There is a shortage of tritium which is needed for the fusion of deuterium and tritium. I hear that even the military is short on tritium. That is a serious shortage. It can be made from lithium using neutrons inside a fission reactor. Time to scale up.
You forgot to mention that the energy put in which the output was 50% greater than was technically only the last step of the chain, the laser was started using a lot more power. But still it's a good proof of concept!
When you add the amount of energy needed to pump the lasers, they got out 1% of what they put in. The net gain refers only to the target output, the pellet outputted more energy than the lasers dumped, but importantly that does not include the huge energy cost of pumping the lasers. While this is an exciting development, our reaction needs to be more measured by considering things like laser pumping energy requirements and other losses. Most of the infrastructural progress has been tokamak-based magnetic confinement rather than inertial confinement so we are a long way off from putting energy into the grid. It will be more monumental when we have a true net gain rather than just a target gain.
If every high school science class was like this nobody would skip science class. It would probably be one of their most favorite classes and actually look forward to going to science class and many more would want to become a scientist
@@jimj2683. I wouldn’t say all that. What I would say is that school is one size fits all. It’s hard (I say imposible) to tailor a curriculum for each individual needs.
You want school to be more like this? Okay, here goes: - be very, very nice to your teachers (the equivalent of 42K likes, a high income and regular praise in the media), so they can be as relaxed, happy and confident as Mr. deGrasse. - don't try to sick your parents onto your teachers the moment you don't like your grade. (same purpose) - keep up with what's going on in politics and make sure to support organisations & politicians who are trying to improve the working conditions for teachers and students - that means: *vote*, keep searching for background information and understand that politicians can't clean up in two years what has been messed up for (at least) two decades. Seriously: I understand that this comment - and a hundred other ones just like it - are supposed to be a compliment to the video you just watched, but probably due to repetition: yep, I'm a bit sick and tired of it. *Any* video you watch is entirely passive learning, so *at best* it teaches you to repeat what you just heard. It also uses prior knowledge that some over-worked teacher in school had to teach you. It does not teach you any research or analysis skills, which school is supposed to do. There's a heck of a lot more money going into this than what a public school gets per 12 minutes class time. The two lovely, fun, relaxed people who are doing this don't have to worry about cat-calls, class room discipline, your next test, being rated and paid by some insane algorithm, your parents, how much of this you remember three years down the line or a hundred little insults and accusations, of which _"hey, you just want to cement the social hierarchy !!1!"_ isn't the worst by far.
As a kid, I grew up in an America that was still exulting in the Apollo program and the Voyager missions. I've watched the country turn its back on science more and more with each passing year. But here, at the close of 2022, we have Artemis returning to the Moon and breakthroughs like this. My fondest wish is that it might inspire a whole new generation of scientists to continue the good work.
Hmm, turn its back on science…. there have been incredible achievements in space since that time… mostly with unmanned missions…. equating “science” with manned space flight is just, incorrect…. what do Johnny Lunchpail and Sally Housecoat prefer to see, Hubble and the James Webb revealing the origins of life, the universe, and everything…? or astronauts with funny no gravity hair wishing a happy thanksgiving on tv, and playing with water droplets…. apparently it’s the latter… :)
Important caveat: P_reaction=1.5 but P_total= 0.007 From my understanding the laser added 2MJ to the reaction and got 3MJ out. But 300MJ was required to power the laser in the first place. I am curious about the steps required to make this a feasible technology. This feel like it was omitted from the talk and also feels like quite the hurdle to overcome! I am curious of your thoughts.
Well, that’s a problem with laser efficiency then, not with fusion. Presumably we can make much more efficient lasers, or there’d be no point in even going down this road in the first place.
@@emotown1 indeed. That’s just a very significant difference ahah. This is definitely a big step. I just wish NGT had made it clear that this isn’t a viable means of energy production yet! He made it sound like all we need to do is scale it up.
@@soul0360 agreed that it is confusing, but not meant to be intentionally misleading. it is only a success in the context of the experiment, which is what these scientists are focused on. they are not yet responsible for building fusion reactors for the sake of energy production. Getting more energy than the laser puts in is just one important milestone
I started studying quantum physics in the 70's and have been waiting for this paradigm shifting event since then. So grateful this has occurred in my lifetime. I hope I get to see humans walk on the moon again.
So you study quantum physics but you still think we have been to the moon? Either the government is better at brainwashing than I thought, Or our scientists are idiots and we are doomed.
I got my PhD in physics (nuclear physics) in 1971. The engineering obstacles are still huge. We should all be hopeful, but living to see this produce enough electricity in our lifetime Suds, good luck.
Except that he's wrong quite a bit. He said that we have no power strong enough to desalinize water on a global scale. He's wrong. We have the sun which does it every single day on earth.
Did he tell you the best part? That once fusion reaches the consumer, the government will add massive taxes to it making your energy way more expensive
I wish he'd talk about the fact that the 150% calculation is just the energy they put into the fusion reaction. The surrounding power generation used vastly more power to make that happen. They used an old laser and a lot more work has to be done to get the total power input down. But this is still huge because it demonstrates that the reaction itself is totally doable!
It wasn't one laser it is over 100 of the most powerful lasers... it took a team of people working together to make sure everything worked. However, proving it can be done helps in understanding what we might need to engineer in order to actually use it.
But it's LIGHT YEARS from it being COMMERCIALLY PRACTICAL. The claims of "breakeven" are for theoretical results, NOT practical results -- they just want funding. As always, we're 40 years away from this being practical UNTIL proven otherwise.
There was a moment there when the guest speaker queried "what did they actually measure" ... or something like that, almost as if they had planned to talk about it or I don't know maybe that guy's really smart, but then they distracted themselves
As a retired mechanical engineer, this has been the most down-to-earth explanation of thermalnuclear fusion I have ever heard. Absolutely brilliant. BTW, what is written on the T-shirt Chuck is wearing, and how can I obtain one?
As a fellow retired Mech Eng, I’d have thought you’d been more than a little concerned at how this video fails to also cover how much actual energy was required (read: 300 MJ) to create the 2 MJ of laser energy?
@@lonnyhandwork422 Oh were you looking for 7:10 one perhaps? These are multiple scientists doing their best at their own field. I dont think they would leave out efficiency in the mix
@@suspiciousdoge9yand104 no, he left the impression that the energy gain is greater than overall energy invested in the system, which is incorrect. 400 MJ was energy consumption of the laser array, which got them a laser of around 2 MJ and got around 2.5 MJ energy. 398 MJ of energy is wasted even before the lasers hit the target.
Quantum love. That's why the show is so great. Neil breaks everything down to where normal people can understand a complex topic, and they make it entertaining at the same time.
sometimes breaking down is leaving the good bits out, in this case the bad ones to. They put in 300MJ of energy in the lazers, then zap the fuel with 2MJ of lazer power and got 3MJ of fusion energy... That's 0.01 total efficieny... a car at least get 0.2.. And as for proof of concept, we already know fusion works since we have a star close by called the sun
@@Bultish they addressed the efficiency in the press conference. This was a proof of concept, for research. Efficiency was about as low on the list as possible. The equipment was also old, they used tech from the '90s. The 300MJ draw from the wall was also not just the lasers, but also all the other equipment, much of which won't be needed outside research. Efficiency was never the focus, here; what _was,_ was to see how much energy the lasers added to the nuclear reaction, compared to what came out. That was 2MJ to 3MJ. What the energy draw at the wall was, is irrelevant. And, yes, as Neil also mentioned in this video, we've known since almost the last war how to create fusion. What we _didn't_ know, was how to make ignition in a controlled environment, where the amount of energy you _added_ to the reaction was _less_ than what you got _out._ Until now.
@@Bultish A lot of youtube science people are using this logic to devalue the accomplishment but its a very flawed thinking. The point of research was not to manufacture fusion energy for public use but to make fusion output in a controlled manner. Just to get a controlled output from fusion has been impossible up until now. Magnetic confinement have come very close but could not break even. Saying this wasn't a big accomplishment is like saying the first semiconductor was not a big accomplishment simply because you can't use it in an iPad. smh. Science is slow.
As a non-physicist seeing all the amazing reactions of the physicists all over the internet over this news, I believe this is something so big that maybe I couldn't understand for now, but I'm having a goosebump to realize that we are now already in the future that I imagined decades ago through science fictions like star trek. It's like a dream.
Sorry to wake you from your dream, but it took 322 megajoules of energy to power the lasers that created 3 megajoules of heat (a little fact Tyson left out). I wish such sensationalism didn't oversell what is an important milestone, but we're two orders of magnitude away from net positive power.
If I had a professor like Neil back in college I would’ve had all A’s on Chemistry and Physics. His talent and clarity explaining things is just unbelievable.
On which planet does human have the capability of capacity to recreate this, see on TH-cam. 12th Century Hoysaleswara Shiva Temple, Karnataka, Indiaka, India
As a man who made career repairing coal fired power plants, I've been waiting for this! It's your explanation of the explosion that interests me. When you pulverize coal like talc, it explodes in the boiler. It's controlling that explosion that is the trick! More things change the more they stay the same!
The engine in every non-electric vehicle ever built operates on the same idea of controlling explosions. Definitely a link here in applying old principles and practices we've learned in other arenas to new fields of study.
@@CyberTron30O0 I would assume that would be anti-matter. The same as matter but with negative charge, for example sodium has 1 plus charge, anti-matter sodium would be a negative 1 charge.
@@CaptApril123 Nail-on-head, sir. Any particle or atom whose electrical charge is reversed would be antimatter. In its atomic nucleus would be antiprotons (negative charge instead of positively charged protons) and neutrons, and it would be orbited by positrons (positive charge instead of negatively charged electrons).
My friend and I worked at Culham and Harwell in the 1970s - fusion was just around the corner. 50 years on and countless billions later, fusion is - you guessed it, just around the corner.
That's great, if we can get fusion power ball rolling it would benefit mankind with limitless energy and could power the space ships to travel the solar system
Looks like Lawrence Livermore is looking for more funding from the government. If it’s possible to create fusion, it’ll probably be done with a simpler method.?
Always love your way of teaching and educating. As Einstein said, if you can't explain something simply, you don't know it well enough. You, sir, are one GREAT teacher 🙏🙏🙏
At over 50 years old, I've seen so many amazing developments in my lifetime, but this one might be the most exciting of them all. I remember my high school science teacher talking about hydrogen, and fusion, and the idea that one day a car might run forever on a gallon of saltwater. And now we've taken that first step toward truly sustainable, clean energy. We are on the cusp of something truly amazing. I just hope to see it come to practical fruition during my lifetime. Congrats to Lasers, Lasers, and Lasers for their hard work and amazing achievement. I'm sure the Nobel committee will have something to say to them shortly.
Yeah, I can hardly wait to pay enormous taxes for this tech, both from the utility provider, and every level of government. Energy will be stealing 50% of everyones income under Demonrats
So then, you deplete the world's oceans of water, which would disrupt weather systems and cause worldwide droughts. The Earth would become lighter in weight, spin out from its orbit, be pulled by the gravitational forces of the Sun, and would be doomed to destruction. Nice plan. Got anything else?
A classic example of genius…taking a complicated subject and explaining it in terms that the common folk can understand…and with humor…another genius ingredient of their approach to teaching…love these guys…
Every time I hear about fusion, its 20 years away. Twenty years later its _still 20 years away_ but today its finally here! And it only took 20 years!!! Honestly its amazing they did this, what an accomplishment, hopefully in 20 years it'll be scaled up enough to power our civilization. 😜
Something that made me struggle understand fusion is that it seemed like a pretty "free" source of energy. TV presents it as a type of miracle where you get more energy out than the one they put in, but they never mension that the extra energy comes from the lost mass of the element being fused. Thanks Neil !
On which planet does human have the capability of capacity to recreate this, see on TH-cam. 12th Century Hoysaleswara Shiva Temple, Karnataka, Indiaka, India
Fusion of nuclei to produce nuclei less massive than iron, releases energy, in stars especially. But when a "burnt-out" star no longer can maintain itself against the now irresistible problem of its own weight, the gravitational energy of its own mass collapsing under the force of attraction of its own centre of gravity, like an inordinately large meteorite crashing into an equally inordinate attracting mass, and continuing to fall as the force gets bigger the smaller the radius is, stores that energy as progressively larger nuclei, which will release it if they can be split. One fusion event splitting one massive nucleus of uranium or plutonium releases far more energy than one fusion event of deuterium and tritium. It is true that the creation of 235 kg of helium and neutrons from 94 kg of deuterium and 141 kg of tritium will produce a lot more energy than the fission of 235 grams of U-235, but you have to capture the 47 kg of neutrons and power the lasers with some of it.
