It amuses me that we still generate electricity from induction derived by the movement of a fluid through a turbine after 150 years of doing so but I suppose occasionally when looking for a breakthrough people sometimes stumble on the most efficient method first.
You probably know this already, but Brittain has to manually adjust the power of its grid system around important sport events. The reason is that everyone goes to make tea during break time, which takes considerably more energy than you would think.
Hydrogen-Boron Fusion, demonstrated and private company (Owned by University of NSW in Aust) is working out the engineering and looking to create a prototype. Fuel is just Hydrogen and Boron, it is an initiated rather than chain reaction (runaway is impossible), the only radiation is electrons which are harvested and are the actual power output, minimal heat output. It is not a thermal device - i.e does not generate steam to rotate turbines and can be quite small as shielding is not a major issue. newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/laser-boron-fusion-now-%E2%80%98leading-contender%E2%80%99-energy cleantechnica.com/2017/12/14/free-lunch-alert-hydrogen-boron-solution-clean-nuclear-fusion/ " Oh come on, where’s the catch? Researchers at the University of New South Wales have described how a laser-enabled system can coax nuclear energy out of a reaction between hydrogen and boron, without generating nuclear waste. The patented system has already been spun off to an Australian startup called HB11 Energy."
Hey Joe, (I hope one day you will see this comment) Thanks for bringing us such awesome contents, and in my case, you bring me much more. I'm a french mechanical engineer (yes we can make cool stuff as well and not just bread) and during the last 2-3 years, I was completely lost about what I wanted to do in my professional life. About 1,5 years ago I got very interested in renewable energy, and during my research, I found your channel and precisely your video about ITER (fusion reactor under construction in France) Since this day, I studied the project, learn a lot in the process and fell in love with the idea of working there trying to change the way we produce energy. And guess what, after 4 different interviews I'm in the final stage of the hiring process (wish me luck) anyway, no matter where I will be working in the futur, you help me finding a purpose. Thank you.
You're optimistic and that's a good trait. But I'm only 40 and there are a lot of things I don't think I'll live to see, the way things are going right now. I used to think that people would definitely land on Mars within my lifetime. I was absolutely sure of it. Not anymore. I don't think it's going to happen.
I just attended a talk at my institute (I'm a postdoc at a Leibnitz Institute in Germany) and the speaker gave a good story about why public funding of science is necessary. He was speaking of the discovery of a bacterium in 1969 that was found in an experiment investigating at what temperature bacteria can survive. Note that this study had no inherent financial benefit on possible results. However, the following discovery of this bacterium, Thermus aquaticus, as any biologist knows, led to the isolation of Taq polymerase, an essential ingredient in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) which is essentially necessary to study genetics. Hopefully, everyone watching this channel should be able to comprehend the benefit to humanity of this; notwithstanding the enormous industries that have now sprung up, and will continue to spring up because this bacteria's polymerase. Same kinda thing with CRISPR. You cannot assume a discovery, you just need the information to keep being piled up until we can start to connect the dots. And for this, you need indiscriminate funding of science.
Take this all the way back when a bunch of mathematicians and physicists start scribbling on a sheet of paper which then turns into the very foundation on which technology runs a century later. Einstein's relativity enables modern GPS. Faraday's scribbles on magnetic field lines leads to the invention of the dynamo and electric generator. Some mathematician's scribbles on the possibility of representing all numbers with any base system led to binary, octal and hexadecimal systems used in computers.
@@none3763 Not necessarily. The first transistor was fabricated in an IBM research laboratory. And NASA made the first successful manned landing on another solar body and the first 'reusable' spaceframe (albeit with the aid of hundreds of private contractors). The money and resources are money and resources, it hardly matters where _those_ come from: What does matter is the end goal and the drive to achieve it.
@@HuntingTarg NASA was publicly funded. First transistors were developed at Bletcheley Park to crack Enigma, also publicly funded. Agree it does not matter where the money comes from, but scientific principles don't make money, and therefore no commercial drive to invest. Once scientists do their magic, engineers turn it into profitable products, and that's where private funding comes in. Two stage process, and both are needed. There are exceptions, like the nylon, but they're usually discovered by accident while working on something else.
The day of the "cold fusion" announcement at the University of Utah I was sitting across the campus in my physics class. The professor dropped his planned lecture for the day to explain why Pons and Fleishman were making fools of themselves and the university. He was right, of course.
No he was not right. Uncle George was a nuclear physicist at U of C Berkley. He took his own instruments and visited Fleischman's experiment. In my last conversation with him he said there was significant excess heat produced but that ir was not fusion because there were not enough neutrons. He said it was previously uncharacterized hydrolytic reaction. One can force enough H2 into palladium with high voltage and temperature. George may or may not have worked on the Fat Boy bomb.
@@82spiders I think what you failed to grasp from your Uncle's explanation is that it not only wasn't fusion, it wasn't a nuclear reaction at all. It was a high-energy chemical reaction. So yes they did end up making fools of themselves and the University by publishing before verifying their results.
Neutrons have been detected in LENR systems. Cold Fusion wasn't "debunked". It was steamrolled by hot fusion guys. I followed the discussions at the time on USENET. It was appalling. Pons and Fleischman weren't idiots; far from it. Their error was going around the usual publication protocols because they thought they were about to get scooped.
At first I didn't recognize what he was getting at... ...Then I remembered all the burritos I chomped into only to find the inner core was still cold as fuck, lol.
I think I know how to make this a reality... One is to listen to what David Adair says on the subject (which I visualize as two intersecting toroids) and the other is a type of Hydrogen Fusion that has already been proven and is easy cheap and table top, seriously it's something a serious experimenter can make, but it isn't over unity, but is a decent neutron source. What is this mysterious reactor? It was made by the inventor of the CRT TV, Philo Farnsworth (no, not his namesake on Futurama) it involved a spherical electrode charged to a high voltage that speeds Hydrogen nucleus at the center where they collide, IMO this type of idea could be added to these other methods and reduce the demands for pressure and temperature. Search wikipedia for "Inertial Electrostatic Confinement", it's more fun name is the fusor.
