WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: Pew! Pew! Plasma! 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to text Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.920 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I am your host, 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:18.159 Jonathan Strickland, an executive producer with I Heart Radio and 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:20.960 I love all Things tech. It is time for a 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:24.160 tech Stuff classic episode. The episode you are about to 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:28.440 hear originally published on July one, two thousand thirteen. It 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.360 is titled Pew Pew Plasma. So this is an episode 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:35.720 all about plasma, what it is, what we use it for, 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.319 you know, maybe some sci fi stuff about plasma. We're 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:43.519 gonna check it out. Let's listen. In So, plasma weapons 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.160 is one of those staples in science fiction. But before 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.280 we kind of talk about what plasma weapons are, it 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:51.560 helps for us to actually think about what plasma is. Yes, 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:55.160 here in the reality world that we live in, Yeah, 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:57.720 the place where you and I spend all our time, 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:00.600 well most of our time, a little bit, not a 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:04.000 half and half of our time, Okay. In this world, 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:07.800 plasma is one of the four phases of matter, the 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.080 others being solid, liquid, and gas. And in fact, plasma 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:13.839 is the most plentiful of all these stages of matter, 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.800 just not here on Earth, no, not not so much. 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:19.760 But when you look at things like stars which are 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:24.000 many many, many times larger than Earth. That's what those 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:26.920 are made out of. That's that's all plasma. Yeah, so 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:30.679 it's ionized gas. Now that doesn't necessarily mean anything to 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:32.680 you if you haven't had a science course in a 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:34.920 really long time, or maybe you just haven't gotten to 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.959 that one yet, since we have listeners of all ages 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:41.360 up there. So an ionized gas means that those atoms 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:45.160 that are in the gas are made up of neutral particles. 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:49.240 Then you have ions, which are atoms that have either 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:51.840 gained or lost electrons. In the case of plasma, we're 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:55.320 talking about losing electrons, and then you've got electrons zipping around. 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:59.760 So the ions are positively charged, the electrons are negatively charged, um, 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:02.960 and it's all moving around in this high energy gas. 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.560 That also means that electricity can actually flow through plasma. 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:11.240 Plasma itself is a conductor. Yes, they're also affected by 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.080 magnetic fields. Yeah, because whenever you have charges, then that 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.800 means that it can respond to some sort of magnetic field. 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:21.200 We've talked many, many times about the relationship between electric 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.720 and magnetic fields. This is the case with plasma. So 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:26.840 if you have a plasma and you have a strong 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:30.400 magnetic field, you can actually guide that plasma in a 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:34.160 way or or or mobilize it or compress it, which 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:36.440 is really important in some of the applications. But we'll 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.480 talk about the applications in in just a minute. So 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:43.239 plasma stars make it through huge amounts of heat. I 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:47.120 mean you have to. You have to really take gas 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:50.080 and add energy to it to turn gas into a plasma. 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:52.560 That energy doesn't have to be heat. You know, for example, 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:56.079 a fluorescent bulbs have have plasma in them, and they 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:59.200 are obviously not that hot, so certainly not as hot 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:02.160 as the surface of son or an even an incandescent bulb. 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:06.680 So how do we make plasma? So it does require 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.120 that we add energy. Uh, And like you said, it 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:10.800 doesn't have to be heat. It can be in the 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:14.399 form of electricity, which is what we see with fluorescent 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:16.200 light bulbs. It's also what we see with things like 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.400 plasma torches. And we'll explain more about how those working 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:22.160 a little bit. But um, I want to read this 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:24.160 out because I got a little silly when I was 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:26.880 writing my notes. Laurens already enjoyed. I enjoyed this note, yes, 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:29.919 and I don't know what was in my coffee when 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.760 I started writing this one. But what I specifically wrote 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.320 my notes was you make plasma by adding energy to 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:37.840 a gas until electrons strip three of the atoms in 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:39.840 the gas, and you've got ions and electrons having a 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:43.200 sub atomic janet Reno dance party. So that's all my 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:46.640 all my Saturday Night Live friends out there who watched 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:49.160 in the nineties like I did, Yes, yeah, it's it's 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.840 basically just the nuclei of these atoms and the electrons 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.600 all going we yeah, especially if it's something like hydrogen, 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:58.120 because then all you have our protons, which are positively 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:00.520 charged sub atomic particles, and electro on, which are the 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:05.240 negatively charged sub atomic particles zipping around. Now, uh, plasma 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:07.800 does not necessarily have to just be hydrogen gas. It 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.720 can really be any gas if you add enough uh 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:13.400 energy to it to turn it into a plasma. It's 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:15.240 just hydrogen is the one we think of, because that's 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:18.520 what the Sun is made out of. Sun is actually 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:23.120 using hydrogen gas. It's got this this plasma hydrogen that 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:27.359 then fuses into helium, and that's the fusion process that 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:29.599 we see in the Sun that we hope one day 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.680 we can harness here on Earth or yes, harness, Yeah, 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.360 not replicate We already do replicate it right inefficiently. Yeah, 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:39.839 it's not. Unfortunately, the amount of energy we have to 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:42.400 pour into replicating it is more than what we get 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:44.719 out of it. So therefore it's not a good energy source. 