Inside The UKs Breakthrough Fusion Reactor - First Light Fusion
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 พ.ค. 2024
- First Light Fusion are taking an compelling approach to fusion, elimating the physics complexity, and engineering for scalable clean energy. I had the opportunity to see inside First Light's breakthrough fusion reactor and wanted to bring to along for the journey.
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00:00 Introduction to First Light Fusion
01:32 The BFG
3:00 First Light's Approach to Fusion
04:56 Inside The Control Room
05:34 How do you run a fusion experiment?
08:56 Fusion Inspired by Nature - The Pistol Shrimp
10:36 Machine 3 - Researching Scalable Fusion
12:05 The Projectile
16:11 Powering A Fusion Machine - Capacitors And Switches
19:32 Inside The Reaction Chamber
23:19 Firing The BFG
25:47 Conclusion
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Seeing inside facilities like this is what first inspired my interest in science and engineering. I loved every second of this trip, thanks so much to Nick and the First Light team for the tour. Thanks for bearing with us through the loud background audio, Ryan told me as we entered "this is a live fusion experimentation facility, expect noise". Hope you all enjoyed the video!
Only if no one else chimes in, I'm potentially interested in a metal plate.
Fantastic video, loved the detail, thank you. If there is a next time, maybe you could ask about how they achieve symmetric compression of the fuel while hitting it on only one side. This is the biggest skepticism I have read about this concept. In the Reddit fusion sub, no one thinks they have a chance. Everyone thinks R-T instability will tear the plasma apart before fusion can occur. This is one of the problems the NIF has had.
You look like a misture between Tony Stark and Dr Strange! Thank you for your inspiring work!
dammit Dr Ben i said this somewhere above before i found your comment, but for the love of Mike when the mad scientist drags you into the bowels of his machine you really REALLY might wanna have some PPE even if he doesn't.
UK started with coal, steam industrial revolution that changed the world. It would be cool if they moved us to the next energy stage again. I hope they've still got it
Nearly every revolution over the last two centuries have come from these shores.
Fingers crossed they succeed. Very low on hype and high on results, what a breath of fresh air from a fusion development!
Seems like lots of expendable parts in order to create a very much non continuous fusion reaction. Turning this into stable continuous electricity generation seems like a huge challenge.
There are two kinds of high energy physicists. a) Honest ones who tell governments to build fission reactors for energy and would like continued funding for various particle accelerators and fusion experiments as matters of pure science. b) The others who tell the politicians fusion energy is 30 years away to get more funding.
very true, no way to make out of it a practically useful machinery besides to keep busy a curious minds ....
And it seemed as though early rocket launches tend to create tons of burning metal. But then they fly!!
Nothing being actively developed today is meant to directly translate into a sustainable fusion power operation. The goal right now is simply proofs of concept. Regardless of how scalable it is, simply having a success will mean learning a staggering amount and bringing the possibility of sustained energy output even closer.
Yep, it's really the only feasible way though making small steps. Consider the alterative, spending 750 billion and 30-40 years to build something that could work as a real power plant but ends up not working or so inefficient it's not worth running.
I know a little about the team at FLF, and they're all fantastically passionate and knowledgeable. Something to note about their approach is that they really started with the engineering challenge, rather than the physics one. Everything they've done focuses on identifying the real engineering challenges for scaling up, and either focusing on those or eliminating them. If they are successful with their next machine, it is likely going to be easier to commercialise at scale their solution than many other concepts. But that isn't even the best thing about FLF's work - so much of what they're doing has other commercial applications beyond fusion power generation, potentially giving them a sustainable income stream until a demonstration power plant can be built.
Like all fusion contenders, it does have loads of real issues road blocks still in its future, but at least FLF seem keen to identify them early, rather than view it as a problem for the future.
For the curious - if I recall correctly, the demonstration reactor we see in the CGI footage is using molten lead, and is intended to operate similarly to a molten salt renewable plant - turn an intermittent heat source into a steady source of heat that can then drive steam generation.
Which possibly means this would produce 4 GWh of heat for every 1 GWh of electricity? I wonder if going full solar, wind and tidal, and improving storage and electric grid technology should be where the investments should go to.
Current nuclear power plants designs were driven by military requirements and resulted in a whole industry now wondering why they have did not make the right choices.
Given the military background of these engineers, maybe something similar is happening here?
@@SwissPGO 4GWh of heat could be damn useful to industry, it's time to stop thinking of nuclear as solely for electricity generation.
@@bobthebomb1596 You are correct, but we are typically taking about hot water, just under boiling temperature. It has uses, but it's limited... and you need to transport it.
It would definitely useful for residential or greenhouse heating.