Dog fizzing is possible and happens naturally but the result is unstable. Depending on the size of the dog you get anywhere from 2-7 pupticles... otherwise known as chihuahuas.
No one really knows but it is suspected that neutrinos are responsible. As in the double slit experiment, any attempts to observe this process alters the outcome and you simply get a very angry dog.
You guys seriously need to look into how liberally they use the term "net gain". Spoiler alert, it is not a net gain at all. It's more like a huge net loss, but under a very specifically defined and very niche circumstance, technically, that one little bit, if you don't include anything else needed to run the reaction, it's a "net gain". Fusion was 15 years away in the 80's, it was 15 years away in this video from 4 years ago, and it's 15 years away today.... In 15 years, it'll be 15 years away.
Plant some bamboo, poplar, sequoia or acacia and you've got a great variety of shade to sit under, all well within your lifespan. Or if you want something that'll give you a LOAD of shade, plant a willow. Sounds like a dream to me
The problem with fusion is neither scientific nor technical. It is economical. ITER might sounds very expensive, but it is cheaper than an aircraft carrier and it is paid together by many countries. Yet, because of countries arguing about the bill, ITER has been delayed DECADES, not on the ground of science or technology, but simply countries not wanting to pay their share or asking for more contracts, etc. The reason why we don't have fusion right now is because the funding was gone. As simple as that. We are below the line that the Americans called "Fusion never" funding line (in reference to the Fusion 10 years, fusion 20 years, etc). Those private companies are not going to do anything with that, they are only gathering money and spending it in things that have been done already. The latest publications of the MIT endevour are things that have been done in other machines of the same since in the 1990s. Just give more money to fusion and you will see a huge speed up. It is as simple as that. Germany alone has spent more money every year for the last 10 years in placing solar panels that the cost of one entire ITER, and you are telling me that the countries representing 80% of the worlds economy cannot even afford one ITER? Sure thing.
Fair point. However, I understand that MIT's SPARC project has already attracted private interest from an energy provider in India - that in itself is a good sign and a promising boost for the project. The closer someone gets, the more everyone else 'leans in'.
@@God-vb5dw Interesting you say that, as there are a number of innovations that socialist gov'ts. never saw value in, and were developed by western free-market nations instead: The tokamak, EM dispersion design (a.k.a. stealth), microcircuitry, electronic transactions; and I think you missed the part where SPARC is getting private funding - and that project is still prototyping.
@@God-vb5dw My sarcasm meter is quite confounded - In any case, if one expects to conquer the world with pessimism, then one forefeits the right to be dissapointed if one succeeds. You might learn a lesson from Travant and Volkswagen. Good day sir.
LOL. Well played. The Thorium people have actually helped the Fusion people. Those molten salts are magic. They've been able to use the Flibe compound specifically to help. If/When fusion comes, there will still be a place for Thorium Molten Salts, because those reactors are essentially the philosopher's stone. The amount of amazing rare elements and compounds that can be created out of those reactors will be needed. Hence those reactors will be used in a utility function. Listening to Kirk Sorenson, he even admits electricity generation is going to be their secondary business model.
@@t.3465 the military is an expenditure tho, there is no haste to make it profitable. With a fusion reactor, you expect to get it back... With nukes, that cost about half that give or take, costs arent recovered until over a decade past and they arent more profitable than the alts until over 2, again give or take. And their fuel and maintenence is already negligible... Taking twice the expense and probably taking more time to build, yes, the fuel is dirt cheap and waste management arguably less annoying, so you are saving in the already negligible part of the cost... it just makes no economic sense, who cares about a project that wont be profitable until you're old? There is such a thing as an investment at the too long term, at least in economics...
There's been quite a significant progress on fusion in recent years and more discoveries will be made once the newest projects come online, but overall the field has been cash strapped for decades. Countries are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons with which they kill other people, but they can't stop complaining about how a few billion dollars aimed at fusion research are so going to devastate their economies. It's pathetic to be honest considering how much energy we need as a civilisation.
It has been grossly OVERFUNDED for decades. It is nothing more than a scam. We have been hearing the same, "we are making progress, but we need another few billion dollars" for decades. It is time to close down this confidence game.
If anyone interpreted the actions of whole countries the way they interpreted the actions of individuals, most countries would come across as egotistical violent psychopaths... So... Yeah. It's interesting the behaviour we accept from countries (and corporations) when we'd be absolutely horrified if individual people acted that way...
I'm still optimistic that it can be done. It's an exciting time with the smaller companies working on smaller solutions, Lockheed Martin for example. I hope to be around long enough to see ITER start up - fingers crossed ! I really enjoy your channel Joe - the content's entertaining as well as being nicely researched.
Did you actually just call Lockheed Martin a "smaller company"? They are probably the largest government contractor in the US and have revenue in the billions. How exactly are they a smaller company? A more precise example would be one such as Tri-alpha Energy or Tokamak Energy.
The largest Millitary hardarwe contrator in the world. From the F series of fighter jets to milltry GPS sataalights to the Preditor and Reaper Drone programs to Navel ship mounted Railguns. Oh! they also wer the guys producing anti-mille lasers for "Project starwars" (which has a rescent 2nd wind) . Oh they also built the Atlas series of launch vehicles and in the 60's they almost built a re-usalbe rocket engine before going over time and budget.
But the means to grab it, use it, and power civilization, to the tune of 21 Trillion watts per day, is not. I wouldn't even be challenging your statement, if we were proceeding to do this. I see this claim on Reddit, all the time.
Fusion power plants may not be so far off after all. Unlike all other fusion projects which are massive publicly funded research platforms and look to turn out results years or decades from now that will then be used to design the next generation of research reactor. Lockheed Marten's fusion project (which wasn't mentioned in this vid) is as far as I know 100% privately funded and it's moving much much faster. They are building their 3rd or 4th reactor design since 2014. Their Compact Fusion design is radically different than anything else yet conceived and in my opinion has decent chance of success. The company isn't too forth coming on details, but they were just granted a patent and the buzz is they may have functional reactor in as little as a year from now. Whatever is going on the company is behaving very much like they are developing a product they intend to take to market, not like they're conducting a science experiment that could one day lead to a breakthrough.