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:47.800 But it's a pretty light show. We are hoping that 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:49.560 we can make that an energy source. And if you've 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:52.760 listened to our fusion episode, you know what we're talking about. Well, 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:54.200 we'll cover it a little bit more in a in 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.680 a second too. So, yeah, we use uh an electric 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:01.560 current apply to the gas to get energy that's necessary 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:06.039 to make the electrons pop off these these uh atoms, 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.520 turning them into ions. So in the case with like 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.279 a plasma torch, you've got these electrodes that create the 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.720 negative charge when you bring that torch in contact with 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.680 positively charged metal surface, so for example, a big old 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.279 hunk of iron. You complete the circuit right, and then 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.720 that allows the negative particles to move towards the positive particles. 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:29.960 In the process, you're ejecting the torch with compressed air. 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.839 That compressed air comes into contact with this incredibly powerful 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:38.760 electric charge, turns into a plasma, burns super super hot 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.440 and that's what allows you to cut through like a 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:45.320 giant and uh. And that's just one example of how 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:49.440 we use the the plasma here on our planet. Not 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:51.839 all of them are so violent that one is actually 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.559 kind of awesome. There are other uses for plasma torches. 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:58.479 We'll talk about two. So when we're talking about a 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.120 plasma like that, like in the case to a plasma torch, 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:06.800 you're talking about creating a a ionized gas. There's actually 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.480 hotter than the surface of the Sun in some cases. 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:15.160 So how do you contain something like that very carefully, right, 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:20.720 because if you don't, you just burn everything up. Well. Actually, fortunately, uh, 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:23.680 once once plasma gets away from its energy source, it 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:26.560 cools down very rapidly. Yeah, because you have to keep 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.840 pouring energy in to maintain that plasma state. You know, 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.560 with the Sun, it's just it's got that heat going 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:34.880 for it. That's what keeps it going. Here on Earth, 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:38.159 we would have to continue either applying heat or electricity 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.080 to maintain that plasma. If we didn't, it would start 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:43.599 to lose energy, and as it lost energy, it would 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.320 start to convert into a normal gas as opposed to 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:50.400 a plasma um. And also if we wanted to maintain 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:53.719 that that energy and keep the plasma going. We could 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:57.960 control it with magnetic fields. Not the band which you know, 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:00.360 I love Book of Love, great song, That's not what 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.159 we're talking about. We're talking about actual magnetic fields. You 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:06.440 could use those like electro magnets. You could use electromagnets 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.880 to control and contain plasma because, as we said before, 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.360 the electrical charge of the plasma reacts to the magnetic field. Right, 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.240 So if you just create it so that you are 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:19.360 repelling the plasma from all sides, you can contain an 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:23.400 into a little ball of plasma if you if you will, 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.680 or you know, various shapes. It's not really a ball necessarily, 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:29.880 but that's something that you would have to do because 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.800 otherwise it sort of blooms outward. Blooming is one of 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.600 those those terms that can be used in multiple ways 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:41.200 depending upon what specific technology you're referring to. So with lasers, 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:43.760 it's slightly different than with plasma. What I mean with 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.880 plasma is that it does tend to to spread out 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:51.720 kind of dissipates. So let's say that you you decide 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:54.120 that you're gonna hop into the shower, take a nice 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.480 hot shower and in the process you're generating a lot 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.280 of steam. That steam will just essentially go everywhere to 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:01.200 fill up the vaulvolume of the room you are in, 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:03.600 assuming that the room you are in is not palatial, 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:06.080 and that the steam can eventually cool down enough to 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.480 condense into water. So, uh, you know, that's that's the 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.040 same short thing with plasma. It's gonna spread out. It 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:16.000 behaves the way of gas. What it doesn't just maintain 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:19.600 its shape. So that's why you would need something like 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.480 a magnetic field to keep it in a specific shape 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.280 if that was your goal. And again, if it were 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.160 spreading out, then that would also mean to be losing 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.880 energy fairly rapidly. And cooling down doesn't necessarily mean that 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.760 you want to stand too close to a plasma torch 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:35.880 as it's going off, but it does mean that it's 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:37.880 not