1
00:00:01,320 --> 00:00:03,640
Speaker 1: Hey Tory here. Before we jump in, we just wanted

2
00:00:03,640 --> 00:00:05,800
Speaker 1: to let you know that Daniel and I are participating

3
00:00:05,840 --> 00:00:09,640
Speaker 1: in a live event this Thursday with Atlas Obscura. That's right.

4
00:00:09,920 --> 00:00:11,960
Speaker 1: Do you shout questions at the podcast? Do you have

5
00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:15,040
Speaker 1: things you'd like to ask us live? Wellcome join us

6
00:00:15,080 --> 00:00:19,320
Speaker 1: on Thursday October eight, twenty twenty. It's four thirty pm

7
00:00:19,360 --> 00:00:23,320
Speaker 1: Pacific times seven thirty pm US Eastern time. You can

8
00:00:23,360 --> 00:00:26,320
Speaker 1: ask us questions, I'll answer them and Jorge will scribbled

9
00:00:26,360 --> 00:00:29,280
Speaker 1: clever doodles. We talked about the big questions in the universe,

10
00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:32,640
Speaker 1: and I'll be drawing cartoons live. So please join us.

11
00:00:32,800 --> 00:00:36,400
Speaker 1: To buy tickets, just google Daniel and Jorge Atlas Obscura

12
00:00:36,400 --> 00:00:49,000
Speaker 1: and you'll see the event. Come join us, see you there, Hey, Jorge,

13
00:00:49,120 --> 00:00:51,800
Speaker 1: I need some feedback on the name of a new

14
00:00:52,040 --> 00:00:55,480
Speaker 1: megaphysics project my specialty. What do you have so far?

15
00:00:55,600 --> 00:00:59,360
Speaker 1: What do you think of destroyer of World? That's a

16
00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:04,040
Speaker 1: terrible idea? All right? How about um planet eater? I'm

17
00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:06,120
Speaker 1: not sure I would go on a tour of that one.

18
00:01:06,840 --> 00:01:09,320
Speaker 1: What if we just shortened it to like eater? How's

19
00:01:09,360 --> 00:01:12,119
Speaker 1: that eater? That would be a name for a snack bar,

20
00:01:12,280 --> 00:01:14,679
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure it would work for a physics experiment.

21
00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:18,640
Speaker 1: I think it's good. We're going with it while you're kidding, right,

22
00:01:18,959 --> 00:01:38,959
Speaker 1: Nobody would actually name their physics projects eater, would they? Hi?

23
00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:41,000
Speaker 1: Am or Hey, I'm a cartoonist and the creator of

24
00:01:41,080 --> 00:01:45,000
Speaker 1: PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and

25
00:01:45,040 --> 00:01:48,280
Speaker 1: I'm a lover of silly physics acronyms, and I am

26
00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:50,960
Speaker 1: a lover of eating. So we are in a good

27
00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:54,360
Speaker 1: company today. Stars are aligning. You might even say they're

28
00:01:54,360 --> 00:01:58,520
Speaker 1: fusing together. Dan, that's right, all the bananas are aligned.

29
00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:01,560
Speaker 1: But welcome to a podcast Dan and Jorge Explain the Universe,

30
00:02:01,600 --> 00:02:04,240
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio in which we seek

31
00:02:04,320 --> 00:02:07,440
Speaker 1: to explain to you all the craziness in the universe,

32
00:02:07,520 --> 00:02:09,920
Speaker 1: the way things work, the way things don't work, what

33
00:02:09,960 --> 00:02:13,080
Speaker 1: we do understand, what we don't understand, Where you can

34
00:02:13,120 --> 00:02:15,760
Speaker 1: take a banana, and where you should definitely never ever

35
00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:19,280
Speaker 1: take a banana. That's right, practical advice like that. And

36
00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:21,639
Speaker 1: also we talk about all the things that science is

37
00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:23,560
Speaker 1: up to these days, all the things that they're trying

38
00:02:23,560 --> 00:02:27,840
Speaker 1: to understand and know about and discover, but also all

39
00:02:27,960 --> 00:02:30,800
Speaker 1: the things that you're trying to make that's right. Science

40
00:02:30,960 --> 00:02:34,359
Speaker 1: is actively trying to make your life better. We are

41
00:02:34,440 --> 00:02:36,560
Speaker 1: working hard at the big questions of the day, and

42
00:02:36,639 --> 00:02:39,440
Speaker 1: not just where do you come from? What's the universe

43
00:02:39,480 --> 00:02:41,400
Speaker 1: made out of? What will be the ultimate fate of

44
00:02:41,440 --> 00:02:45,200
Speaker 1: the universe, but also how can you power your electric car?

45
00:02:45,560 --> 00:02:48,760
Speaker 1: And can you charge your phone anywhere all the time?

46
00:02:48,919 --> 00:02:52,760
Speaker 1: Most important, how can we power your Netflix addiction a

47
00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:56,960
Speaker 1: little bit more efficiently and ecologically friendly? You mean your

48
00:02:57,040 --> 00:03:01,040
Speaker 1: podcast addiction, right, because all these folks number one form

49
00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:05,080
Speaker 1: of entertainment is listening to awesome science podcasts, that's right, Yeah,

50
00:03:05,440 --> 00:03:08,680
Speaker 1: podcast and chills in you Netflix and Chill. I think

51
00:03:08,720 --> 00:03:11,079
Speaker 1: a lot of people probably listen to this podcast when

52
00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:14,600
Speaker 1: they're exercising. So you know, if you just hook up

53
00:03:14,639 --> 00:03:17,720
Speaker 1: your treadmill to like a generator, it could be a

54
00:03:17,800 --> 00:03:21,959
Speaker 1: zero net waste endeavor here. Yeah, but then what powers

55
00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:26,160
Speaker 1: the people? Right? Then it's essentially a banana powered podcast. Yeah.

56
00:03:26,280 --> 00:03:30,959
Speaker 1: Bananas are solar powered, right, So it all works out true.

57
00:03:31,680 --> 00:03:34,280
Speaker 1: In the end, it all comes down to energy from

58
00:03:34,360 --> 00:03:38,240
Speaker 1: the sun. Everything we do on Earth almost is eventually

59
00:03:38,240 --> 00:03:40,839
Speaker 1: derived from the energy of the Sun. Yeah, the Sun

60
00:03:41,120 --> 00:03:44,080
Speaker 1: powers the life on Earth and it's pretty warm and toasty,

61
00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:46,680
Speaker 1: and so scientists have been looking at the Sun for

62
00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:49,320
Speaker 1: a long time thinking, man, if we only had a

63
00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:51,720
Speaker 1: little sun here on Earth, he could warm us up

64
00:03:51,880 --> 00:03:54,280
Speaker 1: and give us all the energy that we need. So

65
00:03:54,400 --> 00:03:56,960
Speaker 1: I can talk about creating little black holes and that

66
00:03:57,000 --> 00:03:58,800
Speaker 1: freaks you up, but you can just talk about like

67
00:03:58,920 --> 00:04:02,000
Speaker 1: making a little sun here on Earth. You realize, of course,

68
00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:05,839
Speaker 1: that the Sun is a constantly exploding hydrogen bomb, right, yeah,

69
00:04:05,880 --> 00:04:09,960
Speaker 1: but does the Sun create a runaway sucking chain reaction

70
00:04:10,040 --> 00:04:14,600
Speaker 1: that grows and grows and grows. So hey, black holes

71
00:04:14,600 --> 00:04:16,800
Speaker 1: have their uses to We just did a whole episode

72
00:04:16,839 --> 00:04:19,880
Speaker 1: about black hole power and starships. They could take us

73
00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:23,000
Speaker 1: through other star systems. So anyway, I just got to

74
00:04:23,040 --> 00:04:25,760
Speaker 1: speak up from black holes here. Okay, you have a

75
00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:27,760
Speaker 1: pet one in your backyard. No, I'm just you know,

76
00:04:27,800 --> 00:04:30,520
Speaker 1: I'm a shill for the big black hole lobby. But

77
00:04:30,720 --> 00:04:33,760
Speaker 1: you're right, the sun is amazing. The Sun is wonderful,

78
00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:37,160
Speaker 1: and the Sun does power everything that we do. And

79
00:04:37,200 --> 00:04:40,719
Speaker 1: as we look around for greener, cleaner sources of energy,

80
00:04:40,760 --> 00:04:44,120
Speaker 1: it does seem tempting to think, well, the universe does

81
00:04:44,160 --> 00:04:47,080
Speaker 1: it this way, why can't we do it that way also,

82
00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:51,000
Speaker 1: and it's something that physicists have been working on for decades. Yeah,

83
00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:53,200
Speaker 1: for a long time. They've been trying to make this

84
00:04:53,279 --> 00:04:56,880
Speaker 1: idea of living sun on Earth possible. And so to

85
00:04:56,880 --> 00:04:59,600
Speaker 1: the end the program, we'll be talking about one such experiment.

86
00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:02,679
Speaker 1: It's happening right now as we speak. There are sciences

87
00:05:03,279 --> 00:05:05,719
Speaker 1: in this moment, in this world trying to treat a

88
00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:09,760
Speaker 1: little sun or more like a sun donut, exactly like

89
00:05:09,839 --> 00:05:12,360
Speaker 1: a plasma donut. I don't know what flavor that is,

90
00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:14,240
Speaker 1: but I don't recommend taking a bite out of it.