THX 1138 Lockheed Martin has been awfully quiet, but they have a good chance. The top reactor are Lockheed Martin, General Fusion and the Wendelstein Stellerator. Lockheed Martin only has engineering reputation to back them really.
THX 1138 Most designs are still far away from success in a timely fashion. Except for the inertial fusion reactor that uses proton boron fusion. Uses off the shelf dual lasers so it’s cheap to build.
We're always going to need more energy. Wind turbines kill lots of birds. And places need to be clear cut for solar cell farms. Both are dependent on changes in the weather. We need other options for sudden changes in power demands. And if we get off earth, we'll need fusion anyway. Lockheed Martin made a lot of noise several years ago claiming they would have a demo model to show by about now. They have yet to demonstrate much. If I understand, they are basically using a polywell design. Electric field containment rather than magnetic. College kids have been building small one's in their basements. One conversation with some who knows the Skunkworks told me that they people there now are not the same ones who made the Blackbird spy plane and stealth fighter technology. They are new people there now. Someone else also claimed that they have to scale up their reactor by about 100 times (volume and cost) to maybe (if it works at all) achieve surplus energy which can be put out onto the grid. Tokamaks and their similar stellarators so far are the most proven technology.
There are couple of aspects that tend to be ignored in this kind of videos ('Why do we not have fusion yet'): (1) A lot of the fusion research in the last 50 years was fundamentally basic research. There were literally huge holes in our knowledge about the behavior of plasma, how to control such strong magnetic fields, how to deal with the temperature etc. (2) The funding for fusion research is nothing compared to the money put into fusion research. Primarily because it doesn't have any direct military applications. The cost of ITER at 15 billion USD for example is still much smaller than the Manhattan Project and the budget of the MP included very little research money. (3) A lot of the cost is a direct result of appeasing every contributing party. ITER for example is not allowed to source its magnets from a single party like any normal construction project would. It has to get them from every party that wants to test its equipment. This is a huge problem when talking about very high precision material, i.e. sub-millimeter precision for parts in the meter range. Especially the first item is responsible for many of the breakthrough steps. It's just so easy for the media reporting on them to fail to illustrate them as stepping stones.
Thank you. Finally someone with actual insight in the topic. These videos always make it look like the delays of machines like ITER are because of science or technology, but it is not true, it was just money. In fact, the improvement on tokamaks was much faster than the Moore's law or the growth in efficiency of the combustion engine, until the money stop flowing. Of course you cannot make this very complicate research without money. It is so absolutely frustrating.
I've been a hard line skeptic about fusion energy for a long time. Back in the sixties I read an article in Business Week that quoted some physicists as claiming that fusion energy was only twenty years away. The thought of cheap almost unlimited energy got me really excited. Remember, this was the early days of computing technologies when companies like IBM and government agencies were the only entities deeply involved in this type of research. This constant drone that fusion power was only twenty years away soon gave me a jaded outlook on the future of this technology. However, the rapid advancement in computing power has given me renewed hope. I won't be around long enough (I'm 78) to see the fruits of the work of the physicists and engineers who are advancing this technology, but I do now believe that it will be achieved. It will be a mammoth game changer.
The reason why fusion is always "30 years away" is due to the changing political landscape, aka funding cuts. The amount of money going into fusion research has plummeted since the 60s. Every time a certain political party has control of congress/house, cuts are made to areas of science and research while more money gets pumped into our military. If funding wasn't slashed to basically nothing, we WOULD probably have fusion energy already. It's one of the few areas of science where you can literally throw money at the problem, and see a direct increase in performance/results. They're testing magnetic confinement and trying to control that super hot plasma. To test their models, to find the most efficient way to do this requires tests. Lots of tests. An INSANE amount of tests. And these tests cost loads of money, Eventually you do all you can and need a larger reactor. That costs billions. Then you need to begin the tests all over again. It's trial and error, but in fact, it's more like fine tuning. If fusion research had unlimited funding, we'd have a working fusion reactor supplying power to the grid in less than a decade. Half of that time would be just building the reactor.
*There has been no serious leap forward in technology that has not included government funding at some point (and is usually successful with public/private partnership, as these two are not merely complimentary, they are synergistic).*
No serious leap in technology has ever been made that didn't include water at some point. So we need the scientists and workers to drink more water. Do you see what I did there? Do you see your mistake? Do you understand that water and government funding are so ubiquitous that they are non-factors? Government funding perverts everything it gets involved in. War on drugs? Increase drug addiction among other things. War on poverty? Increased poverty. FDA? Causes 1000 times as many deaths as would occur if there were no regulations on medicine at all.
Transistors, one of the biggest leaps forward in living memory, were not the result of government funding. Transistors were a product of Bell Labs, which received its funding from operating revenue of the various systems that AT&T operated. Transistors were the origin of the semiconductor industry (including the computers you and I are using), and sprang from the housing boom that accompanied the end of WW2. More housing meant more copper for wiring and a copper shortage just as the public demanded more telephones, and particularly private lines. The crunch required multiplexing, so Bell Labs developed T-carrier (24 voice channels, with signalling, on two pairs of wire). It could be done with tubes but the power and shelter requirements were daunting and the cost was high. More details at The History Guy's video, " The Most Important Invention of the 20th Century: Transistors" th-cam.com/video/OuFlISa73Sw/w-d-xo.html (Retired after 34 years in communications and IT support)
@@nonsensicalrants1703 All American problems which has a government that's run as a corporation. Not really relevant since most of these research projects are not American anyway. You might not be aware of this, but we don't all have governments like that. You have a government like that because you're fine with it being run by corporate interests. And apparently you want more of it to so you're getting what you deserve. Enjoy your slavery.
