With no nujmbers we can only guess. Others have calculated that cavitation can't get within a factor of 10,000 towards the required force and time product. So independent opinions say you cannot get anywhere near or even far from "close".
Huge waste of money. Centralized generation will never compete with the costs of distributed energy in 5 years. Let alone the 20+ years before this pipe dream becomes a reality.
You are on to something here and the time line of the 30's is correct. Why haven't these billion dollar scientist been working on this from the begining?
@@MrNelford Good point. There is no real difference between something that is always thirty years in the future and something that is always ten years in the future. Either way, it is always in the future when we need it to be in the present.
It's so amazing to me to thing that as our society progresses we still haven't been able to create something better than steam engines. Last year i decided to learn more about how nuclear reactors work only to learn that it basically just heats up water for steam engine really efficiently.
Yeah the steam engine cycle is the simplest. This makes it the most efficient since less steps essentially equals less entropy. We do have improvements from the original steam engine. Reheating and Trigeneration CCGT plants for example help us to burn less fuel to create electricity by trying to use up all the “waste heat” a normal steam engine has. But at the end of the day, water and steam are a really good way to store and transfer heat energy.
When I was 14 years old, I developed a railgun for exposcience, I won my local hometown exposcience fair, but then I lost at the state level, because the university teachers said rail guns are weapons and weapons shouldn't be part of exposcience. I talked about creating something similar to the large hadron collider, but with railguns and a solid projectile to achieve fusion. It's absolutely crazy to me, that more than 12 years later they're basically doing JUST THAT. That's life in a nutshell.
Innovation is always a good thing even if the product doesn't end up being commercially viable. We (as a species) generally learn a lot from it (the innovative process) and often products, and technologies we never even thought of, get derived from it. Always good to see people trying to push the limits of our understanding.
Great informative video. Thank you for sharing this information. It gives me hope that viable fusion energy production is something that I will live to see in my lifetime.
My high school physics class was one of many that made a field trip to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory for some kind of science day in 1969. I recall sitting in the Laboratory main auditorium (which was filled with high school students - had to be about 600 students and teachers there) listening to science lectures, one of which was given by a Dr. James Tuck who was introduced as Friar Tuck of Sherwood Forest for reasons I will explain in a moment. We later toured some of the research areas, including a kind of shabby appendage to the Laboratory's administration building (called the Sherwood building, or Sherwood forest) where Dr. Tuck showed us a demonstration of a metal wrench held in the magnetic field of one of the magnets, and a neat little demo of what happens to an aluminum foil cylinder when compressed in a zeta pinch. His claim was that the amount of energy released when the capacitor bank actually fired was enough to power the entire US for some very short amount of time - perhaps a microsecond. He proudly concluded that commercial energy from nuclear fusion was just 30 years over the horizon. I graduated from high school, went to college, and started working at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (in 1975, I think) on a geothermal energy project. Time passed, and I went to graduate school, got my PhD, and returned to the by now renamed Los Alamos National Laboratory to work on a variety of energy and environmental projects until my retirement in 2004. At the time of my retirement, commercial energy from nuclear fusion was just 30 years in the future with laser fusion being the current leader. Or perhaps, it was closer if Pons and Fleischmann were correct. Now, nearly 20 years after retirement, and after a huge expenditure on a variety of fusion energy projects, ITER is just 30 years from commercialization of nuclear fusion. In my recollection, commercial energy from nuclear fusion has been just 30 years over the horizon for about 55 years. The work described in this video is the best idea I have seen in a long time for making fusion energy a commercial reality.
A baby boomer who was able to retire essentially a generation before most of his peers. Well done sir. I have a target retirement year of 2057, and I hope you’ll still be enjoying your own if/when I get there!
wow ,what a great career experience! I wish fusion energy will solve the poverty and inequality in 50 years which is the biggest problem of human being.
BFG makes a lot of sense to develop the fuel delivery device. These "big guns" are common tools used by physicists to study high stress/pressure states of matter. I worked with one in college at our physics department.
@@fatitankeris6327 Well that only works if you are looking at it. Just like my pool table disappears whenever I turn around to get a drink of beer that has just reappeared because I am looking at it.
@@firstnamesurname5376 They'll sure try but this amount of info is put there. If the Radioactive Boy Scout built a breader reactor in his mom's shed than this will be reproduced.
This seems like a brilliant idea. They've got around all the worst technical complications by default and made a low-tech fusion process conceivable. A quite remarkable achievement.
Imagine telling a romantic era steam engine engineer that there might be made a steam engine heated not by coal or oil but by the same process as in stars. Would be a pretty fascinating sci-fi novel idea.
The big problem is, that we have barely any ways to convert different types of energy into electrical energy. Pretty much the only two options are either solar panels (converting light to electricity) or some kind of turbine, converting mechanical energy into electricity. To convert any other type of energy, we rely on those two by generating heat and using that heat to create kinetic energy to power a turbine. This is inefficient, but it's the best we've got. So there has been a lot of work to at least optimise this approach.
Wasn't the view at the time that stars were powered by gravitational collapse? They might have told you: "I have a water wheel that can do that already".
@@IamGrimalkin That's more a choice of definition than anything. The light (and heat) from stars is generated by the fusion reaction, but the fusion reaction itself takes energy input, and _that_ is generated by the gravitational pressure the star is under. Its the reason why we need significantly higher temperatures to start the reaction than we find (well OK, calculate) at the core of stars: Temperature and pressure can (typically) be traded off and since we have no way to generate the immense gravitational pressure a star's core experiences, we compensate by using higher temperatures instead (which can be done entirely through electromagnetic energy and we've gotten very good at manipulating that particular force).
50 years ago I was reading stories about commercial fusion being 30 years away. And every so often since then I've read about breakthroughs that will revolutionize the process and it's still at least 30 years away. That doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying.
_"50 years ago I was reading stories about commercial fusion being 30 years away. "_ There is a reason for this. Any continuous fusion process is a half step away from a hydrogen bomb. There will never ever be commercial energy produced from fusion, *ever.* The ones that know how to do it on small scale are never ever going to release it to the public because do you want every Tom, Dick and Harry having a 100 Megaton bomb in their garage?
60 - odd years ago I used to read The Eagle comic (Dan Dare & The Mekon! ...) which used to have a highly interesting article on some aspect of technology/engineering every week. One such reliably informed me that the Zeta project would soon ensure the production of electricity too cheap to be metered ...
The fact that we see commercial interest in developing fusion technologies, instead of just scientific interest, leads me to believe that we have finally crossed that "fusion is petpetually 30 years away" line. 10 years seems too optimistic to me still, but I'd love to be proved wrong.
No, what has happened is that people have figured out there are a lot of people that will throw money at anything "green". Fusion snake-oil salesmen are having a boom time selling promises.
Unfortunately the "commercial interest" is usually people looking to patent something new so that when a government funded "research reactor" is built they charge outrageous fees for using their patent. Its a game thats been going on since the 1960's.
yeah...unless all these companies are really only interested in generating investor $$$ instead of fusion power. be very wary of all these youtube science videos that seem too good to be true. they usually are just designed to lure in investors.
When you ask some questions you are supposed to answer them later on in your video by the way. So when asking : "what's actually going on here?",this should NOT be followed by a generic sales pitch of this company; rather you should be mentioning pros AND cons of their approach focusing on numbers,hard data. We have non here other than some nice renders, so to answer the question you asked next(and did not answer as well) "is this a breakthrough, or blowing the horn to attract more funding?", it is certaintly the latter. Buzz words like BFG(...) and "1000 times cheaper in some areas sure sound like blowing the horn.
The important aspect to achieve fusion make up the fusion energy gain factor: sufficient temperature, density and duration. So far, all these values have been achieved individually, but getting all three together has been so far challenging.
Need an entangled event horizon. Won't work like this. It's like seeing a flame from a lighter and not realizing that there's fuel and a nozzle behind it then trying to replicate the flame by firing a laser at the ashes. We already have hot fusion power if you count solar, geothermal, wind, etc. If you wanted to create a sun you're going to need an implosion from the other side. Not a good idea.
Another big issue with the gain factor is that many papers don't factor in the energy required beyond setting off the reaction itself; so things like coolant, monitoring, logistics, plant operation etc are left out of the equation.
Good News is it brings more diverse experience on the focus. Could result in other interactive designs. It flexes the work and can open more options that yet may rise beyond hypotheses. Very good. Wonderfully presented. I appreciate knowing more about it. Certainly appreciate those on the project you have described.
Considerable aspects of the design going into ITER have also recently been proven through testing. I think a lot of people see a video like this and click on it without knowing that just over the last 6 months several other landmark moments have been achieved, by both Chinese and British research groups. Unless someone is looking at the wider picture they're unlikely to know just how fast this is all moving.
The change in approach is hopeful. Most large fusion research projects are pass/fail: they either will work or they won't, with very little ability to optimize, and the engineering required makes it very risky and expensive to actually attempt. But with pressure being dependent on optimization of the fuel cell, First Light will be able to employ the try-fail-learn-try approach, which almost always works, eventually.
There is still a lot of things to consider: where would the fragments of the little cube go? How can you fire these every 5 seconds? That is a lot of manufacturing of little cubes.
Most large fusion resarch projects are so big, that they are basically too big to fail. The simulations and predictions are so conservative, that you can expect that they will always be much better than written in the proposal. 'Not working' is not an option. Look for example at Wendelstein 7-X as one of the youngest plasma experiments (and by far cooles one)
@@abelnemeth4346The current generation of semiconductor manufacturing machines generates light by shooting 50k tiny droplets of molten tin twice with a laser every second. I think we can manage this 5 times.
As an engineer you need to adapt and sometimes hide the complexities of a problem behind simple words and easy to grasp concepts. Yeah is is true the steam machine in a nuclear plant has unique challenges, but the heart of the way it works remains the same : it is a simple turbine (by the way, the unique challenges are not around the turbine but around the need of two separated water flows).
@@romain.guillaume yeah, it's not exactly complex. Even older reactor designs are incredibly simple, with the complexity coming from the need for cooling and safety. If you could just throw some fuel in the reactor and everything "be safe" it would be just a boiler (more like a double boiler in order to separate the icky stuff) attached to a turbine.
@@SECONDQUEST exactly. When you think about it, the most unique construction is a shielded thermal exchanger between the primary and secondary water flow. But I think that is not what is important. It is rather the idea itself of creating two separated water circuits which seems more of a deal breaker. And that why we could speak of a simple turbine, because that is not the point.
I'm fairly certain the "F" in "BFG" doesn't stand for "Friendly". See the Wikipedia article ""BFG (Weapon)" for an explanation of what the BFG acronym actually stands for. And props to the scientists for using a Doom reference!
Thank the algorithm I found your channel/video, and found your approach comprehendible and clear, and engaging and focused. Thank you I've subscribed because of it. Fascinating topic.
you covered this very well, one part that i didn't expect to be covered was why this wasn't done before, i think its common for these types of videos to not include that, and your left just thinking everyone else is an idiot for not thinking of the idea, but there were actual reasons why this couldn't work that they overcame. i just wanted to highlight that specifically but really it was all amazing
Finally someone who explains why it's different to the existing approaches! I read so many articles that just said "this is a breakthrough" but didn't say how or why. On another note, interesting that the footage is from CGTN, I guess the Chinese are looking to build their own version.
So all the very smart people building ITER are just wasting their time? I am not sure how you get the needed 20X-30X power gains without a sustained fusion reaction like happens in ITER.
@@clarkkent7973 Well, is because we are just at step 2 (make fusion happen), then we need step 3 (sustain it) and step 4 (make an active energy balance out of it) - in short we are like a medieval village try to build a constellation class spaceship
But we are not. Or technology is a lot better than that in scale. The darkages was almost 1000 years ago. The rate of technological advancements get faster and faster. We have achieved in 100 years what took 1000 before that. Insane technology will only come faster now.