91
00:05:14,800 --> 00:05:18,200
Speaker 1: But yeah, exactly. One problem is that the Sun is

92
00:05:18,440 --> 00:05:22,040
Speaker 1: massive and exploding constantly, and the reason it doesn't tear

93
00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:25,440
Speaker 1: itself apart is because it has so much gravity. And

94
00:05:25,480 --> 00:05:27,360
Speaker 1: so we need to figure out other ways to sort

95
00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:29,760
Speaker 1: of replicate the parts of the Sun that we want

96
00:05:29,800 --> 00:05:32,600
Speaker 1: to keep without having the sort of like earth destroying

97
00:05:32,640 --> 00:05:35,200
Speaker 1: aspects that are less interesting to us. Yeah, and so

98
00:05:35,240 --> 00:05:42,880
Speaker 1: today we'll be asking the question, what is the eater

99
00:05:43,160 --> 00:05:47,760
Speaker 1: experiment and will it create fusion here on Earth? Now? Daniel,

100
00:05:47,880 --> 00:05:51,160
Speaker 1: so you were serious? This is actually called the eater experiment,

101
00:05:51,360 --> 00:05:55,240
Speaker 1: that's right, I T e R. And it's pronounced by

102
00:05:55,400 --> 00:05:59,279
Speaker 1: plasma physicists everywhere to be the eater experiment. Not iteter

103
00:05:59,720 --> 00:06:02,480
Speaker 1: or eat or anything like that. People call it eater

104
00:06:03,480 --> 00:06:07,640
Speaker 1: without any sort of sense of irony or understanding that absurd.

105
00:06:07,720 --> 00:06:10,440
Speaker 1: That is what language pronounces the eye and the e,

106
00:06:12,560 --> 00:06:15,320
Speaker 1: you know, the open e. Is it like a weird

107
00:06:15,360 --> 00:06:19,760
Speaker 1: collaboration between French and US scientists. It's a huge international collaboration.

108
00:06:19,839 --> 00:06:21,880
Speaker 1: So I don't know who's responsible for that. And it's

109
00:06:21,960 --> 00:06:25,640
Speaker 1: likely that other countries pronounced the acronym differently, you know,

110
00:06:25,720 --> 00:06:29,479
Speaker 1: in French they probably pronounced or something right. Yeah, I

111
00:06:29,480 --> 00:06:31,680
Speaker 1: don't even know how the Japanese would do it. But

112
00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:35,599
Speaker 1: here in America we call it the eater experiment. Again,

113
00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:37,920
Speaker 1: just to verify, it's not trying to eat the entire earth.

114
00:06:37,960 --> 00:06:40,159
Speaker 1: It's trying to do the opposite. It's trying to feed

115
00:06:40,200 --> 00:06:42,919
Speaker 1: the whole earth. It's exactly. It's trying to fuel the

116
00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:47,240
Speaker 1: Earth into an attempt at magnetic confinement fusion. But as usual,

117
00:06:47,279 --> 00:06:49,960
Speaker 1: I was curious did people know about the eater experiment.

118
00:06:50,040 --> 00:06:52,680
Speaker 1: We actually got a few emails from listeners asking us

119
00:06:52,720 --> 00:06:54,880
Speaker 1: to talk about this, so I thought, hey, maybe our

120
00:06:54,880 --> 00:06:57,960
Speaker 1: listeners know all about this, So I pulled them to

121
00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:00,600
Speaker 1: figure out what they knew, And I asked them if

122
00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:03,120
Speaker 1: they knew what the Eater experiment was all about. Do

123
00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:06,599
Speaker 1: you think they wrote you because they were curious or concerned? Daniel,

124
00:07:07,080 --> 00:07:10,880
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, physics are making something called the Eater experiment.

125
00:07:11,720 --> 00:07:15,200
Speaker 1: Should we be worried? No. I think they wrote me

126
00:07:15,280 --> 00:07:18,080
Speaker 1: because they were hopeful. You know, the Eater experiment really

127
00:07:18,120 --> 00:07:22,000
Speaker 1: does represent something positive. If they make it work and

128
00:07:22,040 --> 00:07:25,160
Speaker 1: we get fusion to work, we could have essentially almost

129
00:07:25,320 --> 00:07:29,080
Speaker 1: limitless energy, which could really transform our economies and lift

130
00:07:29,120 --> 00:07:32,400
Speaker 1: a lot of people out of poverty. So it's tantalizing,

131
00:07:32,480 --> 00:07:34,560
Speaker 1: you know, it's really inspires hope, and so I think

132
00:07:34,600 --> 00:07:36,680
Speaker 1: they were hoping that I would say, yes, it's around

133
00:07:36,680 --> 00:07:38,720
Speaker 1: the corner and we're going to solve all of our problems.

134
00:07:38,800 --> 00:07:40,760
Speaker 1: But you're like, no, I am in the black hole

135
00:07:41,320 --> 00:07:45,200
Speaker 1: lobby pocket unfortunately, so I can't chill for fusion. Although

136
00:07:45,240 --> 00:07:47,600
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to create a black hole

137
00:07:47,680 --> 00:07:50,600
Speaker 1: to power your starship, you need a very good source

138
00:07:50,640 --> 00:07:52,760
Speaker 1: of energy. And so it might be that we build

139
00:07:52,760 --> 00:07:55,480
Speaker 1: a little star and run it as a fusion experiment

140
00:07:55,560 --> 00:07:57,880
Speaker 1: in order to gather energy and then pump that via

141
00:07:57,960 --> 00:08:00,680
Speaker 1: lasers into a black hole, so every you can be happy.

142
00:08:01,080 --> 00:08:04,280
Speaker 1: You get your star I get my black hole. If

143
00:08:04,320 --> 00:08:06,840
Speaker 1: I have a son, why would I need a black

144
00:08:06,840 --> 00:08:10,440
Speaker 1: hole to power your starship? Man? You should listen to

145
00:08:10,480 --> 00:08:13,320
Speaker 1: that episode. It's pretty awesome. All right, Well, think about

146
00:08:13,320 --> 00:08:15,200
Speaker 1: it for a second. Is soone as you what the

147
00:08:15,200 --> 00:08:18,880
Speaker 1: eater experiment was? Would you respond that you are hungry,

148
00:08:18,880 --> 00:08:23,120
Speaker 1: thank you? Or what would you say? Here's what people

149
00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:29,120
Speaker 1: had to say. Something to do intergalactic telescope, extraterrestrial radar.

150
00:08:29,400 --> 00:08:32,079
Speaker 1: I believe it's a nuclear fusion experiment that needs to

151
00:08:32,160 --> 00:08:35,400
Speaker 1: replicate the Sun's fusion power to create clean energy. I

152
00:08:35,440 --> 00:08:37,440
Speaker 1: have not heard of that one, but I will be

153
00:08:37,559 --> 00:08:40,520
Speaker 1: very interested to learn what it is. I think it's

154
00:08:40,520 --> 00:08:44,960
Speaker 1: the French and French abbreviation kind of like certain in fact,

155
00:08:45,920 --> 00:08:50,960
Speaker 1: but I believe it has to do with nuclear fusion,

156
00:08:51,240 --> 00:08:55,560
Speaker 1: with with building a nuclear fusion reactor, something to do

157
00:08:55,679 --> 00:09:02,800
Speaker 1: with acronyms interplanetary terrestrial exploration in research. Maybe that sounds good. Yeah,

158
00:09:02,800 --> 00:09:05,000
Speaker 1: I'm surprised after that that nobody said yes. And I'll

159
00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:08,600
Speaker 1: have a side of fries with that either piece. That's right?

160
00:09:08,800 --> 00:09:11,959
Speaker 1: Some chips please? Yeah? So um and some people I've

161
00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:13,960
Speaker 1: heard of it, and some people had no idea. Yeah.

162
00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:17,280
Speaker 1: And for the record, the acronym I T e R

163
00:09:17,440 --> 00:09:25,600
Speaker 1: stands for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor I T E R. Oh. No, yeah,

164
00:09:25,679 --> 00:09:29,120
Speaker 1: I know. Thermonuclear sounds like war games right now. I

165
00:09:28,920 --> 00:09:32,280
Speaker 1: was I was saying, they omitted the nuclear, so she

166
00:09:32,320 --> 00:09:35,920
Speaker 1: really should be itner. No, No, thermonuclear is one word,

167
00:09:36,360 --> 00:09:40,560
Speaker 1: so's t otherwise be eater, I guess. But they actually

168
00:09:40,559 --> 00:09:43,960
Speaker 1: they didn't like that expression, so they renamed it just

169
00:09:44,120 --> 00:09:47,080
Speaker 1: I T E R. Now it's an acronym officially that

170
00:09:47,120 --> 00:09:50,400
Speaker 1: doesn't stand for anything. It's just either what was it originally?

171
00:09:50,520 --> 00:09:56,480
Speaker 1: I International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor? Oh? I see, but how

172
00:09:56,480 --> 00:09:58,600
Speaker 1: did they rename it? They just renamed it I T

173
00:09:58,720 --> 00:10:02,199
Speaker 1: e R. So used to be the International Thermonuclear Experimental

174
00:10:02,200 --> 00:10:05,120
Speaker 1: Reactor and acronym for that was I T e R.

175
00:10:05,200 --> 00:10:07,840
Speaker 1: But now the name is just I T E R. Oh.

176
00:10:08,320 --> 00:10:11,360
Speaker 1: I see. They made the acronym the name, yes, exactly,

177
00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:14,400
Speaker 1: that they wouldn't have to print under T shirts like thermonuclear.