I'm fine with paying for research with my tax money. What is stupid is that after we've payed for the research then corporations take over and make us pay to use the research we payed for. So no, I think that if our taxes payed for it then then we all get to benefit from it and corporations shouldn't be allowed to use it. If private corporations payed to develop it they wouldn't share the research with anyone, so they shouldn't be allowed to use research that was publicly funded either.
The 2030s will be here in just 12 years. I feel old. I remember when the 2030s existed in the realm of science fiction. Now it's right around the corner. Yikes! I am excited about fusion, but I'd like to be young enough to enjoy it! I will be in my 60s when it becomes a thing. :-\
Don’t worry! At 60 you still have a solid chunk of life left to enjoy whatever wonderful technologies the 30’s will bring. Also, speaking of new technologies, I feel like research into life extension is picking up some wind lately. So by the time the 30’s come around we might be expected to live even longer than we are expected to live today!
Its going to be a awesome world. Cheap almost limitless energy, Life extension, AGI & ASI, Robots, BMI's, realist VR worlds, the end of drudgery, cures to nearly everything, advanced nanotech, genetic engineering, advanced 3-d printing, the end of scarcity and even more mind blowing things. A life of your choice and on to the singularity.
One of my favorite aspects of your videos is that you present the pros and the cons of something, evidence for and against. Also that you tend to have a lightning-round sum-up where often you'll list the cons and pros in the opposite order. The human brain as a bias to remember the last thing mentioned, so that helps to make sure the viewer is left with a nuanced impression of whatever topic.
Did you knew it because you read it from my mind? Or are you some sort of modderator of this simulation were living in and you implemented the thought of the fusion progress so that i would write down the coment?
I went on a fusion binge (watched/ read many hundreds of fusion shiz) the last few weeks so I probably got here due to youtubes algorithms knowing fusion was on my mind based on watch history... Joe are you part computer code? lol
I have a fusion story. 10th grade, Earth Sciences class, 1974. We each had a science project to work on, and as the semester drew to a close, we had to share our project findings with the class in a short presentation. One of the weird guys in the class started his presentation by saying he was going to demonstrate "Nuclear Fusion." "Yeah, right," some of us laughed at the preposterous idea. But he proceeded anyway. He had a Bunsen burner under a stand that held a metal bowl. In the bowl he melted a large quantity of paraffin wax - to the point where it was boiling like crazy. And "Now," he said, "here is the nuclear fusion reaction." He then took a turkey baster full of water, and squirted it on the hot boiling wax. What happened next was amazing. The entire lab bench went up in bright flames and smoke. Eerily, the smoke took on the shape of a rather impressively-sized mushroom cloud. Impressive to see it up close and indoors, anyway. Hot molten wax sprayed out everywhere in an 8 foot radius. The students in the front row got some of that. The teacher, Ms. Scott, was not amused at all, and said afterwards that she would review each project before it was presented. Probably a wise move. So what really happened? The squirt of water vaporized the boiling wax into a big cloud of flammable gas, and the Bunsen burner simply ignited it. Basically, the science project was a grease fire. And perhaps showed why water is very bad way to put out a grease fire. But I know some of the students actually thought they had witnessed nuclear fusion in a high school science lab, courtesy of a 10th grade stoner dude. The whole incident made an impression on me that I'll never forget. I later repeated the "experiment" in my backyard, under somewhat better-controlled conditions. I used a much smaller dish of wax, and just a small alcohol lamp to heat it, and I still got a large display of fire and smoke. But please, don't try this at home. Ever! It is a huge, scorched, waxy mess to clean up. And you may set something on fire that is not supposed to be on fire. In closing, I'd just like to say - I loved that science class.
@@0topon I've followed the developments of fusion energy all my life - and I've often wondered why nuclear scientists haven't discovered the hot wax method. :-)
the answer to nuclear waste..... Low-pressure sodium reactors. These reactors can use nuclear waste as fuel with an efficiency of 95% (so we are told). LPS reactors operate at lower pressure (as the name suggests), so they are safer, easier to make ;fail safe' and a lot harder to make 'meltdown'. Fuel for an LPS reactor does not need to be refined to the same extent as a regular reactor, in fact if you love close to the sea, you can refine fuel for the LPS reactor from the sea water. They are building an LPS power plant (only a small one at 500MW) as proof of concept. This could be a stop gap while we wait for the holy grail that is fusion energy. Personally I am not holding my breath for this one.
kgbme no, the current answer is stop using uranium and start using thorium for nuclear fission power, in the long run, we should stop fission but currently if we stopped using fission, 20% of our energy production would drop
"The temperature inside this apple pie is over 1000 degrees. If I squeeze it, a jet of molten bramley apple will squirt out. Could go your way; could go mine. Either way, one of us is going down!!!!"
The sun is really incredible slow at burning its fuel (which is a good thing), way to slow for a practical power plant. So we have to recreate something many times more extreme than the center of the sun.
two things i hope to see in my lifetime. Fusion and some evidence of life elsewhere in the universe . . . to quote a great man . . . "a microbe would be just fine" . . . . i am late to the series but have been binge watching your videos and have been following fusion for some time, thanks for the great info.
Fusion in our lifetime might happen might not but finding even a microbe on an other planet in our lifetime that's even more unlikely sad but true i think.
One may complement the other. If we're able to make Fusion power possible in flight, there's a high chance it'll allow us to traverse outside the solar system to find planets with hospitable atmospheres, and there's a very high chance that any planet like that has life on it.
For those of you wondering; Deuterium-Tritanium Fusion is 868 quadrillion kw per ton. That is 5000-6000 times more than the amount of energy in a year or needed.
