those kinds of extreme conditions don't 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:00.079 exist anywhere on the surface of the Earth, not even 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:04.080 inside the molten lava of a volcano. The Sun's huge 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:07.960 mass creates a really strong gravitational force that keeps the 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:11.959 hot hydrogen from escaping. The Sun's gravity is twenty eight 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.520 times stronger than the Earth's. That means if you weighed 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:19.000 a hundred pounds, you'd feel like you weighed eight hundred 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:23.760 pounds on the Sun. This is a huge challenge for scientists. 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.680 How do you build a power plant that can resist 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.600 the pressure and the heat the reactor needs for these 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:33.120 fusions to start taking place On Earth, it needs to 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.200 be more than a hundred million degrees celsius inside the 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:40.240 reactor for fusion to occur, which is easier said than done. 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:45.760 Plasma is a very complex nonlinear system, and then we 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.560 had to learn how to understand it, and I'll control 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:52.960 how to control it. And so it took us a 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:58.640 few decades to really understand how do you control the plasma. 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.600 One of the most ostensively researched ways is using huge 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:06.439 and powerful magnets laid out in an arrangement called the tocomac. 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.960 Imagine this. The hydrogen plasma that's the super hot gas, 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:15.640 is contained within electro magnetic coils shaped like a donut. 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:20.720 More magnets surround the doughnut to give more control. The 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:24.760 leading configuration, the best demonstrated, the one that has the 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.280 most scientific and engineering basis, is the totomac. To give 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:32.280 you one example, the biggest fusion device functioning in Europe 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.720 right now, known as the jet, has a magnetic field 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:40.280 ten thousand times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field. The 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:44.240 larger the tocomac, the more powerful the magnetic fields, the 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:48.040 easier it is to get a fusion reaction going. In 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:51.000 the last sixty plus years, the world has built more 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:54.199 than two hundred of these machines, forty five or so 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.840 that are still functioning, but no experiment has been able 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:01.480 to sustain a fusion reaction long enough to produce more 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.880 energy than was required to get it going, which is 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.600 needed if we ever want to use fusion to generate electricity. 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:13.199 The exciting thing though, with how far science has progressed 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:16.720 and with today's technology, we're on the cusp of making 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:21.800 it happen. The scientific principles have been demonstrated and it's 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:25.120 a matter now of raising it to industrial scale. This 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:29.680 is reality. But of course moving this technology out of 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.440 the lab and raising it to an industrial scale involves 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:37.760 huge challenges. What those are and how the industry could 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:54.760 overcome them is coming up next. The story really starts 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:59.360 almost eighty years ago in the early nineties. Oakridge was 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.960 a secret town owned and operated by the US government. 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:08.560 It was a big part of the Manhattan Project. The 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.720 Manhattan Project was created in the middle of World War 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.439 Two to develop the ability to use nuclear fission as 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:19.959 a weapon. Okay, Germans discovered fish and right, we're worried 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:22.680 about this. That's Alison Hummel, who took me on a 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.400 tour of the historical sites at the oak Ridge Lab. 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:29.440 Back in scientists feared what the Germans could do with 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:33.880 the technology to split atoms. They even convinced a reluctant 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:37.160 star colleague to write a letter to the President about 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:42.600 the possibility fission reactions posed. This new phenomenon would also 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.760 lead to the construction of bombs. And it is conceivable, 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:49.120 though much less certain, that extremely powerful bombs of this 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:52.640 type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.439 carried by a boat and exploded into port, might very 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:57.960 well destroy the whole port, together with some of the 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:03.560 surrounding territory. Yours truly, Albert Einstein. By the end of 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:06.240 the war, there were eight people working here um, and 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:09.240 that was from the pretty much zero population in December 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:12.840 of nineteen. Their work was so secret that most of 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:16.400 them didn't even know what they were working on. I 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:18.400 have just returned from the White House where it has 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.440 just been announced that the United States is now using 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:25.040 an atomic bomb, the most powerful explosive yet. Then the 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.760 US dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, and the residents 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:32.040 finally learned the truth of what they were doing. Oakridge 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:35.480 had actually delivered the enriched uranium used in the first bomb. 