178
00:10:14,520 --> 00:10:16,880
Speaker 1: Is that what you mean? Exactly? I think thermonuclear didn't

179
00:10:16,880 --> 00:10:19,640
Speaker 1: pull very well in the surrounding communities when they were

180
00:10:19,679 --> 00:10:25,320
Speaker 1: building this. Seriously, Okay, but it's still a thermo nuclear.

181
00:10:25,679 --> 00:10:28,120
Speaker 1: It's just hidden in the name exactly the physics of

182
00:10:28,120 --> 00:10:30,199
Speaker 1: it have been change is just a change and what

183
00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:32,760
Speaker 1: we call it and how we refer to it. All right, well,

184
00:10:32,800 --> 00:10:35,160
Speaker 1: let's jump into it. Daniel, explain to us what is

185
00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:37,560
Speaker 1: the Eater experiment and is it going to eat us?

186
00:10:38,960 --> 00:10:43,040
Speaker 1: The Eater experiment is going to eat hydrogen and create electricity,

187
00:10:43,440 --> 00:10:46,040
Speaker 1: is the idea. But the big idea is that Eater

188
00:10:46,240 --> 00:10:49,720
Speaker 1: is what we think will be the first working fusion reactor,

189
00:10:50,120 --> 00:10:54,760
Speaker 1: something cable of taking in fuel and creating electricity, and

190
00:10:54,920 --> 00:10:58,600
Speaker 1: it will operate on fusion, which again is different from vision.

191
00:10:58,880 --> 00:11:01,480
Speaker 1: We have nuclear reactor now which operate on the principle

192
00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:05,840
Speaker 1: of fission breaking up big heavy elements like uranium and

193
00:11:05,920 --> 00:11:09,960
Speaker 1: plutonium to create energy. This operates under fusion, which is

194
00:11:10,320 --> 00:11:14,319
Speaker 1: sticking together light elements to create energy, right, because fusion

195
00:11:14,520 --> 00:11:18,520
Speaker 1: is putting things together and somehow that releases energy. Also,

196
00:11:18,920 --> 00:11:21,240
Speaker 1: like I think we're used to breaking things apart and

197
00:11:21,280 --> 00:11:23,080
Speaker 1: that releasing energy. But it's kind of weird to think

198
00:11:23,120 --> 00:11:25,400
Speaker 1: that you can put things together and that will also

199
00:11:25,440 --> 00:11:28,240
Speaker 1: give your energy. Yeah, And it's pretty weird because if

200
00:11:28,240 --> 00:11:32,400
Speaker 1: you have really heavy elements, anything essentially above iron, then

201
00:11:32,440 --> 00:11:35,400
Speaker 1: if you break it apart, you get energy out. And

202
00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:37,839
Speaker 1: for those you can think of them like two little

203
00:11:37,880 --> 00:11:41,080
Speaker 1: objects sort of held together by a coiled spring, and

204
00:11:41,160 --> 00:11:44,960
Speaker 1: the bond there holds in energy. Right, The spring has energy,

205
00:11:45,040 --> 00:11:48,160
Speaker 1: and if you somehow break it, then things fly out.

206
00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:51,080
Speaker 1: You get energy out when you break those bonds. But

207
00:11:51,200 --> 00:11:55,480
Speaker 1: anything lighter than iron, it works the opposite way. It's

208
00:11:55,520 --> 00:11:58,400
Speaker 1: like the things are stuck together and to break them

209
00:11:58,480 --> 00:12:01,480
Speaker 1: up you need to add energy, right, Like, for example,

210
00:12:01,800 --> 00:12:04,240
Speaker 1: if you wanted the Earth to no longer be moving

211
00:12:04,240 --> 00:12:06,040
Speaker 1: around the Sun, if you want to break the bond

212
00:12:06,080 --> 00:12:08,880
Speaker 1: between the Earth and the Sun, you need to add energy.

213
00:12:08,920 --> 00:12:11,120
Speaker 1: You need to give the Earth a push, so that

214
00:12:11,160 --> 00:12:14,160
Speaker 1: bond has sort of negative energy. And so in the

215
00:12:14,200 --> 00:12:16,640
Speaker 1: same way, if you went in the reverse, if you

216
00:12:16,800 --> 00:12:20,520
Speaker 1: created that bond instead of breaking it, you'd be releasing energy.

217
00:12:20,559 --> 00:12:24,080
Speaker 1: So anything lighter than iron, if you fuse it, if

218
00:12:24,080 --> 00:12:26,880
Speaker 1: you stick it together, you release energy, and if you

219
00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:30,520
Speaker 1: tear it apart then that takes energy. Right. It's still

220
00:12:30,559 --> 00:12:32,600
Speaker 1: kind of weird to think about, isn't it. Like you know,

221
00:12:32,920 --> 00:12:35,240
Speaker 1: it wants to be together, but if you put them

222
00:12:35,240 --> 00:12:38,760
Speaker 1: together it costs you like, it's hard to do that. Yeah, well,

223
00:12:38,800 --> 00:12:41,040
Speaker 1: it's weird in lots of ways. But you know, imagine,

224
00:12:41,080 --> 00:12:43,040
Speaker 1: for example, you had to planets and you want to

225
00:12:43,120 --> 00:12:45,480
Speaker 1: get them in orbit around each other. If they're moving

226
00:12:45,480 --> 00:12:47,960
Speaker 1: it really high speeds. Then to do that, you would

227
00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:50,000
Speaker 1: have to remove some of their energy. You'd have to

228
00:12:50,040 --> 00:12:52,720
Speaker 1: slow them down relative to each other so they could

229
00:12:52,720 --> 00:12:56,640
Speaker 1: form a bond, and so has to essentially extract energy

230
00:12:56,720 --> 00:12:59,040
Speaker 1: from that system. And so that's what we're doing here,

231
00:12:59,080 --> 00:13:02,560
Speaker 1: is we're taking two hydrogen atoms and we're slowing them down.

232
00:13:02,559 --> 00:13:06,080
Speaker 1: We're getting them close enough together, reducing their relative energy

233
00:13:06,400 --> 00:13:09,160
Speaker 1: so that we can extract that energy and make them

234
00:13:09,160 --> 00:13:12,079
Speaker 1: bond together. But it is pretty weird. I agree, it's

235
00:13:12,120 --> 00:13:15,800
Speaker 1: counterintuitive to imagine sticking things together and having energy come out, right,

236
00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:17,839
Speaker 1: And I think it all has to do is kind

237
00:13:17,840 --> 00:13:21,200
Speaker 1: of like this balance between the different fundamental forces, right,

238
00:13:21,760 --> 00:13:23,439
Speaker 1: Like the thing that makes it hard to put to

239
00:13:23,880 --> 00:13:28,000
Speaker 1: hydrogen nuclei together is the allerg for a magnetic force, right,

240
00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:31,400
Speaker 1: because they repel each other electromagnetically. But if you get

241
00:13:31,400 --> 00:13:33,800
Speaker 1: in close enough, then another force takes over and then

242
00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:36,199
Speaker 1: that's the one that releases energy. Right. Yeah, So there's

243
00:13:36,240 --> 00:13:39,960
Speaker 1: two separate ideas there. One is why does hydrogen and

244
00:13:40,040 --> 00:13:42,720
Speaker 1: light elements, why do they release energy when they fuse?

245
00:13:42,960 --> 00:13:45,800
Speaker 1: Whereas heavy stuff, why does it release energy when it

246
00:13:45,840 --> 00:13:48,320
Speaker 1: breaks up? And that's because of the strong force. And

247
00:13:48,320 --> 00:13:50,920
Speaker 1: that's like how these quirks and the protons and neutrons

248
00:13:50,960 --> 00:13:53,400
Speaker 1: fit together to make their bonds. And it's very very

249
00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:57,040
Speaker 1: complicated and difficult to calculate. And then there's the second angle,

250
00:13:57,080 --> 00:14:01,680
Speaker 1: which is what makes it hard to get too protons together. Essentially,

251
00:14:01,760 --> 00:14:04,920
Speaker 1: two hydrogen atoms are basically just two protons and you're

252
00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:07,560
Speaker 1: right there positively charged, and so they don't like to

253
00:14:07,600 --> 00:14:11,200
Speaker 1: come together. So getting them together, get them near each

254
00:14:11,240 --> 00:14:14,640
Speaker 1: other so that they can fuse, is difficult. It's sort

255
00:14:14,679 --> 00:14:17,640
Speaker 1: of like trying to get a hole in one in

256
00:14:17,720 --> 00:14:20,160
Speaker 1: mini golf. When the hole is the very top of

257
00:14:20,160 --> 00:14:22,840
Speaker 1: a volcano. You've got to get it like ride up

258
00:14:22,880 --> 00:14:24,880
Speaker 1: the topic. You don't get it in exactly the right spot.

259
00:14:24,880 --> 00:14:27,720
Speaker 1: It just rules away because it likes to repel all

260
00:14:27,760 --> 00:14:29,880
Speaker 1: the golf balls, right. And and that'sually what kind of

261
00:14:29,880 --> 00:14:32,600
Speaker 1: like the distance that the forces act on, right, Like

262
00:14:32,640 --> 00:14:35,560
Speaker 1: the electromagnetic force acts a pretty long distances, but the

263
00:14:35,640 --> 00:14:39,040
Speaker 1: strong nuclear force only works if you're like really close

264
00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:41,400
Speaker 1: to that hole at the top of the volcano. Yeah,

265
00:14:41,400 --> 00:14:44,520
Speaker 1: the strong nuclear force is really really powerful, and so

266
00:14:44,560 --> 00:14:48,280
Speaker 1: it's essentially always balanced in any distance greater than you know,

267
00:14:48,680 --> 00:14:51,040
Speaker 1: pretty close to the proton, and so you don't really

268
00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:54,000
Speaker 1: feel it unless you're really really close up. And you're right,

269
00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:57,280
Speaker 1: the electromagnetic force is balanced. It sort of longer distances,

270
00:14:57,280 --> 00:15:00,280
Speaker 1: and you can have protons that are positively charged, and

271
00:15:00,440 --> 00:15:04,120
Speaker 1: it's field essentially goes infinite. You can feel another proton

272
00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:06,760
Speaker 1: on the other side of the universe, although this strength

273
00:15:06,840 --> 00:15:10,000
Speaker 1: is very small, but you're right. As two protons reach

274
00:15:10,080 --> 00:15:13,320
Speaker 1: each other, it starts out that the electromagnetic force is dominant.