@@mrbaab5932 I know that, but thank you, your question has drawn my attention to my typo in calling the splitting of uranium "fusion". I have corrected it.
I work at one of the laboratories that helped develop this technology and it was a huge deal across the laboratory. It’s incredible to see humanity advancing technology like this to make sci-fi closer to reality. Such a breakthrough for humanity.
On which planet does human have the capability of capacity to recreate this, see on TH-cam. 12th Century Hoysaleswara Shiva Temple, Karnataka, Indiaka, India
I remember reading about laser implosion back in high school. The article said the lenses would have to be made in zero gravity to be pure enough to focus perfectly on the plutonium sphere. They didn't have a magnetic field strong enough for containment when the article was written either. It's totally awesome to see that theory come to fruition.
I love listening to Neil's explanations because he makes everything so easy to understand, and he and Chuck have a good time doing it!! Now I know why the news about a fusion breakthrough is so exciting!!
Chuck brings light to the matter (so to speak) and makes us commoners relate to all this space mumbo jumbo. I laughed as I typed that semi jokingly. Amazing material per usual thanks!
@@K_Z_R I agree... I laugh whenever Chuck gets that serious look when he's listening to Neil explain something and then the second he gets it his face kind of lights up. I think he's a pretty good sidekick...
Not going to lie, this was probably the most inspirational piece of news I saw the other day. Truly gives me hope that humanity can become better and live. I never thought I would see this breakthrough in my lifetime and I'm 30. Now, it just a matter of what they do with that technology and if can deliver the expectations we want.
you realize all they have done was make a laser with a 2 mega jouls energy hit on a pelet of deuterium and tritium to get back 3.5 mega jouls... however to create the laser they used 300 mega jouls lol meaning there is 99% energy loss in this whole reaction lol. 300 mega joules and they get back only 3.5 lol
As a former instructor, I would lose my position of the thinking process when the "Comedian" would take over, and then my recall of what I had learned would stall. So I went and reviewed it again to pick up the pieces together fast forwarding through the interruptions. Very interesting Mr. Tyson.
@@sweezlesquee not at all. The computer power it takes to control lasers/magnets are too much. Materials were not as soohisticated etc. Everything has to come together when time is.
I remember back in high school if I ask questions because I didn't understand something the teachers would respond I wasn't paying attention, I wish I had teachers that acted like Mr Tyson when I was in school, I appreciate how he breaks things down in simple terms and it's easy to understand, it makes me more interested in science
There is NOTHING BETTER than having Mr. Tyson explain the possibilities of the future as he does it better than any formal educator that I have ever experienced! His ability to break this information down to where the average person can understand this extremely technical information into a simple form others will understand and be able to discuss, although in the simplest form, how this as well as other information he has disseminated into everyday life. And his "side kick" who I'm sure is also extremely intelligent (being he works with Mr. Tyson) helps bring out what Mr. Tyson in trying to convey to the rest of the world. I thank you both for what you do!
On the a anniversary of Carl Sagan's death 26 years ago and with gratitude for Niel for reprising COSMOS I'd like to say Thank you Neil for keeping the light of knowledge burning. Shout out to Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's wife and collaborator, For keeping the dream alive!
I'll tell you a secret among scientist that we never admit publicly, whenever there is a major breakthrough with a ton of hype and major media exposure the hype and future predictions are ALWAYS false and the scientist know it. The hype is just to get funding but science ALWAYS leads us in a way we can't predict. To be clear this is an exciting development but I promise it doesn't mean what anyone predicts it will mean. Unfortunately selling hype is the only way to get the funding science deserves. Science should always be at the forefront of every budget, nothing benefits humanity more. Sadly that's not the case though.
I’m so thankful for star talk. I saw the article about this a couple days ago and had tons of questions. Thank you for talking about this in a clear succinct way. You both are appreciated!
You two are the greatest. I was never really interested in science but I understood it a little bit but you guys make watching you listening and being informed an incredible experience thanks
I heard that the 3 football field sized facility at the moment of ignition was using 100 times more power than than stated for the fusion (3megajoules around 1,000 watts.). Importantly, this is an experiment that has not been duplicated at other facilities.
I agree. From this vid: "You can add up how much energy it takes to turn on the lasers and fire them, and then look at how much energy comes out after you've done this, and they got 50% more energy out of this, than the energy of the lasers that went into this." Didn't think I'd ever by correcting Neil DeGrasse Tyson, but this statement isn't exactly correct. They got 50% more energy out than the lasers at the point they went into the chamber with the fusion, but the energy loss in the process of creating the beams and getting them to that chamber was massive. They in fact generated only 1% of the energy was used to power up the lasers! So, it is a milestone, but still no nearly as exciting as they seem to be making it.
@@jfc123 So still a negligible gain..we still seem to have the same problem with fusion..Too much in for not enough out. Where is the great benefit to society?
@@josephhubbard5299 I have no problem with pursuing fusion. It's the hype/click bait/ and omission very significant facts from the reporting on it by some. This is a milestone, but no nearly what the press wants to inflate it to. I would think Neil would be a little more up front about that... There were days were solar produced a fraction of the % of cost it took to create a panel. Eventually it became viable. Fusion may become viable, but it may not before other renewables are already long up and running. Not sure. I believe it is worth investigating.
@@jfc123 Where did you get that info? LLNL press release claims they put in 2.05 MJ and got out 3.15 MJ meaning a yield of 1.1 MJ (about the amount of energy you get out of the burning of 200 matchstick heads). So the energy they got was small and ultimately the energy they put in was pretty small... but they were only imploding a grain of sand in a Hohlraum with the volume with less than 10mm³ which does seem somewhat impressive compared to the space and time you would need to wait to get the energy from those match stick heads and by "matchstick head" I really mean just the red and white coating on the wooden stick that burns when struck. Even so the amount of actual flammable matchstick material burning over 3 or so seconds vs a 1/10,000 second flash of energy created from the implosion of that tiny Beryllium coated Deuterium and Tritium filled pellet shows the difference in energy between traditional energy and fusion... sounds impressive until you remember we need to push that boulder up a huge hill and every time we do it rolls down the other side destroying the town beneath it on the other. We wasted more energy just to get that boulder up the hill and it provided us with nothing useful in the end. Good thing fusion in real life couldn't actually have a ridiculous runaway reactiom like in Spider-Man 3 though, it's one of the pluses fusion has over traditional fission reactions, it's just a waste of time.
I described to my wife the whole "two protons sticking together" process as, "imagine trying to push the N-pole of two magnets together but the magnets are wrapped in Velcro. Once you can get them close enough, they'll stick together."
For decades we've heard "In the next 20 years...." I followed Princeton's efforts many years ago. They were always getting further and further up the hill. But the amount of energy required held them back. I can't believe Livermore did it and I'm till alive to see it!
They didn't do it. We have been able to make fusion for decades. What is really important is if you can get energy out of the reaction. I'll believe it when I see it.
@@barakobama8194 to start up. Like most power stations, you need a lot more energy to get going than to sustain. Start up is not a regular thing. This is a breakthrough - once it can be sustained you can calculate how long it will take to overcome that startup energy. Prior to this, it was not possible.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:13 🌎 Introduction to the excitement around nuclear fusion and its potential to address the climate crisis. - Fusion is in the spotlight as a potential solution to energy needs and climate change. 01:05 ⚛️ Explanation of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories' role in managing nuclear materials and their approach to fusion. - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories handle nuclear materials and have developed a powerful laser for fusion experiments. 02:09 💥 Description of the process of creating high temperature and pressure to induce nuclear fusion. - Fusion requires extreme temperature and pressure to bring protons close enough for the strong nuclear force to take over. 06:50 🌟 Revelation of a successful fusion experiment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, yielding 50% more energy output than the input. - The experiment achieved a breakthrough by getting more energy out than was put in, marking a significant step towards practical fusion energy. 08:24 🔥 Discussion of the challenges of controlling fusion for practical applications. - The key challenge in fusion is not making it but controlling it for practical energy generation. Made with HARPA AI
@@Showmetheevidence- Think Abbot and Costello. The punchiline is nothing without the straight man. He does the same job, just in a far more informative and serious way. The job is the same, but he's not meant to make you laugh much, but to make you think. The humour is there, but thinking is much more important.
I am amazed at the innovations realized in my lifetime. Before this announcement, I was worried about the future generations and their quality of life. I've lived my life and grateful for all it's wonders. Now I have hope that my grandchildren, and their children, will live in world new and amazing discoveries. I just hope the technologies created with this research will be available to all of mankind and not to only those who can pay a costly price.
@@DrBlood-cq2cm It's mankind. It has been mankind since the English language spread across the planet. At very best... humankind. "Person" implies a sense of self. A personality if you will. Not many these days have a personality. They merely copy the personality of another. Channel after channel here on youtube alone contains objective evidence of that fact. And I LOVE breaking cold, heartless reality to those living in a void, so here it goes. Be aware that choice of terminology by a civilian can and will NEVER have any implications on the advancement of science nor the discoveries made by science. I will henceforth call it carbonkind. But not even once is that going to effect reality in any possible way. Calling it malekind (because I know for a fact that was the direction you wanted to take the topic) will also have zero effect on new or perfected scientific discoveries. We could dig into biology and genetics regarding your effort here, but that never works out in favor of "politically correct" diaper wearers. Grow up. Immaturity has never gotten any human anywhere after all. Now, your second sentence could easily be interpreted as a threat. Therefore I must ask. What exactly were you intending on meaning by that sentence? Exactly HOW would terminology choice imply any person will not see fusion perfected? That sentence made no logical sense outside of a threat.
@@visigoth3696 No. It is called being centered in reality. It is called being educated enough to understand that the diaper called "modern society" can not choose reality for reality is exactly that... REALITY. And here in reality, merely choosing a different pronoun does not and can not change what is already known and understood. I do not get my information from movies or scripted tv shows. And when I obtain new information, I investigate said information in order to determine its legitimacy. The scientific method of discovery can be utilized to weed out nonsense in all sorts of situations, not just the topic of science.
This breakthrough is huge. When I bring it up to my co-workers, they treat it as if I had told them Quik Trip had a sale on energy drinks; a "oh, thanks kinda cool" response. I see it for what it is, this century's Wright Brother's first flight at Kittie Hawk, NC. After many years of people trying and failing at a hypothetical possibility, the brothers made it work. Yes, their first powered flight was practically useless, as it covered barely any distance and was aloft for a matter of minutes. But it was a proof-of-concept. After everyone knew both that it was possible and how to achieve the same result the world pushed hard for it. This fusion benchmark is also a proof-of-concept. Everything won't change tomorrow, but that change will come soon enough. Human civilization is not prepared for what comes.
Your coworkers sound a lot like mine, but mine typical make a odd connection to this news; somehow being about the Govt trying to control us and hide some other more diabolical mechanisms to enslave us all… or it takes a flat earth twist out of the blue, it’s best to share these things with people that can absorb and appreciate such information otherwise you’ll lose your grip on sanity
I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but this sounds so cool. I am hoping other labs can replicate this and get the same energy return. How long it takes to develope into usable technology is another story.
@@stridersmythe8860 we've been 20 years away from fusion for 50 years. I think Helion Energy has the right of it and will hit it long before these other methods will.
From the LLNL website : "It produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it." The key words here are " laser energy used" (vs energy used to power those lasers, aka the real input energy).
Even I like Neil very much, I do not buy this. It was said , that whole event lasted only an incredebly short time(light would manage to travel just few inches in time when that event happened) ... Therefore, it was just another explosion..., we can probably use it that way... I feel this has something to do with Ukraine war...like USA would like this world to believe, that nobody will need Russia´s gas and oil and everyone will need USA´s help to make the substitute for it..
If they can get the reaction to be self sustaining then the ignition point may take a lot of energy, but the energy they get out will maintain the reaction. It's just a matter of time before they learn how to sustain and control that the way we control fission reactors. Think match to start a fire but fuel to maintain it.