Yes Deuterium is in heavy water. If the Hydrogen is replaced by Deuterium, this is what heavy water is. Deuterium is the next isotope up from Hydrogen, Hydrogen being a proton and an electron. Deuterium having a Neutron proton and an electron. Tritium is the next up, with two neutrons one proton and an electron. Then one begins with the Helium isotopes, and then Helium. It is actually fascinating. The Early atoms and thier isotopes give a really clear example of the basics of Nuclear synthesis and how all shit is made up. BTW, in the very early Universe. Well early but not very early, very early on there was nothing but generations of elementary particles and radiation. But once the Universe had expanded and cooled sufficiently for the first Atoms to form, there was only Hydrogen, and Helium in the whole Universe. With possibly a minuscule smattering of Lithium. Everything else. ll heavier elements have been forged in the cores of stars, up to Iron. Where the process ceases to give up extra energy and now begins to take energy. Everything heavier than Iron is forged in the incredible,unimaginable temperatures and pressures in Nova's, Supernova's. We have also reasonably recently discovered also in the collisions of Neutron stars.
For at least eight years during the 80s and 90s I worked on the RF heating systems at JET. I also did work in the main control room. Working on this project, with some of the smartest people I know, was without doubt the best and most meaningful job I've ever had.
1) Fission also happens in nature: "Nuclear power is often perceived as a technology that defies the natural order - but simply head to Africa and you’ll find the world’s first and only natural nuclear reactor. Located in the Oklo region of Gabon in Africa, the Oklo Reactor consists of 16 uranium-rich sites where self-sustaining nuclear chain reactions took place billions of years ago. The reactors ran for a few hundred thousand years, averaging 100 kW of power output during that time." (inhabitat.com/the-oklo-reactor-the-worlds-only-natural-nuclear-reactor/) 2) A lot of the stuff happening in nature is highly dangerous and just because something is "natural" (as happening on its own in nature) it does not mean it is "good" (for us). Otherwise why bother to build an advanced civilization in the first place? Many people have a bias against synthetic (man made) risks when in fact they could not survive a few days without being sheltered by the sophisticated products of modern civilization. Natural risks are way more deadly... 3) Fusion is great but fission is not bad either. It depends on the type of fission reactor as there are many designs with different advantages and disadvantages. Power, or even electric energy, is not the only useful product they create saving and improving thousands of lifes every year (medical and industrial applications of radioisotopes! ) Plus there are ways to deal with products that many consider "waste" and storing it for 100000 years is not the name of the game. Look i.e. at the russion BN800 reactor - one mans trash is another mans treasure.
Thx! On top of it we seem to sit on a giant fission reactor buried in the earth's core. Fission is natural and natural is neither good nor bad. Here in Austria/Germany most or at least very, very many people think nuclear power is against nature or even a doomsday technology. They hold similar beliefs about genetic engineering and other aspects of science and technology. All of that while they indulge in the products of modern civilization... If you would like to have a discussion or further comments on the topic I would appreciate if you could visit my channel and in particular this video: th-cam.com/video/XVecner-aCE/w-d-xo.html
Definitely a popular misconception that fission isn't natural, but there are a ton of misconceptions about nuclear power, I'll stop here, there are so many common myths about nuclear power I could probably write a book about it, lol.
Dude, 1st time seeing your channel and you crack me up. I like how you're teaching science but you keep it light and fun. That's what people need in order to keep engaged and actually learn something. You sir have a new subscriber 🤘🤘!!!!! Looking forward to seeing more of your content.
The problem with private industry taking over, is that the majority of the hard work and funding has come from tax dollars. Now just as the technology is making massive advances, private industry comes in to cease control and turn the technology from something for the greater good into something for obscene profit. It happens all the time with pharmaceuticals and medicine and information technology. I'd rather a utopian future as seen in Star Trek as opposed to that of George Orwells 1984
What's your solution, then? That the only allowable products based off of government research must be developed, produced and, and distributed by the government? Not only is that extremely inefficient, but that sounds closer to 1984 than whatever corporate conspiracy you're pushing.
Yeah its a bit frustating that the technology produced by everyone is gonna be used to make a few really rich but we have no other option, science needs to be funded and private investors aren´t gonna invest in a thing that can´t be profitable in short term
Everyone still benefits. It's like the question: if in a group of five, you would rather have everyone have five dollars, or would you rather have one guy have fifty and the rest ten. All other things equal.
Private industry is not taking over, it's getting involved, two very different things. Plot twist, tax dollars coming from private industry as well. We need government funded research, just as much as we need private industry involvement. Unless you want Orwellian 1984 style society dominated by absolute government control.
Maybe he is member of the antifi - The anti fisscist movement. Some say they label anything not fusion, as fission, so better keep an eye on that group, a bit shady.
So.. every year for the last 70 years we've heard "It's just 30 years away!". I fully expect that every year for the next 50 years, we'll hear "It's just 12 years away!"
In 1970 the buzz was it was 15 years away. Creating life in a test tube was 20-25 years away. So many unfulfilled expectations based on more optimism than knowledge.
They've built the fission bomb. They've built the fission fusion bomb. They've even built the fission fusion fission bomb. If you want government to build a fusion reactor just tell them it's for powering a weapons system.
Yeah, it's a pity that finding newer better ways to kill ourselves seems to be a such a driver of scientific/technological advancement. On the other hand, haven't a lot of tech achievements been the result of searching for newer better ways to consume pornography or satisfy our prurient desires? The internet, or now AR/VR? I feel like i read a convincing case for the internet as it exists now essentially being just a byproduct of porn-distribution systems. I'm probably wrong. But all this new 'haptics' tech... ignoring the family-friendly clean demos i've seen, that's gotta be all about telecopulation or virtual sex at heart, no?
I always liked the idea of Percolator Earth. Keep it simple. We already got all the pressure heat we need right here. All you should need is a long straw, a volcano or a deep hole in the ground. Couple to steam turbines, generators and heat distribution grids. Add water and start brewing. :)) And hey, while we're at it; Lets use sea water for the process to create extra fresh water surplus ! Next stop; Jungles of Sahara ?