275
00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:15,680
Speaker 1: But if you get close enough, the strong force takes over.

276
00:15:15,720 --> 00:15:18,080
Speaker 1: But you've got to get them close enough and to

277
00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:22,400
Speaker 1: positively charged protons don't like to get together. They really resisted.

278
00:15:22,760 --> 00:15:26,760
Speaker 1: It's like a brother and sister hugging. Yeah, so if

279
00:15:26,760 --> 00:15:29,120
Speaker 1: you put them together, they'll snap together and they'll release

280
00:15:29,160 --> 00:15:31,880
Speaker 1: a bunch of energy, like they'll release photons or how

281
00:15:31,920 --> 00:15:35,320
Speaker 1: does that energy come out? It's complicated. You get hygen together,

282
00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:38,280
Speaker 1: you get helium, you get new tree nos, you get photons.

283
00:15:38,440 --> 00:15:41,080
Speaker 1: There's actually a few steps in that process, and what

284
00:15:41,160 --> 00:15:43,680
Speaker 1: happens inside the sun is a big mix of all

285
00:15:43,680 --> 00:15:46,080
Speaker 1: these different things, and photons are created and then be

286
00:15:46,160 --> 00:15:49,800
Speaker 1: absorbed and new trios are created, so it's a big gamush.

287
00:15:49,840 --> 00:15:52,480
Speaker 1: But yeah, basically, you get hygiene together the fuses to

288
00:15:52,520 --> 00:15:55,840
Speaker 1: make helium, and if you get it hot enough, that

289
00:15:55,920 --> 00:15:58,480
Speaker 1: helium confused to make the next thing, and then that

290
00:15:58,520 --> 00:16:01,120
Speaker 1: confused to make the next thing. And that's what's happening

291
00:16:01,120 --> 00:16:03,400
Speaker 1: in the inside of stars. And as stars get older,

292
00:16:03,760 --> 00:16:07,000
Speaker 1: they get these denser and denser cores. The hydrogen fuses

293
00:16:07,040 --> 00:16:09,280
Speaker 1: and then the helium fuses, and eventually you get you know,

294
00:16:09,320 --> 00:16:12,600
Speaker 1: carbon and nitrogen, oxygen all the way up to iron.

295
00:16:12,920 --> 00:16:15,000
Speaker 1: And that's when they run out of fuel because the

296
00:16:15,080 --> 00:16:18,480
Speaker 1: iron for it to fuse, costs energy, so it starts

297
00:16:18,520 --> 00:16:21,480
Speaker 1: to cool the star and that's when the beginning of

298
00:16:21,480 --> 00:16:23,640
Speaker 1: the end of the life of the star starts. But

299
00:16:23,720 --> 00:16:27,040
Speaker 1: until then, it's a pretty efficient way to kind of

300
00:16:27,080 --> 00:16:30,720
Speaker 1: create energy, right, Like a gramm of fuel here for

301
00:16:31,040 --> 00:16:34,560
Speaker 1: a fusion reactor will give you a ton of energy,

302
00:16:34,640 --> 00:16:37,400
Speaker 1: that's right, like tons and tons like a lot of energy.

303
00:16:37,760 --> 00:16:41,680
Speaker 1: You're much more efficiently converting mass into energy than in

304
00:16:41,720 --> 00:16:45,760
Speaker 1: almost anything else we know other than like antimatter matter collisions,

305
00:16:45,760 --> 00:16:49,200
Speaker 1: but antimatter is pretty difficult to find. The real advantage

306
00:16:49,240 --> 00:16:52,800
Speaker 1: of fusion is that the fuel is everywhere. Like hydrogen

307
00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:55,160
Speaker 1: is very, very plentiful in the universe. We have a

308
00:16:55,200 --> 00:16:58,360
Speaker 1: lot of it in water, for example, And you're right,

309
00:16:58,440 --> 00:17:01,720
Speaker 1: it produces a huge amount of energy. So one gram

310
00:17:01,760 --> 00:17:06,400
Speaker 1: of fuel produces as much energy is eighty thousand tons

311
00:17:06,440 --> 00:17:10,560
Speaker 1: of oil, So it's a lot more efficient than fossil fuels.

312
00:17:10,600 --> 00:17:13,159
Speaker 1: That's crazy. Like a gram of hydrogen is one like

313
00:17:13,200 --> 00:17:16,280
Speaker 1: a cup, like like a tea spoon. What is it?

314
00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:19,040
Speaker 1: I guess it depends a lot on the pressure in

315
00:17:19,080 --> 00:17:21,399
Speaker 1: the temperature, right, but it's not a lot. You know,

316
00:17:21,400 --> 00:17:24,080
Speaker 1: A gram is about how much a raisin ways, So

317
00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:27,000
Speaker 1: a raisin's words of hydrogen is the same as eighty

318
00:17:27,119 --> 00:17:30,320
Speaker 1: thousand tons of oil. That's like a whole container ship.

319
00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:33,160
Speaker 1: And what makes it attractive toys that we were sort

320
00:17:33,160 --> 00:17:37,280
Speaker 1: of surrounded by fuel that we could use for a

321
00:17:37,320 --> 00:17:40,600
Speaker 1: fusion reactor, right, Like you can get hydrogen just from water,

322
00:17:40,760 --> 00:17:42,479
Speaker 1: and we have a lot of water. Yeah, we have

323
00:17:42,520 --> 00:17:45,200
Speaker 1: a lot of water, and hydrogen is the most plentiful

324
00:17:45,240 --> 00:17:48,439
Speaker 1: thing in the universe. Some of like nineties percent of

325
00:17:48,480 --> 00:17:51,159
Speaker 1: the universe is hydrogen. Not like we're going to go

326
00:17:51,200 --> 00:17:53,160
Speaker 1: out there to gather it, but you know, you imagine

327
00:17:53,440 --> 00:17:56,080
Speaker 1: if fusion is going to power your spaceships or whatever.

328
00:17:56,200 --> 00:17:59,000
Speaker 1: It's not that hard to find hydrogen, whereas things like

329
00:17:59,280 --> 00:18:03,359
Speaker 1: uranium is much much rarer. You know, uranium is created

330
00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:07,800
Speaker 1: when neutron stars collide and die. It's very rare process,

331
00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:09,399
Speaker 1: which is why there isn't very much of it. But

332
00:18:09,520 --> 00:18:12,120
Speaker 1: hydrogen is everywhere. It was the number one thing made

333
00:18:12,200 --> 00:18:14,320
Speaker 1: during the Big Bang, and it's still number one. It's

334
00:18:14,400 --> 00:18:16,680
Speaker 1: planning to be number one for billions of years into

335
00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:18,840
Speaker 1: the future. So yeah, we're not going to run out

336
00:18:18,840 --> 00:18:20,960
Speaker 1: of hydrogen, right And one of the best parts about

337
00:18:20,960 --> 00:18:24,359
Speaker 1: a fusion reactor is that it's super green, right, Like,

338
00:18:24,359 --> 00:18:28,120
Speaker 1: it doesn't create any toxic waste or radioactive waste or

339
00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:30,919
Speaker 1: like carbon or carbon at all. Right, Like, it just

340
00:18:30,960 --> 00:18:35,480
Speaker 1: makes helium and energy, And who doesn't want more helium.

341
00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:37,679
Speaker 1: We could all have balloons, We can all talk with

342
00:18:37,720 --> 00:18:39,760
Speaker 1: silly voices. We should do a whole podcast with just

343
00:18:39,840 --> 00:18:43,240
Speaker 1: helium voices. No, you're right, it doesn't create radioactive waste

344
00:18:43,280 --> 00:18:45,560
Speaker 1: the way that fission does you know fission, you have

345
00:18:45,640 --> 00:18:48,639
Speaker 1: really heavy elements like uranium, they break up, you still

346
00:18:48,800 --> 00:18:51,800
Speaker 1: have heavy elements that are radioactive, and those can take

347
00:18:51,840 --> 00:18:54,359
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of years to break down even further.

348
00:18:54,680 --> 00:18:57,320
Speaker 1: So you've got this stuff that's not useful for generating

349
00:18:57,400 --> 00:19:01,200
Speaker 1: energy and sticks around basically poisoning your ironman four thousands

350
00:19:01,240 --> 00:19:05,840
Speaker 1: and thousands of years. Fusion is different. It's not clean,

351
00:19:06,160 --> 00:19:09,639
Speaker 1: but essentially already produces helium and energy. The other thing

352
00:19:09,680 --> 00:19:13,160
Speaker 1: it does is it produces very high speed neutrons. Now

353
00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:15,320
Speaker 1: you can try to capture the energy of those neutrons,

354
00:19:15,359 --> 00:19:17,840
Speaker 1: which would be great, but you know those neutrons can

355
00:19:17,960 --> 00:19:21,280
Speaker 1: cause radio activity in the material that surrounds it, So

356
00:19:21,400 --> 00:19:25,480
Speaker 1: there is some radioactive waste from fusion. It's not completely zero,

357
00:19:25,800 --> 00:19:29,480
Speaker 1: but it's almost negligible compared to fusion. All right, Well,

358
00:19:29,520 --> 00:19:32,560
Speaker 1: it sounds amazing, and it would be awesome if we

359
00:19:32,600 --> 00:19:34,840
Speaker 1: can make fusion work here on Earth and make our

360
00:19:34,840 --> 00:19:37,480
Speaker 1: own little sun and powers and then get us all

361
00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:40,040
Speaker 1: nice and toasty. But there are a lot of challenges.