I can’t believe they missed the MOST critical part that makes their method of fusion work where everyone else failed. The lithium container creating xRays at the specific diameter of the container that results in constructive interference of internal directed waves that adds to the energy of Plasma causing the fusion - like a nuclear turbo boost. The result is more energy out than is used to initiate the reaction.
the "net gain". the U.S. Department of Energy discusses this further. If I may ask you, can we refer to this "net gain" of energy as "yield". In other words, the net gain of energy yield. Sorry for being confusing...
Definitely the most concise - and most humorous - explanation of nuclear fusion that I have heard in the last 60 years! For reference, I grew up in the 1950's-1960's in Canada and the USA: when the threat of planet-killing thermonuclear war was perceived as real, the sub-basement levels of major buildings in cities were outfitted as Civil Defense shelters, and school kids were taught stuff like "duck and cover" drills - which we knew were useless but teachers had actual authority back then. Thank you both for this series! Please keep it going!
My uncle is a nuclear physicist who's just retired from this facility prior to this breakthrough. He had been working on this fusion issue since the 1970s.
I saw the headlines on this but when I saw you guys covering it I knew you’d explain thermonuclear fusion in a way that I can understand. And I’d have fun learning…again! Thank you!
This has honestly made me so happy. I've been stressing so hard these last few months about the state of our planet, where we're going, what lies when we get there, or do we get there at all? Learning that we've controlled fusion to take us to eventually create a net zero energy emission excites me so much.
Fission already is zero emission but also produces radioactive waste so yes it has drawbacks but given the severity of climate change, we need to be going all in on it while fusion is being developed.
Embracing fission and working on ways to minimize the drawbacks or otherwise improve the technology would be far more beneficial than putting your faith in fusion. The planet may be well past the point of no return environmentally before fusion ever achieves practical viability.
@@superfly2535 The nuclear radiation of fusion are a fraction of fission and break down in less than one hundred years. EVERYTHING, including you and me, gives off radiation.
Yeah, don't mean to rain on your parade but it's not going to come in time if we rely purely on fusion. Even if we had a 100% working terawatt-scale fusion reactor now it would probably be 15-20 years before they began to be deloyed in any numbers, and much longer before countries like India could afford to replace coal generation with fusion. Ditto fission: they tend to take anywhere from 8-12 years to commission, and people tend to forget that if we're talking global energy use, relying on fission also means enabling all kinds of countries to develop nuclear weapons, since the essential ingredients are the same as for energy. Don't get too down though, by adding renewables and removing coal the UK grid has managed to drop its carbon intensity by more than 60% since 2008. It's entirely possible to meet all our needs with renewables, storage and interconnectors. People will get angry that I've said that because it intuitively seems wrong, but it is actually right, some pretty in-depth studies have shown that. Obviously the best solution will combine renewables, nuclear, syngas and hydrogen, and eventually add fusion in as it becomes practicable, but we can do it.
Watch all of this just dissappear and never come to fruition for anyone in our lifetime. Sounds like something that will have military purposes before anything else.😊
Did you not watch the video. The military has used it since the 1950s, aka hydrogen bomb. This is important for creating nuclear power plants. But you're right, won't be applicable to most life's. Still a major breakthrough since they've been researching it for 80 years. It can be huge for mankind and future generations
Over 50 years ago I visited my brother at the Los Alamos Lab where he was a project director building the worlds largest CO2 laser that if successful could mount 4 inside a safe building to bust a deuterium pellet might prove they could get more out than put it. It has took 50 years of research to get there. this didn't happen last week. Oh a side light of this was Regan's using some of this tech for the starwars project.
Is this like the moon landing, fake? USA will wait until China does it for reals, and then steal tech from China, and then say that Chine stole from the USA? Globally, USA has been loosing its shine, so they come up with this to give USA something positive, but fake
When you add the amount of energy needed to pump the lasers, they got out 1% of what they put in. The net gain refers only to the target output, the pellet outputted more energy than the lasers dumped, but importantly that does not include the huge energy cost of pumping the lasers.
I've been following fusion research since the early 1980s, but I finally had to stop paying attention because it's just too depressing. You can build a legitimately working fusion reactor in your basement using 1950s technology. It's called a "Farnsworth fusor", designed by the same guy who invented the cathode ray tube and largely based on the same physics. What has been missing with all fusion reactor designs is the ability to get more energy out than you put in. This one supposedly does, only since it uses x-ray lasers, which are very inefficient in conversion from electricity to x-rays, it really doesn't. It was more like 0.7% efficient.
@@murasaki848 if you look more into this milestone, it took 400 mj of power focused it into a 2mj laser which when it sparked fusion produced 3.5 mj of power. This means overall there was a loss of 396.5mj of power. Absolutely 0 energy generated, more like negative energy.
I think it is a great combination. Common people are always in the mood for a comedy and great people are on the blackboard unfolding the wisdom hidden in the universe. When you both speak one side represents great people and the other side represents common people (comedy plus naive in science). Your videos are always enjoyable as well as knowledgeable.
Id really like to listen to some podcasts or watch some clips where experts talk about what happens next, what the challenges are and when we can realistically expect it to be commercialised. Id love to know what can be achieved with it too and even the dangers it presents (weapons, even the dangers of it eradicating economies etc). I find it so fascinating and also really disheartening that it isn’t all over the news constantly but celebrity gossip and talent shows on tv takes precedence.
The experiment that yielded the positive ignition is far too expensive to be cost effective when compared to fossil fuels or clean energy. Materials they use are too rare. BUT, once you have the principle you then attract the money and once you have the money you start the competition and iterative improvements. The companies that do this best are going to become amongst the wealthiest in the world, because you're basically smashing water together and powering the world. We probably have decades before your home is powered by fusion energy, but you will at least be able to track companies building towards it. It probably won't be in our lifetime where we'll see the technology miniaturized, if that's even truly feasible. More likely to see primary fusion plants and then breakthroughs in battery tech that simplify our lives for the better.
@@krusher74 That's not a reasonable expectation, and nobody is claiming any such thing. Stop creating controversy, whole-cloth, just so you have something to get upset about. The initial cost to build the power-plant will be high, although operating costs (as compared to coal plants) will be minimal. It will then need maintenance and upkeep. Entropy wins, so at some point it will wear out and need replacement. All the people who do the work need (and deserve) to be paid. So, no. Under no circumstances will it be "free," and no sensible person will ever claim that it would be. But it will be cheaper, and it will be *clean* .
The idea that more energy can be created than what you put in is mind boggling. I cannot wait to see real world applications of this game-changer. Thank you science and technology!
It's nice, but forget it. It is only the calculated energy in the laser flash that was exceeded by the energy output of this tiny pellet - for a millisecond or so. The breakthrough is that it seems they were able to achieve the conditions to achieve a real fusion. It is NOT the energy that you needed to create this laser flash, to load up a complete house over hours for one millisecond There is no way (that I could see) that this laser process shooting on pellets could become a continuous process producing Gigawatts of energy. I saw the fusion experiments whose principles are still used today, only larger 40 years ago.
Please understand me they shall do that, but the wrongest thing to do is to base your hopes to save the planet on THAT technology. Our biggest energy source is to avoid the waste of energy, our biggest reserve of natural resources is not wasting material. That can be done NOW, in big scale and small scale, on public and private level.
@@feedingravens You are the rare voice of reason. The whole thing is another case of having to completely defy the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, but apparently that is the basis of this religion that so often likes to claim the term science in our present time.
@@chrismathis4162 A theoretical bi-product. The fusion itself takes vast amounts of energy. No attempt to disprove the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics has ever succeeded. It's the nearest thing to a scientific law that cannot be questioned which is truely ironic bc they like to say "follow the science" on issues that are so full of contrived data and ideas disproven a dozen different ways.
That was a really clear explanation of fusion and how they are creating it at Lawrence Livermore and I liked that you pointed out that lab is heavily involved in nuclear stockpile stewardship but what about Chuck's question? He very astutely asked if this can be used as a power source. And that is the crux isn't it? Getting more energy out than you put in for the instant of the laser pulse that compresses the pellet is only the first step to making a power plant. The ratio of energy out to energy in that was discussed is called Qplasma (they achieved 1.5). However the energy to run the entire facility and cool the lasers is much greater than the energy produced by the pellet. We still have a long road ahead to make this viable as a power source.
I agree. That step for humanity on Dec 5th 2022 of net gain controlled fusion is like the step for humanity of controlled fire from two rocks sparked together. From campfires to metal tools to rocket ships, so much can be done with fire. Net gain fusion will eventually yield millions of times more clean energy than burning stuff.
@@paulhunter7002 yes, the cost (and energy) of fuel production also goes into the equation. If they are too high, no viable power plant is possible. This is research. They have a long road ahead of them if this is going to deliver its promise. Meanwhile it IS a useful source of information on ignition conditions for fusion and that (i believe) also has application in weapons research.
What's blowing my mind is that 6 months ago I watched a documentary on this and they basically said they were 5-10 years away from fusion. The singularity is on its way.
We’re a significant step closer, but it’s still far off. Like going through Tennessee on the Appalachian Trail, we’re now in Virginia but still have to get to Maine.
I'm just amazed that this isn't being covered more in the MSM. Something this big should be all over the news for days. a lot more than it was covered.
It was top news in the BBC, didn’t look at other sites. But it’s not that big a deal. Overall the energy gain was still negative, and it’s a nuclear weapons lab that could never be used for electricity because of the way they do the fusion.
Dr. Tyson gave a lecture a few years ago at a university in my locale, and my wife and I attended along with a friend. He took questions from the audience, our young friend got to ask one of them. It was a lot of fun and a great opportunity for in-person learning!
Look up Sabine Hossenfelder, she doesn't give you the kindergarten teacher version. She also say's its more hype than significant progress, but a step in the right direction. Won't fix climate change though!
Yes, tell us about how those lasers currently are only 1% efficient and to produce 3 megajoules of energy they spent 300 megajoules to generate those laser pulses. And why Neil got it all wrong at 7:00
I would love to know how long the experiment took from the time the lasers were turned on to the time that fusion happened, and what happened to the tritium/deuterium sphere. was it annihilated when fusion occurred? and are there any radioactive byproducts that must be considered?
As a science nerd, I appreciate this accomplishment. I’m still highly sceptical as to how this gets translated to practical production of power on a large scale. I can see it taking a generation or more. I hope I’m wrong.
I mean, why not? A Generation, for literally the power of the sun on earth and clean energy We have too high expectations. Even 3 generations or more is worth it for fusion.
@@LoomGloom probably more than 30 years. No way to know how long, but the point is what Neil talked in the vid: we now know it can done. The physics is possible. So the engineering is just a matter of time.
@@jamesdaniel947 liking your professors is a very big step in the right direction - that's the point he was making. if you like the professor they're probably making the subject fun to engage with, which makes you more interested. my own physics professor was a murmuring sloth that made every physics class an absolute nightmare of a snooze-fest. our teacher literally covered his face with a book and mumbled words from behind it, every now and then writing something on the board - totally oblivious of the class in front of him. i didn't end up liking physics back then because it was presented in the most awful way possible.
You guys are so damn fun and fascinating to listen to! I have learned so much from you and your fantastic guests! When I heard the news about this I nerded out and got goosebumps! I love science!
I woke up the other day and saw the headlines immediately. I'd love to study fusion energy, but I don't even know where to begin or what path I need to take to get my PhD in fusion.
@@blasttrash Tell the full story, not just the feel-good part. NYT article recently provided a more detailed picture. Fusion may well be a game changer but not for decades and many more new discoveries
The world will always need a Carl Sagan type, to explain to us why we tax payers need to write massive checks to pay the science bill, and I say that without any resentment. We really just do need it.
@@mikeg3439 the science bill isn’t even big. We spend 800 billion on the military…why? 😒 it will only lead to war and death. Science will allow us to prosper. But yes he is a good ambassador so to speak for science. A way to dumb it down for the avg Joe
Neil deGrasse Tyson is simply BRILLIANT! I am not a physicist, and there is much I do not know about all of this stuff. BUT! anyone can watch Neil break down all sorts of AMAZING discoveries and Space Science! Just such a smart and well spoken Genius! Sure, this is my opinion, but I bet there are many that agree! 😎👍💖
I don’t get all the people roasting him. He did one interview on Rogan and suddenly most everyone was against him.he’s a brilliant mind we need to protect him
I've never heard anyone insult his intelligence, just his manors. Chuck is one of the few people that he allows to talk during a scientific conversation. 😂
Fission and Fusion weapons were only a few years apart. Same for initial proof of concept for energy were decades apart. Actual practical power is at least 50 more years away.