LIF-devices using targets and hohlraums of expensive heavy metals turn the targets into crud inside the chamber, that they can then recycle. These metals aren't going to be significantly affected unless they have strong neutron absorption (which you might want if you are doing combined fission and fusion, e.g. using depleted uranium in targets). With a plastic target like this, the target stops being plastic and becomes some mixture like simple hydrocarbons (e.g. methane), water, hydrogen and tar. Turning this back into a target is not as easy as turning a metal back into a target. Instead you're taking maybe 5 g of hydrocarbons per kWh and turning it into 3g of plastic per kWh and turning that into some useless non-recyclable mixture of carcinogens (AKA tar). The gold they are using in targets at NIF is a stopgap; this is not intended for commercial use; they are more a nuclear weapons research facility that is only doing some fusion research for fun and to attract funding as a side project; where there mainstay is to explore the state equation of plutonium and other such fun stuffs.
Reminder: photovoltaic effect (solar power) was discovered in 1839 and relatively recently has become cheaper than other options. Fusion development is doing okay in comparison (considering how long it takes to design, test, build and crunch numbers on new/more efficient fusion producers).
Photovoltaic cells, as a collector of the released fusion energy, would work with the high energy gammas, but would not be able to collect the major portion of the released fusion energy because it will be in the form of kinetic energy in the launched neutrons (we are making helium from deuterium, after all). The photovoltaic cells would be invisible to neutron radiation. I agree that use of a steam heat cycle to produce electrical power would be inefficient, so some sort of neutron interactive matrix that will capture that energy, and convert it directly to voltage is also required. Because of the pulsed nature of this technology's approach, you may have to live with heat collection until they can figure that out.
The first solar cell was in 1954, your comment is very misleading. Solar power is to the photovoltaic effect as electric circuits are to the discovery of static electricity 2000 years ago.
@@boydgrandy5769 Neutron interactive matrix.. Did you just make that technobabble up? In order to generate a voltage, there has to be a temperature gradient, which is why solar panels and the like are so crap.
@@chompchompnomnom4256 Did you forget to take your meds this morning? Can you not read? There's one other question I could ask, but I'm pretty sure you already know what it is. What I said was, unless someone can develop such an neutron energy harvesting matrix, most of the energy released by the fusion process described here will be lost and the neutron radiation will go on to be the single biggest hazard of fusion. In the commercial nuclear power industry, we shield for neutrons that leak from the core with materials that contain water, some 2.43 fast neutrons per fission. All of that energy is lost. Fission reactors trap heat from the process by the interaction of the fission products and the high energy gammas produces with the core moderator and structural materials (kinetic energy is heat, and it is transferred by collision and convection to the moderator). I don't think electrical generators work the way you think, either. ICE, gas or steam turbine generator prime movers require some form of heat cycle to rotate, but the generator requires only a rotating armature carrying a magnetic field inside a stationary stator to induce voltage. Heat in a generator is a loss, not a gain.
@@ObjectsInMotion I would regard your comment as far more misleading as solar cells where about 2% efficient in 1889. Your scale is off by a drastic measure
Nice. On one of B1M's latest videos they showed us the fusion reactor they are building in France at the moment, the size of it was ridiculous. They said they'll be able to trigger a fusion reaction but we're still some 20 years away being able to build something that could harness the power produced and meter it out accordingly. When (if) that happens we enter a new era!
Dr Miles, this was excellent content. Please do a series on the various fusion approaches and who the players are. Also, links for further reading would be much appreciated. I’d like to geek out on fusion.
I remember a lot of excitement around fusion 40 years ago--around the early 80s. It was going to be ready ten years down the road, maybe 20 tops. Don't get me wrong--I really, REALLY want these guys to succeed, but I'll remain skeptical for now.
Yeah but our science is 10000x more advanced then it was then. Only concern is making everything so cheaply. They might as well put a made in china stamp on the reactor so they have an excuse when it breaks.
I'll do you one better, in 1965 I was in jr high school. I wish I still had the textbook that explained that in the future there would be no need for insulation in houses as we'd get all the energy we needed from a tablespoon of sea water courtesy of fusion. Like you I hope this is real and not smoke and mirrors. And Big Friendly gun, come on. I'm old but not that out of it.
I'm SURE there's reasons why certain tech isn't instantly solved and released to the public. Same as how certain medicines take years and years and years to release if ever, money.
In spite of the all the haters, the bottom line is that ALL the advancements made towards the ultimate goal of sustained fusion power over the past century HAVE BEEN REAL. They are NOT like Elon Musk and other out-of-touch billionaire and politician lies and promises and scams. THAT is the INFINITELY important difference that haters REFUSE/FAIL to notice.
In the long run , humankind has only two ways how to generate enough energy for its needs. 1. Nuclear fusion 2. Solar panels in space + microwave transmission to Earth. Renewables, as we know them today, will never be the answer to all energy needs. This research is highly appreciated and should be given top priority 👍
I like that fusion energy is getting closer and it's exciting, I'm just a little disappointed that the energy capture is still "heat water for spinning"
That is all they can do, drive steam turbines. The real cutting edge science is inturning sunlight into electricity in one go without steam! Why do you like fusion? Dpo you still think there is a need for it which can't be met? Storage provides base load for a 100% renewable grid, yet nuke cultists continue to prtend there is a dying need for masses of nuclear power. There isn't.
It's been that way for 2 centuries (actually for millenia for more simple applications) and will continue to be the method likely for centuries to come. Water is an amazing compound. You just take it for granted.
There are other energy extraction methods like magnetohydrodynamic, ion seperation, etc.... but steam is an easy, and proven technology that uses existing infrastructure.
@@e4Bc4Qf3Qf7 in the case of fusion we are releasing the strong nuclear force, and using it to boil water. The fact that this energy is released in the form of subatomic particles in a high vacuum makes this problematic.
I think this is really exciting and promising. I heard about this breakthrough listening to the SGU podcast but having your visuals and explanation really helps to illustrate the process. 👍🏼
@@Joe-by8jh agreed, net energy also includes converting the steam into electrons, ( which is more losses ) really I believe energy at the user end (should) approach or exceed energy in to the fusion process. I believe coal plants put out about 35% of the energy that is put into them when considering the conversion of steam to electrons.
That is genius. That does away with the need for supercooled magnets, massive containment vessels, a liquid medium will capture the heat from those 5 second pulses and transfer that heat Easily to water whereafter the process is like any other commercial power plant. . It is like the Analogy that if you slap a chicken hard and fast enough you can cook it. Except instead of a hand it’s a pellet of copper and instead of chicken it’s a deuterium/tritium target in a focusing apparatus. This also solves the issue of neutron erosion of the containment layer as the liquid medium will absorb those neutrons. This is cool
You got it. I don't think this was emphasized enough. No magnetic containment = huge breakthrough (if they can generate more energy than they put in with this method)
I am a PhD student at UKAEA. I don't work exactly on fusion. I work on an upcoming project named CHIMERA for CCFE. My work is mostly related to machine learning and multiphysics simulation. For those who don't know the aim is to commercialize fusion till 2040.
Nicely explained. After decades of watching scientists seemingly bang their heads against walls in terms of the difficulties encountered with other approaches this is much more encouraging, hence exciting, than I expected. Too early to say I suspect but one thing that I would be interested in is, if/when it gets to a commercial application, how small (physically) could it scale down to? Small and very small modular reactors are getting quite a lot of attention in the fission world hence my interest in whether this could ultimately, if the basic concept does make it through to commercially viable units, have the potential for small modular setups as well.
It's just words son, are you so easily persuaded? There isn't any time, action is needed now, not at some point unspecified. Meanwhile the cost of just one nuke plant would fiund a complete countryside PV roof project with money to spare.
@@petersimmons3654 Every alternative you would propose is incapable of matching our energy needs. And it's not like everything else has been abandoned for this singular project either. You seem to be suggesting that no progress should be made on anything, because it all takes time and costs money. I wonder, do you think the same thing about the development of more efficient solar cells and energy storage or do you specifically save your condemnation of "time and money" for only scientific research you're bizarrely against?
@@user-nf9so5oa7w honestly what’s the difference? Once it gets past Mach 1 it really doesn’t matter how fast that bullet impacts your skull it’ll kill you just the same. Plus I imagine carrying around and aiming this thing would be wildly impractical compared to an actual gun. I just find it hard to believe this could be weaponized in such a way that would make existing guns inferior, and if that’s the case then why bother banning this for the general public?
How much energy does this thing deliver per target vs the total amount of energy needed to produce all of the consumables including support infrastructure (gain) is always the killer question for projects aiming for commercial viability. Whatever the "unfair metrics" may be, power plants still need to be substantially net-positive from cradle to grave to be viable.
My thoughts exactly. Seems like a clever way to say “see we are very close to being net positive” when all you really did was move around the energy accounting so you can ignore the energy required for prep.
@@simoncoelho3555 You're going to have to draw a line outside of math and in real life for this energy accounting. Technically fossil and nuclear fuels are just really terrible batteries for the natural energy that formed their deposits before human existence. Plus there are many "green" energies that do that creative accounting today. Like solar panels that come from a global supply chain doesn't count the the very expensive global security and distribution system which is required to even be possible.
One part of the interviews video reminds me to the phased array interference effect. They put a bubble that gets compressed by the effect generated sorrounding shokwave. Fascinating approach! I think that the one of the most difficult part to is how did they managed to have such a cavity or container shape to achieve that interacction. Turbulence physic maths are really hard, aren'y they? I think that even if they are successful having fusion, they are missing efficience when it comes to take advantage of the enormous cuantity of energy generated. This part isn't easy, perhaps the most difficultouse part of the system...
These guys are increadibly intelligent and it's a pretty friggen awesome approach to fusion that I rank as my #2 favorite so far. My favorite approach is sustained high voltage electrical discharge in plasma. You get electric double layers that form in high energy electric discharges, if you maintain the discharge you can create and hold stable double layer structures. A double layer is such that one gas in the plasma might be 230K but the other can be 10MK, both gases seperated by the electromagnetic structure of the double layer. The pressure and energy held in the double layer can reach the thresholds necessary for fusion. It's similar to the tokamak but approached form a different angle.
Once we are able to create reactions that can produce more energy than they require, the real trick is going to be extracting that energy. However the goal is noble and if achieved puts humanity on a completely different level.
Extracting the energy is piss easy and no trick at all. Hot molten metal boils water, steam makes turbine go, turbine spins generator. 19th century tech. The hard parts here are e.g. resetting the machine ~10 times per second; otherwise each blast has to be uncomfortable large (100 MWe and one shot every 5 seconds means you need ~360 kg of TNT equivalent in each shot; that's a big boom that you have to contain). Making so many explosions means making targets for
@@soylentgreenb i think just a combination of good gun technology, plus having multiple guns in parallel to increase the effective shots per second, is the way to go to increase the ignition frequency.
Have they thought of the advanced propulsion applications? This is like project daedalus - nuclear pellets could push a spacecraft to fantastic speeds. Daedalus assumed a laser mediated pellet ignition. If these guys can do it with a rail gun and clever geometry of targets, they have gone a long way to solving pulsed nuclear propulsion in a way that does not run afoul of the space treaties prohibiting nuclear weapons in space, like Project Orion unfortunately seems to.
@@soylentgreenb Pretty sure you're going to melt the turbine. But yes logistical challenges will need to be solved along with assumption of inefficiency in converting energy mediums. In other words the machine will have to far exceed a 1 to 1 ratio of input and output just to break even, nevertheless be economically viable. Getting closer each decade but still a ways off. Pump storage, giga factory? How are we gonna store all that energy?
You've been spending too much time around Magnetic fusion, this is inertial fusion or ICF. ICF usually has a net positive energy result, the challenge is sustaining it. Dumping D-T into a tokamak or stellerator is cheap, but manufacturing fuel elements for use every 5 seconds is proportionally dramatically more expensive.