362
00:19:40,520 --> 00:19:42,520
Speaker 1: For example, how do how do you make it work?

363
00:19:43,240 --> 00:19:45,440
Speaker 1: And how do you keep it from not exploding your

364
00:19:45,600 --> 00:19:48,880
Speaker 1: entire plant? So let's get into that. But first, let's

365
00:19:48,880 --> 00:20:03,359
Speaker 1: take a quick break, all right, Daniel, we're we're talking

366
00:20:03,359 --> 00:20:06,440
Speaker 1: about a fusion and making fusion work here on Earth,

367
00:20:06,560 --> 00:20:10,000
Speaker 1: and specifically about the Eater experiment. And it's in Europe, right,

368
00:20:10,040 --> 00:20:12,160
Speaker 1: and they're they're trying to make fusion work right now,

369
00:20:12,400 --> 00:20:15,399
Speaker 1: that's right. They're building it in France and they're working

370
00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:18,560
Speaker 1: on it. And it's the culmination of decades and decades

371
00:20:18,560 --> 00:20:21,680
Speaker 1: of research of trying to make fusion work here on Earth,

372
00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:24,720
Speaker 1: which turns out to not be very easy. As we

373
00:20:24,840 --> 00:20:27,680
Speaker 1: talked about before, you have to get these hydrogens close

374
00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:30,199
Speaker 1: to each other, and how do you do that efficiently?

375
00:20:30,280 --> 00:20:32,560
Speaker 1: And for a lot of hydrogens, you can't just like

376
00:20:32,640 --> 00:20:34,840
Speaker 1: shoot two protons at each other. That's what we do

377
00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:38,960
Speaker 1: basically at the LHC. That's not very efficient for generating energy, right, Yeah,

378
00:20:39,040 --> 00:20:41,200
Speaker 1: So it's it's pretty hard to do. But we've been

379
00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:44,560
Speaker 1: trying for decades and decades to make this work because

380
00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:47,439
Speaker 1: I guess the payoff would be pretty cool. But I

381
00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:51,040
Speaker 1: guess the hard part is getting these hydrogens to come

382
00:20:51,080 --> 00:20:53,359
Speaker 1: together and get close en out that they snap together

383
00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:55,960
Speaker 1: and release this energy. And so what are the different

384
00:20:56,000 --> 00:20:58,119
Speaker 1: ways that we can do that? Do we throw them

385
00:20:58,119 --> 00:20:59,879
Speaker 1: at each other or do you just kind of create

386
00:20:59,880 --> 00:21:03,399
Speaker 1: a container and squeeze it enough so that it actually happens.

387
00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:05,880
Speaker 1: So we need high enough numbers to make this efficient,

388
00:21:05,920 --> 00:21:08,680
Speaker 1: which is why we can't just like use colliders. There's

389
00:21:08,720 --> 00:21:11,560
Speaker 1: a whole other branch of fusion research where they use

390
00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:14,119
Speaker 1: lasers and try to zap fuel. We won't talk about

391
00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:17,600
Speaker 1: that today, but the basic idea of magnetic confinement fusion

392
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:21,280
Speaker 1: is to make a little star basically to create plasma,

393
00:21:21,400 --> 00:21:23,960
Speaker 1: to take a bunch of hydrogen gas and make it really,

394
00:21:23,960 --> 00:21:27,280
Speaker 1: really hot and dense. And the idea is that those

395
00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:29,920
Speaker 1: are the conditions you need for these hydrogens to bang

396
00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:33,040
Speaker 1: into each other to cause fusion. So basically you have

397
00:21:33,080 --> 00:21:35,000
Speaker 1: to leave them nowhere else to go. You've got to

398
00:21:35,040 --> 00:21:37,960
Speaker 1: crowd all the hydrogens together so there's no escape. They

399
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:40,440
Speaker 1: got to fuse with each other. And then, of course

400
00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:43,000
Speaker 1: the trick is how do you build a really hot,

401
00:21:43,119 --> 00:21:46,480
Speaker 1: dense plasma and how do you contain it because it

402
00:21:46,560 --> 00:21:50,480
Speaker 1: would basically melt any device you made out of normal matth. Yeah,

403
00:21:50,520 --> 00:21:54,000
Speaker 1: I think you're basically trying to do exactly what's happening

404
00:21:54,040 --> 00:21:57,000
Speaker 1: in the sun right Like in the sun all that

405
00:21:57,119 --> 00:21:59,800
Speaker 1: hydrogen is there, but it's trapped and it's being squeezed

406
00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:02,160
Speaker 1: to get there by the sheer size of the Sun

407
00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:05,280
Speaker 1: everything else kind of squeezing it together, and so it

408
00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:09,439
Speaker 1: becomes it's kind of like hot, pressurized plasma that then

409
00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:13,320
Speaker 1: triggers fusion. That's right, And so the Sun uses basically

410
00:22:13,320 --> 00:22:15,960
Speaker 1: a gravitational bottle. Right. It says, I'm just gonna go

411
00:22:16,080 --> 00:22:19,040
Speaker 1: really big so that I have my own gravity that

412
00:22:19,080 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 1: sucks myself in. But we don't really have that option.

413
00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:24,000
Speaker 1: We don't want to build another Sun. We got one already,

414
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:26,399
Speaker 1: and if we built a fusion reactor the size of

415
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:29,080
Speaker 1: the Sun, it would destroy us. So the challenge of

416
00:22:29,119 --> 00:22:32,400
Speaker 1: building a mini one one that's practical for human purposes

417
00:22:32,480 --> 00:22:35,720
Speaker 1: is finding another way to keep that plasma hot and

418
00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:40,040
Speaker 1: dense and contained. And the big idea is to use magnets,

419
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:43,959
Speaker 1: because magnets can bend the direction of stuff without actually

420
00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:47,560
Speaker 1: touching it. Right, You can have like magnetically levitating trains

421
00:22:47,680 --> 00:22:50,520
Speaker 1: and all sorts of other magnetic confinement. So you try

422
00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:53,600
Speaker 1: to build a magnetic bottle that doesn't actually have to

423
00:22:53,600 --> 00:22:57,359
Speaker 1: touch the plasma itself, right, because I guess the plasma

424
00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:01,240
Speaker 1: is charged right, Like everything in the plasma has a charge,

425
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:04,639
Speaker 1: and and so it's repelled by the magnets, and so

426
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:07,200
Speaker 1: you can contain and using magnets, but you couldn't contain

427
00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:10,840
Speaker 1: other things with magnets. They had to be electric charge.

428
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:13,840
Speaker 1: That's right. A plasma is electrically charged gas, right. That's

429
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:15,840
Speaker 1: what it means that it's gotten hot enough that the

430
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:18,600
Speaker 1: electrons have so much energy that they just say bye

431
00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:21,119
Speaker 1: bye to their protons and they're just flying around free.

432
00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:23,640
Speaker 1: And so you have a gas of positive and neglearly

433
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:26,720
Speaker 1: charged particles. That's the definition of a plasma. And that

434
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:29,520
Speaker 1: happens naturally when you heat it up exactly. And you're

435
00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:32,800
Speaker 1: right that magnetic fields only act on charged particles, and

436
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:35,399
Speaker 1: they cause charge particles to bend in a circle. So

437
00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:37,119
Speaker 1: then the next challenge is, well, how do you build

438
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:39,960
Speaker 1: a bottle that if you can't like push back on

439
00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:41,720
Speaker 1: the particles, you can just sort of bend them to

440
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:45,080
Speaker 1: move in a circle that maintains this plasma in a

441
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:47,679
Speaker 1: constant state. And so that's how they came up with

442
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:50,760
Speaker 1: this geometry of basically a donut. You have all the

443
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:53,920
Speaker 1: particles basically going in a circle, whizzing in a circle,

444
00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 1: and you have magnetic fields that create sort of a

445
00:23:56,320 --> 00:23:59,959
Speaker 1: tube around it. Then the magnetic fields force the particle,

446
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:02,760
Speaker 1: They bend the particles to move in the circle, and

447
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:06,160
Speaker 1: it's sort of a dynamo effect. The motion of those

448
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 1: charged particles creates more magnetic field, which helps contain it.

449
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:12,639
Speaker 1: So it should be sort of building on itself, the

450
00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:16,600
Speaker 1: same way that like the motion of hot iron inside

451
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:19,800
Speaker 1: the Earth helps the magnetic field, and the magnetic field

452
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:22,159
Speaker 1: helps move the iron sort of builds on itself. So

453
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:24,800
Speaker 1: I see, you couldn't just make like a bottle that

454
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:26,840
Speaker 1: looks like a bottle, or like a bottle that's like

455
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:30,280
Speaker 1: a sphere. That wouldn't quite work for fusion here on Earth.