And, if in summer you produce electricity mainly for running air-conditioning... the overall efficiency is catastrophic and could be qualified as a ponzi scheme:
**Comparing Nuclear-Powered Residential Air Conditioning Systems and Ponzi Schemes**
At first glance, nuclear-powered air conditioning systems and Ponzi schemes seem worlds apart-one being a technological solution for climate control, the other a fraudulent investment strategy. However, on closer examination, we can draw an allegorical comparison between the two in terms of sustainability and the broader implications of their implementation.
**1. Resource Input vs. Output**:
- **Nuclear-Powered Air Conditioning**: Nuclear power plants, while efficient in electricity generation, produce significant amounts of excess heat. When used to power air conditioners, there's an ironic twist: while homes get cooler, the environment outside heats up due to the heat discharged from the power plants.
- **Ponzi Scheme**: Investors are promised high returns with little risk. Initial returns are paid using the capital of newer investors. As the scheme grows, it requires an ever-increasing flow of money from new investors to continue. When that inflow slows down or stops, the scheme collapses.
**2. Unsustainability**:
- **Nuclear-Powered Air Conditioning**: If most households were to rely on this method for cooling, the aggregate heat released into the environment could exacerbate global warming. The solution (air conditioning) inadvertently becomes part of the problem (heating the planet).
- **Ponzi Scheme**: It's inherently unsustainable. Since it relies on a continuous influx of new investment rather than genuine profit, it's destined to collapse eventually, leaving late investors with significant losses.
**3. Short-Term Gains, Long-Term Implications**:
- **Nuclear-Powered Air Conditioning**: In the short term, homes are comfortably cooled. But the long-term implications of widespread adoption could be detrimental for the environment.
- **Ponzi Scheme**: Early investors might see significant returns in the short run. However, the long-term reality is potential financial ruin for those who join late.
**Conclusion**:
While nuclear-powered air conditioning and Ponzi schemes operate in entirely different spheres, they both serve as reminders of the need for solutions that are sustainable in the long run. Whether we're discussing energy or investments, it's vital to look beyond immediate benefits and consider the broader consequences of our choices.
Off course using Gas powered electricity for air-conditioning is even worse
@@SwissPGO True, though that does depend on reactor type.
There are many industrial chemical and pharmaceutical processes that require heat in the boiling water range.
In the short term I am a fan of High Temperature Gas Reactors for combined power/industrial heat generation.
Longer term I like the fast reactor technology using either molten metal or salt as they also operate at higher temperatures. I believe that the plans for the FLT fusion reactor is envisioning the use of molten lead?
As you say distribution is an issue which is where SMRs come into their own, especially ones with sealed, removable reactor modules.
Wonderful people. The road to hell...
I love touring these "big science" facilities - always fills me with wonder and makes me proud to be human. I also bagged a shirt - awesome idea!
This was great to watch, thank you! The explanation of “it is a rail gun with one important constraint removed” is such a cool and satisfying element of engineering: just when you think everything‘s already been invented, someone pulls out an assumption and unlocks a whole new approach. Brilliant!
The Royal Navy could use it.
How is this going to be viable for producing electricity in the future?
Even if you could perfect the process and ignite the fuel entirely, there's no way you could fire it multiple times per second so what's the point of this?
If there's something I don't understand I'd be more than happy to read your comment but I really feel like these projects are just scamming investors with the buzz word "Fusion".
@@Alfred-Neuman use a bigger fuel capsule to heat up a large volume of coolant and then run steam turbines off the heat in the coolant volume. You're harvesting the energy from small bombs. Or, I guess, you could put a large fuel capsule into the projectile itself and shoot it into your enemies. That's worth the research effort right there.
@@JinKee
Even if you could make a giant gatling gun that producing fusion, you electricity would cost so much, even millionnaire people couldn't afford it... It's really not that hard to produce fusion, but it's finding a method that can produce a lot more energy than you need to put into the system, and this method is probably the worst way to do it. But apparently it's the easiest if you want to make a tiny bit of fusion and use this to get money from dumb investors...
@@Alfred-Neuman you could just stack them and alternate fire. nothing stopping them from just having enough so when that last one fires the first one is good to go.
Great video. Detailed enough to really get the interest going, explained in a clear non sensational manner and such that I will now have to follow this project regularly. :).
Obviously it’s brilliant that the team are so willing to show and tell in enough detail to be meaningful. I do hope we can have future follow ups on this as things progress 🤞 for the team !
I have great respect for the “start at the end” design philosophy driving everything employed here - a viable power plant.
Credit to the team for trying something a bit different. Regards the burst disk - find someone to put it into cast acrylic (vacuum to remove the bubbles) would be a nice memento ... maybe with a bulb and a plug marked ‘Only to be plugged-in once the grid is fusion powered’ 😀👍
That’d collect a lot of dust.