It is always just so easy to imagine and say isn't it. There are quite a number of engineering challenges with what you suggest. Though Hydrothermal is actually a thing in some part of the world where they are particularly Volcanic, living near a suitable plate boundary or where there is stable surface activity. Actually cracking Fusion is something a few orders of magnitude superior. It is something Humanity needs to get to grips with is the Human race is to thrive and continue to expand our horizons. Inexhaustible, reasonably inexpensive, non polluting electricity is some serious civilisational game changer.
Thorium cycle in a molten salt reactor produces waste that is 10% the weight of traditional 235 fission - and "only" lasts some 300 years not 10,000 years. That needs to be said.
300 years is doable. In my family that’s three grandmas. + 10,000 years will never be done successfully and we’ll definitely end up irradiating the human race
@@nicksurfs1 Breeder reactors will basically be fuelled from all that 10k year "waste" which actually contains 95% of the fissionable potential of the uranium..
I made a dissertation on fusion and another one on real time ray-tracing at school back in the 90ies. They were both exciting subjects back then even if they were both unrealistic at the time. I think it's very exciting that we are at a point were they might both be reality "soon".
I work in research of how the energy market will function over the next 20-30 years and the big stumbling block we are facing is a technology to replace gas peaking plants which are able to turn on and off quickly to meet peaks and troughs in demand. Batteries are a possibility, but would need to massively improve to be feasible for this kind of application. At the moment they are only viable for very short term fluctuations. But if fusion does get off of the ground, it would actually make an incredible good peaker system and would allow a very efficient and reliable energy grid.
I would've thought fusion, like fission would be a baseload supply. But, I guess it may be possible - a peaking plant above all else has to have a fast response time to variations in demand...
Fusion, the energy of the future and always will be......love it. I've been following this since the 60's and have heard "it's only a decade away" about every five years since.
Yep. the us navy said 20 years ago that they had figured out cold fusion and that it would be a common civilian source in twenty years…. so. . 20 minus 20 = now. I despise people that are dishonest.
Right. In a scientific magazine issued in 1978, "scientists" planned fusion would be an industrial electricity source in 2020-2030. Today, they talk about 2080.
*I've been hearing that fusion power was "just around the corner, maybe 15 years away", since 1965. And yet we are only on the edge of a functional system now (that the Bose condensate hypothesis has been proven, and is being used in the real world).*
Sadly fusion power is very low sponsored by governments. with ITER the biggest project is under its way. But it could be better financed. For comparison: ITER costs about 25Billion ( for planning, building and operation) - The US military expenses amount to >500billion$ per year. Its still relatively slow because all partners share the knowledge. The project itself is not easy. You can see on their site the current progress: www.iter.org
Fusion was twenty years away, fifty years ago. At this point, I'll believe it when I see it. I've spent my whole life with the hype and now it's really old hype.
Don't give up now. especially since we are now on the verge of a breakthrough. nuclear fusion will become a sustainable power source faster then you think... and when you least expect it. in fact a couple of reactors of this type are supposed to start up next year 2019.
@Peter Cohen Same. While I eagerly await Fusion as a replacement for literally all our power sources I'm not going to hold my breath. I'll be putting Solar panels up on my house as soon as I can afford it.
Excited? You made me cry I didn't know of any of these advancements. I think like twice a month how awesome could it be that we could have fusion energy but thought it was still a dream impossible to acomplish so i never actually researched. Every time I hear about clean energy is this and solar panels in my mind, now I will actually have hope for fusion. Everything in science is built upon the work or the mistakes of someone else, that passion is what makes science so important, so meaningful to many of us. I consider myself a scientist, I'm a chemist and an enthusiast for science in general. Each time I think on how we discovered things and how our entire society stands in the ground job made by Faraday I get chills and I get sad that he never got to see it. This is more than just science, this is human history. Be proud, we will always improve, we will make mistakes but we will always walk forward with knowledge!
I love reading comments on videos on subject matter such as this. It makes me realize that there are so many minds in this world gifted with so much knowledge. It makes me have faith in humanity again. I believe that you we us can accomplish this. How could we not with so much genius in this world.
I'm an old guy - 73 years to date. I first became interested in how a nuclear (fission) bomb works when I was a teenager. It was pretty simple stuff - simply a circle of guns all firing sub-critical mass lumps of plutonium or uranium-235 into the centre of the circle so that the colliding lumps build into a super-critical mass of fissile material... BOOM! Then came fusion! The hydrogen bomb needed enormous energy to fuse the hydrogen atoms into helium - and release a bit of energy at the same time! A helium-4 atom has less mass than 2 hydrogen-2 (deuterium) atoms. To fuse the 2 deuterium atoms you need a huge temperature and pressure... say something like 100 million degrees Celsius. You can create that temperature and pressure using a nuclear fission bomb - like the one they dropped on Hiroshima in WW2. So to create nuclear fusion you use nuclear fission... BOOOOOOM! But to control that release of energy so that you can use it to power your central heating - that's another story. In the 1970's I first learned about the Tokamac (a 'torus' like a huge tyre filled with deuterium plasma concentrated so that it doesn't touch the walls of torus container) as the promise to create controlled nuclear fusion within around 10 years. That was nearly 50 years ago... I have recently seen several sites claiming that there have been real breakthroughs and that controlled nuclear fusion really is achievable in a time frame of 10 to 15 years. That's the thing for old guys. I've heard that so often that I don't believe it any more!
I first heard about fusion in the 1970's. It seemed an unreachable dream back then. The technical problems insurmountable. This news is very inspiring.
what I find mind boggling is that all these forms of energy from coal, oil, nuclear fission and now fusion reactors are all well and good, but at the end of the day its steam engines that drive the turbines that produce the electricity. after more than 100 years no one has come up with an alternative to steam power.
@@goldenfloof5469 It's not really a true alternative yet, though. Wind and solar power do, finally, get us away from the "boil a huge kettle" model of generation (NB hydro power sort of doesn't though; you're still using water to spin a turbine, but in the liquid phase rather than the gaseous), but they don't represent a large enough fraction of total energy production to be true replacements, and possibly never will as we continually increase our energy consumption. There are a few ideas floating about on how to produce electricity without going through the steam-driven intermediate step, but they are all in a similar spot to fusion in being "about 25 years away", and likely will be for another good long while too :)
@@talltroll7092 ....Okay?... You're not wrong... But I was just saying solar panels produce electricity without the spinny bits. I didn't say anything about any of the other stuff you tried to clarify for me.