Without a business model they're not going to be able to raise much funding. The people who are only interested in making an investment will want to know how the potential returns will make them enough money to justify the gamble.
@Peter from NZ what I find puzzling is that most of these projects don't seem remotely plausible (for continuous operation) and yet they still get enough funding to produce some kind of prototype. The prototype should at least be able to break even, otherwise it's a dud
First Light seem to be focused on funding. They gloss over the projected Qtotal value or even a Qfusion value in their 'GAIN' calculations which is important.
This system is a version of ICF or inertial confinement fusion which I would argue is the more "brute force" concept. Tokamak is MCF or magnetic confinement fusion, much less brute force and uses a sustained fusion. Whereas ICF is a bunch of serial fusion. You could think of ICF like a piston engine, and MCF as a turbine engine. Course nothing as brute as stars which use GCF or gravitational confinement fusion, and is practically cheating compared to the other 2. Because there's no energy cost to the confinement.
Sonofusion, Aneutronics, Static Field Confinement Fusion, Muon Catalyst Fusion (Also called Cold Fusion, which is a bit confusing as that's the same term as Test Tube Fusion).
@@jeremyO9F911O2 Well, that is, but my common sense tells me a Tokamak is brutter that this method for being more expensive, heavier, bigger and a life time long to come true! Many decades since I was a teenager, I am quite old now!
Ok, I am just a physics lover! I am cheering for fusion to come true by means of a simple and not expensive technology every nation can afford to have it: in this way there will be no way for a nation to slavery other due to energy as it is today with other energy sources! I am Brasilian!
I think it was Isaac Arthur that once argued that we can achieve fusionpower TODAY if we really wanted too. all we had to do is dig out a huge hole in the ground, reinforce it with strong meter thick materials and concrete, fill it up with water, and detonate fusion bombs in it. hook up a steam turbine to an output pipe at the top and you got fusion power.
Dang, I am extremely impressed by the number of highly intelligent people who have replied to this video! I didn't realize there were so many truly smart people left in the world. Since the COVID debacle started, it seemed to me, the I.Q. of world's population had somehow been drastically lowered! I feel quite relieved to find there are still many highly intelligent people still using their brains, for something other than conspiracy theories! Thank you, all.
Fusion isn't *finally* ten years away. Fusion has been ten years away since I first learned about it in junior high 40 years ago. We ought to collect enough fusion fuel in one place until the mass starts to fuse because of gravity. We could then setup collectors to capture the power coming from this big mass. I think I just invented the sun and solar panels.
Except on-location fusion can produce several orders of magnitude more energy per square foot than solar, and do so with almost zero unplanned breaks in said production. Solar is a great supplemental technology, but it will never be able to produce the type and volume of energy we will need in the future without unnecessary sacrifices. Fusion (and even fission) is far superior in every way. Why we're not focusing on it more, when it's proliferation would have a profound impact on the world, is unforgivable. Commercial fusion would render every alternative technology utterly archaic overnight. Everything between now in then is a huge (perhaps necessary) waste of resources.
The challenge with Fusion is that you actually need to _exceed_ the conditions of a star. Our sun, for all the great Heat and Pressure at its core, still only has an average energy output equivalent to the human body. Power plants on earth require a MUCH higher power density.
@@sitfish1113 The amount of heat generated per kilogram of mass is comparable. The sun of course has a lot of kilograms, so it produces a lot of heat, but the density of that heat production isn't all that high.
That’s because the energy output from the sun only comes from it’s surface area, which is only a very thin slice of it’s total volume. Either way, I don’t see how that’s relevant here. We are only trying to replicate fusion in a local point / a very small area.
@@HansLemurson the core of the sun, where fusion actually happens, is about 6.76x10^29kg. it has a power output of 2.870x10^21W/m2 across its surface area. Which means that its total power output is 1.1x10^39W, and that means its power per unit mass is about 1.6x10^9W/kg. The core of the sun releases about 4.2 million tons of energy per second. It produces astronomically more energy than human bodies per kg. It is nonsensical to count the non fusion capable mass of the sun when this isn't something that happens in fusion on earth in reactors. We reproduce the core of the star, which is why a few tons worth of hydrogen bomb can evaporate a metropolis and why ITER is designed to output 500 Megawatts whereas a human body produces about 100 watts during rest.
At this point in life i very much regret not going more towards the sciences. Imagine being given the opportunity to name an insane gun of sorts, and just remembering all the fun times had in a game you love. It's worth it, just for that. I applaud those who named the Big "Friendly" Gun.
Are we 10 years away? Probably not. But maybe we're finally closer than 30. Once we see a working demo that delivers more energy than it takes, we'll be at or under 10 years away.
Do you know how long it actually takes to develop and manufacture something as exceedingly simple by comparison as a modern fighter jet? Or a modern nuclear power plant? What makes people think that an apparatus that is orders of magnitude more complex and has even some key technologies and problems completely unsolved could possibly be developed and manufactured in just a few decades, way faster than a modern jet or a simple nuclear plant? That's just nuts. Fusion power plants are science fiction at this point and everything done today is actually nothing but very basic research. Most probably, bordering on certainty, nobody alive today will even live to see the most basic prototype possible for an actual fusion power plant, much less any kind of commercial application. Which might not even be viable, after all there are core issues still completely unsolved and even after that - "just" a reliably working fusion power plant won't do - it has to provide energy much cheaper than any other solution available in the future to make up for the mind boggling complexity and everything that comes hand in hand with it, the infrastructure needed to run such a humongous monstrosity and to compensate for the drawbacks of highly centralized energy production and on and on and on. Tldr: Fusion power plants in 30 years? lol
@@grebe2332 No, it doesn't. Where do you get that from? Edit: If you're talking about the mere manufacturing of a final product that has previously been designed, prototyped and extensively tested over a period of often way more than just a mere decade you could actually be right. That's not the point though.
I know it's early stages but OMG am I so happy that we are trying to go more simplistic, rather than, the world's largest magnets, powered by 2 hydro dams to run 30 seconds of immense electricity just to power those magnets and lasers and they have to create the gases to create the plasma which they said also has a cost, THEN even if that does produce NET energy, HOW DO we store all of that energy for use!!!??? It just seems so overly complicated and energy taxing that I really really really find this approach just fresh to even consider and to realize that "Hey maybe their are really really smart people out there that also think the current attempt to net fusion isn't efficient for energy production." ~those magnetic plasma chambers are good for research purposes tho.. surely they could be good test tools...
Thank you for the clear and tight presentation! I was not clear on what the projectile and target are made out of, and why and how exactly the shock waves were produced... or how the new target was put in place every 5 seconds.. hm still want more info...
The impactor is probably pretty simple, it's just a hunk of mass. The fuel element is what will be expensive, possibly multiple dollars per element, every 5 seconds. Right now I suspect a single element of fuel costs thousands of dollars in the prototype. This is the obvious liability in this system.
Fusion reactors which we try to construct are either deuterium/deuterium or tritium/deuterium based. Both of them release energy primary as stream of neutrons which by definition is radiation. Produced free neutrons carry much larger energies than ones produced in fission of U235. Most of the those free neutrons are captured by lithium and turned to heat, but part of them passes trough and permanently damages everything they touch. Making everything both radioactive and, with time, unusable. If reachable - fusion has its virtues, but not the ones of one of "cheap energy" and "completely radioactive free". Also definition of "base load" is not "the current electric grid". That is blatant false to a point that I doubt author's understanding of terms presented.
just means materials and parts need to be replaced. The radioactive waste can be stored easily out in the middle of nowhere for example in a mountain. it'll lose most its radioactivity in 50 years though. where as fission nuclear waste lasts a lot longer and produces a lot more. fission waste has longer half life and way more produced. while fusion half life is quick, some materials would be 1 year.
@@Dudeinator tritium has halflife of approximately 13 years. Meaning that is highly radioactive and durable enough to loiter for couple centuries. Some amount of tritium will always slip out fusion containment. Now I don't think that is a particularly troublesome. Radioactive waste isn't technological problem for fusion or fission. What radioactive waste is - it is a political argument/issue. However introduction of this video oversells fusion as miracle free non-radioactive energy. It does produce radioactive waste. And by all we know it will be even more expensive than fission (unless somebody makes something really different like this bullet-engaged-fusion, but "miracle" is effective savior of any technology). Real virtues of fusion are availability and deployment.
@@bariole isnt the tritium still reusable after? Also i agree that its more a political point for nuclear waste management. Though I am pretty sure the amount of nuclear waste from fusion is an order of magnitudes less.
No matter what, the cynics will always be making the same jokes about Fusion being unachievable, because they're so emotionally invested in this narrative they purposefully ignore the remarkable achievements we're seeing almost every month. Every step forward is dismissed by these people, it actually makes me wonder if perhaps they're oil industry lobbyists lol There's really no comparison between actual scientists excelling in their field and the opinions of random cynics in TH-cam comments, just as there's no comparison between a neurosurgeon and my mate one-eyed-Billy down the pub. Amazing progress is being made. This progress will continue to be made. The physics is clear, we just need to develop the machinery to achieve the right result (just as humans have done at least since the industrial revolution).
Of course, not only does the reactor need to produce energy in excess of the input to cause the reaction, but also in excess of the energy requirement for producing the fuel, operating the entire facility, and delivering the energy, otherwise the system is a net loss
@@fatitankeris6327 if only we could collaborate on a global scale, everyone pooling our resources together for the benefit of humanity, then maybe we could accelerate development. Fusion energy would be one of the most significant breakthroughs of all time and we need to be treating it as such. My only reservation is the possibility that for some reason unbeknownst to us yet that it is operationally infeasible to reach the efficiency levels to make it worthwhile
@@scrat4379 The NIF did it to gold spheres an they have been steadily improving their numbers, they would be further along but they get very little time on the device compare to the nuclear weapon guys.
I gave up on speculating if fusion will be a thing sooner or later. Now I just take the approach that it will happen when it happens and it will be worth the wait.
how are they going to remove all the copper ? they are firing it in at roughly a cubic centimeter a minute, that is a cubic meter every 16 hours. that is a lot of copper (now coverd in liquid lithium? ) or (as molten metals are powerful solvents, a sort of lithium bronze ?)
We need to develop liquid fueled nuclear fission, i.e. molten salt reactors. They could be configured to burn nuclear "waste" given their much higher theoretical efficiency compared to solid fuel; and given their low pressure, high temperature operation, they allow for much more diverse applications and inherent safety compared to light water. It's not the "holy grail" of fusion, but it's a radical step forward that isn't getting the attention it deserves.
This and NIF feel like they're a bit overcomplicated when it comes to the fuelling process; I mean you have to make *a lot* of individual components to a high standard of precision to run this machine, for, say, one day (that's 17,280 shots every 24 hours, assuming one shot every five seconds, so that's 17280 impactors and 17280 fuel capsules(?) per day!) whereas tokamaks like ITER plan to use comparatively simple solid D-T fuel pellets through extrusion which are then just fired into the plasma to keep it running.
There is absolutely a need for scalability on the manufacture side. On the other hand it is not unheard of for production facilities to produce well over 20000 units in a day. It is hard for me to say if this is a lot since I have very little context. Sure, we can produce millions of bottle caps in a day. But this is not bottle caps. But it does not seem totally unfeasible. Edit: For examples of extreme precision manufacturing which we have to manage to scale, we can look at Integrated Circuit manufacturing. Some elements superficially actually resembles this. Modern Fabs however cost billions. And I expect that building a facility for the fuel production for this would also be quite expensive. But maybe not the same level.
@@Cythil lol, so burning a CPU core every 5 seconds. If we are comparing lithographic nano printing this really doesn't sound cheap. I wonder what the output is? Like I feel like the package can't scale bigger, but maybe it can. This all seems too expensive though.