going to You know, when we talk about something 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:40.280 that can burn hotter than the surface of the sun, 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:41.880 we don't mean that if you turn it on and 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:44.640 immediately starts to burn a hole straight down through the 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.120 now a couple of feet away, it's gonna kinda cool 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:49.640 down enough that it's nothing yeah, yeah, and at least 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.320 not enough for it to cause massive problem, like a 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:56.000 structural integrity problem. That being said that, if you do 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:58.439 have a plasma furnace, you have to have lots of 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:02.160 cooling mechanisms in place to keep that operational. If you're 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:05.760 going to maintain a plasma burn and um. We'll talk 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:07.680 about that in a second. I like that we keep 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.440 on hinting the stuff we're going to talk about teasers. 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.040 We're actually kind of getting into it right now. Don't worry, 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:15.439 it's not like we're holding off that far. So we've 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:17.439 already kind of talked a little bit about what we 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.760 use plasma for. For instance, plasma torches. We talked about that, 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:24.440 and you mentioned fluorescent lights, But how exactly do fluorescent 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:28.160 lights work, Like, what is the the plasma application there? 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.400 What's what's happening inside of fluorescent Okay, So fluorescent bulbs 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.840 are sealed tubes and they inject current into them through 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:39.240 electrodes um. There the tubes, the tubes are filled with 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.959 with an inert gas usually classically are gone and uh 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:45.520 and a little bit of liquid mercury and um. So, 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:48.720 so when the current flow flows through these electrodes um 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.640 it causes the inert gas in the tube to plasma 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.600 ify um. And I'm not sure if that's a real word. Yes, 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:59.120 it is excellent, it is right now anyway, it's real 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:01.400 enough for me. We are the music makers, Yes, we 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:05.240 are dream of dreams. Yes. Um. And when when that 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.920 when that gas plasma i fis um, the electrons begin 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:14.880 migrating through the tube due to this electric charge. Okay, um, 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:19.480 this this energy makes liquid mercury gasify all right. And 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:24.079 then those uh, those those little gasified mercury atoms um 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:30.360 collide with the argon plasma, and the the electrons in 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:33.719 the in the mercury atoms start getting excited by these 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:37.319 collisions and and jumping up a level. Right. And now 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.760 now that this this, this is basically how photons are formed. 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:43.200 When um, when something collides with the particle and gets 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:45.920 those electrons excited, it jumps up a level, and then 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.160 when it contracts back down to its former position, a 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:51.480 photon is given off. Right, Because what's happening is you're 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.320 pouring energy into the atom, which is allowing the electron 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.000 to move to further out from the nucleus. When the 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.520 electron starts coming back into the nucleus, that means it 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.920 has to rule lease that the energy that was used 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.319 to push it out in the first place. That release 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.679 tends to be in the form of a photon, so 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.760 a light particle. In the case with mercury, most of 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:14.440 those light particles are actually ultra violet correct um, which 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:16.520 which is invisible to the human eye. So it wouldn't 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:18.760 be a very useful light bulb if that's all it did, 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.040 I mean, apart from you know, maybe you wanted to 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.560 have a wicked black light kind of thing going on, right, 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.120 and that is how black lights work. Um. But but 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:29.280 the the inside of most bulbs that are not black 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.280 lights are covered with them with a powdered phosphor coating 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:36.600 and um. This these these phosphor atoms get bombarded by 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.920 the UV photons, uh, go through one of those fancy 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:44.360 electron jumps, and in the process release a visible light photon. Right. 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:48.440 So you're you're actually having two incidents of the same 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:50.959 process going on within a fluorescent bulb. It's just one 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.600 of them is what is giving us the light that 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.720 we can see within the visible spectrum and uh and 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.400 and the other is the more practical from a energy 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.320 conversion and um. And also I mean it's stuff like 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:07.760 ourgon gas is pretty common and inexpensive. By the way, 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.280 the fact that there is mercury in floresce invulves is 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:12.120 one of those reasons why you want to be very 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.440 careful with floresce involves, especially break them open and lick them. Yeah, 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.400 when you're disposing of fluoresce evolves, you need to be 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.760 very careful because mercury is very toxic. Uh. And it 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.120 can make you go crazy and not in a fun 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.720 Las Vegas kind of way. Science fact. Yes, So that's 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:30.840 one way that we use plasma along with torches. Yeah. 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.160 And and this this brings us actually to plasma TVs 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:37.600 because plasma TVs are are essentially um made. A plasma 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:40.240 display is made up of a bunch of very small 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:44.200 colored fluorescent lights. Um. By altering the kind of phosphors 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:46.839 that you're using in a fluorescent lights coating, you can 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.400 alter the kind of visible light that comes out of it. Right, 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.320 So what color you actually receive? And uh and these 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:58.079 are are our gp uh green blue red green blue lights. Right. 