@@goldenfloof5469 Lol, yes, you are totally correct. It's just that we are going to be needing the spinny bits for a while longer yet. The OP was expressing their astonishment that we still haven't really got beyond boiling a huge kettle as our primary source of electricity, and that however clever a fusion reactor we might build, it's probably going to just be the most technically advanced way to boil that kettle we have ever come up with. It's just such an odd match, using 21st century (or 22nd century, who knows?) tech to... make steam spin a thing. The ancient Greeks had executive toys that did that
Sir, you have one of top informative, entertaining, and brilliant channels; and you present your material so very well (great sense of humor too ;-) . When watching your videos, I always pause if I need to leave the screen for any reason so I won't miss anything. hats off to you, Sir.
Hey Joe, it appears there’s a little echo or something funny with the audio. It could just be my headset, just thought I’d give you the heads up. Another great video!
Not your headset. I actually did a lot of work to clean that up if you can believe it. What happened is I have my condenser mic that I use for podcasts and livestreams and I have my wireless mic that I use for videos. I accidentally left my condenser mic on for about the first half of the recording, so you get the close up sound from the lav mic and more of the room noise with the condenser. So yeah... sorry about that.
Joe Scott No worries! It doesn’t take away from the video, just a nit picky thing. This video make me start to wonder about the effects that fusion energy would have on organizations such as spacex. What leaps could be made if a mars colony could just start with fusion energy as the basis. Just some really exciting stuff we will get to see in our lifetimes!
Xenon absorbs neutrons. It was a problem in the Pu when they first built the A - bomb. It was discovered when it kept the pile from maintaining self-sustaining fission.
I see the radioactive 135 isotope has been used as a nuclear poison but is stable xenon good enough to make a compact shield? Somehow I doubt it but I'm no nuclear scientist so might be wrong.
You'd be surprised at how small they can get. Ie here's a company building the world's smallest fusion reactors. They've just finished providing their concept was possible, now they're going to start ramping up power levels to try and achieve fusion power. It's exciting :) th-cam.com/channels/uSlFJbBUIj1zfJLRnGXSow.html
If we could make enough of the kind of energy changing Hydrogen into Helium, then we might be able to call such synthetic atoms generators of fusion energy. An atom expressing qualities of a heavier one seem to have learned new skills... If added force is continuous in strenght & qualities, can't we call it a generation ?
Low cost energy production in a closed loop vacuum system: You have a water tank filled with degassed deionized water, the water then goes through black pipes held in glassed-in insulated boxes so sunlight is captured to heat the water "it can get hot enough to boil at sea level" the piping then goes to a spray nozzle where the hot water instantly vaporizes the steam then goes to a turbine that drives an electrical generator, after the turbine the steam and any water that condensed in it travel at a downward angle through a pipe with a condensation coil around it to a large vacuum chamber that has heat transfer fins inside this preheats water from a large reservoir tank that then feeds to the starting tank. The constant rapid condensation of the steam combined with a volume of the vacuum chamber being 3x or larger than the volume of steam produce at any given time maintains the vacuum level so the process continues.
That never happens, private industry always keeps the money. Just look at the pharmaceutical industry that charges outrageous amounts for government discoveries.
@@jerryb.9754 agreed. Now we know why senators making roughly 100k a year retire being multi-millionares. Its a scam and we as taxpayers fund this nonsense
@@RODWALLBANGER Overall, it's a net positive for humanity. Plus, those companies generate new profits from those new products which turn into new tax revenue for the government. (Though, as it stands now, those particular companies likely don't pay as much as they're supposed to.) That's why we need is a simple tax code with no loopholes or paid-for favors from said politicians that would assure the taxpayer at least some repayment for that initial funding. A flat tax maybe? Solves all sorts of problems.
The most satisfying video to my OCD that i've ever watched!!! number of likes (1.7k) is one tenth of the number of views (17k). and the number of of dislikes (17) is 1% of the number of likes (1.7k)
One of the reasons I am hoarding so much mercury is that it will become rather valuable when the fusion economy takes off.
Hi Cody. I'm looking forward to more of your videos :)
Nah. When fusion takes off, element transmutation will certainly be a by-product. Mercury for everybody!
This is actually some brilliant speculation. Leave it to Cody! lol
Can you elaborate?
yeah, how so?
Anyone else find it mildly amusing that we are creating more advanced ways to boil water?
Some approaches considering direct energy conversion such as bussards poly-well and focus fusion
It amuses me that we still generate electricity from induction derived by the movement of a fluid through a turbine after 150 years of doing so but I suppose occasionally when looking for a breakthrough people sometimes stumble on the most efficient method first.
Not most efficient, carnot cycle is quite inefficient, just historically lowest path of resistance
You probably know this already, but Brittain has to manually adjust the power of its grid system around important sport events.
The reason is that everyone goes to make tea during break time, which takes considerably more energy than you would think.
Yes, they could just pipe boiling water directly from power plants :D
Nuclear Fusion will come before Half-Life 3
Hydrogen-Boron Fusion, demonstrated and private company (Owned by University of NSW in Aust) is working out the engineering and looking to create a prototype.
Fuel is just Hydrogen and Boron, it is an initiated rather than chain reaction (runaway is impossible), the only radiation is electrons which are harvested and are the actual power output, minimal heat output.
It is not a thermal device - i.e does not generate steam to rotate turbines and can be quite small as shielding is not a major issue.
newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/laser-boron-fusion-now-%E2%80%98leading-contender%E2%80%99-energy
cleantechnica.com/2017/12/14/free-lunch-alert-hydrogen-boron-solution-clean-nuclear-fusion/
"
Oh come on, where’s the catch? Researchers at the University of New South Wales have described how a laser-enabled system can coax nuclear energy out of a reaction between hydrogen and boron, without generating nuclear waste. The patented system has already been spun off to an Australian startup called HB11 Energy."