@@jeremyO9F911O2 Honestly, any design of a power generator which relies on gravity, or free suspension without restraining forces seems too wanky. Like, Thoroid magnetic channels seem to be leaving less wobble in operation, which would make it more suitable for future mobile stations (spacecraft, for example). I suppose that's way too far ahead, maybe at least 2200.
@@ehombane The question now then has to be, is the "time to future fusion" a function with a finite intersection with T=0, or is it asymptotic to T=0. 🤔
@@davidgray6999 My professors in the early nineties insisted it was down to being perpetually 20 years away. Of course I had to ask how long it would be twenty years away, since it had been 30 years away as long as I could remember.
Ya know... If you can take your lithium up above about 1300C it boils. You could build a Stirling engine on lithium phase change. With a heat exchanger so lithium baths remain separate... Lithium carries the most heat of any [metal]... Hmmm. About half the heat of fusion of water... Between meeting and boiling there is a lot of room... 600K and 1600K. You could get an efficiency of 62% with the Carnot cycle. Probably 40% overall efficiency with a boiler. Thermal Photo Voltaic cells are about 40% efficient at that range. That would be a solid state solution of making electricity... Interesting technologies comverging.
I think the corrosive nature of Li (or Na) as coolant becomes more of a problem the hotter you go, you'd probably want to switch from Li to a water secondary loop asap to minimise how big of a primary loop you need making out of some expensive grade of stainless (and pressure testing if its going to be boiling). Getting it to boiling temp would have serious saftey considerations and if they get it wrong you end up spraying hot Li all over.
@@elliotbryan2717 You build it mostly from ceramics and use electrokinesis to move the fluid around. Very few moving parts. Centrifuge a portion of it regularly and remove the LiH that develops.
I don't trust bussines people at this technical level if they don't released peer reviewed papers. It sounds like a scam. Also, no gunpowder is able to achieve that high speed. The railgun aproach is even worst because they want to accelerate a ball of copper weighting half a gram or more to 20-30km/s in JUST 5 milimeters! That would involve a huge burst of energy probably similar to the largest lasers available today, a far from cheap process! Either this is a scam or your information is way off! Either they detail it on a scientific paper or I keep my word its a scam!
White papers are here: firstlightfusion.com/science-hub Its unlikely that full disclosures will be given in peer reviewed papers. Most of the fuel design will be better kept as trade secret, rather than patent. There isn't any value in a billion dollar cap ex if you can only use it with competitive edge for 20 years. It will depend on the business model, if the core IP is built around fuel design they will keep it close to their chest. Their value inflection will come from demonstration, rather than manuscripts
@@DrBenMiles Keeping the fuel pellet proprietary would be similar to the Wright Brothers keeping the airplane proprietary. Good luck. Be interesting to see if this method can extend from the DT to the DHe3 fuel cycle.
I believe that an all of the above strategy works best. While we may never achieve working commercial fusion, advances coming out of research in the area are paying for itself in applications in other areas. For example the AI research coming out of predicting plasma turbulence and magnetic field abnormalities is also very useful for other fields in which rapid real-time AI results are required. But there is no fundamental reason that fusion cannot work. While it is true that the boffins doing the research are constantly predicting a working reactor in 20 or 30 years, it is also true that nothing has been discovered in all this time that indicates that eventually, we will not succeed. Imagine if we were trying to make a perpetual motion machine, or a faster than light engine, or something else that we have real reasons to believe are simply impossible. The fact of the matter is that mankind will eventually be able to produce fusion reactions with a total output of the power plant having a Q > 1. In other words, we will eventually succeed in the scientific parts of this question. The real problem is that we have no similar assurance that this will ever be able to be done economically. For example, lets say we have a power plant that generates a ridiculous amount of power that is completely free. But the nature of the reaction means the thing has to be shut down every few weeks and rebuilt at a 100 million dollars a whack cost. The first plants will be exactly like that, mark my words. It will take us a while before we figure out a mechanism to generate fusion energy without eating the power plant every few weeks or months. The neutron flux will be incredible no matter what reaction you use. And neutrons are bad for structural steel. They get absorbed and change the metal and create defects.
There was a great comment I saw elsewhere under this video talking about how photovoltaic panels were first invented in the 1800s, and they're just now getting to be really viable. Wouldn't be surprised at all if fusion's a similar sort of thing.
This is fantastic! Combine this with Plasma Gasification of metropolitan garbage/trash and we just might have completely solved the clean/cheap energy supply issues in the future. That process could burn NYC daily garbage output and supply power to nearly the entire city if I remember the metrics on it correctly. Plasma Gasification now and First Light Fusion in 10 years would be amazing for the planet as long as the radioactive waste was handled properly.
If you think about it, most of the energy we use is derived from fusion energy. Sunlight, is from fusion energy, hydrocarbons are formed from absorbing sunlight. Nuclear, is fission, wich is basicly stored fusion energy (like oil is to solar).
Given how much time and effort it takes to build those little cubes, and given how much energy they get out of them, this feels more like a complicated battery and I'd like to see numbers of the full lifecycle co2 emissions of the total system.
Hell no, we never were 30 years away even in optimistic views. The tokamak approach is by far the most advanced in terms of actual power plant operation and even now first ITER (not even a commercial reactor) DT plasma is panned for 2035. First tokamak plasmas were ignited in the 60s - putting the technology some 60 years ahead of this kinetic fusion approach. I'm interested to see where the stellarator approach goes but personally, I'm not convinced of the pellet fusion confinement approaches like z-pinch, laser confinement and this technology seems to fall in a similar space.
I could see this as a solution for less dense countries/areas. It seems like the Laser/Plasma approach scales better to higher yields, while the projectile approach has it's strength in cheap low yield reactors.
Nice report. The technological breakthroughs are J-shaped, we tend to think linearly, so perhaps sooner a mobile van sized fusion power generator to power a city.
as a supporter of Fusion energy, I believe this is a big step forward (although as many others say, it's just changing the joke by 20 years) but, what I despise about this process is..... WHY IS THE SIMPLE SOLUTION ALWAYS SEEMINGLY THE BEST ONE?!?
everything depends on energy input/output ratio of this process...and since they are not mentioning such a „minor detail“, i would not be overly excited...what´s still positive is, that someone is trying different approach, so thumbs up!
Did we do it? Kinda... Are we close at least? Maybe?
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so it's 10 yrs instead of 30 now.. is exactly what i thought. they are not the only ones making a breakthrough, u know?
With no nujmbers we can only guess. Others have calculated that cavitation can't get within a factor of 10,000 towards the required force and time product. So independent opinions say you cannot get anywhere near or even far from "close".
Huge waste of money. Centralized generation will never compete with the costs of distributed energy in 5 years. Let alone the 20+ years before this pipe dream becomes a reality.
You are on to something here and the time line of the 30's is correct. Why haven't these billion dollar scientist been working on this from the begining?
I think it's great that instead of Fusion being perpetually 30 years away, it's now only perpetually 10 years away.
That's progress!
Yeah, it kind of actually is progress. I'll take it.
Perpetually 10 years? :D That's a big improvement. :))
It’s London cross-rail timelines when it starts to get really interesting.
@@MrNelford Good point. There is no real difference between something that is always thirty years in the future and something that is always ten years in the future. Either way, it is always in the future when we need it to be in the present.
Obviously it was originally 150 years away, but you can't actually say that or you'll never get funding.
I always love when "The history of mankind is a history of heating up water" comes true.
If you go deep enough into chemistry, it's physics, so actually, the history of all life is a history of heating up water.
I do like Tea ☕️ Soup and steam. Ahh history…
@@Hisu0 and the history of death/entropy is returning to room temperature, or -a couple hundred or so degrees C
It's so amazing to me to thing that as our society progresses we still haven't been able to create something better than steam engines. Last year i decided to learn more about how nuclear reactors work only to learn that it basically just heats up water for steam engine really efficiently.
Yeah the steam engine cycle is the simplest. This makes it the most efficient since less steps essentially equals less entropy. We do have improvements from the original steam engine. Reheating and Trigeneration CCGT plants for example help us to burn less fuel to create electricity by trying to use up all the “waste heat” a normal steam engine has.
But at the end of the day, water and steam are a really good way to store and transfer heat energy.
When I was 14 years old, I developed a railgun for exposcience, I won my local hometown exposcience fair, but then I lost at the state level, because the university teachers said rail guns are weapons and weapons shouldn't be part of exposcience. I talked about creating something similar to the large hadron collider, but with railguns and a solid projectile to achieve fusion. It's absolutely crazy to me, that more than 12 years later they're basically doing JUST THAT. That's life in a nutshell.
So you burned out at 14...
so the ''woke'' were already murdering science when you were just 14? surprise me.
Had you been like 300% crazier you could be running First Light instead of Nick Hawker.
Only if you were relentlessly picked on.. you might have become a super villain aka Bond villain.. lol
This would appear to be railgun with an amplifier. Two items so the fuel is another key component to step the velocity up even further.
Innovation is always a good thing even if the product doesn't end up being commercially viable. We (as a species) generally learn a lot from it (the innovative process) and often products, and technologies we never even thought of, get derived from it. Always good to see people trying to push the limits of our understanding.
True, because of the wars around the world, the millitary actually came up with allot of things we use daily nowadays (GPS etc.)
Great informative video. Thank you for sharing this information. It gives me hope that viable fusion energy production is something that I will live to see in my lifetime.
My high school physics class was one of many that made a field trip to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory for some kind of science day in 1969. I recall sitting in the Laboratory main auditorium (which was filled with high school students - had to be about 600 students and teachers there) listening to science lectures, one of which was given by a Dr. James Tuck who was introduced as Friar Tuck of Sherwood Forest for reasons I will explain in a moment. We later toured some of the research areas, including a kind of shabby appendage to the Laboratory's administration building (called the Sherwood building, or Sherwood forest) where Dr. Tuck showed us a demonstration of a metal wrench held in the magnetic field of one of the magnets, and a neat little demo of what happens to an aluminum foil cylinder when compressed in a zeta pinch. His claim was that the amount of energy released when the capacitor bank actually fired was enough to power the entire US for some very short amount of time - perhaps a microsecond. He proudly concluded that commercial energy from nuclear fusion was just 30 years over the horizon.
I graduated from high school, went to college, and started working at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (in 1975, I think) on a geothermal energy project. Time passed, and I went to graduate school, got my PhD, and returned to the by now renamed Los Alamos National Laboratory to work on a variety of energy and environmental projects until my retirement in 2004. At the time of my retirement, commercial energy from nuclear fusion was just 30 years in the future with laser fusion being the current leader. Or perhaps, it was closer if Pons and Fleischmann were correct. Now, nearly 20 years after retirement, and after a huge expenditure on a variety of fusion energy projects, ITER is just 30 years from commercialization of nuclear fusion.
In my recollection, commercial energy from nuclear fusion has been just 30 years over the horizon for about 55 years. The work described in this video is the best idea I have seen in a long time for making fusion energy a commercial reality.
You got that RIGHT: "Nuclear fusion has been just 30 years over the horizon for about 55 years."
The work in this video shows that commercialization of fusion is *just 30 years away!* Aren't the times we live in spectacularly grand?
A baby boomer who was able to retire essentially a generation before most of his peers. Well done sir. I have a target retirement year of 2057, and I hope you’ll still be enjoying your own if/when I get there!
wow ,what a great career experience! I wish fusion energy will solve the poverty and inequality in 50 years which is the biggest problem of human being.
How on earth do you take literally 50 years of non progress and flip it into we are almost there? You must be a democrat! It’s the only explanation!
BFG makes a lot of sense to develop the fuel delivery device. These "big guns" are common tools used by physicists to study high stress/pressure states of matter. I worked with one in college at our physics department.
Wanna study quantum physics? Just use guns.