Feels like a mix of Little Boy (gun-type initiation) and the compressive forces generated in modern (explosive lens) type atomic weapons.
I genuinely wish great success to these scientists in their endeavour. Changing a linear force into one englobing a spherical reaction kernel is an extraordinary feat.
Thank you Prof. Miles for keeping the scientific community up-to-date about these very important developments regarding fusion science.
Anthony
I feel confident in saying their approach will never lead to a commercial fusion reactor, but there is a lot of fun engineering in it.
Total agreed.
There is a few big floors in there plan.
Personally I believe pulsed rather than continuous fusion is more likely to bear the first commercial fruit. Heat capture being the biggest issue.
@@benmorrissey7610of course there is, otherwise the thing would have to float!
and what gives you that confidence?
Thats such a good way to deal with these clickbait titles :)
Great, fun and very insightful video. Loved Nick and Amelio’s explanation: clear description of what there doing in this awesome project! They all looked like they’re having a blast (no pun intended) working there!
This is fantastic! I've been casually following FLF for a while; I'm very impressed by their commitment to simplicity and to engineering for the problem at hand.
I think I missed the simple part😶
While I can hardly imagine this working on an industrial scale, it has often paid off to give fringe ideas a chance.
Fantastic this is what British science is brilliant at I hope they succeed !
That was a brilliant example of Lean design. The pulse acceleration into the “firing” chamber is the MVP. Validate that, then iterate until you get to scale. Great video!
This will remain in the lab.
Can I borrow your time machine since you know so much? Next winning lottery numbers maybe?
Everything about this video is superb. Many thanks for showing it on YT, and best of luck to involved!
As an Engineer, I find this stuff absolutely amazing. But I'm also prompted to say the same thing I've said in response to a whole bunch of other fusion videos. It will never happen because it will be more expensive than the alternative - cheap renewable sources of energy, plus mature, low cost and simple energy storage. May we forever spent lots of money on great science like this :)
renewables doesn't work in space.
The point of fusion is portability. If you go across space you have to bring the sun with you. and this is the way. However they literally banging rocks togather which is not an approach I recommend.
@@ThanksIfYourReadIt I've no problem with fusion for space propulsion. There cost is a secondary concern.
@@saumyacow4435Fusion technology is still in the embryonic stage. Deuterium-tritium can be used for fusion reactions and is extremely cheap; around $1 per gram, because it can be produced from seawater. The infrastructure for the fusion reactor itself is currently expensive because we haven't honed the technology yet. Consider the first hard drive to exist was only 5 megabytes in size, yet it cost $33,000 in today's money. Now think how cheap an 1,000,000 megabyte drive is today; less than $100.
Renewables aren't really cheap when you consider it as a cost vs energy generated function, even more so when we consider the stability of energy output which the power grid requires to function correctly. They're also not reliable in terms of ideal conditions to produce that energy; eg solar panels don't function without sunlight, but they also produce less energy the hotter they get - from sunlight. Also consider that energy storage is not only costly but it creates a highly explosive failure point if we wish to store enough energy to stabilise the inconsistent energy production inherent to renewables. All renewables; wind, solar, wave, hydro, et al, all fail to produce power all of the time, even if you have all bases covered there will be times where there is insufficient power generated to sustain the grid.
Once fusion has matured it will be extremely cheap compared to renewables. The amount of land required for renewables, and resources, will eclipse that which is required for a single fusion reactor by several orders of magnitude. I've worked as an electrical engineer and an instrument & control engineer in renewables, oil & gas, reactor design, robotics design, and now defence. I appreciate you're optimistic about renewables, but it seems you're not entirely aware of not only the shortfalls in their capabilities, but their extraordinary cost as well. A fusion reaction is like a miniature sun, so in essence we're generating "solar power" without all the extra steps that renewables requires!
Cool video!
Something that we never get to see explained by brilliant people who built it, fantastic.
Thanks for posting this longer video and for the First Light team for allowing you to film for us. Inspirational and an excellent example of the scientific process. Try fail, try fail, try fail...oh wait...that fail turned out to be a success! (the build up of carbon in the target chamber)
*Correction, the First Light dudes want youtubers to come around to show off as much 3d animations as possible for funding.
This is amazing. I'd love to have a piece of fusion history. Thanks for the great video, thoroughly enjoyed it.
This was amazing. Thank you for all the effort, expertise, curiousity and presentation talent.
Wonderful video. Such a privilege to see this BTS look and to feel so close to the action. Thank you!