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.199 The world will note that the first atomic bomb was 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:43.240 dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. We run the race 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:48.439 of discovery against the German After the war, the facility 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:52.199 has eventually became one part civilian research lab, which is 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:57.040 today's Oakridge National Lab, and one part military operations. Today 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.120 Oakridge is home to a group of scientists man is 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:04.400 by ned working on building the world's biggest pokomac, the 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:08.520 magnetic Donut reactor that we talked about earlier. They're the 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:13.440 U S arm of a multibillion dollar multidecade joint venture 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:17.640 in nuclear fusion between seven entities in the world, including 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:23.200 the US, European Union, China, and Russia. It's called the 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:30.680 International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor or EATER for short. This thing 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.960 is expensive, estimated to cost tens of billions of dollars 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:38.600 to complete. It's too much and too complex for any 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:42.240 one country, so each of the seven participants has pledged 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.880 to fund and build portions of it. There is ever 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:51.520 growing confidence that either when operated, will achieve the plasma 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:57.520 that we predict, but it won't be completed until if 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.960 things go according to plan. That's when scientists are aiming 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.680 to get the reactor up and running and forming its 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:07.720 first fusion reactions. But while we're trying to focus on 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:12.280 RACK right now is to have a plasma where we 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.720 inject fifty million wants of power and we get out 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:21.840 million wats of fusion power. Most power plants that exist 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.080 today work the same way that they did a hundred 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:27.320 years ago. You heat water to make steam, and the 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:31.640 steam turns turbines, which generates electricity. The difference is in 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:34.040 what kind of fuel you're using to heat the water. 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:39.760 That fuel source it can be coal, oil, natural gas, 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:45.520 nuclear fission reactors, and hopefully one day, a nuclear fusion reactor. 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.280 When that happens, scientists believe that we will have found 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:53.440 the ultimate way to generate energy. That thinks that at 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.480 this point nuclear fusion is all but a sure thing. 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:59.680 It will work, we just have to build it, and 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:02.880 a lot of international scientists are pinning their hopes on 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:06.960 the EATER project. While there are maybe faster and cheaper 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.360 paths to fusion energy, Ned says that this is the 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:15.960 least risky. EATER is on the high reliability but high 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:22.440 cost end of the spectrum. Okay, but there's one huge problem. 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:26.360 At this moment. The fusion program was limited by money. 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:30.760 It suffers from the same same thing that all advanced 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:36.920 energy research suffers. Advanced energy research is not a priority. 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.400 Ned tells me that when you look at adjusted dollars. 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:44.240 US funding for fusion peeked in the late seventies and 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:48.160 early eighties after the oil shocks. Well I was working 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:52.960 on on a series of devices. I was actually at 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.800 that point running US a collaboration on a variety of 0:16:56.840 --> 0:17:02.480 devices around the world, and what we saw was that 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.719 we had many, many ideas that we could not afford 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.520 to follow up on. It doesn't help that most of 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:14.840 us non scientists don't really understand how nuclear technology works. 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:19.440 Throughout history, there have been some major accidents involving nuclear 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:23.960 reactor meltdowns. A year after these reactors at the Fukushima 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:29.960 Nuclear plant exploded in a triple meltdown, reporters were reminded 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.719 this is still one of the most hazardous places on 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:36.160 the plants. One of the atomic reactors at the Churnibyl 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:38.840 Atomic Power plant in the city of Kiev was damaged 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:41.959 and there is speculation in Moscow that people were injured 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:45.240 and may have died. Experts tonight say that cloud of 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.600 radiation is now dissipating over the North Atlantic and poses 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:51.440 no further threat to anyone, But as the Soviets treat 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.359 an unknown number of casualties, there's no way to say 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:57.920 how much lasting damage that cloud may have already caused. 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:02.800 Dean Reynolds, ABC News London. It's important to note that 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:07.720 the big nuclear disasters like Fukushima or churnobil involved a 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:12.080 different process altogether, where atoms are being split apart inside 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:16.240 the reactor instead of being fused together. That's the difference 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:21.479 between nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. Here's Alan again, and 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:27.399 there's a lot of hyperbole about it that has played 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:32.360 out over the years that we have not been effective 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:40.600 at at countering, which is unfortunate. The damage to public 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:44.359 perception is hard to erase, and it doesn't help nuclear's 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.720 case that the US still has plenty of hydrocarbons, which 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:50.879 is oil, gas and coal. In two thousand and eight, 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.920 the US Eater Project was hoping to get a hundred 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:58.159 sixty million dollars in funding for the following year. I 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:06.240 was actually driving to Florida for Christmas vacations and pulled 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:08.520 up in the driveway of my parents house and I 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:13.119 got a phone call and it was they just passed 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.440 in appropriation for ten point six instead of one sixty. 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.120 Ned got less than ten of the funding that they 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.640 had asked for. The team had to toss the original 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.120 plan out the window. There was some restructuring. The main 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.680 thing was to not spend all the money they had 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:36.679 or it was game over. So that particular year, the 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:39.520 strategy was lived to fight the battle the next year. 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.640 We knew we couldn't do what we intended to do 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.280 that year, but we had to try to preserve the 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:51.399 capability to rebound. That was smack dab in the middle 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:56.040 of the global financial crisis. Other countries also pulled back funding. 