Nice to see someone so excited for this amazing discovery. As an engineering professor, I’ve been waiting my whole life for humanity to discover this - and I cried like a baby! I think this will fundamentally change humanity. First the James Webb Telescope, now this! Great times we live in.
I followed the press releases on fusion tech since the 1980s, but I finally had to give up because it was just too depressing. This one got my hopes up, until I read about what it was, which is a z-pinch device ignited by extremely inefficient x-ray lasers. The total output was about 0.7% efficient in practical terms.
I nearly had tears in my eyes, but then became a little saddened when they said that commercial use will be decades (was it 50 or so years??) or so into the future. I’m looking forward to a time when the power source outlasts the device its in (yep, I want one of those ‘Columbus Day’ ZPhones!) In my lifetime, I’ve seen tubes, to transistors, color CRT televisions, 4/8 bit and beyond CPUs chips, VLSI and programmable array logic chips, Sony Walkman, boom boxes, Minidisc players, CD/DVD/Bluray erasable discs, solid state drives - VR/AR glasses, iPhones, Galaxy Ultras (yeah I had that first Motorola ‘Flip’ phone too), 8K panels, Polaroids to GoPros and Osmo Actions, Drones, robots… …Now ‘consumer’ accessible (and amazingly decent) AI to help with some coding, and what to buy the wifey for Xmas - to NOW, SUCCESSFUL, FUSION REACTIONS! It has been an amazing 5-decades plus of LIFE 🎉. What an amazing time it has been, to be alive! ❤
@@brianp5158 ABSOLUTE PROPS!! (Smiling!) I knew somebody here would GET my Columbus Day Z-Phone reference! (I'm currently on book 12 Breakaway - I absolutely love this audiobook series!)
I'm 66. Almost exactly half a century ago, I asked my mother for a calculator for my 16th birthday. After getting a part-time job after school, I bought a digital watch (you had to press a button to see the time). A few years later, I baffled my grandfather by renting (!) an early VCR. Grandad was a highly intelligent man, skilled in areas both financial and practical and had built a crystal "wireless" set in the 1920's, but he was completely baffled by this new technology. How can you record a TV programme? Now I am baffled by crypto currency and the new video games, so what turns around....
@@Neil070 PROPS! Yep, I had one of those 1st gen LED watches where the battery lasted what?, a month if you were lucky?? LOL! My ultimate joy was the LCD Casio "Databank" watches that held 50 phone numbers - chef's kisses for that one! My 1st VHS DVR I had purchased (on "lay away") from 14th street (Manhattan's electronics district back in the day) - I believe it was around $400 or so, and it took me about 3-months to finish paying off. Being able to record TV shows was just a marvelous thing!
It's very impressive! BUT...the "minor" tidbit they keep leaving out from these newscasts, is that it took 500MJs to power the LASERs to create the fusion reaction. So, although the fusion reaction required to start the process was 1.5MJ and we got 3MJ out, they keep forgetting to mention the 500MJ needed to power the LASERs.
@@HopDavid hahaha.. I know, I'm super fun at parties. I know they have to do this for the clicks, but they should still mention it so people have realistic expectations.
As explained by Tammy Ma in the panel discussion, the NIF laser - while being the most powerful of its kind in the world - is very old and very inefficient tech. What matters is they discovered the right parameters to achieve inertial fusion ignition. So putting those in other better, newer applications has real potential.
Exactly. He was only talking about the light energy that the lasers produced. His input energy total was far greater so it doesn’t produce any actual energy. They won’t ever get it to the only free compression Source is gravity, so that’s why the sun works. We could throw A huge solar panel with a laser to orbit, the sun, but I don’t think that laser pointing back at us with that much power would be safe at all if it was to have a disaster and miss aim🥺
Please define success for me. In a grand universe scale we are kind of speeding up entropy. As we convert matter to energy we are taking seconds away from our future. Next big thing will be finding out how to turn energy into matter. As long as that procedure doesn't impact dark matter and the web it forms to keep space expanding. I'd hate for it to all implode once we invent everything. or maybe that is the point. Who is to say?
Here’s an idea for a future show. I want to know more about the very brief reference Neil made about carbon needing to be released from the oceans. He seems to understand an important yet relatively hidden situation and would be the perfect person to explain the science behind the phenomenon in an understandable way (as always).
He was pointing out that atmospheric gasses are dissolved in water with the oceans being the largest volume of water. The increase in atmospheric CO2 due to the burning of fossil fuels has also cause an increase in CO2 dissolved in the oceans which act as a CO2 sink or reservior. This also has caused an increase in acidification of the ocean. It also means that in the future, if we start using technologies that remove and sequester atmospheric CO2, CO2 in the oceans will act as a CO2 source adding CO2 to the atmosphere until an equalibrium is reached.
I have really enjoyed these two and their friendship. They bounce off each other, educating, and entertaining us so beautifully. I hope they hang out sometimes in real life.
I would seriously love nothing more then a start all episode of fission and why stars explode and become black hole and the physics that happens when a star collapses
What Do You Think Of The Fusion News?
This is great news!! has this been replicated; is this process sustanable continuos?...
There is a shortage of tritium which is needed for the fusion of deuterium and tritium. I hear that even the military is short on tritium. That is a serious shortage. It can be made from lithium using neutrons inside a fission reactor. Time to scale up.
You forgot to mention that the energy put in which the output was 50% greater than was technically only the last step of the chain, the laser was started using a lot more power. But still it's a good proof of concept!
When you add the amount of energy needed to pump the lasers, they got out 1% of what they put in. The net gain refers only to the target output, the pellet outputted more energy than the lasers dumped, but importantly that does not include the huge energy cost of pumping the lasers. While this is an exciting development, our reaction needs to be more measured by considering things like laser pumping energy requirements and other losses. Most of the infrastructural progress has been tokamak-based magnetic confinement rather than inertial confinement so we are a long way off from putting energy into the grid. It will be more monumental when we have a true net gain rather than just a target gain.
I think it's gonna be ok.
I came for the fusion but I stayed for the quantum love🍻🙏
And Doc Brown to boot!
The strongest force in the universe! ❤
I'm here for Chuck's painted edges
❤⚛︎❤
Me too!
3023 we will remember this day.
If every high school science class was like this nobody would skip science class. It would probably be one of their most favorite classes and actually look forward to going to science class and many more would want to become a scientist
Yep
School was never about learning. It is about ranking people to sort them into different social hierarchies/classes.
Agreed, it is a shame.
@@jimj2683. I wouldn’t say all that. What I would say is that school is one size fits all. It’s hard (I say imposible) to tailor a curriculum for each individual needs.
You want school to be more like this?
Okay, here goes:
- be very, very nice to your teachers (the equivalent of 42K likes, a high income and regular praise in the media), so they can be as relaxed, happy and confident as Mr. deGrasse.
- don't try to sick your parents onto your teachers the moment you don't like your grade. (same purpose)
- keep up with what's going on in politics and make sure to support organisations & politicians who are trying to improve the working conditions for teachers and students
- that means: *vote*, keep searching for background information and understand that politicians can't clean up in two years what has been messed up for (at least) two decades.
Seriously:
I understand that this comment - and a hundred other ones just like it - are supposed to be a compliment to the video you just watched, but probably due to repetition: yep, I'm a bit sick and tired of it.
*Any* video you watch is entirely passive learning, so *at best* it teaches you to repeat what you just heard. It also uses prior knowledge that some over-worked teacher in school had to teach you. It does not teach you any research or analysis skills, which school is supposed to do.
There's a heck of a lot more money going into this than what a public school gets per 12 minutes class time.
The two lovely, fun, relaxed people who are doing this don't have to worry about cat-calls, class room discipline, your next test, being rated and paid by some insane algorithm, your parents, how much of this you remember three years down the line or a hundred little insults and accusations, of which _"hey, you just want to cement the social hierarchy !!1!"_ isn't the worst by far.
As a kid, I grew up in an America that was still exulting in the Apollo program and the Voyager missions. I've watched the country turn its back on science more and more with each passing year. But here, at the close of 2022, we have Artemis returning to the Moon and breakthroughs like this. My fondest wish is that it might inspire a whole new generation of scientists to continue the good work.
Which American country?
Hmm, turn its back on science…. there have been incredible achievements in space since that time… mostly with unmanned missions…. equating “science” with manned space flight is just, incorrect….
what do Johnny Lunchpail and Sally Housecoat prefer to see, Hubble and the James Webb revealing the origins of life, the universe, and everything…? or astronauts with funny no gravity hair wishing a happy thanksgiving on tv, and playing with water droplets…. apparently it’s the latter… :)
@@wetguavass The one which launched the Artemis mission.
America is back on track is why
And if you noticed; those turning Their backs on science belong to a particular political party!
Neil has a way of keeping people entertained while educating, such a gift
gotta give credit to Chuck too
@nightbot1788it wasn't clickbait, just truthful.
Very true I wish I had a bunch of friends like him who I would talk to about these things
Important caveat:
P_reaction=1.5 but P_total= 0.007
From my understanding the laser added 2MJ to the reaction and got 3MJ out. But 300MJ was required to power the laser in the first place.
I am curious about the steps required to make this a feasible technology. This feel like it was omitted from the talk and also feels like quite the hurdle to overcome!
I am curious of your thoughts.
Well, that’s a problem with laser efficiency then, not with fusion. Presumably we can make much more efficient lasers, or there’d be no point in even going down this road in the first place.
@@emotown1 indeed. That’s just a very significant difference ahah. This is definitely a big step. I just wish NGT had made it clear that this isn’t a viable means of energy production yet!
He made it sound like all we need to do is scale it up.
Also, the bank of lasers can only be fired once a day, so it may take a few hundred years to dramatically improve on that.
@@soul0360 agreed that it is confusing, but not meant to be intentionally misleading. it is only a success in the context of the experiment, which is what these scientists are focused on. they are not yet responsible for building fusion reactors for the sake of energy production. Getting more energy than the laser puts in is just one important milestone
I found it super misleading. I watched the conference... used 2mj...got 3mj... but actually wasted 300mj... lol 😆
What are we talking about here lol 😆
I started studying quantum physics in the 70's and have been waiting for this paradigm shifting event since then.
So grateful this has occurred in my lifetime. I hope I get to see humans walk on the moon again.
Ditto for me. I got my degree in physics from Cal State in 1973. I hope to live to see the fruits of these remarkable efforts.
Yeah happy for you but sorry no man can walk on the moon because no living thing can get to the moon. Unless it’s a cockroach. Gamma Radiation.
So you study quantum physics but you still think we have been to the moon? Either the government is better at brainwashing than I thought, Or our scientists are idiots and we are doomed.
@@MERLE1593 you've been watching too much Star Trek.
I got my PhD in physics (nuclear physics) in 1971. The engineering obstacles are still huge. We should all be hopeful, but living to see this produce enough electricity in our lifetime Suds, good luck.
Neil has a way of explaining science in a manner that is not only understandable but highly engaging
Except that he's wrong quite a bit. He said that we have no power strong enough to desalinize water on a global scale.
He's wrong. We have the sun which does it every single day on earth.
And highly deceptive.
Did he tell you the best part? That once fusion reaches the consumer, the government will add massive taxes to it making your energy way more expensive
Unless you're a religious NUTCASE🤪
He's grossly overrated..
I wish he'd talk about the fact that the 150% calculation is just the energy they put into the fusion reaction. The surrounding power generation used vastly more power to make that happen. They used an old laser and a lot more work has to be done to get the total power input down. But this is still huge because it demonstrates that the reaction itself is totally doable!
It wasn't one laser it is over 100 of the most powerful lasers... it took a team of people working together to make sure everything worked. However, proving it can be done helps in understanding what we might need to engineer in order to actually use it.
But it's LIGHT YEARS from it being COMMERCIALLY PRACTICAL. The claims of "breakeven" are for theoretical results, NOT practical results -- they just want funding. As always, we're 40 years away from this being practical UNTIL proven otherwise.
There was a moment there when the guest speaker queried "what did they actually measure" ... or something like that, almost as if they had planned to talk about it or I don't know maybe that guy's really smart, but then they distracted themselves
As a retired mechanical engineer, this has been the most down-to-earth explanation of thermalnuclear fusion I have ever heard. Absolutely brilliant. BTW, what is written on the T-shirt Chuck is wearing, and how can I obtain one?
As a fellow retired Mech Eng, I’d have thought you’d been more than a little concerned at how this video fails to also cover how much actual energy was required (read: 300 MJ) to create the 2 MJ of laser energy?