Subscribed - I've worked with many of the components and measurement techniques shown here as a PhD student and post-doc 30 years ago. I've repaired too many sparc gaps to understand that at these high currents almost every metal will degrade rapidly, and your timings (and energy) will be off.
It's an interesting proof of concept but I really don't see it scale and make a reliable energy gain overall.
Lasers and magnetic confinement are where I would put my money, and if some breakthrough on high temperature superconductivity materials happens, this will favor the magnetic confinement even more.
We need all the research we can get. What are you doing?
@@Revolver.Ocelot I'm no longer doing research in the lab. I moved on to other interesting areas even though I'm still an EU physics expert.
These days, the company I work for as the head of IT sets up the infrastructure and develops the software systems to fight fraud and financial crimes on a near global scale. I like interesting and challenging jobs ;-)
Neat But I'm still half convinced this isn't about power at all but is about getting a UK MOD contract to provide data for development of their new nuclear weapons. It's a cheaper version of the US's NIF after all.
Great to see them making progress, I can remember when it was just a proposal for Round 1 of VC.
The 90 second recharge per pulse event and that 100 kilovolt spark gap switch 50,000 amp capacitor discharge device gives one an idea of the insane power product of one fusion event in the power plant configuration. Designing the switch to last for 10 million shot events is I imagine an extremely challenging engineering problem. The whole system has many crazy challenges so I am extremely impressed by these young engineers. Is that 5 billion watts per spark gap switch discharged in 2 microseconds?
Back in the early 1960's, the high voltage surge generator used to test the UK's Bloodhound missiles resistance to lightning strike was reinstalled at Queen Mary college London.
It charged capacitors at 500kVA for about 90 seconds in parallel, before switching them into series to produce 1.5 million volts. The switch was oil filled and similar to those used to connect power station output transformers to the high voltage grid. It was about the size of a portakabin and designed for continuous use.
The system was designed and manufactured by Ferranti for the missile tests.
@@wilsjane RIP Ferranti.
Geez I wouldn't want to pay there leccy bill.
I am surprised that thyristors were not selected, they have considerable over current handling and are stacked up in series in HVDC grids, I believe to switch 1MV.
@@v8pilot The government Ferranti closed down whilst it was at the top of making some of the best electronics in the world and a lot of equal to other electronics cheaply very profitably for the UK government.
This seems like explosive lensing...but a bit of a higher bar. Quite fascinating.
Every single part of this is so hard. Incredible work!
Awesome video. Thanks for sharing. Keep up the hardwork First Light!
"In a nanosecond, light only moves one foot". OK, but what if it wears running shoes ?
Very interesting to see what the guys are doing in "our" old superconducting magnetic resonance lab in Yarnton, Oxford these days - thanks a lot for the video! I used to work in exactly that lab as a NMR scientist for Varian Inc. and then Agilent Technologies (who bought Varian in 2010 before completely shutting it down in 2014 because of the "big" CEO not looking any further than the next quarter whereas our systems would be used by the customers for more than a decade...). That's what happens if you make an MBA the CEO of a high-tech company. Won't work.
Anyway, the NMR lab was then shut down in 2015 and the lease of the building released, which then subsequently got occupied by First Light! 8-)
This made my day. With all the background chatter of the world threatening to swallow my brain, seeing the ingenuity and dedication of this Fusion project has made my day. I am really looking forward to seeing the progress of this civilization changing science and hopefully, in my lifetime, see the first commercial fusion reactor up and running. Great video, and hell yeah! I would love that piece of "scrap metal" for my man cave.
Amazing vid, making me really excited about near future, also uniqueness of engineering problems here is amazing, like you basically engineer with raw physics phenomens to get what you want, it's like wrtting code in machine code, what i am trying to say that's cool af. Speaking of your artefact, i am surprised you don't want to keep it for yourself tbh, it's extremely unique and cool, but if you really want to give it out then my shelf with random sciency artefacts told me it would be more than happy to accommodate it next to 3D prints that flew in stratosphere, iron from thermite and other cool stuff
General Fusion in Canada also has a kinetic fusion reactor but it involves injecting hydrogen plasma into the centre of a rotating vessel of liquid lead and compressing it using rams. I think these kinetic solutions are more viable for power plants at scale for a variety of reasons.
During a challenge for solution run by innovitive organization (now changed its name), I proposed a solution to their particular problem. It was not accepted, but I learned so much about their ideas that I would agree with Charles that this approach by General Fusion is better than what these experiments are likely to result in.