456
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 1: The tricky thing is getting these things stable. And so

457
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 1: a bottle that just looks like a bottle wouldn't be

458
00:24:35,119 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: stable because there'd be lots of points where the plasma

459
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:39,480
Speaker 1: could just approach the edge of it. You need to

460
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:42,880
Speaker 1: be totally symmetric, so the particles are always bent away

461
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:45,439
Speaker 1: from the edge of the bottle and into some configuration

462
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 1: that helps strengthen the bottle. And so that's this idea.

463
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 1: It's called a tocomac, and it's a plasma basically in

464
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 1: a donut whizzing in a circle, where the plasma itself

465
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:58,639
Speaker 1: helped create the magnetic field that contains it. Wasn't that

466
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: the name of a pokemon to I forget a really expensive,

467
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:05,879
Speaker 1: short lived pokemon. I guess the problem. It's kind of

468
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:08,400
Speaker 1: like if you make a son, how do you hold it? Right?

469
00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 1: Like how do you hold the sun? You can't touch it.

470
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: You can't use oven mits. It will just melt everything.

471
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 1: And it's good you know that you think about these

472
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:17,119
Speaker 1: things before you build your son. So I congratulate you

473
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:20,160
Speaker 1: on your forward thinking there. You know, sometimes you open

474
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:21,800
Speaker 1: the oven and you're like, wait a second, I need

475
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 1: oven mits, right, this is that moment, right, plan to

476
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,080
Speaker 1: get your oven mits in advance, all right. So they're

477
00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:31,640
Speaker 1: hard to sort of make and contain and keep going stable.

478
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:34,360
Speaker 1: And so you said, we've been doing it for decades,

479
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:37,240
Speaker 1: So what are some of the other attempts that we've made. Yeah,

480
00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:39,719
Speaker 1: the hard thing is to keep these things stable because

481
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: plasma is very hot and very crazy. These things don't

482
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,119
Speaker 1: just fly along nicely like a bunch of cars in

483
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 1: a race, you know, all moving in parallel really high speeds.

484
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 1: They tend to bounce off each other, and anytime you

485
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:54,320
Speaker 1: have a small instability, you can build into larger instabilities

486
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 1: and the whole thing falls apart. So people have been

487
00:25:56,880 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 1: working for years to figure out how exactly to make

488
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 1: these things stable, Like do you have it be a

489
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:04,440
Speaker 1: perfect donut? Do you have it like a d shape?

490
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:07,399
Speaker 1: Do you have a twist? All sorts of crazy ideas

491
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 1: for how to prevent these instabilities from being created and

492
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:12,640
Speaker 1: from growing, Like do you make it a cronut or

493
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:16,560
Speaker 1: a Danish? Do you glaze it? Who puts cheese in

494
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:18,960
Speaker 1: the middle of a reactor anyway? I mean it is

495
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 1: sort of like a Danish, isn't it. There's like something

496
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:22,200
Speaker 1: in the middle. There's not a hole in the middle.

497
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 1: There's something in the middle. There's a hole in the middle. Yeah,

498
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:26,400
Speaker 1: it's it's like a donut. It's like a bagel. There's

499
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:28,440
Speaker 1: nothing in the middle. I guess the magnetic bottle is

500
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:30,919
Speaker 1: a donut. But you actually have to put the magnet

501
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:33,240
Speaker 1: in the middle. You need the equipment which helps create

502
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: and contain the magnetic fields in the middle. That's right,

503
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:38,120
Speaker 1: But you don't have plasma that you don't have magnetic

504
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 1: fields there. The active elements are a donut. But people

505
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:42,879
Speaker 1: have been working on this for a long time, and

506
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 1: there's a reactor at Princeton which was leading it for

507
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:47,680
Speaker 1: a long time. It's called the t F t R

508
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 1: the teethter, and they measure the performance of these things

509
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 1: using a ratio energy out to energy in because it

510
00:26:56,760 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 1: takes energy to start the reactor. It's like you know,

511
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:01,400
Speaker 1: starting a fire. You've got to light it, you need

512
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 1: to heat the plasma, you need to create the magnetic field,

513
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:08,200
Speaker 1: so it costs some energy and then you get fusion.

514
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:10,439
Speaker 1: That happens, and the way you measure the performance of

515
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:13,200
Speaker 1: your actor is are you getting more heat out than

516
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: you put in? Because nobody wants to build a reactor

517
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 1: that's a loss of energy. And so the ratio here

518
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: they're called the Q factor is energy out over energy in.

519
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 1: A number greater than zero means you're producing energy. Yeah,

520
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 1: you have fusion. But a number less than one means

521
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 1: it's still costing new energy. You're having to put more

522
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 1: energy in. Then it's actually producing eating up your electricity building. Yeah, exactly,

523
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: And so so far at Princeton, the best they achieve

524
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:42,920
Speaker 1: was a queue of four tenth which means they were

525
00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 1: able to make fusion happen and create a mini sun.

526
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 1: But if they had turned off the energy they were

527
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 1: pumping into it, it would have dissipated. Right, it costs

528
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 1: the more energy to make it wasn't self sustaining. I

529
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: guess it's kind of like the fusion itself, like getting

530
00:27:56,520 --> 00:27:59,680
Speaker 1: too hydrogen atoms together takes energy to get them really

531
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 1: close those but if you managed to get them together

532
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: just right, they'll snap together and release energy. So it's

533
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: kind of like that that ratio of like putting energy

534
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 1: to make it happen and then hopefully it happens. You

535
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:12,920
Speaker 1: know that you get enough energy out of it exactly

536
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:15,600
Speaker 1: because that energy that comes out of those hydrogens can

537
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 1: then help the other hydrogens fused. And that's a condition

538
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 1: they call ignition, where it's creating enough energy to sustain itself.

539
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 1: You don't need to anymore be lighting it from the outside.

540
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 1: And so, you know, it was a huge accomplishment to

541
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 1: get up to point four, and before that people hadn't

542
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 1: really gotten fusion to work at all. So they created

543
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:37,359
Speaker 1: you know, sustained fusion reactions, just not self sustained. And

544
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: did that one looked like a donut to or was

545
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 1: it more like that one also look looked like a donut. Yeah,

546
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 1: and then there was one in England, the jet reactor,

547
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: which reached a queue of point six. Right, So they've

548
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 1: been making progress, but they realized at some point that

549
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 1: these things were limited by their size. Like, in order

550
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 1: to get more fusion happening, you needed a bigger plasma.

551
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 1: You needed like more plasma and less surface you were

552
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 1: edges for the energy to sort of leak out. You

553
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 1: needed like a fatter donut. You needed a bigger donut.

554
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:09,760
Speaker 1: And let's face it, who doesn't need a bigger donut? Right?

555
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 1: You never eat a donut. You're like, I wish this

556
00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 1: donut was smaller. Well, that's because you're a big eater,

557
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 1: and I'm a physicist, so I want to build a

558
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 1: big eater experiment. I guess what you're saying is that

559
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: you need to scale it up, because then you get

560
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, kind of like more donut

561
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:28,520
Speaker 1: per surface area. Is that kind of what it means?

562
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 1: It's denser and you have more internal bits than surface bits,

563
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 1: and so you get more fusion going on. And the

564
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 1: goal here is to get a queue of ten to

565
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:40,400
Speaker 1: get something which we think would be like economically feasible

566
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 1: where you can go to an energy company and say, hey,

567
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:45,760
Speaker 1: we have a design, spend two billion dollars building this.

568
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 1: You want to promise that this thing is going to

569
00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 1: produce ten times as much energy as you're putting into it.

570
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: So that's the goal. But why tend Why not one

571
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 1: point one? Would one point one be like a net positive?

572
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:00,440
Speaker 1: It would be a net positive, But you know, to

573
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: be economically feasible, you've got to produce more than that.

574
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 1: You know, at one point one is pretty small. It

575
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 1: costs a lot to build these things and to operate

576
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:09,719
Speaker 1: these things, and also just to be competitive. Right, there

577
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 1: is a market if you build fusion energy, but it's

578
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 1: super duper expensive. Nobody's going to buy it, and we're

579
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 1: still going to be burning fossil fuels. And so you

580
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:20,640
Speaker 1: have to make fusion happen, and then you have to

581
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 1: make it economically cheap so that it will actually be

582
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: consumed and take over the energy grid. So the goal

583
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 1: there is Q of ten. I guess you know, I'm

584
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 1: wondering why a little percentage isn't good enough, because couldn't

585
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 1: you like take the energy that it makes and use

586
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 1: it to power itself and so then you would just

587
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,720
Speaker 1: have like almost like this perpetual motion machine that you

588
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: just gotta feed in seawater. Yeah, but you know, more

589
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 1: efficiency is definitely better. And remember there's overhead costs and

590
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:49,240
Speaker 1: running this thing and then building this thing and making

591
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 1: it work, and so this is more of a like

592
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: a social economic question than engineering question. But they've determined

593
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: that a QUE ten is the target, and you know,

594
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 1: I think they're hoping to achieve much much higher queues eventually,

595
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 1: So this is like a research goal. I think they

596
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: want to get QUE hundred or a thousand. This process

597
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 1: really has enormous potentials. You're a limit, like what's the

598
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 1: highest que you can get out of a fusion reactor?

599
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 1: I don't think there is a limit. You know, you

600
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 1: can get this thing to be self sustaining so that

601
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:18,959
Speaker 1: it essentially takes no more energy in I guess you

602
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: optimize your magnetic fields. You know, maybe not infinite, but

603
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: there's no real like upper limit the que you can get.