@@lonnyhandwork422 Oh were you looking for 7:10 one perhaps?
These are multiple scientists doing their best at their own field. I dont think they would leave out efficiency in the mix
The T-shirt says Science....True....something. Can't see it properly.
@@suspiciousdoge9yand104 no, he left the impression that the energy gain is greater than overall energy invested in the system, which is incorrect. 400 MJ was energy consumption of the laser array, which got them a laser of around 2 MJ and got around 2.5 MJ energy. 398 MJ of energy is wasted even before the lasers hit the target.
I think it says "science is true whether you like it or not". I've seen it in another Star Talk video before.
Quantum love. That's why the show is so great. Neil breaks everything down to where normal people can understand a complex topic, and they make it entertaining at the same time.
sometimes breaking down is leaving the good bits out, in this case the bad ones to. They put in 300MJ of energy in the lazers, then zap the fuel with 2MJ of lazer power and got 3MJ of fusion energy... That's 0.01 total efficieny... a car at least get 0.2.. And as for proof of concept, we already know fusion works since we have a star close by called the sun
@@Bultish they addressed the efficiency in the press conference. This was a proof of concept, for research. Efficiency was about as low on the list as possible. The equipment was also old, they used tech from the '90s. The 300MJ draw from the wall was also not just the lasers, but also all the other equipment, much of which won't be needed outside research. Efficiency was never the focus, here; what _was,_ was to see how much energy the lasers added to the nuclear reaction, compared to what came out. That was 2MJ to 3MJ. What the energy draw at the wall was, is irrelevant.
And, yes, as Neil also mentioned in this video, we've known since almost the last war how to create fusion. What we _didn't_ know, was how to make ignition in a controlled environment, where the amount of energy you _added_ to the reaction was _less_ than what you got _out._
Until now.
Could someone please be so kind to explain to me if negative (periodic) ELEMENTS exist and if they are regarded as dark matter or some other matter?
@@Bultish A lot of youtube science people are using this logic to devalue the accomplishment but its a very flawed thinking. The point of research was not to manufacture fusion energy for public use but to make fusion output in a controlled manner. Just to get a controlled output from fusion has been impossible up until now. Magnetic confinement have come very close but could not break even. Saying this wasn't a big accomplishment is like saying the first semiconductor was not a big accomplishment simply because you can't use it in an iPad. smh. Science is slow.
He's a normal person.
As a non-physicist seeing all the amazing reactions of the physicists all over the internet over this news, I believe this is something so big that maybe I couldn't understand for now, but I'm having a goosebump to realize that we are now already in the future that I imagined decades ago through science fictions like star trek. It's like a dream.
This is the first step to warp core technology.
@@inertiaforce7846 hows that?
@@Felixbotero I'm not authorized to give out that information.
@@inertiaforce7846 Can’t help some curiosity can I?
Sorry to wake you from your dream, but it took 322 megajoules of energy to power the lasers that created 3 megajoules of heat (a little fact Tyson left out). I wish such sensationalism didn't oversell what is an important milestone, but we're two orders of magnitude away from net positive power.
If I had a professor like Neil back in college I would’ve had all A’s on Chemistry and Physics. His talent and clarity explaining things is just unbelievable.
On which planet does human have the capability of capacity to recreate this, see on TH-cam. 12th Century Hoysaleswara Shiva Temple, Karnataka, Indiaka, India
Niel needs to know he that a responsbikity tonuse his knowledge for his own ppl...its steas he usi it for his enemies..white ppl
As a man who made career repairing coal fired power plants, I've been waiting for this! It's your explanation of the explosion that interests me. When you pulverize coal like talc, it explodes in the boiler. It's controlling that explosion that is the trick! More things change the more they stay the same!
really cool and insightful connection. never heard of pulverized coal combustion before
The engine in every non-electric vehicle ever built operates on the same idea of controlling explosions. Definitely a link here in applying old principles and practices we've learned in other arenas to new fields of study.
Could someone please be so kind to explain to me if negative (periodic) ELEMENTS exist and if they are regarded as dark matter or some other matter?
@@CyberTron30O0 I would assume that would be anti-matter. The same as matter but with negative charge, for example sodium has 1 plus charge, anti-matter sodium would be a negative 1 charge.
@@CaptApril123 Nail-on-head, sir.
Any particle or atom whose electrical charge is reversed would be antimatter. In its atomic nucleus would be antiprotons (negative charge instead of positively charged protons) and neutrons, and it would be orbited by positrons (positive charge instead of negatively charged electrons).
My friend and I worked at Culham and Harwell in the 1970s - fusion was just around the corner. 50 years on and countless billions later, fusion is - you guessed it, just around the corner.
Well...can't let the cat out of the bag until all the profits are made from fossil fuels...money
I’ve always understood that all new tech, breakthroughs, and/or discoveries are at least 10 years old before it’s made available to the public.
Must be the money!
That's great, if we can get fusion power ball rolling it would benefit mankind with limitless energy and could power the space ships to travel the solar system
Looks like Lawrence Livermore is looking for more funding from the government. If it’s possible to create fusion, it’ll probably be done with a simpler method.?
Always love your way of teaching and educating. As Einstein said, if you can't explain something simply, you don't know it well enough. You, sir, are one GREAT teacher 🙏🙏🙏
yet! he should have said "Yet!" as in, ""if you can not explain something simply, you (simply) don't know it well enough YET!"
At over 50 years old, I've seen so many amazing developments in my lifetime, but this one might be the most exciting of them all. I remember my high school science teacher talking about hydrogen, and fusion, and the idea that one day a car might run forever on a gallon of saltwater. And now we've taken that first step toward truly sustainable, clean energy. We are on the cusp of something truly amazing. I just hope to see it come to practical fruition during my lifetime. Congrats to Lasers, Lasers, and Lasers for their hard work and amazing achievement. I'm sure the Nobel committee will have something to say to them shortly.
Yeah, I can hardly wait to pay enormous taxes for this tech, both from the utility provider, and every level of government.
Energy will be stealing 50% of everyones income under Demonrats
I really agree with you.
"There's this car and it runs on water man!" might actually come to fruition.
Cars will never be allowed run on water, oil companies wont allow it
So then, you deplete the world's oceans of water, which would disrupt weather systems and cause worldwide droughts. The Earth would become lighter in weight, spin out from its orbit, be pulled by the gravitational forces of the Sun, and would be doomed to destruction. Nice plan. Got anything else?
A classic example of genius…taking a complicated subject and explaining it in terms that the common folk can understand…and with humor…another genius ingredient of their approach to teaching…love these guys…
He is one of those extrovert geniuses. And I wish more geniuses had his level of outwardness. This world would be so much cooler.
I always thought my generation reached peak technology. The truth is newer better tech will come out after I die.
Every time I hear about fusion, its 20 years away. Twenty years later its _still 20 years away_ but today its finally here! And it only took 20 years!!! Honestly its amazing they did this, what an accomplishment, hopefully in 20 years it'll be scaled up enough to power our civilization. 😜
Too true. Now that we have more out than in, another 20 before it hits practical, actual usage. The new always 20 away.
You're finally 19 years away
Like Artificial Intelligence
@reinforcedpenisstem You heard the advances lately? We're getting there, we just need better batteries, storage, and processing.
Yea we need funding so sometimes we are over optimistic
Something that made me struggle understand fusion is that it seemed like a pretty "free" source of energy. TV presents it as a type of miracle where you get more energy out than the one they put in, but they never mension that the extra energy comes from the lost mass of the element being fused. Thanks Neil !
On which planet does human have the capability of capacity to recreate this, see on TH-cam. 12th Century Hoysaleswara Shiva Temple, Karnataka, Indiaka, India
Fusion of nuclei to produce nuclei less massive than iron, releases energy, in stars especially. But when a "burnt-out" star no longer can maintain itself against the now irresistible problem of its own weight, the gravitational energy of its own mass collapsing under the force of attraction of its own centre of gravity, like an inordinately large meteorite crashing into an equally inordinate attracting mass, and continuing to fall as the force gets bigger the smaller the radius is, stores that energy as progressively larger nuclei, which will release it if they can be split.
One fusion event splitting one massive nucleus of uranium or plutonium releases far more energy than one fusion event of deuterium and tritium.
It is true that the creation of 235 kg of helium and neutrons from 94 kg of deuterium and 141 kg of tritium will produce a lot more energy than the fission of 235 grams of U-235, but you have to capture the 47 kg of neutrons and power the lasers with some of it.
@@jacksimpson-rogers1069 Fission is splitting atoms and fusion is combining atoms.
@@mrbaab5932 I know that, but thank you, your question has drawn my attention to my typo in calling the splitting of uranium "fusion". I have corrected it.
Man, I needed you guys when I was 12. Now I'm 50. You guys are awesome and I enjoy what you do. Thank you.
I work at one of the laboratories that helped develop this technology and it was a huge deal across the laboratory. It’s incredible to see humanity advancing technology like this to make sci-fi closer to reality. Such a breakthrough for humanity.
On which planet does human have the capability of capacity to recreate this, see on TH-cam. 12th Century Hoysaleswara Shiva Temple, Karnataka, Indiaka, India
How much of the tech you used was offered to you by a usaf or army official in one form or another?
I always wondered why cant you have a fussion and fission reactor together... constant cyxle?
I always wondered why cant you have a fussion and fission reactor together... constant cyxle?
@@theoneyouhatetolove2310: I always wondered why modern education is so very bad, re the comments from your ilk.
I remember reading about laser implosion back in high school. The article said the lenses would have to be made in zero gravity to be pure enough to focus perfectly on the plutonium sphere. They didn't have a magnetic field strong enough for containment when the article was written either. It's totally awesome to see that theory come to fruition.
Hey look up real engineering it's a yt channel that just did a vid on a facility that's doing this but without lasers...
I love listening to Neil's explanations because he makes everything so easy to understand, and he and Chuck have a good time doing it!! Now I know why the news about a fusion breakthrough is so exciting!!
This is the end of the big Mac
Shooting BBs with a laser pointer sounds a lot less complicated than I TokaMac
Its overblown and misleading.
Chuck brings light to the matter (so to speak) and makes us commoners relate to all this space mumbo jumbo. I laughed as I typed that semi jokingly. Amazing material per usual thanks!
@@K_Z_R I agree... I laugh whenever Chuck gets that serious look when he's listening to Neil explain something and then the second he gets it his face kind of lights up. I think he's a pretty good sidekick...
Not going to lie, this was probably the most inspirational piece of news I saw the other day. Truly gives me hope that humanity can become better and live. I never thought I would see this breakthrough in my lifetime and I'm 30. Now, it just a matter of what they do with that technology and if can deliver the expectations we want.
If that is what you make out of this News you should educate yourself on the topic agaun
thanks for not lying
@@donkey3187 I try ;)
Not quite so good news th-cam.com/video/LJ4W1g-6JiY/w-d-xo.html
@@MiLfAso - too much hype…. th-cam.com/video/LJ4W1g-6JiY/w-d-xo.html
This is one of the coolest developments in science we’ve seen since the super collider! ❤
You forgot ligo, falcon heavy and qbits
you realize all they have done was make a laser with a 2 mega jouls energy hit on a pelet of deuterium and tritium to get back 3.5 mega jouls... however to create the laser they used 300 mega jouls lol meaning there is 99% energy loss in this whole reaction lol. 300 mega joules and they get back only 3.5 lol
No. It is one of the hottest!
No! It is one of the hottest.
I'd say Air Conditioning would be the coolest developments in history.
As a former instructor, I would lose my position of the thinking process when the "Comedian" would take over, and then my recall of what I had learned would stall. So I went and reviewed it again to pick up the pieces together fast forwarding through the interruptions. Very interesting Mr. Tyson.
I can listen to these guys all day. Their passion rubs off on you and makes you excited for what's to come.
Don't be so excited. Real fusion is still 30 years away.
@@protorhinocerator142 No, I’m good. I’ll just be excited.. lol
@@protorhinocerator142 Nothing could go wrong between now and then 🔥☄️🥸
@@chumdinger_official you're a sucker then. Fusion is a red herring. We have fission now and aren't using it because of fear mongering.
@@merc9nine I guess I’ll be a sucker, then. 🤷🏻♂️ good day.
I really want to believe THIS was the start of the Fusion Era that Spock mentioned to Kirk in Star Trek IV
Problem is you will still have people say that Nuclear is bad when it's not it's are future. It needs to be are future energy.