@@Macrocompassion I got interested in fusion during the decision making process for the ITER system. If Canada was chosen the facility would have been less than 50km from my home so I had a real interest at the time about now ITER and Tokamak reactors in general work. I also saw the small Tokamak at Princeton during its construction as a kid and was fascinated. My general conclusion was there seemed to be a lot of things that have to be just right and the systems seemed so complex that scaling and practical widespread development would be challenging. Then many years later when I saw the early systems by General Fusion I was immediately struck by the comparative simplicity and intuited this solution could be scaled and implemented more easily. Many reasons I won’t get into and rambled too much already. Bottom line is I hope much more resources go into this type of approach because Tokamaks and stellarators seemed to be getting all the bucks yet with such slow progress.
I'd heard of FLF and even seen videos of visits but this is the best I've seen. Thanks for posting this. This whole approach looks really encouraging and the team behind it inspires a lot of confidence.
I was thinking about that 1ns frame-rate camera and its memory limitations. At that frame rate the memory needs to be so close to the point of data generation. That must be quite a feat of engineering on its own. (Obviously I know that FLF didn't design and build the camera, or I assume not, but respect to whatever company did. I suspect it's expensive!)
It's probably very similar to a CPU cache, albeit obviously specialized for the application. I'm wondering if each sensor pixel is routed directly to memory through its own dedicated conductor. Or maybe they have a sensor dedicated for every pixel for every frame.
@@patrick1532 Agreed. All are possibilities.
This all reminded me of a somewhat counter-intuitive issue that CERN had way back around about 2000 dealing with the high volume of data coming off the LHC at high data rates. I was dealing with their IT people as a supplier at that time and I remember being told once that one issue they were having in terms of optimising the cost of their infrastructure was that they couldn't source disc drives that were small enough. Yes - small enough!
The issue was that in order to support the data rates they were having to parallel up multiple drives to service a single data source, essentially widen the data bus significantly to get the write speeds to disc that they needed to be able to keep up where it was the sustained write speeds of the drives that defined the minimum number of drives they needed to parallel-up to service a given data source. The issue that then niggled the IT staff was that the smallest drives they could get, once they put a load of them in parallel, meant that they were forced to over-provision the storage capacity by a quite significant amount.
Thank you for a 27 minute advertisement for First Light!
Thankyou Ben, you explained it better
this is the first time I hear about a fusion reactor like this, very cool approach, even though having to replace parts make it seem a bit expensive, and why not just build like a 1km long railgun, then the magnetic field forces don't have to be so strong that the railgun breaks, but then again, I have no idea about the practical uses of rail guns so I might be wrong
This is SUPER cool, what an experience for YOU, this is a physicist's / engineers (I'm the latter) lifetime dream to have had the chance to be a part of! PLUS you got an AMAZING artifact of the shot! I'd LOVE to have something like that happen in my life!! Congratulations, you've put in the hard work, definitely getting a sub here!!
Some questions:
1. Where do they get their tritium, since their machine doesn't breed it?
2. It looks like they're using a curtain of molten metal to capture the thermal energy of the neutrons. How are they going to process the resulting highly radioactive metal?
3. From what I understand, they're using "drop the target, fire the disc" routine. Their BFG may demonstrate the viability of the amplification, but have they demonstrated the collimation, ie making sure the projectile hits the target at exactly the right orientation?
Your questions contradict themselves. Liquid metal is used for breeding. If they have liquid metal, it’s for breeding. You’re confused :P
The liquid metal wouldn’t get that radioactive here anyway. Only a bit.
What an amazing insight you have created with the team.
Thank you for the video, loved it and kept it easy to understand and keep up.
I'd love to to be a guest on your next visit. I'm not a scientist but I do love science.
Obviously fusion energy is the tech of the century and we have loads to learn before we get there. Can't wait to see your next video of this when they have machine 4 up and running.
Well done guys.
The plate scrap metal is cool.......how can you give that away 😲 if you don't want it, I'd take it off your hands for sure.
Perhaps these guys can create a history in fusion and awareness of fusion at the science museum , Oxford, Cambridge, London, Birmingham and maybe leeds and provide samples of waste ect to keep the display adapting and documenting the history of the growth in the tech.
Love this ❤
The Helion fusion design looks to be the only player that has a chance of demonstrating a commercially viable system inside the next decade. They are able to directly extract electrical energy from the magnetic field of the fusion pulse. No super heated water, no neutron generation (causing containment damage), no steam turbines, and it easily cycles for the next pulse.
SO!.. Can this reactor output more energy than it takes to produce the input? Not likely.
SO! isn't that the goal and the whole point around this whole experiment!? Good job, they are not just taking your word for it!
Fabulous presentation. I also send my thanks to all the cool, hard-working people at First Light that made it possible. Though it is anything but simple this system seems so much simpler than all the previous fusion designs I've tried to understand. One can only wish them the best of luck with getting their "fusion power plant" designed, built, and achieving power production. I never thought I'd live to see actual fusion power production but now I'm a lot more hopeful.