604
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:29,320
Speaker 1: All right, it sounds amazing, and so let's get into

605
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 1: how we are going to make it work and whether

606
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 1: or not eater is gonna eat up this problem. But

607
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 1: first let's take another quick break all right, we're talking

608
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: about making fusion on Earth, making a sun donut, a

609
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 1: solar donut here on Earth that can maybe power all

610
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 1: of our energy needs forever and very efficiently and super

611
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 1: eco friendly without any or much radioactive waste. Now, Danny

612
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:11,120
Speaker 1: were saying, we've been trying for decades here and now

613
00:32:11,360 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: the latest project is called Eater in Europe and trying

614
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: to make this work. And so how's it going from them, Well,

615
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: it's been going. That's about as good as you can say.

616
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 1: That doesn't sound good. Hasn't been great. Now things have

617
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: taken a much better turn recently, but it's been a

618
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:28,640
Speaker 1: tricky project. You know, I've been watching this feel from

619
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: Afar and for a long time I thought this is

620
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:34,240
Speaker 1: sort of like they're super conducting super collider. They decided

621
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 1: we're gonna go really big. We're gonna spend billions, but

622
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 1: we're gonna make it awesome. And the project, you know,

623
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 1: it needs sustained political support. And they started out in

624
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 1: the nineties and the US was part of it, and

625
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: then the US pulled out and we thought all the

626
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:51,840
Speaker 1: project was going to fall apart. Yeah, why do we

627
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:53,760
Speaker 1: pull out? Why do we pull out? Why do we

628
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 1: ever cancel our support for a science project. It's some

629
00:32:56,360 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: politics thing, you know, these billions versus those billions. Congress

630
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:03,320
Speaker 1: is fickle. Then they fickle pickled again. And the US

631
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 1: was back in in two thousand three, and so now

632
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 1: that you as is back in. So they've been working

633
00:33:08,920 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: these things since the nineties. And one of the ideas

634
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: here is not just let's build a reactor that works,

635
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 1: but let's spread the knowledge of fusion reactors around the world.

636
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 1: We don't just want to develop a very capable fusion

637
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: economy in the US. We want to do it also

638
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 1: in India and in China and in Russia, etcetera. And

639
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 1: so it's very decentralized project. Like you guys build a

640
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 1: vacuum chamber, you guys build these diagnostics. And that's a

641
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 1: cool idea and a nice vision, but didn't really work

642
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: very well for organizing a billions of dollars project that

643
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 1: needs to be completed on schedule. Yeah, it seems like

644
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 1: you want to make it work first before you tell

645
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 1: other people how to make it work. Yeah. Well, I

646
00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 1: think part of selling it was you know, all these

647
00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: other countries please pitch in hundreds of millions of dollars

648
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: and you'll get to participate in the economics of it,

649
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 1: you'll get to be a leader and how to build

650
00:33:57,520 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 1: this part of the device. I think that was part

651
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 1: of the political selling points. But you know, they also

652
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: paid the price because it's very hard to organize stuff

653
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: that's so decentralized, with lots of different cultures participating, and

654
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 1: so the cost started out estimated around four billion euros

655
00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:16,720
Speaker 1: and now it's looking to be like more than twenty

656
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:20,319
Speaker 1: billion euros, which is pretty steep. I mean, it's hard

657
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 1: to imagine a commercial operation spending twenty billion euros to

658
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:27,120
Speaker 1: build a reactor, but you know, the ideas they build

659
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:28,720
Speaker 1: this one, they figure out how to make it better

660
00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 1: and cheaper, etc. Yeah, I feel I feel like bill

661
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:34,160
Speaker 1: is not even that much. I mean, for like, you know,

662
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 1: super cheap, free energy for the rest of humanity's history.

663
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 1: Sounds like a bargain. All right, well, I'm glad you're

664
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:42,400
Speaker 1: so open to investments. I'd like to pitch to you

665
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: that my Fusion Energy company. Would you like to invest

666
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:50,959
Speaker 1: facing Nigeria organized by a prince, Yes, please just click

667
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 1: on this link. No, but then there was a guy

668
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:55,439
Speaker 1: who took over in two thousand fifteen, and he's sort

669
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 1: of centralized power a little bit and decision making. And

670
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:02,239
Speaker 1: since two thousand fifteen, it's really been on track. It's

671
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: been very well organized. They got good spreadsheets, etcetera. And

672
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:08,879
Speaker 1: people now think in the community that it's going pretty well.

673
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 1: They're making steady progress. And they actually just recently the

674
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:15,399
Speaker 1: last few weeks shipped some of the cryostat, this thing

675
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:17,839
Speaker 1: that is going to hold the plasma. They shifted from

676
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 1: Korea to France to start assembly. So it's coming together.

677
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 1: It's coming together. We're starting to see real progress. And

678
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:26,719
Speaker 1: you know, this thing is going to be enormous, Like

679
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:28,320
Speaker 1: how big was the one at Princeton? Was it like

680
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 1: desktop size? No, it was definitely not a desktop size.

681
00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 1: It was like a really large room. You know, the

682
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 1: plasma on the scale of like a meter high. This

683
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,919
Speaker 1: thing is going to be like twelve The donuts gonna

684
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: be twelve meters high, twelve meters high. It's going to

685
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:43,799
Speaker 1: be enormous. But that's what they think. They need to

686
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 1: get a queue of ten to get ten times as

687
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:49,400
Speaker 1: much energy out as in. So it's a big task, right,

688
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:52,040
Speaker 1: and nobody ever built these things before. Remember when you

689
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:55,120
Speaker 1: do physics research at this scale. You're not like going

690
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:58,279
Speaker 1: to Best Buy and purchasing a fusion reactor and there's

691
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 1: a customer support when it doesn't work. Right, Nobody's ever

692
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 1: done this before, and so every decision, every piece of technology,

693
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:07,800
Speaker 1: every redoubt, everything has to be designed and thought about,

694
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 1: usually by physics grad students, and so you know, I'm

695
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 1: impressed when it works at all. It feels sort of

696
00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:16,640
Speaker 1: like they try to jump to orders of magnitude in

697
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 1: with this one, right, Like I feel like me, do

698
00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: you think maybe they try to bite off too much?

699
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:23,760
Speaker 1: Like they went from point four q two point six?

700
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 1: You know, I would think the next logical step is

701
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:30,120
Speaker 1: like two cute or something, but no, they went for ten. Yeah,

702
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: you know it's strategic, right. If they get que of

703
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 1: ten to work, then boom, fusion is a thing. Fusion

704
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 1: is now commercially viable. It's a whole new era for humanity.

705
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:42,319
Speaker 1: So I think they decided to just you know, go

706
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:44,719
Speaker 1: for the home run, and it's a strategic choice. If

707
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:47,800
Speaker 1: it doesn't work, then you know that the whole branch

708
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:50,359
Speaker 1: of research is probably dead. But you know, there are

709
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: other ways people are exploring fusion, so they're definitely swinging

710
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 1: for the fences, and that's a question of strategy, not science.

711
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: And I understand, and I'm rooting for them. I really

712
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:02,320
Speaker 1: hope make it work. I'm sick of all our crazy, dirty,

713
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 1: expensive energy. You'd be wonderful if they made fusion work.

714
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:08,439
Speaker 1: And you know, this thing, it's on track, and they're

715
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 1: expecting to finish the vessel that holds the plasma in

716
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:17,160
Speaker 1: about and to turn the thing on in to make

717
00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 1: first plasma. Well, it's pretty soon. That's pretty soon. Yeah,

718
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 1: that's you know, around the corner. And then they're going

719
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 1: to tweak in and play with it and gradually ramp

720
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 1: it up over the next few years. And they're hoping

721
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:32,320
Speaker 1: to get you actual power generated by this thing around. Now.

722
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:36,520
Speaker 1: That's assuming that it works. Is there anything still uncertain

723
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,080
Speaker 1: about the theory of it or do we know pretty

724
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:41,200
Speaker 1: well that it's going to work. It's just a matter

725
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:44,840
Speaker 1: of like timing the bolts. Well, the theorists are pretty confident.

726
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:47,560
Speaker 1: They think it's a pretty straight scale up and that

727
00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 1: if you build this thing and you do it correctly,

728
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:52,760
Speaker 1: it should really work. I mean, we've seen fusion happen.

729
00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 1: We know how to do it. They've just dealt with

730
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 1: a lot of the issues of plasma instability. They think

731
00:37:58,040 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 1: they know how to do that, how to manage the

732
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:03,360
Speaker 1: magnetic fields to suppress those instabilities, So they're pretty confident.

733
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:05,279
Speaker 1: On the other hand, you know, there's a lot of

734
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 1: things that crop up for the first time in reality

735
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:09,920
Speaker 1: that you didn't expect when you're doing them on paper.

736
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 1: They've done complicated simulations, etcetera. So they're pretty confident. But

737
00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 1: even if that's all correct, even if their theory is correct,

738
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:19,399
Speaker 1: and you build a thing and you turn it on

739
00:38:19,520 --> 00:38:22,400
Speaker 1: and it generates power, there are still some problems they

740
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:25,360
Speaker 1: haven't even actually started to think about, Like what, well,

741
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:27,279
Speaker 1: you know this thing is going to generate energy, but

742
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,160
Speaker 1: they haven't figured out how to capture that energy, Like

743
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:33,400
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do about energy? Yeah, what what

744
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 1: do you mean that there's no plan for, you know,

745
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:38,640
Speaker 1: actually taking the energy out. But because if you don't

746
00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 1: think the energy out, it's it's just gonna explode, isn't it?