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.960 So uh and here's an interest things. So one of 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:04.200 the things that you know people who are home theater 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:08.000 enthusiasts and you know they either subscribe to L. E. D. 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:12.160 L c D or plasma TVs. Uh. One of the 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.679 things they talk about is contrast ratio, which is the 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.800 difference between the whites that you can display on a 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.560 screen versus the the shades of black that you can 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:23.160 display on a screen. And if you have a true black, 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:25.760 that means that if you were to turn off all 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:27.520 the lights in your room and look at your TV, 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.840 it should just disappear. It should not even be noticab glowing. Right. 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.520 If you have an l c D television, chances are 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:36.440 is that if you have all the lights off and 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:38.760 you have a black screen on your TV and the 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:41.319 TV is on, you can actually see more like a 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:44.240 really really deep gray color. And it's because it has 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.920 a back light, whereas plasma televisions do not have that backlight. 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.560 It's just relying upon that excitation of the gas. Yeah. There, 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.160 it's just all of these little pixels of of red 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:56.240 grit and blue light that are they are very small 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:58.880 and uh contributing to a larger picture. Right. So when 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:01.360 it's when the screen is is black, it's because there's 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.320 nothing active. It's not that you know, there's like a 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.040 little tiny shield between the back light and you, which 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:09.280 is technically what's going on with most l c d s. 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:15.400 The shield is very tiny, but it is what it is, uh, 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.280 And there were a lot of other like differences between 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.400 plasma and l c d s, especially early early on. 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.200 In fact, if you really want to experience the joy 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:25.600 of learning about the differences, you can listen to one 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:28.720 of the very first episodes of tech stuff. We're talking 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.600 like back, I think when it was five minutes. You 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:33.920 would have to go to our RSS feed to find it. 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.080 But if you went to our RSS feed and scrolled 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:38.880 all the way down and then looked a couple of 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.280 episodes up from the very first one, you would see 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.200 that Chris and I did an episode all about the 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.480 difference differences between plasma TVs and l c ds. But 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:50.320 in this case, plasma is um. You know, one of 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.160 the exactly what we're talking about, this ionized gas. Now 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:55.160 keep in mind, both with four essence and with the 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.240 plasma TVs, these are not gases that are burning at 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.640 hotter than the surfaces, right, No, no, they're not. However, 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:04.720 our next application will be Okay, well are you talking 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:07.920 about plasma waste converters UM? I was going to talk 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:10.960 about plasma torches, but we can also talk about plasma 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.200 waste converters, right, because we kind of talked about plasma 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:16.320 torches already, did we did? I I wanted to mention 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:18.400 that they they've actually been around since World War Two, 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:22.560 when when factories working on military aircraft started adopting welding 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:26.000 techniques that they that they realized were um uh, we're 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:31.040 much more efficient because they um when when you're feeding 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.640 that inert gas through through the electrical arc um, it 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:36.600 creates a barrier around the world with the with with 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:40.200 the airflow and um that that protects it from oxidation, 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.240 which is very useful when you're trying to make things 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.040 stick together like metal um, right, especially if it's metal 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.800 that's going to be under tremendous stress and poor and 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.200 poor conditions, you know, like like having you know, salty 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:55.240 water being tossed at it. Sure. Sure, but plasma waste 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:57.920 converters are a little different. It's using the same technology 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.200 as plasma torches in the that you have a plasma 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.280 torch at the heart of the plasma waste converter. And 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:06.440 anyone who's listened to tech stuff long enough knows that 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:08.400 I'm crazy about this idea because I just think it's 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.800 so cool. The idea is that you are using plasma 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:14.240 in the case, in the sense of a plasma torch 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:18.240 to break down the molecular bonds of garbage. So you 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:21.480 bring garbage in and the garbage gets exposed to a 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.840 plasma torch within a furnace. The furnace itself is lined 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:28.000 with lots of protective material to keep it at a 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:32.920 workable temperature, so it doesn't you know, break down. But 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:36.440 the garbage itself, when it's exposed to this intense heat, 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.520 the molecules that hold it together, that those bonds that 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:43.040 hold the molecules together rather they break and it turns. 