Did your professor ever tell you that you can't just shoot a hole in the surface of Mars?
The slaver is entering the facility
@@fatitankeris6327 just waiting for the 'meanwhile american physicists:' jokes haha
@@fatitankeris6327 Well that only works if you are looking at it. Just like my pool table disappears whenever I turn around to get a drink of beer that has just reappeared because I am looking at it.
Everything I read/watch about First Light seems pragmatic and well thought out. Best of luck to them!
I'm not sure you understand what pragmatic means, but good try. 👍
@@markfox1545 Yes I do. What's the problem?
@@richbuilds_com I think he was being pragmatic
@@markfox1545 Perhaps you misinterpreted "pragmatic" as "problematic"??? Pragmatic was definitely the correct word choice by @Richard Asselbrook
The potential to end scarcity, excluding engineered scarcity, that this represents makes my heart sing with hope for our species.
@@firstnamesurname5376 They'll sure try but this amount of info is put there. If the Radioactive Boy Scout built a breader reactor in his mom's shed than this will be reproduced.
This seems like a brilliant idea. They've got around all the worst technical complications by default and made a low-tech fusion process conceivable. A quite remarkable achievement.
Yes so can the UK keep this invention please rather than giving it away to every mad country who comes along like usual!
Imagine telling a romantic era steam engine engineer that there might be made a steam engine heated not by coal or oil but by the same process as in stars. Would be a pretty fascinating sci-fi novel idea.
Steam turbines are incredibly sophisticated. The level if sophistication is astounding.
I think it’s funny that with every new technology it still always goes into a steam engine
The big problem is, that we have barely any ways to convert different types of energy into electrical energy.
Pretty much the only two options are either solar panels (converting light to electricity) or some kind of turbine, converting mechanical energy into electricity.
To convert any other type of energy, we rely on those two by generating heat and using that heat to create kinetic energy to power a turbine. This is inefficient, but it's the best we've got. So there has been a lot of work to at least optimise this approach.
Wasn't the view at the time that stars were powered by gravitational collapse?
They might have told you: "I have a water wheel that can do that already".
@@IamGrimalkin That's more a choice of definition than anything. The light (and heat) from stars is generated by the fusion reaction, but the fusion reaction itself takes energy input, and _that_ is generated by the gravitational pressure the star is under.
Its the reason why we need significantly higher temperatures to start the reaction than we find (well OK, calculate) at the core of stars: Temperature and pressure can (typically) be traded off and since we have no way to generate the immense gravitational pressure a star's core experiences, we compensate by using higher temperatures instead (which can be done entirely through electromagnetic energy and we've gotten very good at manipulating that particular force).
50 years ago I was reading stories about commercial fusion being 30 years away. And every so often since then I've read about breakthroughs that will revolutionize the process and it's still at least 30 years away. That doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying.
Exactly. I remember 20 years ago reading online (pop-sci etc) how it was 20 years away. Now it's 30 years away 😅
that's the running joke/ meme of fusion. It's always 30 years away!
_"50 years ago I was reading stories about commercial fusion being 30 years away. "_ There is a reason for this. Any continuous fusion process is a half step away from a hydrogen bomb. There will never ever be commercial energy produced from fusion, *ever.* The ones that know how to do it on small scale are never ever going to release it to the public because do you want every Tom, Dick and Harry having a 100 Megaton bomb in their garage?
This can create fusion just has to be also economically sound now
60 - odd years ago I used to read The Eagle comic (Dan Dare & The Mekon! ...) which used to have a highly interesting article on some aspect of technology/engineering every week. One such reliably informed me that the Zeta project would soon ensure the production of electricity too cheap to be metered ...
The fact that we see commercial interest in developing fusion technologies, instead of just scientific interest, leads me to believe that we have finally crossed that "fusion is petpetually 30 years away" line. 10 years seems too optimistic to me still, but I'd love to be proved wrong.
It would take 10 years just to get planning permission and build a single prototype test plant. Its still 30 years away.
No, what has happened is that people have figured out there are a lot of people that will throw money at anything "green". Fusion snake-oil salesmen are having a boom time selling promises.
Unfortunately the "commercial interest" is usually people looking to patent something new so that when a government funded "research reactor" is built they charge outrageous fees for using their patent.
Its a game thats been going on since the 1960's.
yeah...unless all these companies are really only interested in generating investor $$$ instead of fusion power. be very wary of all these youtube science videos that seem too good to be true. they usually are just designed to lure in investors.
@@glennchartrand5411 This. Big Oil industry will run entire societies to the ground than to let another big energy replacement come into play.
This would be SO cool if it worked and became commercially available. High hopes and best wishes to the team building this.
Hi Dude. Yep, this is so "cool", it's hot. Cheers, P.R.
When you ask some questions you are supposed to answer them later on in your video by the way. So when asking : "what's actually going on here?",this should NOT be followed by a generic sales pitch of this company; rather you should be mentioning pros AND cons of their approach focusing on numbers,hard data.
We have non here other than some nice renders, so to answer the question you asked next(and did not answer as well) "is this a breakthrough, or blowing the horn to attract more funding?", it is certaintly the latter.
Buzz words like BFG(...) and "1000 times cheaper in some areas sure sound like blowing the horn.
The important aspect to achieve fusion make up the fusion energy gain factor: sufficient temperature, density and duration. So far, all these values have been achieved individually, but getting all three together has been so far challenging.
The biggest problem has always been safely containing the reaction.
@@thebolsta Magnetic confinement achieves that.
@@Dragonblaster1 but magnetic containment has some issues. Energy requirement is high.
Need an entangled event horizon. Won't work like this. It's like seeing a flame from a lighter and not realizing that there's fuel and a nozzle behind it then trying to replicate the flame by firing a laser at the ashes. We already have hot fusion power if you count solar, geothermal, wind, etc. If you wanted to create a sun you're going to need an implosion from the other side. Not a good idea.
Another big issue with the gain factor is that many papers don't factor in the energy required beyond setting off the reaction itself; so things like coolant, monitoring, logistics, plant operation etc are left out of the equation.
Good News is it brings more diverse experience on the focus. Could result in other interactive designs. It flexes the work and can open more options that yet may rise beyond hypotheses. Very good. Wonderfully presented. I appreciate knowing more about it. Certainly appreciate those on the project you have described.
What does "brings more diverse experience on the focus" mean?
@@michaelasamuel729 you got me Terry, I've never quite been able to flex the work
Considerable aspects of the design going into ITER have also recently been proven through testing. I think a lot of people see a video like this and click on it without knowing that just over the last 6 months several other landmark moments have been achieved, by both Chinese and British research groups.
Unless someone is looking at the wider picture they're unlikely to know just how fast this is all moving.
The change in approach is hopeful. Most large fusion research projects are pass/fail: they either will work or they won't, with very little ability to optimize, and the engineering required makes it very risky and expensive to actually attempt. But with pressure being dependent on optimization of the fuel cell, First Light will be able to employ the try-fail-learn-try approach, which almost always works, eventually.
Let's just hope if they do go bust, the open source everything
There is still a lot of things to consider: where would the fragments of the little cube go? How can you fire these every 5 seconds? That is a lot of manufacturing of little cubes.
Most large fusion resarch projects are so big, that they are basically too big to fail. The simulations and predictions are so conservative, that you can expect that they will always be much better than written in the proposal. 'Not working' is not an option. Look for example at Wendelstein 7-X as one of the youngest plasma experiments (and by far cooles one)
@@abelnemeth4346The current generation of semiconductor manufacturing machines generates light by shooting 50k tiny droplets of molten tin twice with a laser every second.
I think we can manage this 5 times.
@@abelnemeth4346 Hi Wood pellet fires work just fine. Cheers, P.R.
We have been only 10 years away from fusion for the last 40 years or so. But this concept seems simple enough and it has gotten me really excited.
Very cool vid. People unfortunately confuse the term "more energy then was put in" with perpetual motion, which it is not.
A fission reactor also uses a “simple” steam (turbine) generator to generate electricity from the heat
Yeah, so 18th century! Yet they claim they are cutting edge.
Simple. Spoken like a true engineer lmao. Everything is simple on paper
As an engineer you need to adapt and sometimes hide the complexities of a problem behind simple words and easy to grasp concepts. Yeah is is true the steam machine in a nuclear plant has unique challenges, but the heart of the way it works remains the same : it is a simple turbine (by the way, the unique challenges are not around the turbine but around the need of two separated water flows).
@@romain.guillaume yeah, it's not exactly complex. Even older reactor designs are incredibly simple, with the complexity coming from the need for cooling and safety. If you could just throw some fuel in the reactor and everything "be safe" it would be just a boiler (more like a double boiler in order to separate the icky stuff) attached to a turbine.
@@SECONDQUEST exactly. When you think about it, the most unique construction is a shielded thermal exchanger between the primary and secondary water flow. But I think that is not what is important. It is rather the idea itself of creating two separated water circuits which seems more of a deal breaker. And that why we could speak of a simple turbine, because that is not the point.
I'm fairly certain the "F" in "BFG" doesn't stand for "Friendly". See the Wikipedia article ""BFG (Weapon)" for an explanation of what the BFG acronym actually stands for. And props to the scientists for using a Doom reference!
The BFG is also a book character, Big Friendly Giant :)
U know shits getting serious when Elon Musk wants to install that BFG on Mars´s moon
@@lukasbaumert He is gonna put it on what once was called the BFR
I'm fairly certain he knew that but referenced the Big Friendly Giant childrens book in order to keep the video family friendly.
Remember, Elon Musk's "Starship" was originally named "BFR" for Big... Rocket.
Thank the algorithm I found your channel/video, and found your approach comprehendible and clear, and engaging and focused. Thank you I've subscribed because of it. Fascinating topic.
you covered this very well,
one part that i didn't expect to be covered was why this wasn't done before, i think its common for these types of videos to not include that, and your left just thinking everyone else is an idiot for not thinking of the idea, but there were actual reasons why this couldn't work that they overcame. i just wanted to highlight that specifically but really it was all amazing
Finally someone who explains why it's different to the existing approaches! I read so many articles that just said "this is a breakthrough" but didn't say how or why. On another note, interesting that the footage is from CGTN, I guess the Chinese are looking to build their own version.
So all the very smart people building ITER are just wasting their time? I am not sure how you get the needed 20X-30X power gains without a sustained fusion reaction like happens in ITER.
@@clarkkent7973 Well, is because we are just at step 2 (make fusion happen), then we need step 3 (sustain it) and step 4 (make an active energy balance out of it) - in short we are like a medieval village try to build a constellation class spaceship
But we are not. Or technology is a lot better than that in scale. The darkages was almost 1000 years ago. The rate of technological advancements get faster and faster. We have achieved in 100 years what took 1000 before that. Insane technology will only come faster now.
LIF-devices using targets and hohlraums of expensive heavy metals turn the targets into crud inside the chamber, that they can then recycle. These metals aren't going to be significantly affected unless they have strong neutron absorption (which you might want if you are doing combined fission and fusion, e.g. using depleted uranium in targets). With a plastic target like this, the target stops being plastic and becomes some mixture like simple hydrocarbons (e.g. methane), water, hydrogen and tar. Turning this back into a target is not as easy as turning a metal back into a target. Instead you're taking maybe 5 g of hydrocarbons per kWh and turning it into 3g of plastic per kWh and turning that into some useless non-recyclable mixture of carcinogens (AKA tar). The gold they are using in targets at NIF is a stopgap; this is not intended for commercial use; they are more a nuclear weapons research facility that is only doing some fusion research for fun and to attract funding as a side project; where there mainstay is to explore the state equation of plutonium and other such fun stuffs.
Reminder: photovoltaic effect (solar power) was discovered in 1839 and relatively recently has become cheaper than other options. Fusion development is doing okay in comparison (considering how long it takes to design, test, build and crunch numbers on new/more efficient fusion producers).