@@sweezlesquee not at all. The computer power it takes to control lasers/magnets are too much. Materials were not as soohisticated etc. Everything has to come together when time is.
I remember back in high school if I ask questions because I didn't understand something the teachers would respond I wasn't paying attention, I wish I had teachers that acted like Mr Tyson when I was in school, I appreciate how he breaks things down in simple terms and it's easy to understand, it makes me more interested in science
It’s never wrong to bring up questions
Some schools have teachers like MIKE Tyson.
SMACK-POW!
There is NOTHING BETTER than having Mr. Tyson explain the possibilities of the future as he does it better than any formal educator that I have ever experienced! His ability to break this information down to where the average person can understand this extremely technical information into a simple form others will understand and be able to discuss, although in the simplest form, how this as well as other information he has disseminated into everyday life. And his "side kick" who I'm sure is also extremely intelligent (being he works with Mr. Tyson) helps bring out what Mr. Tyson in trying to convey to the rest of the world. I thank you both for what you do!
On the a anniversary of Carl Sagan's death 26 years ago and with gratitude for Niel for reprising COSMOS I'd like to say Thank you Neil for keeping the light of knowledge burning. Shout out to Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's wife and collaborator, For keeping the dream alive!
It would be better if he was explaining it himself.
I'll tell you a secret among scientist that we never admit publicly, whenever there is a major breakthrough with a ton of hype and major media exposure the hype and future predictions are ALWAYS false and the scientist know it. The hype is just to get funding but science ALWAYS leads us in a way we can't predict.
To be clear this is an exciting development but I promise it doesn't mean what anyone predicts it will mean. Unfortunately selling hype is the only way to get the funding science deserves. Science should always be at the forefront of every budget, nothing benefits humanity more. Sadly that's not the case though.
Isaac Arthur has a great video on the subject and what it would mean for the future. It's an old video somewhere on his channel, one of the oldest.
I’m so thankful for star talk. I saw the article about this a couple days ago and had tons of questions. Thank you for talking about this in a clear succinct way. You both are appreciated!
See the forbidden truth! 👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 🔥👀🔥
You two are the greatest. I was never really interested in science but I understood it a little bit but you guys make watching you listening and being informed an incredible experience thanks
You're not informed from listening to this.
@@merc9nine not a science guy, but the little info that I've gotten is enough. Add to that these two guys entertain me to the highest degree.
See the forbidden truth! 👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 🔥👀🔥
I love Neil, such an awesome personality and he makes the physics so easy.
I heard that the 3 football field sized facility at the moment of ignition was using 100 times more power than than stated for the fusion (3megajoules around 1,000 watts.). Importantly, this is an experiment that has not been duplicated at other facilities.
Replicating it without exact same equipment is not possible with same parameters.
I agree. From this vid: "You can add up how much energy it takes to turn on the lasers and fire them, and then look at how much energy comes out after you've done this, and they got 50% more energy out of this, than the energy of the lasers that went into this." Didn't think I'd ever by correcting Neil DeGrasse Tyson, but this statement isn't exactly correct. They got 50% more energy out than the lasers at the point they went into the chamber with the fusion, but the energy loss in the process of creating the beams and getting them to that chamber was massive. They in fact generated only 1% of the energy was used to power up the lasers! So, it is a milestone, but still no nearly as exciting as they seem to be making it.
@@jfc123 So still a negligible gain..we still seem to have the same problem with fusion..Too much in for not enough out.
Where is the great benefit to society?
@@josephhubbard5299 I have no problem with pursuing fusion. It's the hype/click bait/ and omission very significant facts from the reporting on it by some. This is a milestone, but no nearly what the press wants to inflate it to. I would think Neil would be a little more up front about that... There were days were solar produced a fraction of the % of cost it took to create a panel. Eventually it became viable. Fusion may become viable, but it may not before other renewables are already long up and running. Not sure. I believe it is worth investigating.
@@jfc123
Where did you get that info?
LLNL press release claims they put in 2.05 MJ and got out 3.15 MJ meaning a yield of 1.1 MJ (about the amount of energy you get out of the burning of 200 matchstick heads).
So the energy they got was small and ultimately the energy they put in was pretty small... but they were only imploding a grain of sand in a Hohlraum with the volume with less than 10mm³ which does seem somewhat impressive compared to the space and time you would need to wait to get the energy from those match stick heads and by "matchstick head" I really mean just the red and white coating on the wooden stick that burns when struck. Even so the amount of actual flammable matchstick material burning over 3 or so seconds vs a 1/10,000 second flash of energy created from the implosion of that tiny Beryllium coated Deuterium and Tritium filled pellet shows the difference in energy between traditional energy and fusion... sounds impressive until you remember we need to push that boulder up a huge hill and every time we do it rolls down the other side destroying the town beneath it on the other. We wasted more energy just to get that boulder up the hill and it provided us with nothing useful in the end.
Good thing fusion in real life couldn't actually have a ridiculous runaway reactiom like in Spider-Man 3 though, it's one of the pluses fusion has over traditional fission reactions, it's just a waste of time.
I described to my wife the whole "two protons sticking together" process as, "imagine trying to push the N-pole of two magnets together but the magnets are wrapped in Velcro. Once you can get them close enough, they'll stick together."
solid analogy
For decades we've heard "In the next 20 years...." I followed Princeton's efforts many years ago. They were always getting further and further up the hill. But the amount of energy required held them back. I can't believe Livermore did it and I'm till alive to see it!
Well you technically didn't. The lasers had an input of 300 megajoules
@@barakobama8194 Since my retinas weren't vaporized recently I suppose I should have said "alive to HEAR of it". Pedant.
They didn't do it. We have been able to make fusion for decades. What is really important is if you can get energy out of the reaction. I'll believe it when I see it.
@@barakobama8194 to start up. Like most power stations, you need a lot more energy to get going than to sustain. Start up is not a regular thing. This is a breakthrough - once it can be sustained you can calculate how long it will take to overcome that startup energy. Prior to this, it was not possible.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:13 🌎 Introduction to the excitement around nuclear fusion and its potential to address the climate crisis.
- Fusion is in the spotlight as a potential solution to energy needs and climate change.
01:05 ⚛️ Explanation of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories' role in managing nuclear materials and their approach to fusion.
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories handle nuclear materials and have developed a powerful laser for fusion experiments.
02:09 💥 Description of the process of creating high temperature and pressure to induce nuclear fusion.
- Fusion requires extreme temperature and pressure to bring protons close enough for the strong nuclear force to take over.
06:50 🌟 Revelation of a successful fusion experiment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, yielding 50% more energy output than the input.
- The experiment achieved a breakthrough by getting more energy out than was put in, marking a significant step towards practical fusion energy.
08:24 🔥 Discussion of the challenges of controlling fusion for practical applications.
- The key challenge in fusion is not making it but controlling it for practical energy generation.
Made with HARPA AI
Chuck has me dying with laughter in every single episode. He's a great stand-in for the viewer-asking smart questions but in a simple way.
Funny how different people have different perspectives… I find him incredibly annoying
@@Showmetheevidence- Agreed. Chuck is about as funny as cancer.
@@Showmetheevidence-he jusr sits there and doesnt really even understand whats going on in science
@@Showmetheevidence- Think Abbot and Costello. The punchiline is nothing without the straight man. He does the same job, just in a far more informative and serious way. The job is the same, but he's not meant to make you laugh much, but to make you think. The humour is there, but thinking is much more important.
I am amazed at the innovations realized in my lifetime. Before this announcement, I was worried about the future generations and their quality of life. I've lived my life and grateful for all it's wonders. Now I have hope that my grandchildren, and their children, will live in world new and amazing discoveries. I just hope the technologies created with this research will be available to all of mankind and not to only those who can pay a costly price.
Person kind.
Get with the program Juan or you’ll never see fusion in practice.
@@DrBlood-cq2cm
It's mankind. It has been mankind since the English language spread across the planet.
At very best... humankind. "Person" implies a sense of self. A personality if you will.
Not many these days have a personality. They merely copy the personality of another.
Channel after channel here on youtube alone contains objective evidence of that fact.
And I LOVE breaking cold, heartless reality to those living in a void, so here it goes.
Be aware that choice of terminology by a civilian can and will NEVER have any implications on the advancement of science nor the discoveries made by science.
I will henceforth call it carbonkind. But not even once is that going to effect reality in any possible way.
Calling it malekind (because I know for a fact that was the direction you wanted to take the topic) will also have zero effect on new or perfected scientific discoveries.
We could dig into biology and genetics regarding your effort here, but that never works out in favor of "politically correct" diaper wearers.
Grow up. Immaturity has never gotten any human anywhere after all. Now, your second sentence could easily be interpreted as a threat.
Therefore I must ask. What exactly were you intending on meaning by that sentence? Exactly HOW would terminology choice imply any person will not see fusion perfected? That sentence made no logical sense outside of a threat.
Or get abused.
@@theduder2617 Guessing you watched too much ‘pursuit of wonder’
@@visigoth3696
No. It is called being centered in reality. It is called being educated enough to understand that the diaper called "modern society" can not choose reality for reality is exactly that... REALITY.
And here in reality, merely choosing a different pronoun does not and can not change what is already known and understood.
I do not get my information from movies or scripted tv shows. And when I obtain new information, I investigate said information in order to determine its legitimacy.
The scientific method of discovery can be utilized to weed out nonsense in all sorts of situations, not just the topic of science.
This breakthrough is huge. When I bring it up to my co-workers, they treat it as if I had told them Quik Trip had a sale on energy drinks; a "oh, thanks kinda cool" response.
I see it for what it is, this century's Wright Brother's first flight at Kittie Hawk, NC. After many years of people trying and failing at a hypothetical possibility, the brothers made it work. Yes, their first powered flight was practically useless, as it covered barely any distance and was aloft for a matter of minutes. But it was a proof-of-concept. After everyone knew both that it was possible and how to achieve the same result the world pushed hard for it. This fusion benchmark is also a proof-of-concept. Everything won't change tomorrow, but that change will come soon enough.
Human civilization is not prepared for what comes.
Your coworkers sound a lot like mine, but mine typical make a odd connection to this news; somehow being about the Govt trying to control us and hide some other more diabolical mechanisms to enslave us all… or it takes a flat earth twist out of the blue, it’s best to share these things with people that can absorb and appreciate such information otherwise you’ll lose your grip on sanity
But when it's been ready, after all? The organism itself tends to homeostasis, only will, soul energy motivates
This reminds me all the fusion technologies in Fallout series. You know like fusion cars, fusion cores to power armors and generators.
I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but this sounds so cool. I am hoping other labs can replicate this and get the same energy return. How long it takes to develope into usable technology is another story.
They already admitted were 20 years from usable tech after This video aired giving false hope.
@@stridersmythe8860 I think 20 years is hopelessly optimistic.
@@stridersmythe8860 wtf? 20 years would be great! Lmao
@@stridersmythe8860 we've been 20 years away from fusion for 50 years.
I think Helion Energy has the right of it and will hit it long before these other methods will.
@@Landrar Helion gives me the most hope that we will see it usable and commercially viable within our lifetime.
From the LLNL website : "It produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it."
The key words here are " laser energy used" (vs energy used to power those lasers, aka the real input energy).
Even I like Neil very much, I do not buy this. It was said , that whole event lasted only an incredebly short time(light would manage to travel just few inches in time when that event happened) ... Therefore, it was just another explosion..., we can probably use it that way... I feel this has something to do with Ukraine war...like USA would like this world to believe, that nobody will need Russia´s gas and oil and everyone will need USA´s help to make the substitute for it..
If you add the energy needed to power the lasers - the total output I believe was only 1% of the input.
If they can get the reaction to be self sustaining then the ignition point may take a lot of energy, but the energy they get out will maintain the reaction. It's just a matter of time before they learn how to sustain and control that the way we control fission reactors. Think match to start a fire but fuel to maintain it.
Neil’s explanation of fusion for non physicists is really masterful and clear.
And wrong.
@@markrussell4682 care to elaborate rather than saying it's wrong
@@ejmtv3 I certainly will.
Fusion will remain in the Lab until the businessman figures out how to put a "Meter" on it.
Every person plays their role!