747
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:43,320
Speaker 1: Or heat up? The energy A lot of is produced

748
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:45,840
Speaker 1: in the form of neutrons. So these neutrons are created

749
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 1: and they fly out with a lot of energy, and

750
00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 1: neutrons again aren't captured by the plasma because they're not

751
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:53,719
Speaker 1: charged as to the idea is figure out a way

752
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 1: to capture these neutrons outside of the plasma and turn

753
00:38:56,760 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: them into heat, and then turn that heat into steam

754
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:02,760
Speaker 1: and turn that steam to electricity. But nobody's really figured

755
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 1: out how to make that part work. And you know,

756
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:08,160
Speaker 1: neutrons are not great for you, Like, if you stand

757
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: near a high energy source of neutrons, you'll basically get

758
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:15,560
Speaker 1: cancer very quickly. And neutrons will also make stuff radioactive.

759
00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:17,839
Speaker 1: So if you just turn this thing on empower it

760
00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:20,719
Speaker 1: without doing anything about the neutrons, it'll turn the entire

761
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 1: reactor and then building it's in radioactive pretty quickly, and

762
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 1: not like good radioactive, but like activate it make it

763
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:30,919
Speaker 1: radioactive potentially for a long time. So what's the plan?

764
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: I mean, didn't they figure that out before they turn

765
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:35,000
Speaker 1: it on? Well, I think it's a two step plan.

766
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:37,320
Speaker 1: They're like, let's figure out how to make the energy

767
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:39,480
Speaker 1: and then we'll figure out how to capture it. But

768
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 1: it's it's a bit of the Oven Midst sort of situation.

769
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 1: You want to make sure you know how to handle

770
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:45,719
Speaker 1: this thing before you build it. So they have a

771
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 1: sketch of an idea. It's actually really clever if you

772
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 1: surround this thing in blankets of lithium, then neutrons when

773
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 1: they hit lithium, they capture the energy, the heat up

774
00:39:57,040 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 1: and you can you know, extract that energy through heat

775
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:03,919
Speaker 1: turning into electricity. Plus it turns the lithium blankets into

776
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:07,719
Speaker 1: exactly the kind of hydrogen you need to run as

777
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:10,360
Speaker 1: fuel for your reactor. So you need to turn lithium

778
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:14,279
Speaker 1: into basically deuterium or tritium, various isotopes of hydraight what

779
00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: So it's a nice little solution. Sorry, let me get

780
00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 1: maybe a picture here. So we have this donut and

781
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:25,480
Speaker 1: it's really hot, and it's containing a magnetic bottle and

782
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 1: it's giving off huge, huge amounts of neutrons. But don't

783
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 1: these neutrons and hit the walls of the container that

784
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: it's holding and then destroy it or heat it up.

785
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 1: Are you saying put the blankets of lithium before that

786
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 1: or within that. Well, they haven't made a whole lot

787
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 1: of progress on this. A lot of these ideas are

788
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 1: still sort of in early stages, and the Element of

789
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 1: the Eater program that was supposed to focus on exactly

790
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 1: those questions hasn't received a whole lot of funding. They're

791
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 1: really focusing just on generating the fusion and generating the energy,

792
00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 1: and so the folks I spoke to definitely acknowledge that

793
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 1: they needs to be worked on more. But you're right,

794
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 1: you can't put the lithium blankets directly inside or they

795
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 1: get melted by the plasma, and so they'll be parts

796
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:10,680
Speaker 1: of the reactor which will be irradiated by the neutrons

797
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,360
Speaker 1: and they will need to be you know, eventually replaced.

798
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:15,359
Speaker 1: So that's what I was talking about, is saying there

799
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 1: is some waste generated by a fusion reactor. Essentially the

800
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 1: reactor itself becomes irradiated and needs to be rebuilt and replaced.

801
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 1: But if you put these lithium blankets around the reactor,

802
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:30,520
Speaker 1: it should capture that energy from the neutrons and create

803
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:33,239
Speaker 1: more fuel you need to fuel the reactor. So it's

804
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:35,680
Speaker 1: a nice little cycle if you can make it work.

805
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 1: But you know, this hasn't really be improved in practice

806
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:41,320
Speaker 1: at the level we would need to actually get energy

807
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:46,040
Speaker 1: electricity out of eather. How do the neutrons create you said,

808
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:48,799
Speaker 1: it takes lithium, and the lithium catches it and then

809
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:53,320
Speaker 1: the lithium transforms into these heavy hydrogens. Yeah, so lithium

810
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:55,720
Speaker 1: is not a very heavy element, and if you smash

811
00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:58,880
Speaker 1: neutrons into it, then it cracks open and you can

812
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:02,719
Speaker 1: get hydrogens, and you can get deuteriums, you can get tritiums,

813
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:05,439
Speaker 1: and so it basically turns into the fuel you need

814
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 1: to funnel back into the reactor. But then then then

815
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:10,239
Speaker 1: don't you need more lithium? What if you're run out

816
00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:14,520
Speaker 1: of lithium? Yeah, essentially you need more lithium. But again,

817
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 1: lithium is not that rare. It's atomic number three. But

818
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:20,240
Speaker 1: you know, these are the parts of this whole research

819
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:22,839
Speaker 1: program that are not as fleshed out as the rest

820
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 1: of it. They're like, first, let's get Q of ten.

821
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: Let's produce a huge hot, you know, nasty burning doughnut,

822
00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:30,960
Speaker 1: and then we'll figure out how to use that donut

823
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 1: to run your eyes. Let's make a huge what did

824
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 1: you call it, huge, nasty burning donut, and then we'll

825
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:40,759
Speaker 1: figure out who knows that was the alternative name for

826
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 1: this program. They went with eater Instead, they went the

827
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 1: other way. They're like, I couldn't make this more appealing.

828
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 1: Let's call it the thermonuclear donut, all right? Well, hopefully

829
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:56,480
Speaker 1: they'll figure it out. I mean, it seems like they're

830
00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: they're confidant that it can be figured out and they

831
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:01,839
Speaker 1: just have to kind of put funding into it. Yeah,

832
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:04,280
Speaker 1: they really do hope that it works, and the whole

833
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 1: field is sort of like place their bet on this.

834
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 1: There are other ways people are working on fusion. There

835
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 1: are other devices like a stellarator, which doesn't have a

836
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:16,479
Speaker 1: current of plasma so doesn't create its own magnetic field.

837
00:43:16,520 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 1: You create the magnetic field from the outside, and it

838
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:21,680
Speaker 1: used to be that was essentially impossible to do because

839
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 1: it was so complicated. But now with computer aided design,

840
00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:27,440
Speaker 1: you can actually build the kind of crazy magnetic fields

841
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:29,840
Speaker 1: we need. So that's another area that's a that's a

842
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:34,239
Speaker 1: different project called the Drinker Experiment. And then there is

843
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:36,799
Speaker 1: the National Ignition Facility here in the US, which is

844
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 1: using lasers to zapp pellets of hydrogen and deterium to

845
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:42,840
Speaker 1: try to make fusion. But this one is sort of

846
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:44,920
Speaker 1: the biggest bet, and I really hope that it works

847
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:48,240
Speaker 1: and that it creates energy and that it changes something

848
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:51,880
Speaker 1: about the nature of science. You know. I do particle physics,

849
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 1: and we hope to learn about the nature of the universe,

850
00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 1: but there aren't really immediate practical applications. Here's one place

851
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:01,359
Speaker 1: where physics really can make a difference, I think in

852
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:03,880
Speaker 1: the whole history of humanity. You know, you can change

853
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 1: our relationship with our environment. Interesting, you're rooting for it

854
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: because you feel like people will see signs differently if

855
00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 1: we get it to work, Like science can be useful

856
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:17,359
Speaker 1: and a practical out for your Netflix and podcast. Yeah,

857
00:44:17,640 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 1: that's the one benefit. But also I just think there

858
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:21,600
Speaker 1: are a lot of folks out there that could really

859
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:24,720
Speaker 1: benefit from cheap energy. You know, if you have cheap energy,

860
00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 1: then a lot of other problems are solved, like fresh water.

861
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 1: All you need to get fresh water is saltwater plus energy.

862
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: So if energy is free or cheap, then all of

863
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 1: a sudden, fresh water is not hard to get. And

864
00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:37,879
Speaker 1: there a lot of problems that are like that where

865
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:41,960
Speaker 1: the solutions are easy if energy is cheap, you know,

866
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 1: climate change for example, and so a lot of problems

867
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 1: could we could look at them very differently if energy

868
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 1: becomes very cheap. And also, yes, it'd be nice to

869
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 1: have a feather in the cap of physics. Better life

870
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:56,359
Speaker 1: through physics, even if physicists don't have a life. We're

871
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 1: giving up ours for everybody else's all right. Well, we'll

872
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 1: keep an an eye out on this project, and hopefully

873
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:04,879
Speaker 1: we'll hear good news in in a few years from

874
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:07,080
Speaker 1: it that they can make it work. Hopefully it will

875
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: make standy progress, and we will hear that they will

876
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 1: have produced energy. So good luck Eaters, and we hope

877
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:17,760
Speaker 1: that you make it work. Good luck with that hot, burning,

878
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:20,880
Speaker 1: nasty donut. Maybe that should be the name of the

879
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:23,440
Speaker 1: snack bar at the Eater Experiment. Just don't eat it

880
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 1: because there's new trials all over the place here. All right, Well,

881
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:31,200
Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for listening, See you

882
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:41,680
Speaker 1: next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and

883
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:45,040
Speaker 1: Jorge explained. The Universe is a production of I Heart Radio.

884
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 1: Or more podcast from my heart Radio visit the i

885
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:51,880
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

886
00:45:51,960 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.