And if you want to know that artifact you collected is framed and put on a wall for others to enjoy, get in touch.
Awesome video, really fascinating.
I love that it's happening here in the U.K.
Incidentally I'd love to be sent a sharp piece of metal in the post.
How much time does it take to machine one of those launch disks, that seems like its going to be a huge hurdle to overcome - do they need more than just a finishing pass after being casted? It looks like their mock up for a at scale reactor has 72 locations for launching and each one needs to launch every 90 seconds which means they need over 2750 of those launching disks an hour. If it just requires a finishing pass that still probably 1-2 hours in the CNC, so that averages 4,000 hours , so in order to produce at a rate equal to consumption you need 4000 CNC machines and even if you assign a 6 machine cell to 1 machinist that's 667 machinist. You are also going to need 3 shifts (or two 10s) so that's 2000 machinest on staff per reactor so every reactor has a machinest labor cost (excluding material and cost to cast) of (assuming the average UK salary for a machinist of ~32k USD) 64 MILLION dollars per year just in machinist labor for those disks and that's being generous, if they need more than just a finishing pass to go from rough casting to final it's going to be 2-3x higher.
Wait, I want to see a beam of light moving!!!
Look up Slow-mo guys. They did that specific video a year or so back iirc. Something like 1 trillion fps to watch a pulse of laser light move over and through an object. It was pretty cool.
I'm here to learn and I learned a lot! Thank you so much.
Thank you. Loved this and the detail. 😊
I've been really interested in fusion energy, have learned quite a bit about it over the years, and all the different approaches. This approach is very interesting but I'm sceptical about their 2030 target. Fusion energy has been theorised for well over 80 years, but investment has historically been extremely low. Only in the last 10+ years have private enterprises got involved, but they're effectively starting from scratch. There are post-energy production concerns as well, such as how do you get the tritium, which is not abundant and is currently EXTREMELY expensive. Even ITER are starting from scratch when it comes to Tritium production. I predict they'll still be in the experimental stage by 2030 unfortunately.
They get to use government data from 50 years of work. Most work so far is public data.
Tritium is a product of conventional nuclear fission, but it isn't being harvested for fusion experiments as far as I know.
It all seems exciting until you follow engineers with a background in the industry. They point out compelling reasons for believing that none of these commercial projects are anywhere near to producing power on a commercial scale. In this video they are giving nothing away about how near they are to fusion, the costs involved and the energy in -> energy out they hope to achieve. This looks more like blue-sky research than production engineering. Given that they have to keep investors on-side, any claims that these projects do make need to be viewed with some scepticism.
What few are reporting is that the "breakthrough" at the NIF only produced a tiny fraction of the energy injected into the system. It was a military experiment and the relevance for civil power generation is minimal.
I sure hope that I'm being too cynical - we desperately need more clean energy. But the difficulties of achieving viable fusion power are so formidable that I suspect we should be investing most of our effort into more pragmatic and better understood options.
More truth than I care to admit sadly. The uncomfortable reality is Nuclear feels like the only viable stop gap.
@@stuartburns8657Thorium please. Although we'd need to eliminate the Big Uranium Mining Corporations that flood our politicians with lobbying money to block anything that threatens Uranium.
Fusion research needs a rebranding. Instead of touting it as future energy they should be honest and call it basic research. Stars produce energy through extreme mass, pressure and density. Every fusion-energy project is trying to recreate it with a vanishing fraction of mass.
It irks me that people will latch on to fusion-energy as the answer to our problems. Never noticing that we already have a working fusion reaction at the centre of our solar system. And we have the technology already producing grid-scale electricity less expensively than coal.
@@CarFreeSegnitz I'm no engineer, but I believe that creating fusion on earth requires far more extreme conditions than are found at the centre of the sun. Fusion in the sun is very inefficient, but its great mass means it still produces huge amounts of energy. Economically viable fusion of earth would need to be much more efficient.
This is a tall order, to put is mildly. A better sun than the sun...
The industry has done a fantastic PR job when it comes to accessing $$$ from governments and investors. But I don't see many signs that they are much closer to producing economic power generation than they were half a century ago when I first started to follow the saga.
By contrast, my smartphone is billions of times more powerful than the room-sized supercomputers of 50 years ago.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but I simply don't believe these claims that they will be building power stations within a decade.
As you say, better to focus our talent and investment on improving and actually building the technologies we already understand.
Because relying on fusion is far too much of a longshot.
The "Don't spend money here, spend it there" approach leads to governments trying to pick winners. They suck at that, and it leads to cronyism. We need to maintain the scattergun approach to this type of R&D so that we eventually find a viable solution.