Photovoltaic cells, as a collector of the released fusion energy, would work with the high energy gammas, but would not be able to collect the major portion of the released fusion energy because it will be in the form of kinetic energy in the launched neutrons (we are making helium from deuterium, after all). The photovoltaic cells would be invisible to neutron radiation.
I agree that use of a steam heat cycle to produce electrical power would be inefficient, so some sort of neutron interactive matrix that will capture that energy, and convert it directly to voltage is also required. Because of the pulsed nature of this technology's approach, you may have to live with heat collection until they can figure that out.
The first solar cell was in 1954, your comment is very misleading. Solar power is to the photovoltaic effect as electric circuits are to the discovery of static electricity 2000 years ago.
@@boydgrandy5769 Neutron interactive matrix.. Did you just make that technobabble up? In order to generate a voltage, there has to be a temperature gradient, which is why solar panels and the like are so crap.
@@chompchompnomnom4256 Did you forget to take your meds this morning? Can you not read? There's one other question I could ask, but I'm pretty sure you already know what it is.
What I said was, unless someone can develop such an neutron energy harvesting matrix, most of the energy released by the fusion process described here will be lost and the neutron radiation will go on to be the single biggest hazard of fusion. In the commercial nuclear power industry, we shield for neutrons that leak from the core with materials that contain water, some 2.43 fast neutrons per fission. All of that energy is lost. Fission reactors trap heat from the process by the interaction of the fission products and the high energy gammas produces with the core moderator and structural materials (kinetic energy is heat, and it is transferred by collision and convection to the moderator).
I don't think electrical generators work the way you think, either. ICE, gas or steam turbine generator prime movers require some form of heat cycle to rotate, but the generator requires only a rotating armature carrying a magnetic field inside a stationary stator to induce voltage. Heat in a generator is a loss, not a gain.
@@ObjectsInMotion I would regard your comment as far more misleading as solar cells where about 2% efficient in 1889. Your scale is off by a drastic measure
FYI:
100 million Kelvin is roughly 180 million degrees F
6.5 km/s is about 14,540 mph or mach 18.95
Nice.
On one of B1M's latest videos they showed us the fusion reactor they are building in France at the moment, the size of it was ridiculous. They said they'll be able to trigger a fusion reaction but we're still some 20 years away being able to build something that could harness the power produced and meter it out accordingly. When (if) that happens we enter a new era!
:D It's always been 20 years away!
I really like the liquid lithium "shower" as the heat collector.
Dr Miles, this was excellent content. Please do a series on the various fusion approaches and who the players are. Also, links for further reading would be much appreciated. I’d like to geek out on fusion.
I remember a lot of excitement around fusion 40 years ago--around the early 80s. It was going to be ready ten years down the road, maybe 20 tops. Don't get me wrong--I really, REALLY want these guys to succeed, but I'll remain skeptical for now.
Yeah but our science is 10000x more advanced then it was then. Only concern is making everything so cheaply. They might as well put a made in china stamp on the reactor so they have an excuse when it breaks.
I'll do you one better, in 1965 I was in jr high school. I wish I still had the textbook that explained that in the future there would be no need for insulation in houses as we'd get all the energy we needed from a tablespoon of sea water courtesy of fusion. Like you I hope this is real and not smoke and mirrors. And Big Friendly gun, come on. I'm old but not that out of it.
I'm SURE there's reasons why certain tech isn't instantly solved and released to the public.
Same as how certain medicines take years and years and years to release if ever, money.
@@JPOGame money runs and ruins people and the world sadly
In spite of the all the haters, the bottom line is that ALL the advancements made towards the ultimate goal of sustained fusion power over the past century HAVE BEEN REAL. They are NOT like Elon Musk and other out-of-touch billionaire and politician lies and promises and scams. THAT is the INFINITELY important difference that haters REFUSE/FAIL to notice.
In the long run , humankind has only two ways how to generate enough energy for its needs.
1. Nuclear fusion
2. Solar panels in space + microwave transmission to Earth.
Renewables, as we know them today, will never be the answer to all energy needs.
This research is highly appreciated and should be given top priority 👍
Thank you for this video! I'm really impressed, both by this First Light Fusion company and by your channel. I'm so glad TH-cam recommended it to me.
I like that fusion energy is getting closer and it's exciting, I'm just a little disappointed that the energy capture is still "heat water for spinning"
That is all they can do, drive steam turbines. The real cutting edge science is inturning sunlight into electricity in one go without steam! Why do you like fusion? Dpo you still think there is a need for it which can't be met? Storage provides base load for a 100% renewable grid, yet nuke cultists continue to prtend there is a dying need for masses of nuclear power. There isn't.
It's been that way for 2 centuries (actually for millenia for more simple applications) and will continue to be the method likely for centuries to come. Water is an amazing compound. You just take it for granted.
There are other energy extraction methods like magnetohydrodynamic, ion seperation, etc.... but steam is an easy, and proven technology that uses existing infrastructure.
Water has high heat capacitance and is a dense, non corrosive, cheap, material. Why would we replace it with anything else?
@@e4Bc4Qf3Qf7 in the case of fusion we are releasing the strong nuclear force, and using it to boil water.
The fact that this energy is released in the form of subatomic particles in a high vacuum makes this problematic.
I think this is really exciting and promising. I heard about this breakthrough listening to the SGU podcast but having your visuals and explanation really helps to illustrate the process. 👍🏼
Every time I watch Fusion breakthrough videos, it always seems to turn out to be con fusion. Well, you got my click. Good luck UK and Dr. Miles.
its a scam
@@Joe-by8jh agreed, net energy also includes converting the steam into electrons, ( which is more losses ) really I believe energy at the user end (should) approach or exceed energy in to the fusion process. I believe coal plants put out about 35% of the energy that is put into them when considering the conversion of steam to electrons.
That is genius. That does away with the need for supercooled magnets, massive containment vessels, a liquid medium will capture the heat from those 5 second pulses and transfer that heat Easily to water whereafter the process is like any other commercial power plant. .
It is like the Analogy that if you slap a chicken hard and fast enough you can cook it. Except instead of a hand it’s a pellet of copper and instead of chicken it’s a deuterium/tritium target in a focusing apparatus.
This also solves the issue of neutron erosion of the containment layer as the liquid medium will absorb those neutrons. This is cool
You got it. I don't think this was emphasized enough. No magnetic containment = huge breakthrough (if they can generate more energy than they put in with this method)
I am a PhD student at UKAEA. I don't work exactly on fusion. I work on an upcoming project named CHIMERA for CCFE. My work is mostly related to machine learning and multiphysics simulation. For those who don't know the aim is to commercialize fusion till 2040.
Nicely explained. After decades of watching scientists seemingly bang their heads against walls in terms of the difficulties encountered with other approaches this is much more encouraging, hence exciting, than I expected.
Too early to say I suspect but one thing that I would be interested in is, if/when it gets to a commercial application, how small (physically) could it scale down to? Small and very small modular reactors are getting quite a lot of attention in the fission world hence my interest in whether this could ultimately, if the basic concept does make it through to commercially viable units, have the potential for small modular setups as well.
It's just words son, are you so easily persuaded? There isn't any time, action is needed now, not at some point unspecified. Meanwhile the cost of just one nuke plant would fiund a complete countryside PV roof project with money to spare.
@@petersimmons3654 Every alternative you would propose is incapable of matching our energy needs. And it's not like everything else has been abandoned for this singular project either. You seem to be suggesting that no progress should be made on anything, because it all takes time and costs money. I wonder, do you think the same thing about the development of more efficient solar cells and energy storage or do you specifically save your condemnation of "time and money" for only scientific research you're bizarrely against?
@@petersimmons3654 PV requires storage. Batteries are hugely wasteful in terms of materials and paltry in terms of energy density.
It has the most powerful gun in it. I don't think individuals should be allowed to own it.
@@user-nf9so5oa7w honestly what’s the difference? Once it gets past Mach 1 it really doesn’t matter how fast that bullet impacts your skull it’ll kill you just the same. Plus I imagine carrying around and aiming this thing would be wildly impractical compared to an actual gun. I just find it hard to believe this could be weaponized in such a way that would make existing guns inferior, and if that’s the case then why bother banning this for the general public?
How much energy does this thing deliver per target vs the total amount of energy needed to produce all of the consumables including support infrastructure (gain) is always the killer question for projects aiming for commercial viability. Whatever the "unfair metrics" may be, power plants still need to be substantially net-positive from cradle to grave to be viable.
My thoughts exactly. Seems like a clever way to say “see we are very close to being net positive” when all you really did was move around the energy accounting so you can ignore the energy required for prep.
@@simoncoelho3555 You're going to have to draw a line outside of math and in real life for this energy accounting. Technically fossil and nuclear fuels are just really terrible batteries for the natural energy that formed their deposits before human existence. Plus there are many "green" energies that do that creative accounting today. Like solar panels that come from a global supply chain doesn't count the the very expensive global security and distribution system which is required to even be possible.
@@mattheww.6232 Or the huge amount of energy required to produce pure silicon.
@@bobthebomb1596 luckily you can use relatively cheap silicon for solar panels
“This system could be about 1,000x cheaper … ” - Did you guys not even watch the video?
One part of the interviews video reminds me to the phased array interference effect. They put a bubble that gets compressed by the effect generated sorrounding shokwave. Fascinating approach! I think that the one of the most difficult part to is how did they managed to have such a cavity or container shape to achieve that interacction. Turbulence physic maths are really hard, aren'y they?
I think that even if they are successful having fusion, they are missing efficience when it comes to take advantage of the enormous cuantity of energy generated. This part isn't easy, perhaps the most difficultouse part of the system...
These guys are increadibly intelligent and it's a pretty friggen awesome approach to fusion that I rank as my #2 favorite so far.
My favorite approach is sustained high voltage electrical discharge in plasma. You get electric double layers that form in high energy electric discharges, if you maintain the discharge you can create and hold stable double layer structures. A double layer is such that one gas in the plasma might be 230K but the other can be 10MK, both gases seperated by the electromagnetic structure of the double layer. The pressure and energy held in the double layer can reach the thresholds necessary for fusion.
It's similar to the tokamak but approached form a different angle.
Godspeed to this awesome break thru..Like hereing a "Transistors Radio"... for the first time...55 years ago..
Once we are able to create reactions that can produce more energy than they require, the real trick is going to be extracting that energy. However the goal is noble and if achieved puts humanity on a completely different level.
Extracting the energy is piss easy and no trick at all. Hot molten metal boils water, steam makes turbine go, turbine spins generator. 19th century tech. The hard parts here are e.g. resetting the machine ~10 times per second; otherwise each blast has to be uncomfortable large (100 MWe and one shot every 5 seconds means you need ~360 kg of TNT equivalent in each shot; that's a big boom that you have to contain). Making so many explosions means making targets for
@@soylentgreenb i think just a combination of good gun technology, plus having multiple guns in parallel to increase the effective shots per second, is the way to go to increase the ignition frequency.
Have they thought of the advanced propulsion applications? This is like project daedalus - nuclear pellets could push a spacecraft to fantastic speeds. Daedalus assumed a laser mediated pellet ignition. If these guys can do it with a rail gun and clever geometry of targets, they have gone a long way to solving pulsed nuclear propulsion in a way that does not run afoul of the space treaties prohibiting nuclear weapons in space, like Project Orion unfortunately seems to.
@@soylentgreenb Pretty sure you're going to melt the turbine. But yes logistical challenges will need to be solved along with assumption of inefficiency in converting energy mediums. In other words the machine will have to far exceed a 1 to 1 ratio of input and output just to break even, nevertheless be economically viable. Getting closer each decade but still a ways off. Pump storage, giga factory? How are we gonna store all that energy?