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:47.600 It's called molecular dissociation. Yeah, I've dissociated with some molecules 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:49.240 in my time, and let me tell you it's a 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:52.280 violent process. And so in this case, what happens is 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:56.680 the material breaks down into one of two forms. Either 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.680 if it's carbon based, it then turns into gas, or 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.000 if it is not common based, if it's not organic, 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:06.440 it then melts down into slag. And usually before you 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:08.960 would even go through this process, you would actually sort 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:11.320 through this garbage, you know, take out anything that's metal 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:14.200 that you could recycle. That kind of stuff, and so 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:16.280 what you what you're left with is a gas that 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.359 if you treat it chemically, you could actually make a 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:22.800 synthetic fuel out of it, which is one of those 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.360 promising future fuels that people talk about sometimes, right. And 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:28.160 it's not that this is a fuel that would it's 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:30.200 not that we would create enough of this to make 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:32.440 it our primary source of fuel, but it could help 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.240 offset some gasoline. Yeah, and or even if you just 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:37.679 had it on site, if you had energy production on 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.119 site along with plasma waste converter, then you could actually 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.760 generate electricity. Yeah, you can fuel a converter, and if 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.480 you made enough electricity from the fuel. It all depends 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:49.199 on what the garbage is made out of, but if 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:54.080 you made enough, you could even feed electricity back. And so, 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:57.680 but then the other stuff, the slag just melts off, 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:00.960 and if you let it cool by air, it become ms. Uh. 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.359 This rocky substance looks like volcanic glass, and you can 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:06.919 use that in construction materials. If you cool it with 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.120 compressed air, it turns into what's called rock wool, which 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:15.439 is very uh effective insulator. Uh. If you cool it 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.000 by water, it turns into this little pebbly kind of 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.840 substance that you can use for multiple purposes. It's just 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:25.000 a neat idea and it's uh, you know, it comes 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:28.840 at several different problems all at once. Energy production, although 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:30.880 on a very small scale. Again, it's not like this 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.439 is going to it's not like it's gonna be mr fusion, right, 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.800 it's not a powery car um but energy production as 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:39.400 well as getting rid of garbage in a way that 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:41.960 it would mean that we turn our garbage into fuel 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:45.159 sources and eventually we could even if the if the 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:48.600 facilities were large enough, get rid of landfills, we would 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:53.160 eventually mine the landfills from fuel plus taken all incoming garbage. Now, 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:55.280 and this is in a relatively clean way, by the way, 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:58.600 because it doesn't use oxidation in the burning process. You're 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.280 not you're not actually burning stuff, just burning. You're applying 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:03.720 so much energy that it just breaks it down. Yeah. 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.840 So yeah, it's different from burning garbage and then releasing 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:09.520 toxins into the air. Keeping in mind that the gases 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:13.879 that you are getting from this process would be pretty 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:15.919 toxic in some cases. But that's why you have to 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:20.359 have the chemical scrubbing part where you use uh. Special, 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:23.520 you cool the gas down in several in several steps, 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:25.760 and once it's cool enough, you then combine it with 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.720 other gases that will allow the useful stuff to pass 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:32.359 through and become synthetic fuel and the other stuff, the 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.720 toxic stuff would bind with other agents to become essentially 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.600 inert material that you could then dispose up safely. At 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:42.760 least that's the ideal. Um. All that being said, really 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.720 expensive proposition, which is why we don't see it everywhere, 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.919 right right, But but pretty cool though, um and uh 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:52.639 and and this is possibly why people in science fiction 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:55.920 decide that, hey, you know this thing where we're literally 0:19:55.960 --> 0:20:00.280 breaking down the molecular structure of atoms. So that's yeah, 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:02.639 why don't we use that as a weapon. I mean, 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:04.320 if this is, if this is something that can turn 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:09.440 stuff into just gas or molten slag, wouldn't that make 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:13.360 an amazing weapon? And in theory, sure, and that's probably 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:15.560 one of the reasons why it's so popular in science fiction. 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:17.840 But we'll we'll take a closer look at that before 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:19.560 we get into the science fiction e part and the 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:29.479 actual weapon part. Let's take a quick break, all right, 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:31.359 So we touched on it. Why you would want a 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:35.040 plasma weapon because plasma is the stuff of stars, and 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:37.960 if you were able to wield that in a weaponized way, 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:42.680 you would be the biggest, baddest monster in the universe. 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:44.200 You were looking at me to see how I was 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:46.520 going to end that, weren't you, Because you're thinking like, 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:48.199 there are a lot of words that he could use 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:50.280 to in that phrase, and some of them would require 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:54.520 a beap, but I was good. So yeah, it's it's 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:58.760 this idea of transmitting huge amounts of thermal energy or heat. 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:02.520 So if you think of our traditional guns, the stuff 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:05.760 that we have right now today, most of those guns 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:10.119