Love these guys, and good video. My OSHA alarms were goin nuts though when you guys went under the machine without hard hats XD. One good thunk on those sharp lookin 90 degree edges and you'd need plates to straighten your skull back out.
I think it would be useful to point out that none of this is new. Light gas guns (the BFG) are old technology and the electrically launched projectile comes from work at Sandia National Lab and is called Z-Pinch there.
I'm not seeing how they plan to convert the raw energy into useable electricity. It doesn't even say on their website. I'm guessing it has something to do with the falling liquid in the blast chamber, but idk. It's's strange that they didn't explain it. Also, Is every 90 seconds too variable for power systems to utilize the electricity? I love the idea of fusion, but if it's not useable electricity, it's just another science experiment
if after every shot 11.25 GJ of energy is released inside the chamber, and considering 80% of it is absorbed by the fluid (9 GJ), then in 90 seconds an average power of 100 MW can be released to turn a turbine and generate electricity.
@@luigeribeiro will the fluid be able to absorb enough heat to keep the turbine spinning between bursts? Bursts of electricity are hard for the grid to accommodate. I've heard of heating pits of molten salt that will hold enough heat to keep a turbine spinning between bursts
@@toohardfortheradiopodcastflywheel
Yes, it remains a science experiment. Even if this approach gets passed breakeven there’s the matter of expended machinery. It’s “only” a matter of scaling up the production of the machinery. When the system of rebuilding reactor components is taken into account this approach will net-out at 1-2% efficiency like all the others.
The real benefits come from the technology used in the approach. The NIF benefits come from the laser tech they’ve improved on. This approach will get us the air-gap switches and launching disk.
@@toohardfortheradiopodcast I see the chamber as a short-term energy storage system that is recharged after every 90 seconds. Once you haver enough energy in The chamber between shots, providing constant thermal power to a turbine is the easy part.
sold to America or Japan I bet if it works like always.
The odds are this is not going to work. Not in an industrial scale. I would be happy to be proven wrong.
@@SzTz100 If does it will be sold off rest assured
Part of the "secret sauce" related to their targets is the shape that converts a unidirectional impact shock into an omnidirectional compression in the fuel area. The animations showed a round fuel bubble inside a cube block, but in reality it would be more like a tear-drop shaped fuel bubble inside a bullet-shaped block.
This is so interesting! Thanks for making this report.
All of these fusion programs are 1000s of times more complex and expensive than fission esp in say the Molten Salt Reactors like Moltex, but hey lets worship fusion because its slightly similar to stellar fusion, (it isn't remotely anything like the sun of course). The MSRs have no moving parts save the coolant, temperatures are only 1000 K and not 100M K, and fuel is plentiful rather than non existent tritium.
You obviously didn't watch the video.
The machine seems to be extremely simple. I've built tiny one that can throw HDD platters and aluminum foil across the room.
I don't know much about tritium supply, but engineering simplicity is the entire selling point of this machine.
all current fusion has 2 main issues:
- its not continual energy generation/ignition, but only a single burst, that also destroys the core of the "engine".
- preparing and running the scientific experiment is VERY energy inefficient, and it costs way more energy in computing power alone, in a second, and the computers run for days, to generating energy in an ignition- burst for less than a second.
this is just not a power plant, and for a LONG time will never be one.
but still, fusion ignition finally has been done , which is when you get more energy out of something than from the system, by igniting something, just like burning wood. so the above 2 are engineering issues, and not longer physics/science to-be-tested. still they are HUGE engineering issues, and you get single-fire LASER riffles and laser grenades from that (with very dangerous and inefficient battery packs) long before you get power plants from it.
Brilliant video, I learnt a lot.
It’s interesting that they used the analogy of the shrimp that uses the cavitation bubbles because I was thinking about that in order to use it as an example for a fusion due to the high temperatures and light that the shrimp produce when they do that which is quite impressive.
Ex Navy Nuke here. All these "breakthrough" fusion startups need to present understandable net energy in/ energy out and thermal efficiency data to even prove this is even remotely viable from a thermodynamic standpoint. Not being a downer but there is a reason why fission nuclear power has been around for 70+ years with hundreds of reactors where as fusion has remained (and will always) be a science research pet - project for academia, governments and venture capitalists who don't understand science. Consider from this standpoint all the thermodynamics here:
1. Gunpowder
Requires manufacture of components potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal
2. Projectile(s)
Not much info given but that requires energy to manufacture (even as a prototype proof of concept). In a production version, what will replace that?
3. H2 (hydrogen)
Hydrogen has to be created by and if done so mainly from fossil fuels or the electrolysis of water
4. Burst Disk
Consumable and inefficient for any time of production unit; how can that even be taken to production?