You've been spending too much time around Magnetic fusion, this is inertial fusion or ICF. ICF usually has a net positive energy result, the challenge is sustaining it. Dumping D-T into a tokamak or stellerator is cheap, but manufacturing fuel elements for use every 5 seconds is proportionally dramatically more expensive.
A business model without a fesible technology is pointless. I'd like to hear more about the energy win of their current lab prototypes.
d5OVYKOhOGQ&t=18m36s
Moron......,
Without a business model they're not going to be able to raise much funding. The people who are only interested in making an investment will want to know how the potential returns will make them enough money to justify the gamble.
@Peter from NZ what I find puzzling is that most of these projects don't seem remotely plausible (for continuous operation) and yet they still get enough funding to produce some kind of prototype. The prototype should at least be able to break even, otherwise it's a dud
First Light seem to be focused on funding. They gloss over the projected Qtotal value or even a Qfusion value in their 'GAIN' calculations which is important.
I love to hear alternative approaches to fusion than the classic tokamak ones which are somehow based on the brute force!
This system is a version of ICF or inertial confinement fusion which I would argue is the more "brute force" concept. Tokamak is MCF or magnetic confinement fusion, much less brute force and uses a sustained fusion. Whereas ICF is a bunch of serial fusion. You could think of ICF like a piston engine, and MCF as a turbine engine.
Course nothing as brute as stars which use GCF or gravitational confinement fusion, and is practically cheating compared to the other 2. Because there's no energy cost to the confinement.
Sonofusion, Aneutronics, Static Field Confinement Fusion, Muon Catalyst Fusion (Also called Cold Fusion, which is a bit confusing as that's the same term as Test Tube Fusion).
@@jeremyO9F911O2 Well, that is, but my common sense tells me a Tokamak is brutter that this method for being more expensive, heavier, bigger and a life time long to come true! Many decades since I was a teenager, I am quite old now!
@@PedroPedrix hey I'm a fission guy for a reason. IMO fusion is a distraction from a functional system that already exists.
Ok, I am just a physics lover! I am cheering for fusion to come true by means of a simple and not expensive technology every nation can afford to have it: in this way there will be no way for a nation to slavery other due to energy as it is today with other energy sources! I am Brasilian!
I think it was Isaac Arthur that once argued that we can achieve fusionpower TODAY if we really wanted too. all we had to do is dig out a huge hole in the ground, reinforce it with strong meter thick materials and concrete, fill it up with water, and detonate fusion bombs in it. hook up a steam turbine to an output pipe at the top and you got fusion power.
Dang, I am extremely impressed by the number of highly intelligent people who have replied to this video! I didn't realize there were so many truly smart people left in the world. Since the COVID debacle started, it seemed to me, the I.Q. of world's population had somehow been drastically lowered! I feel quite relieved to find there are still many highly intelligent people still using their brains, for something other than conspiracy theories! Thank you, all.
Fusion isn't *finally* ten years away. Fusion has been ten years away since I first learned about it in junior high 40 years ago.
We ought to collect enough fusion fuel in one place until the mass starts to fuse because of gravity. We could then setup collectors to capture the power coming from this big mass. I think I just invented the sun and solar panels.
some country or corporation will eventually claim they own that ball of mostly hydrogen. if they haven't already. you'll need to pay royalties.
@@SF-tb4kb Don't give them any ideas!
@@robertlee6338 says the guy who figured the confederacy would win.
Except on-location fusion can produce several orders of magnitude more energy per square foot than solar, and do so with almost zero unplanned breaks in said production.
Solar is a great supplemental technology, but it will never be able to produce the type and volume of energy we will need in the future without unnecessary sacrifices. Fusion (and even fission) is far superior in every way. Why we're not focusing on it more, when it's proliferation would have a profound impact on the world, is unforgivable. Commercial fusion would render every alternative technology utterly archaic overnight. Everything between now in then is a huge (perhaps necessary) waste of resources.
@@NautilusGuitars um. No. gravity is free. it's perhaps the only free thing in the universe.
Thank you for explaining!
You're welcome!
The challenge with Fusion is that you actually need to _exceed_ the conditions of a star. Our sun, for all the great Heat and Pressure at its core, still only has an average energy output equivalent to the human body. Power plants on earth require a MUCH higher power density.
What do you mean by the sun having the output of a human body?
@@sitfish1113 The amount of heat generated per kilogram of mass is comparable. The sun of course has a lot of kilograms, so it produces a lot of heat, but the density of that heat production isn't all that high.
That’s because the energy output from the sun only comes from it’s surface area, which is only a very thin slice of it’s total volume. Either way, I don’t see how that’s relevant here. We are only trying to replicate fusion in a local point / a very small area.
@@HansLemurson the core of the sun, where fusion actually happens, is about 6.76x10^29kg. it has a power output of 2.870x10^21W/m2 across its surface area. Which means that its total power output is 1.1x10^39W, and that means its power per unit mass is about 1.6x10^9W/kg.
The core of the sun releases about 4.2 million tons of energy per second. It produces astronomically more energy than human bodies per kg. It is nonsensical to count the non fusion capable mass of the sun when this isn't something that happens in fusion on earth in reactors. We reproduce the core of the star, which is why a few tons worth of hydrogen bomb can evaporate a metropolis and why ITER is designed to output 500 Megawatts whereas a human body produces about 100 watts during rest.
@@katraapplesauce1203 Fair enough. The core (where fusions happens) is much more intense than the sun taken as a whole.
At this point in life i very much regret not going more towards the sciences. Imagine being given the opportunity to name an insane gun of sorts, and just remembering all the fun times had in a game you love. It's worth it, just for that. I applaud those who named the Big "Friendly" Gun.
This is the way fwd with all science. Simplyfy, but refined. There's a whole lot more left to find, within the good old box.
Awesome that the projectile was inspired by shrimps!? And it would be called a 'pistol' shrimp
🔫🦐
Are we 10 years away?
Probably not. But maybe we're finally closer than 30.
Once we see a working demo that delivers more energy than it takes, we'll be at or under 10 years away.
We already have done that.
Do you know how long it actually takes to develop and manufacture something as exceedingly simple by comparison as a modern fighter jet?
Or a modern nuclear power plant?
What makes people think that an apparatus that is orders of magnitude more complex and has even some key technologies and problems completely unsolved could possibly be developed and manufactured in just a few decades, way faster than a modern jet or a simple nuclear plant? That's just nuts.
Fusion power plants are science fiction at this point and everything done today is actually nothing but very basic research.
Most probably, bordering on certainty, nobody alive today will even live to see the most basic prototype possible for an actual fusion power plant, much less any kind of commercial application. Which might not even be viable, after all there are core issues still completely unsolved and even after that - "just" a reliably working fusion power plant won't do - it has to provide energy much cheaper than any other solution available in the future to make up for the mind boggling complexity and everything that comes hand in hand with it, the infrastructure needed to run such a humongous monstrosity and to compensate for the drawbacks of highly centralized energy production and on and on and on.
Tldr: Fusion power plants in 30 years? lol
@@heinzhaupthaar5590 it takes like under a year to build a figher jet, what are you talking about
@@grebe2332
No, it doesn't.
Where do you get that from?
Edit: If you're talking about the mere manufacturing of a final product that has previously been designed, prototyped and extensively tested over a period of often way more than just a mere decade you could actually be right.
That's not the point though.
I know it's early stages but OMG am I so happy that we are trying to go more simplistic, rather than, the world's largest magnets, powered by 2 hydro dams to run 30 seconds of immense electricity just to power those magnets and lasers and they have to create the gases to create the plasma which they said also has a cost, THEN even if that does produce NET energy, HOW DO we store all of that energy for use!!!??? It just seems so overly complicated and energy taxing that I really really really find this approach just fresh to even consider and to realize that "Hey maybe their are really really smart people out there that also think the current attempt to net fusion isn't efficient for energy production." ~those magnetic plasma chambers are good for research purposes tho.. surely they could be good test tools...
Another exceptional video. I really enjoyed it.
Thank you for the clear and tight presentation! I was not clear on what the projectile and target are made out of, and why and how exactly the shock waves were produced... or how the new target was put in place every 5 seconds.. hm still want more info...
But this method does require a big supply chain just to make the impactor is it?
Listen again at 9:00
The impactor is probably pretty simple, it's just a hunk of mass. The fuel element is what will be expensive, possibly multiple dollars per element, every 5 seconds. Right now I suspect a single element of fuel costs thousands of dollars in the prototype.
This is the obvious liability in this system.
Fusion reactors which we try to construct are either deuterium/deuterium or tritium/deuterium based. Both of them release energy primary as stream of neutrons which by definition is radiation. Produced free neutrons carry much larger energies than ones produced in fission of U235. Most of the those free neutrons are captured by lithium and turned to heat, but part of them passes trough and permanently damages everything they touch. Making everything both radioactive and, with time, unusable. If reachable - fusion has its virtues, but not the ones of one of "cheap energy" and "completely radioactive free". Also definition of "base load" is not "the current electric grid". That is blatant false to a point that I doubt author's understanding of terms presented.
just means materials and parts need to be replaced. The radioactive waste can be stored easily out in the middle of nowhere for example in a mountain. it'll lose most its radioactivity in 50 years though. where as fission nuclear waste lasts a lot longer and produces a lot more. fission waste has longer half life and way more produced. while fusion half life is quick, some materials would be 1 year.
@@Dudeinator tritium has halflife of approximately 13 years. Meaning that is highly radioactive and durable enough to loiter for couple centuries. Some amount of tritium will always slip out fusion containment. Now I don't think that is a particularly troublesome. Radioactive waste isn't technological problem for fusion or fission. What radioactive waste is - it is a political argument/issue. However introduction of this video oversells fusion as miracle free non-radioactive energy. It does produce radioactive waste. And by all we know it will be even more expensive than fission (unless somebody makes something really different like this bullet-engaged-fusion, but "miracle" is effective savior of any technology). Real virtues of fusion are availability and deployment.
@@bariole isnt the tritium still reusable after? Also i agree that its more a political point for nuclear waste management. Though I am pretty sure the amount of nuclear waste from fusion is an order of magnitudes less.
Did his messages disappear? Im confused.
@@Dudeinator yeah looks like it...can only see your comments
How much energy does it take to power the railguns and manufacturing the precision ammo, compared to output levels?
a lot more than comes out, hot fusion is a dead end.
@@axeman2638 you're not allowed to speak the truth
@@visitante-pc5zc oops, too late, i did.
And cold fusion is real? Lol
@@dannyarcher6370 you're allowed to mock without any argument whatsoever
No matter what, the cynics will always be making the same jokes about Fusion being unachievable, because they're so emotionally invested in this narrative they purposefully ignore the remarkable achievements we're seeing almost every month. Every step forward is dismissed by these people, it actually makes me wonder if perhaps they're oil industry lobbyists lol
There's really no comparison between actual scientists excelling in their field and the opinions of random cynics in TH-cam comments, just as there's no comparison between a neurosurgeon and my mate one-eyed-Billy down the pub.
Amazing progress is being made. This progress will continue to be made. The physics is clear, we just need to develop the machinery to achieve the right result (just as humans have done at least since the industrial revolution).
Very clear and lucid explanation. I enjoyed it.
Of course, not only does the reactor need to produce energy in excess of the input to cause the reaction, but also in excess of the energy requirement for producing the fuel, operating the entire facility, and delivering the energy, otherwise the system is a net loss
That's why there is a lot more time needed, keeping it "30 years in the future" for maybe a couple more decades...
Per shot
Energy in 3e5 J
Energy out 2e10 J
You could have found that out yourself.
Energy to make a pellet... Not as much as that!
@@dougaltolan3017 what is that, theoretical perfect yield?
@@richardwelsh7901 First Light stare 2e10 J.
I'm guessing that would be total burn of a full cavity in the target pellets they have designed.