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.919 Ned told me, that's at Eaters timeline back five years. 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.760 In November of last year, Ned and his team presented 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.000 a budget that laid out how much money they would 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:10.040 need to complete Eaters construction and achieved the first fusion 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:14.840 reaction in At this point, the US has already spent 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:18.360 about a billion dollars, with more than three billion dollars 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:22.639 to go to see it through. For seventeen, Ned requested 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:25.800 a hundred million dollars. You know, we just got a 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:29.800 seventeen budget, and they just passed a budget in April, okay, 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:36.280 and it was complicated. Essentially, they were given fifty million dollars, 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.240 but the Department of Energy has the options at another 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:44.359 fifty million. Today we've not received the second fifty. Okay, 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:48.679 so so we're positioning ourselves to survive at the fifty 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:52.840 level for fiscal year eighteen. The situation is also dire. 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:56.920 President Trump, who made fossil fuels and especially cole a 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:00.960 focus of his administration, has only approved about half of 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.359 what NET has requested, and now we're being impacted because 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:07.240 we're not getting the money, and so we are now 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:12.240 struggling to try to stay with Getting us here has 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:16.320 taken decades. Every element we just described took years of 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:20.240 dedicated research to just understand, and then many more years 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:23.040 to move past the theory and come up with actual 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:26.879 experiment results. Just getting Eater up and running won't be 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:29.040 enough to get us to the stage where we can 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:33.320 use fusion to generate electricity. The real question is, in 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:36.320 the next generation and a frill fusion reactor, what would 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:38.840 you build it out? And if you were to use 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:41.680 the search of things we're using on Eater, it would 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:47.960 turn to a powder. You know, when Ned says it 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:51.320 would turn into powder, he means that the materials that 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.440 exists today can't handle the kinds of harsh conditions fusion 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:58.960 requires over a long period of time. But a power 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:01.639 plant that uses usion will need to be running the 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.800 reactions constantly and for many months at a time to 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:10.040 make economic sense. You would chew up the material completely 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:13.159 and suddenly if you don't do anything about it. You 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:17.679 know you can reach the lifetime of thecal material within 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:21.920 a few days to a week. That's you're gonna wrap 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:25.639 a plasma. Physicist at oak Ridge National Lab, he and 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:28.399 Allen are working on a bunch of other things that 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:32.080 will be necessary to make a commercial fusion power plant work. 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:35.840 If you're going to have a successful power plant, it's 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:38.320 more than this plasma. You have to be able to 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:40.199 fuel it, you have to be able to extract the 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:42.360 heat from it. You have to have materials that can 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:47.080 withstand that type of environment. The best way is to 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:52.560 do start this development now instead of waiting until Eater 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:56.160 has produced its burning plasma and then we start only 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:58.840 developing the materials. We know that we have to develop 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:03.359 new maters. Innovating on these elements all require funding and 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:07.280 even new facilities, But like NED, they're also held back 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:13.359 by money. Although we build more community beyond it, is 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:18.560 it enough. You know, under the budget constraints, I do 0:23:18.640 --> 0:23:21.280 not want to make a firm prediction, because it's also 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:24.960 out of my hands. We are ready, I would say, 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:29.200 we are ready, I hope so that the people in 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:34.480 Washington already to for now. All the uncertainty around funding, 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:38.359 combined with all the false starts throughout history, has made 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:41.720 most of these scientists hesitant to offer a timeline for 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:45.159 when the fusion power plant will be a reality. I 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:49.320 won't speculate on the exact time frame because many haven't. 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:55.679 Many have been wrong over and over again. Right, only 0:23:55.800 --> 0:23:59.960 Ned would entertain that question. Looking at either if all 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:02.800 goes to plan, he estimates that we might get a 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:08.520 working fusion power plant around by which point Ned would 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:13.040 be a hundred and one years old. I I truly hope. 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:17.280 I mean I realized this that this endeavored to make 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:24.879 fusion energy a reality takes many generations. And I'm not 0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:29.560 somebody who is discouraged by it. Um and some people 0:24:29.600 --> 0:24:31.640 make fun of them. Maybe it's because I come from 0:24:31.640 --> 0:24:34.240 Europe and I come from Cologne, and the Cologne Cathedra 0:24:34.440 --> 0:24:39.159 was built over eight hundred years, you know, so so 0:24:39.720 --> 0:24:42.480 you know it is it is worth while to wait 0:24:42.560 --> 0:24:59.720 for it. And that's it for this week's episode of 0:24:59.720 --> 0:25:02.679 The Did Thanks for listening. We want to know what 0:25:02.720 --> 0:25:05.439 you think of this episode. Record a voice message and 0:25:05.480 --> 0:25:09.520 send it to Decrypted at Bloomberg dot net. Also, you 0:25:09.520 --> 0:25:12.560 can find me on Twitter at jingle bells cow and 0:25:12.640 --> 0:25:15.919 I've met aki Eto seven. If you haven't already subscribed 0:25:15.960 --> 0:25:19.320 to our show wherever you get your podcasts, and while 0:25:19.320 --> 0:25:21.840 you're there, please leave us a rating and a review. 0:25:22.200 --> 0:25:26.160 This really helps more listeners find our show. This episode 0:25:26.240 --> 0:25:30.879 was produced by Pia Ga Kari, Liz Smith, and Magnus Henrikson. 0:25:31.280 --> 0:25:34.320 Thanks to Nico Grant and Isabel Gottlieb for their help 0:25:34.320 --> 0:25:37.840 with the show. Alec McCabe is head of Bloomberg Podcast. 0:25:38.119 --> 0:25:39.120 We'll see you next week.