5. Deuterium and Tritium Production
These are energy intensive to extract/create and Tritium requires a fission nuclear reactor; cost prohibitive
6. Capacitors
All those capacitors cost a lot of energy to manufacture
7. Parasitic losses...?
8 Cost of construction....?
9. Hooking up a viable and efficient heat exchange system....?
10. And since everyone is so 'carbon conscious' is this even carbon neutral?
Even if 'viable,' how could it even function in this manner? Some sort of reciprocating assembly to do the compression?
We need genuine and critical reporting of fusion instead of this misrepresentative hopeful hype.
Great questions.
Very interesting. I'm always in awe of true brainiacs, and these guys also seem to be having a lot of fun.
A good idea but it is an experiment to test the theory while the Safire project showed the way forward in Plasma fusion and it is now been commercialised as Aureon energy
Always interesting to see these set ups and almost every start up I see seems to be in the same area of progress
great stuff thank you !
Great. Thanks a million.
Are you kidding ?
That is THE coolest piece of scrap metal ever !
I want that sharp 'scrap' steel that is a piece of early fusion tech history. I'd proudly display it on my mantle or dining room table. what a fantastic momento.
that was so impressive!
im a worker in a Powerplant, 25 yo and i wish i would work at places like that one day :D
thank you for that great video its been very interesting
great quality for sound and video aswell
2:11 In the intact gun is a part kown as the "breech;" you only have a _breach_ if the gun fails to contain the explosive force of firing.
I always imagined and expected a fusion power plant to eventually operate as a continuous and stable plasma but it appears that all the new approaches are instead realizing a "bang bang bang" operation.
Helion too?
Super intresting concept on making fusion work! hope this will be a viable route and the materials to keep the plant running will be a small faction compared what they use for the experiment. I assume that the costs of building a Final plant V1.0 will be way cheaper then a V1.0 Stelerator or traditional tocamac plant. Since I am quite scared to see how much material is needed to make a single plant with those designs.
Pretty cool
I would LOVE to have an opportunity to own that piece of metal they gave you that holds back the pressure until it’s sufficiently built! This is my first video I’ve ever seen from your channel and within a second of sending this message, I will be your newest subscriber! Thank you and by the way, seconds after I thought “railgun” and you addressed it!!!!!!! I was thrilled and thank you again!! 👍🏻✌🏻
Brilliant.
This actually seems too be the best idea yet!!!
Second time through this video. Really awesome. I fully get that, "Sometimes you get it" line. I work science support in optical astronomy and through equipment failure, weather, scheduling, etc. various parameters can affect the data yield from any particular night. It always amazes me how Zen the observers are after losing the whole or part of a night through weather or some other cause.
21:39 This guy is seasoning the fusion chamber like it's a cast iron skillet. Thanks for the awesome video.
I would love that plate and thanks for making science interesting fun and enjoyable.
Rupture discs are great! A relatively simple piece of material, with some fairly complicated engineering behind it, to make it that simple and effective
Over my head - all of it . I want to understand as I think it’ll be exciting for the future . Will keep trying
Thank you!
Excellent
the amount of electric current they press through their "projectile disk" just blew my mind.
Mind boggling and very exciting.
Would love to know more about the high speed cameras used and what optics and imaging techniques they use.
This fusion reactor is going to punch a hole into our energy grid.
If I had the scrap meat I'd happily do my thesis on this.
Wow! Incredible idea to convert 1D to 3D force, absolutely brilliant.
Are we making progress? When I was studying physics and toured Hanford in Washington State, the better part of forty years ago, there were a couple of joking comments circulating about fusion:
1 - Fusion is the energy source of the future. And it always will be.
2 - They started working on fusion forty years ago, projecting that success was forty years away. In the 80s, success was still projected to be forty years away.
Here we are almost forty years later, and it is now projected to be only 30 years away...
Where would we be if funds were matched to liquid thorium fission reactors?
I remain pessimistic on the fusion front.
A side note: Every person giving us tours at the six or seven facilities were pessimistic about fission, as this was not long after Chernobyl.
Cool! Love development!
god bless (who ever he or she or it may be) these scientists and their work. Im nearly 80 but still hope to see more successes !
Absolutely love seeing internist and passion for what many have given up on 🤞🏼a positive fusion reactor is in our near future , but for now fission is the way 💔
According to what I've been reading up about UAP's, you guys should be having some hang around with this sort of tech breakthrough
Congratulations for your excellent video on fusion nuclear energy experiments at Oxford University!!
When I was a kid, I remember people always saying fusion was perpetually 50 years away, so we must be making progress.
Nice video, well done, thanks :)