@@fatitankeris6327 if only we could collaborate on a global scale, everyone pooling our resources together for the benefit of humanity, then maybe we could accelerate development. Fusion energy would be one of the most significant breakthroughs of all time and we need to be treating it as such. My only reservation is the possibility that for some reason unbeknownst to us yet that it is operationally infeasible to reach the efficiency levels to make it worthwhile
Huh, firing a projectile super fast into some fuel. Would have thought it would have come from the US😜
The US fired lasers into a bead of deutrium back in 2003 or 2004 at Sandia national labs, it didnt work.
Nah, the Brits were firing projectiles into things and people long before the US was even a thing.
@@scrat4379 should have used a bigger gun
@@scrat4379 The NIF did it to gold spheres an they have been steadily improving their numbers, they would be further along but they get very little time on the device compare to the nuclear weapon guys.
@@DavidKnowles0 is that what it was? Gold beads?
I mean, they probably only tell the shareholders and public that it's called the "Big Friendly Gun", The engineers will be doom fans
100%
Maybe not. Since that they are British it can be a reference to Big Friendly Giant book and the following movie.
Focusing as well on the neutron heat energy extraction headache post successful fusion is very commendable.
I gave up on speculating if fusion will be a thing sooner or later. Now I just take the approach that it will happen when it happens and it will be worth the wait.
how are they going to remove all the copper ? they are firing it in at roughly a cubic centimeter a minute, that is a cubic meter every 16 hours. that is a lot of copper (now coverd in liquid lithium? ) or (as molten metals are powerful solvents, a sort of lithium bronze ?)
Your math has failed miserably. The time required for delivery of a cubic meter of copper would be just over 694 days🤡
a simple grid/mesh and a magnet will separate Copper out of the liquid
@@williamcurran6190 metre not meter
@Alfred Wedmore If you give a metal a electric charge It will become magnetic
@Alfred Wedmore Then I guess electromagnets are impossible then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We need to develop liquid fueled nuclear fission, i.e. molten salt reactors. They could be configured to burn nuclear "waste" given their much higher theoretical efficiency compared to solid fuel; and given their low pressure, high temperature operation, they allow for much more diverse applications and inherent safety compared to light water. It's not the "holy grail" of fusion, but it's a radical step forward that isn't getting the attention it deserves.
Before you post anything to do with thorium BS again. Repeat 100 times : Molten salt eats reactors.
And hey, we are getting rid of the nuclear waste. That alone is a big win. If we can win energy out of it, even better!
This and NIF feel like they're a bit overcomplicated when it comes to the fuelling process; I mean you have to make *a lot* of individual components to a high standard of precision to run this machine, for, say, one day (that's 17,280 shots every 24 hours, assuming one shot every five seconds, so that's 17280 impactors and 17280 fuel capsules(?) per day!) whereas tokamaks like ITER plan to use comparatively simple solid D-T fuel pellets through extrusion which are then just fired into the plasma to keep it running.
Complicated fuel and simple machine, or simple fuel and complicated machine. Pick your poison!
There is absolutely a need for scalability on the manufacture side. On the other hand it is not unheard of for production facilities to produce well over 20000 units in a day. It is hard for me to say if this is a lot since I have very little context. Sure, we can produce millions of bottle caps in a day. But this is not bottle caps. But it does not seem totally unfeasible.
Edit: For examples of extreme precision manufacturing which we have to manage to scale, we can look at Integrated Circuit manufacturing. Some elements superficially actually resembles this. Modern Fabs however cost billions. And I expect that building a facility for the fuel production for this would also be quite expensive. But maybe not the same level.
@@Cythil lol, so burning a CPU core every 5 seconds. If we are comparing lithographic nano printing this really doesn't sound cheap. I wonder what the output is? Like I feel like the package can't scale bigger, but maybe it can. This all seems too expensive though.
Yeah my first thought too was "this fuel sounds too expensive".
@@jeremyO9F911O2 Honestly, any design of a power generator which relies on gravity, or free suspension without restraining forces seems too wanky. Like, Thoroid magnetic channels seem to be leaving less wobble in operation, which would make it more suitable for future mobile stations (spacecraft, for example). I suppose that's way too far ahead, maybe at least 2200.
The most incredible thing about Nuclear Fusion is it is ALWAYS 10 years away. It breaks the space time continuum. Great video though!
No, it's always 30 years away as it has been since I was in graduate school 54 years ago.
It's actually 8 light minutes away...
@@davidgray6999 It still better to be 10 years away, for the next half century, than 30 years away for the past half of century.
@@ehombane The question now then has to be, is the "time to future fusion" a function with a finite intersection with T=0, or is it asymptotic to T=0. 🤔
@@davidgray6999 My professors in the early nineties insisted it was down to being perpetually 20 years away. Of course I had to ask how long it would be twenty years away, since it had been 30 years away as long as I could remember.
'friendly' sure... that's definitely what it stands for. great explanation.
Kudos Dr. Miles!!
Absolutely outstanding video! Intelligently reported and genuinely provocative!! Truly the best scientific report to date.
Ya know...
If you can take your lithium up above about 1300C it boils.
You could build a Stirling engine on lithium phase change. With a heat exchanger so lithium baths remain separate... Lithium carries the most heat of any [metal]... Hmmm. About half the heat of fusion of water...
Between meeting and boiling there is a lot of room... 600K and 1600K. You could get an efficiency of 62% with the Carnot cycle. Probably 40% overall efficiency with a boiler.
Thermal Photo Voltaic cells are about 40% efficient at that range. That would be a solid state solution of making electricity...
Interesting technologies comverging.
I think the corrosive nature of Li (or Na) as coolant becomes more of a problem the hotter you go, you'd probably want to switch from Li to a water secondary loop asap to minimise how big of a primary loop you need making out of some expensive grade of stainless (and pressure testing if its going to be boiling). Getting it to boiling temp would have serious saftey considerations and if they get it wrong you end up spraying hot Li all over.
Fusion of water?
@@elliotbryan2717 could be the lithium is an attempt to pretend they have a solution to the fuel problem.
@@russhamilton3800 coolant not fuel.
@@elliotbryan2717
You build it mostly from ceramics and use electrokinesis to move the fluid around. Very few moving parts.
Centrifuge a portion of it regularly and remove the LiH that develops.
I don't trust bussines people at this technical level if they don't released peer reviewed papers. It sounds like a scam. Also, no gunpowder is able to achieve that high speed. The railgun aproach is even worst because they want to accelerate a ball of copper weighting half a gram or more to 20-30km/s in JUST 5 milimeters! That would involve a huge burst of energy probably similar to the largest lasers available today, a far from cheap process! Either this is a scam or your information is way off! Either they detail it on a scientific paper or I keep my word its a scam!
White papers are here: firstlightfusion.com/science-hub
Its unlikely that full disclosures will be given in peer reviewed papers. Most of the fuel design will be better kept as trade secret, rather than patent. There isn't any value in a billion dollar cap ex if you can only use it with competitive edge for 20 years. It will depend on the business model, if the core IP is built around fuel design they will keep it close to their chest. Their value inflection will come from demonstration, rather than manuscripts
@@DrBenMiles Keeping the fuel pellet proprietary would be similar to the Wright Brothers keeping the airplane proprietary. Good luck. Be interesting to see if this method can extend from the DT to the DHe3 fuel cycle.
The M3 machine is the largest pulsed power device in Europe. 14 million amps. Sounds like they have the right tool for the job...
@@DrBenMiles are you supporting their use of the oldest excuse in the book?! Just trust me.
I believe that an all of the above strategy works best. While we may never achieve working commercial fusion, advances coming out of research in the area are paying for itself in applications in other areas. For example the AI research coming out of predicting plasma turbulence and magnetic field abnormalities is also very useful for other fields in which rapid real-time AI results are required.
But there is no fundamental reason that fusion cannot work. While it is true that the boffins doing the research are constantly predicting a working reactor in 20 or 30 years, it is also true that nothing has been discovered in all this time that indicates that eventually, we will not succeed. Imagine if we were trying to make a perpetual motion machine, or a faster than light engine, or something else that we have real reasons to believe are simply impossible. The fact of the matter is that mankind will eventually be able to produce fusion reactions with a total output of the power plant having a Q > 1. In other words, we will eventually succeed in the scientific parts of this question.
The real problem is that we have no similar assurance that this will ever be able to be done economically. For example, lets say we have a power plant that generates a ridiculous amount of power that is completely free. But the nature of the reaction means the thing has to be shut down every few weeks and rebuilt at a 100 million dollars a whack cost.
The first plants will be exactly like that, mark my words. It will take us a while before we figure out a mechanism to generate fusion energy without eating the power plant every few weeks or months. The neutron flux will be incredible no matter what reaction you use. And neutrons are bad for structural steel. They get absorbed and change the metal and create defects.
There was a great comment I saw elsewhere under this video talking about how photovoltaic panels were first invented in the 1800s, and they're just now getting to be really viable. Wouldn't be surprised at all if fusion's a similar sort of thing.
This is fantastic! Combine this with Plasma Gasification of metropolitan garbage/trash and we just might have completely solved the clean/cheap energy supply issues in the future. That process could burn NYC daily garbage output and supply power to nearly the entire city if I remember the metrics on it correctly.
Plasma Gasification now and First Light Fusion in 10 years would be amazing for the planet as long as the radioactive waste was handled properly.
If you think about it, most of the energy we use is derived from fusion energy.
Sunlight, is from fusion energy, hydrocarbons are formed from absorbing sunlight. Nuclear, is fission, wich is basicly stored fusion energy (like oil is to solar).
Given how much time and effort it takes to build those little cubes, and given how much energy they get out of them, this feels more like a complicated battery and I'd like to see numbers of the full lifecycle co2 emissions of the total system.
Hell no, we never were 30 years away even in optimistic views. The tokamak approach is by far the most advanced in terms of actual power plant operation and even now first ITER (not even a commercial reactor) DT plasma is panned for 2035. First tokamak plasmas were ignited in the 60s - putting the technology some 60 years ahead of this kinetic fusion approach.
I'm interested to see where the stellarator approach goes but personally, I'm not convinced of the pellet fusion confinement approaches like z-pinch, laser confinement and this technology seems to fall in a similar space.
it doesnt matter when you started, but rather when you finish
Mankind can be so brilliant, innovative and farsighted...when we aren't trying to kill each other.
It’s good to hear someone say 10 years, I think that was a first for me!
Much better explained than other videos
I really enjoyed the clear concise presentation of your video. Thank you.
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I could see this as a solution for less dense countries/areas. It seems like the Laser/Plasma approach scales better to higher yields, while the projectile approach has it's strength in cheap low yield reactors.
What an incredibly exciting video. Lord, I love me some SCIENCE!!!
Nice report. The technological breakthroughs are J-shaped, we tend to think linearly, so perhaps sooner a mobile van sized fusion power generator to power a city.
This is what should have been invested in by the government here in the UK for years.
That approach seems very sensible, honestly.
As excited and interested in the approach as I am, I am not sure it is quite as simple as they make it sound.
It's fascinating to me how many successful ideas take their inspiration from nature. Shrimp are like top pound for pound fighters of the universe.
I was already having a blast when the BFG label came in.
As soon as he said BFG, my mind took me back to my Quake days.
That was really well explained and very interesting.
Not a subject I have ever looked into.
Well done
10 years? I've been hearing that for 50 years. I'll believe it when I see it.
as a supporter of Fusion energy, I believe this is a big step forward (although as many others say, it's just changing the joke by 20 years)
but, what I despise about this process is..... WHY IS THE SIMPLE SOLUTION ALWAYS SEEMINGLY THE BEST ONE?!?
I missed the proof that it is best.
everything depends on energy input/output ratio of this process...and since they are not mentioning such a „minor detail“, i would not be overly excited...what´s still positive is, that someone is trying different approach, so thumbs up!
They did mention it ! He called it GAIN no ?