I can’t believe they missed the MOST critical part that makes their method of fusion work where everyone else failed. The lithium container creating xRays at the specific diameter of the container that results in constructive interference of internal directed waves that adds to the energy of Plasma causing the fusion - like a nuclear turbo boost. The result is more energy out than is used to initiate the reaction.
the "net gain". the U.S. Department of Energy discusses this further. If I may ask you, can we refer to this "net gain" of energy as "yield". In other words, the net gain of energy yield. Sorry for being confusing...
And don’t forget the causation of the turbo encabulator. 🤔
@@c208driver6 or side fumbling!
See the truth 👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 🔥👀🔥
Lithium is the new gold.
Definitely the most concise - and most humorous - explanation of nuclear fusion that I have heard in the last 60 years!
For reference, I grew up in the 1950's-1960's in Canada and the USA: when the threat of planet-killing thermonuclear war was perceived as real, the sub-basement levels of major buildings in cities were outfitted as Civil Defense shelters, and school kids were taught stuff like "duck and cover" drills - which we knew were useless but teachers had actual authority back then.
Thank you both for this series! Please keep it going!
My uncle is a nuclear physicist who's just retired from this facility prior to this breakthrough. He had been working on this fusion issue since the 1970s.
It seems your uncle was holding them back 🤣
@Phyton LP Yeh I doubt it but nice try.
See the forbidden truth! 👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 🔥👀🔥
I just love listening to these guys talk about science with such a good sense of humor! My respect and quantum love for you❤️
"Just a matter of time for the engineers to turn it into something real." millions of engineers all over the world doing this everyday
I saw the headlines on this but when I saw you guys covering it I knew you’d explain thermonuclear fusion in a way that I can understand. And I’d have fun learning…again! Thank you!
Anton discusses the science th-cam.com/video/1g_A5tEApa0/w-d-xo.html
more comprehensively.
This has honestly made me so happy. I've been stressing so hard these last few months about the state of our planet, where we're going, what lies when we get there, or do we get there at all? Learning that we've controlled fusion to take us to eventually create a net zero energy emission excites me so much.
Fission already is zero emission but also produces radioactive waste so yes it has drawbacks but given the severity of climate change, we need to be going all in on it while fusion is being developed.
Embracing fission and working on ways to minimize the drawbacks or otherwise improve the technology would be far more beneficial than putting your faith in fusion. The planet may be well past the point of no return environmentally before fusion ever achieves practical viability.
Admire you for your deep concern, but please don't make yourself sick about it. It's a long journey. Stay tough.
@@superfly2535 The nuclear radiation of fusion are a fraction of fission and break down in less than one hundred years. EVERYTHING, including you and me, gives off radiation.
Yeah, don't mean to rain on your parade but it's not going to come in time if we rely purely on fusion. Even if we had a 100% working terawatt-scale fusion reactor now it would probably be 15-20 years before they began to be deloyed in any numbers, and much longer before countries like India could afford to replace coal generation with fusion. Ditto fission: they tend to take anywhere from 8-12 years to commission, and people tend to forget that if we're talking global energy use, relying on fission also means enabling all kinds of countries to develop nuclear weapons, since the essential ingredients are the same as for energy.
Don't get too down though, by adding renewables and removing coal the UK grid has managed to drop its carbon intensity by more than 60% since 2008. It's entirely possible to meet all our needs with renewables, storage and interconnectors. People will get angry that I've said that because it intuitively seems wrong, but it is actually right, some pretty in-depth studies have shown that. Obviously the best solution will combine renewables, nuclear, syngas and hydrogen, and eventually add fusion in as it becomes practicable, but we can do it.
Watch all of this just dissappear and never come to fruition for anyone in our lifetime. Sounds like something that will have military purposes before anything else.😊
Did you not watch the video. The military has used it since the 1950s, aka hydrogen bomb. This is important for creating nuclear power plants. But you're right, won't be applicable to most life's. Still a major breakthrough since they've been researching it for 80 years. It can be huge for mankind and future generations
Over 50 years ago I visited my brother at the Los Alamos Lab where he was a project director building the worlds largest CO2 laser that if successful could mount 4 inside a safe building to bust a deuterium pellet might prove they could get more out than put it. It has took 50 years of research to get there. this didn't happen last week. Oh a side light of this was Regan's using some of this tech for the starwars project.
Regan was something else
Is this like the moon landing, fake? USA will wait until China does it for reals, and then steal tech from China, and then say that Chine stole from the USA? Globally, USA has been loosing its shine, so they come up with this to give USA something positive, but fake
Anton discusses the science th-cam.com/video/1g_A5tEApa0/w-d-xo.html
more comprehensively.
When you add the amount of energy needed to pump the lasers, they got out 1% of what they put in. The net gain refers only to the target output, the pellet outputted more energy than the lasers dumped, but importantly that does not include the huge energy cost of pumping the lasers.
It also doesn't include the energy required to create the pellet.
This is what inam hearing also.... is it correct?
@Wermagst wow next level possibly?
This genuinely made me happy. Partly for both of your interactions with each other, but mostly because of the discovery of controlled fusion!
This is nothing new or discovered. Its overhyped.
I've been following fusion research since the early 1980s, but I finally had to stop paying attention because it's just too depressing.
You can build a legitimately working fusion reactor in your basement using 1950s technology. It's called a "Farnsworth fusor", designed by the same guy who invented the cathode ray tube and largely based on the same physics. What has been missing with all fusion reactor designs is the ability to get more energy out than you put in. This one supposedly does, only since it uses x-ray lasers, which are very inefficient in conversion from electricity to x-rays, it really doesn't. It was more like 0.7% efficient.
@@murasaki848 if you look more into this milestone, it took 400 mj of power focused it into a 2mj laser which when it sparked fusion produced 3.5 mj of power. This means overall there was a loss of 396.5mj of power. Absolutely 0 energy generated, more like negative energy.
I think it is a great combination. Common people are always in the mood for a comedy and great people are on the blackboard unfolding the wisdom hidden in the universe. When you both speak one side represents great people and the other side represents common people (comedy plus naive in science). Your videos are always enjoyable as well as knowledgeable.
Id really like to listen to some podcasts or watch some clips where experts talk about what happens next, what the challenges are and when we can realistically expect it to be commercialised. Id love to know what can be achieved with it too and even the dangers it presents (weapons, even the dangers of it eradicating economies etc). I find it so fascinating and also really disheartening that it isn’t all over the news constantly but celebrity gossip and talent shows on tv takes precedence.
The experiment that yielded the positive ignition is far too expensive to be cost effective when compared to fossil fuels or clean energy. Materials they use are too rare. BUT, once you have the principle you then attract the money and once you have the money you start the competition and iterative improvements. The companies that do this best are going to become amongst the wealthiest in the world, because you're basically smashing water together and powering the world.
We probably have decades before your home is powered by fusion energy, but you will at least be able to track companies building towards it. It probably won't be in our lifetime where we'll see the technology miniaturized, if that's even truly feasible. More likely to see primary fusion plants and then breakthroughs in battery tech that simplify our lives for the better.
say the electricity company gets rid of coal power station and moved to this, you think they are gonna give your the electricity for free?
@@krusher74 I think so yeah, I’m not sure about everyone else but most certainly me.
@@krusher74 That's not a reasonable expectation, and nobody is claiming any such thing.
Stop creating controversy, whole-cloth, just so you have something to get upset about.
The initial cost to build the power-plant will be high, although operating costs (as compared to coal plants) will be minimal.
It will then need maintenance and upkeep.
Entropy wins, so at some point it will wear out and need replacement.
All the people who do the work need (and deserve) to be paid.
So, no. Under no circumstances will it be "free," and no sensible person will ever claim that it would be.
But it will be cheaper, and it will be *clean* .
The idea that more energy can be created than what you put in is mind boggling. I cannot wait to see real world applications of this game-changer. Thank you science and technology!
It's nice, but forget it. It is only the calculated energy in the laser flash that was exceeded by the energy output of this tiny pellet - for a millisecond or so.
The breakthrough is that it seems they were able to achieve the conditions to achieve a real fusion.
It is NOT the energy that you needed to create this laser flash, to load up a complete house over hours for one millisecond
There is no way (that I could see) that this laser process shooting on pellets could become a continuous process producing Gigawatts of energy.
I saw the fusion experiments whose principles are still used today, only larger 40 years ago.
Please understand me they shall do that, but the wrongest thing to do is to base your hopes to save the planet on THAT technology.
Our biggest energy source is to avoid the waste of energy, our biggest reserve of natural resources is not wasting material. That can be done NOW, in big scale and small scale, on public and private level.
@@feedingravens You are the rare voice of reason.
The whole thing is another case of having to completely defy the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, but apparently that is the basis of this religion that so often likes to claim the term science in our present time.
Technically energy is not being created, in fusion, mass is converted to energy. Mass is a form of energy.
It’s equally mind boggling to take a little bit of plutonium and blow up the world.
@@chrismathis4162 A theoretical bi-product. The fusion itself takes vast amounts of energy. No attempt to disprove the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics has ever succeeded. It's the nearest thing to a scientific law that cannot be questioned which is truely ironic bc they like to say "follow the science" on issues that are so full of contrived data and ideas disproven a dozen different ways.
"You aim a bunch of extremely powerful lasers at a tiny target and blow it up"
"OK, sounds like America so far."
You create another amazing technology for the world to enjoy…sounds like America I grew up in.
@@PhixChannel When did you grow up? The 1800s?
So well explained and entertaining. Great work chaps!
That was a really clear explanation of fusion and how they are creating it at Lawrence Livermore and I liked that you pointed out that lab is heavily involved in nuclear stockpile stewardship but what about Chuck's question? He very astutely asked if this can be used as a power source. And that is the crux isn't it? Getting more energy out than you put in for the instant of the laser pulse that compresses the pellet is only the first step to making a power plant. The ratio of energy out to energy in that was discussed is called Qplasma (they achieved 1.5). However the energy to run the entire facility and cool the lasers is much greater than the energy produced by the pellet. We still have a long road ahead to make this viable as a power source.
What about the cost to make those fuel pellets? don't they cost many $100,000 each?
The NIF approach isn't well-suited to power production, when compared to a tokamak.
I agree. That step for humanity on Dec 5th 2022 of net gain controlled fusion is like the step for humanity of controlled fire from two rocks sparked together. From campfires to metal tools to rocket ships, so much can be done with fire. Net gain fusion will eventually yield millions of times more clean energy than burning stuff.
@@paulhunter7002 yes, the cost (and energy) of fuel production also goes into the equation. If they are too high, no viable power plant is possible. This is research. They have a long road ahead of them if this is going to deliver its promise. Meanwhile it IS a useful source of information on ignition conditions for fusion and that (i believe) also has application in weapons research.
@@joshjones6072 It has to be more than just "net gain," though. ITER is shooting for Q=10, and that's just a testing benchmark.
What's blowing my mind is that 6 months ago I watched a documentary on this and they basically said they were 5-10 years away from fusion. The singularity is on its way.
Maybe the documentary was made 5 years ago :p
@@GLmigI think it was on PBS. Could be right. ✨
Well they have been saying we are 10 years off from fusion for 50 years now.
Its been like an inside joke for most people working in this industry.
We’re a significant step closer, but it’s still far off. Like going through Tennessee on the Appalachian Trail, we’re now in Virginia but still have to get to Maine.
I'm just amazed that this isn't being covered more in the MSM. Something this big should be all over the news for days. a lot more than it was covered.
It was top news in the BBC, didn’t look at other sites. But it’s not that big a deal. Overall the energy gain was still negative, and it’s a nuclear weapons lab that could never be used for electricity because of the way they do the fusion.
MSM too involved in taking down Trump. No need for real news.
@@lightningdriver81 uh oh it’s the psychosis crew out again
It's because it's not what it seems. Just like EVs are not what they seem. Or solar panels are not what they seem.
Has nothing or little to do with "the message."
Just Chuck saying “ok” the way he does after being told about the lasers exploding a single point was enough to have me lol 😂
I would like to hear more of this fusion discussion on a larger scale where people can have a chance to ask questions to Tyson and other scientists.
Dr. Tyson gave a lecture a few years ago at a university in my locale, and my wife and I attended along with a friend. He took questions from the audience, our young friend got to ask one of them. It was a lot of fun and a great opportunity for in-person learning!
Look up Sabine Hossenfelder, she doesn't give you the kindergarten teacher version. She also say's its more hype than significant progress, but a step in the right direction. Won't fix climate change though!
Yes, tell us about how those lasers currently are only 1% efficient and to produce 3 megajoules of energy they spent 300 megajoules to generate those laser pulses. And why Neil got it all wrong at 7:00
I would love to know how long the experiment took from the time the lasers were turned on to the time that fusion happened, and what happened to the tritium/deuterium sphere. was it annihilated when fusion occurred? and are there any radioactive byproducts that must be considered?
This is the era of great energy! Great show as always.
This is turning point from the information age to the age of energy.
The best explanation of nuclear fusion that I’ve seen in a long time. The news should have just played this clip
Now I wonder what the technical challenge is, of harnessing this power, in a practical way.
Love Neil and Chuck. So glad to be in their orbit.
It's not just about energy. Fusion can take us to the stars.
Please elaborate sir
@@mimusic1853 because its an inexhaustible fuel source
@@yoteslaya7296 its not "inexhaustible," but it is in many orders of magnitude above, but even fusion has a limit.
@@bragod all you need is hydrogen. If you can't fathom the amount of hydrogen in the universe then you'd think fusion has a limit
So we should be working 100% on fusion ROCKETS, because rockets come before powerplants.
As a science nerd, I appreciate this accomplishment. I’m still highly sceptical as to how this gets translated to practical production of power on a large scale. I can see it taking a generation or more. I hope I’m wrong.
I mean, why not? A Generation, for literally the power of the sun on earth and clean energy
We have too high expectations. Even 3 generations or more is worth it for fusion.
Soooo would you say fusion is 30 years away? :D
@@LoomGloom probably more than 30 years.
No way to know how long, but the point is what Neil talked in the vid: we now know it can done. The physics is possible. So the engineering is just a matter of time.
You science nerds have no concept of engineering nerds.
I would say the hard part is over, thousands of Scientists and Engineers around the world can work on application
It is a line of hope in a crazy world, also that this two guys know how to explain complex matters
“Sounds like America so far” got me😂😂😂
“The challenge is not to how to make fusion but how to control it” . Thanks Neil, I now understood why this is significant.
Can you imagine these guys as your professors?! I’d have ended up as a nuclear physicist most likely! 😎
Unfortunately, it’s a little more complicated than just liking your professors… Were you good in math? I mean really good?
@@jamesdaniel947 true that. I was horrid with math, but I think they would’ve gotten me to try harder!! Great teachers can motivate!
See the truth 👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 🔥👀🔥
@@jamesdaniel947 liking your professors is a very big step in the right direction - that's the point he was making. if you like the professor they're probably making the subject fun to engage with, which makes you more interested.
my own physics professor was a murmuring sloth that made every physics class an absolute nightmare of a snooze-fest. our teacher literally covered his face with a book and mumbled words from behind it, every now and then writing something on the board - totally oblivious of the class in front of him. i didn't end up liking physics back then because it was presented in the most awful way possible.
You guys are so damn fun and fascinating to listen to! I have learned so much from you and your fantastic guests! When I heard the news about this I nerded out and got goosebumps! I love science!
I came for the "SAY WHAAAAAT?!". But stayed for "wAz wiT aLL DiS sCiEncE ShEeeet"
@@HopDavid You seem oblivious, as usual, that that wasn't the point of the video.
See the forbidden truth! 👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 🔥👀🔥
In all honesty, Chuck makes me laugh and smile and then laugh again. 😃 thank you Chuck !
Here for the fusion
I woke up the other day and saw the headlines immediately. I'd love to study fusion energy, but I don't even know where to begin or what path I need to take to get my PhD in fusion.
If you don’t know where to begin, you probably won’t get anywhere close
Any high school graduate should know where to begin
@@dennisstrahm4309 even you dont know then? If you know then tell what op needs to do.
- cunningham the creator of cunningham's law
National labs need technicians and engineers too. It's a team effort.
@@blasttrash Tell the full story, not just the feel-good part. NYT article recently provided a more detailed picture.
Fusion may well be a game changer but not for decades and many more new discoveries
It's amazing to think that fusion powered cities might become a reality in my life time.
Nah!
It's way safer than fission. I'm happy for that alone.
Found your channel by listening to Spotify podcasts love your content! Excited for the future
Love the interaction between Neil and Chuck! And very nicely explained, in simple terms.
See the forbidden truth! 👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 🔥👀🔥
I love Neil, his passion and ability to break down the science for the avg Joe. His explanations just make me feel safe ok? 😊
The world will always need a Carl Sagan type, to explain to us why we tax payers need to write massive checks to pay the science bill, and I say that without any resentment. We really just do need it.
@@mikeg3439 the science bill isn’t even big. We spend 800 billion on the military…why? 😒 it will only lead to war and death. Science will allow us to prosper. But yes he is a good ambassador so to speak for science. A way to dumb it down for the avg Joe
Neil deGrasse Tyson is simply BRILLIANT! I am not a physicist, and there is much I do not know about all of this stuff. BUT! anyone can watch Neil break down all sorts of AMAZING discoveries and Space Science! Just such a smart and well spoken Genius! Sure, this is my opinion, but I bet there are many that agree! 😎👍💖
I don’t get all the people roasting him. He did one interview on Rogan and suddenly most everyone was against him.he’s a brilliant mind we need to protect him
I think you were brainwashed with a light rinse....
@@swisscheeseplease97 i suppose it depends on the type of the audience.
I've never heard anyone insult his intelligence, just his manors.
Chuck is one of the few people that he allows to talk during a scientific conversation. 😂
Agree 💯 he's brilliant
Neil coming through with the best explanation of the science. Always fun and exciting to hear your thoughts. Thanks guys.
Now let's discuss the efficiency of the lasers...
Perhaps a big magnifying glass would be better. :)
Not only is Neil Brilliant in explaining at a nerd level but the comedy from Chuck brings it down to the level of everyone to understand. Love it!
Fusion energy was 30 years away for my whole life. I feel it might just be a bit less than 30 now, but I am not sure how much less.
It was “a few decades” when my high school toured the Princeton tokamak in 1982. Maybe that countdown starts now.
Fission and Fusion weapons were only a few years apart. Same for initial proof of concept for energy were decades apart. Actual practical power is at least 50 more years away.
They got less than 1% of the total energy (q-total) that they put in.
@@rdspam My high school astronomy class toured the same facility in 1983.
@Atheos B. Sapien So what is the Q-total? Is Sabine Hossenfelder and Anton Petrov also clowns?
Nice to see someone so excited for this amazing discovery. As an engineering professor, I’ve been waiting my whole life for humanity to discover this - and I cried like a baby! I think this will fundamentally change humanity. First the James Webb Telescope, now this! Great times we live in.
Calm down, this is overhyped. Nothing was discovered. For a real understanding watch Sabine Hossenfelder take on con-fusion.
Of course Big Oil is already lobbying to slow down phasing out petroleum.
I followed the press releases on fusion tech since the 1980s, but I finally had to give up because it was just too depressing. This one got my hopes up, until I read about what it was, which is a z-pinch device ignited by extremely inefficient x-ray lasers. The total output was about 0.7% efficient in practical terms.
When will it become materially and economically viable is all that concerns me.
This is an amazing explanation and the added humor makes it even better. ❤️
Thank you Neil, for 50 years I have been trying to understand E=MC2 ❤
I nearly had tears in my eyes, but then became a little saddened when they said that commercial use will be decades (was it 50 or so years??) or so into the future.
I’m looking forward to a time when the power source outlasts the device its in (yep, I want one of those ‘Columbus Day’ ZPhones!)
In my lifetime, I’ve seen tubes, to transistors, color CRT televisions, 4/8 bit and beyond CPUs chips, VLSI and programmable array logic chips, Sony Walkman, boom boxes, Minidisc players, CD/DVD/Bluray erasable discs, solid state drives - VR/AR glasses, iPhones, Galaxy Ultras (yeah I had that first Motorola ‘Flip’ phone too), 8K panels, Polaroids to GoPros and Osmo Actions, Drones, robots…
…Now ‘consumer’ accessible (and amazingly decent) AI to help with some coding, and what to buy the wifey for Xmas - to NOW, SUCCESSFUL, FUSION REACTIONS!
It has been an amazing 5-decades plus of LIFE 🎉. What an amazing time it has been, to be alive! ❤
I wouldn’t mind the Z-Phone, as long as skippy the magnificent comes with it!
@@brianp5158 ABSOLUTE PROPS!!
(Smiling!) I knew somebody here would GET my Columbus Day Z-Phone reference!
(I'm currently on book 12 Breakaway - I absolutely love this audiobook series!)
I'm 66. Almost exactly half a century ago, I asked my mother for a calculator for my 16th birthday. After getting a part-time job after school, I bought a digital watch (you had to press a button to see the time).
A few years later, I baffled my grandfather by renting (!) an early VCR.
Grandad was a highly intelligent man, skilled in areas both financial and practical and had built a crystal "wireless" set in the 1920's, but he was completely baffled by this new technology. How can you record a TV programme?
Now I am baffled by crypto currency and the new video games, so what turns around....
ZFT. Destruction by advancement of technology. It is the future.
@@Neil070 PROPS! Yep, I had one of those 1st gen LED watches where the battery lasted what?, a month if you were lucky?? LOL!
My ultimate joy was the LCD Casio "Databank" watches that held 50 phone numbers - chef's kisses for that one!
My 1st VHS DVR I had purchased (on "lay away") from 14th street (Manhattan's electronics district back in the day) - I believe it was around $400 or so, and it took me about 3-months to finish paying off.
Being able to record TV shows was just a marvelous thing!
It's very impressive! BUT...the "minor" tidbit they keep leaving out from these newscasts, is that it took 500MJs to power the LASERs to create the fusion reaction. So, although the fusion reaction required to start the process was 1.5MJ and we got 3MJ out, they keep forgetting to mention the 500MJ needed to power the LASERs.
@@HopDavid hahaha.. I know, I'm super fun at parties.
I know they have to do this for the clicks, but they should still mention it so people have realistic expectations.
As explained by Tammy Ma in the panel discussion, the NIF laser - while being the most powerful of its kind in the world - is very old and very inefficient tech. What matters is they discovered the right parameters to achieve inertial fusion ignition. So putting those in other better, newer applications has real potential.
Exactly. He was only talking about the light energy that the lasers produced. His input energy total was far greater so it doesn’t produce any actual energy. They won’t ever get it to the only free compression Source is gravity, so that’s why the sun works. We could throw A huge solar panel with a laser to orbit, the sun, but I don’t think that laser pointing back at us with that much power would be safe at all if it was to have a disaster and miss aim🥺
Thank You for explaining Fusion to US!!!
Been waiting for this episode since the announcement was made!
Thank you for such a great explanation and the humor. This is why humanity succeeds.
Humanity miserably failed, never heard of GIEC ?
Perhaps having a sense of humor is a 'sure sign' of evolution? lol. Thanks for posting.
If that were true, Africa would be a superpower.
Everyone is so focused on how great this breakthrough is but no one cares how these labs made it possible to sit on this technology for 30+ years.
Please define success for me.
In a grand universe scale we are kind of speeding up entropy. As we convert matter to energy we are taking seconds away from our future.
Next big thing will be finding out how to turn energy into matter. As long as that procedure doesn't impact dark matter and the web it forms to keep space expanding. I'd hate for it to all implode once we invent everything.
or maybe that is the point. Who is to say?
Here’s an idea for a future show. I want to know more about the very brief reference Neil made about carbon needing to be released from the oceans. He seems to understand an important yet relatively hidden situation and would be the perfect person to explain the science behind the phenomenon in an understandable way (as always).
He was pointing out that atmospheric gasses are dissolved in water with the oceans being the largest volume of water. The increase in atmospheric CO2 due to the burning of fossil fuels has also cause an increase in CO2 dissolved in the oceans which act as a CO2 sink or reservior. This also has caused an increase in acidification of the ocean. It also means that in the future, if we start using technologies that remove and sequester atmospheric CO2, CO2 in the oceans will act as a CO2 source adding CO2 to the atmosphere until an equalibrium is reached.
@@Private_Idaho_1 now I want to know the reason CO2 causes an increase in ocean acidification!
@@davidjones5338 CO2 dissolved in water forms carbonic acid
@@Private_Idaho_1 why we need a lot of algae farms, poewering and feeding entire cities.
I have really enjoyed these two and their friendship. They bounce off each other, educating, and entertaining us so beautifully. I hope they hang out sometimes in real life.
I would seriously love nothing more then a start all episode of fission and why stars explode and become black hole and the physics that happens when a star collapses