Hahahahahha
I gave up on the dream that half-life 3 would ever be made years ago. :(
Its kinda like "Water found on mars" news, you hear it every 5 or 6 years somehow..
You will get Half Life 3 before I get Winds of Winter...😢
Hey Joe, (I hope one day you will see this comment)
Thanks for bringing us such awesome contents, and in my case, you bring me much more.
I'm a french mechanical engineer (yes we can make cool stuff as well and not just bread) and during the last 2-3 years, I was completely lost about what I wanted to do in my professional life.
About 1,5 years ago I got very interested in renewable energy, and during my research, I found your channel and precisely your video about ITER (fusion reactor under construction in France)
Since this day, I studied the project, learn a lot in the process and fell in love with the idea of working there trying to change the way we produce energy.
And guess what, after 4 different interviews I'm in the final stage of the hiring process (wish me luck)
anyway, no matter where I will be working in the futur, you help me finding a purpose.
Thank you.
Update pls
did you get the job my froggy friend ?
Update?
“TONY STARK BUILT THIS IN A CAVE! FROM A BOX OF SCRAPS”
God I can’t believe the first Iron Man film came out over 10 years ago
I'm not Tony Stark Sir
You have to consider that in that Universe Stark can do this while at te same time poor Elon has to build merlin engines.
@@abrahamwilberforce9824 Raptor engines. Hopefully within two-three years F9 will be obsolete.
@@abrahamwilberforce9824 With direct-energy-to-force weapons systems and a fully conscious AI
I hope I live long enough to see fusion power on the electric power grid happen; and I'm 67.
You're optimistic and that's a good trait. But I'm only 40 and there are a lot of things I don't think I'll live to see, the way things are going right now. I used to think that people would definitely land on Mars within my lifetime. I was absolutely sure of it. Not anymore. I don't think it's going to happen.
molten salt reactors are the energy solution fusion wants to be.
@@ct6502-c7w you'll see it, Elon always succeeds
@@ewan8845 He doesn't seem to be doing very well with Tesla.
@@ct6502-c7w yeah that hasn't gone too well. We'll just have to wait for the BFR
I just attended a talk at my institute (I'm a postdoc at a Leibnitz Institute in Germany) and the speaker gave a good story about why public funding of science is necessary.
He was speaking of the discovery of a bacterium in 1969 that was found in an experiment investigating at what temperature bacteria can survive. Note that this study had no inherent financial benefit on possible results.
However, the following discovery of this bacterium, Thermus aquaticus, as any biologist knows, led to the isolation of Taq polymerase, an essential ingredient in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) which is essentially necessary to study genetics. Hopefully, everyone watching this channel should be able to comprehend the benefit to humanity of this; notwithstanding the enormous industries that have now sprung up, and will continue to spring up because this bacteria's polymerase. Same kinda thing with CRISPR. You cannot assume a discovery, you just need the information to keep being piled up until we can start to connect the dots. And for this, you need indiscriminate funding of science.
A much simpler example is DARPA; without DARPA there might not have been an Internet.
Public money needed for the scientific breakthroughs. Private money is for the practical engineering.
Take this all the way back when a bunch of mathematicians and physicists start scribbling on a sheet of paper which then turns into the very foundation on which technology runs a century later.
Einstein's relativity enables modern GPS. Faraday's scribbles on magnetic field lines leads to the invention of the dynamo and electric generator. Some mathematician's scribbles on the possibility of representing all numbers with any base system led to binary, octal and hexadecimal systems used in computers.
@@none3763
Not necessarily. The first transistor was fabricated in an IBM research laboratory. And NASA made the first successful manned landing on another solar body and the first 'reusable' spaceframe (albeit with the aid of hundreds of private contractors). The money and resources are money and resources, it hardly matters where _those_ come from: What does matter is the end goal and the drive to achieve it.
@@HuntingTarg NASA was publicly funded. First transistors were developed at Bletcheley Park to crack Enigma, also publicly funded. Agree it does not matter where the money comes from, but scientific principles don't make money, and therefore no commercial drive to invest. Once scientists do their magic, engineers turn it into profitable products, and that's where private funding comes in. Two stage process, and both are needed.
There are exceptions, like the nylon, but they're usually discovered by accident while working on something else.
The day of the "cold fusion" announcement at the University of Utah I was sitting across the campus in my physics class. The professor dropped his planned lecture for the day to explain why Pons and Fleishman were making fools of themselves and the university.
He was right, of course.
No he was not right. Uncle George was a nuclear physicist at U of C Berkley. He took his own instruments and visited Fleischman's experiment. In my last conversation with him he said there was significant excess heat produced but that ir was not fusion because there were not enough neutrons. He said it was previously uncharacterized hydrolytic reaction. One can force enough H2 into palladium with high voltage and temperature. George may or may not have worked on the Fat Boy bomb.
@@82spiders I think what you failed to grasp from your Uncle's explanation is that it not only wasn't fusion, it wasn't a nuclear reaction at all. It was a high-energy chemical reaction. So yes they did end up making fools of themselves and the University by publishing before verifying their results.
Neutrons have been detected in LENR systems. Cold Fusion wasn't "debunked". It was steamrolled by hot fusion guys. I followed the discussions at the time on USENET. It was appalling. Pons and Fleischman weren't idiots; far from it. Their error was going around the usual publication protocols because they thought they were about to get scooped.
@@82spiders now they tighten the fusion beam to drive an ignition process or something. No more campfires under the Tokamak loop.
Anything is possible with the MORMON GOD!...the rest of the country believes UTAH is all MORMON.
“This is the greatest temperature difference in the universe, followed closely behind by a microwave burrito”
- Joe
Can confirm. I'm an expert in microwaving burritos.
lol can also confirm
It’s just basic science.
At first I didn't recognize what he was getting at...
...Then I remembered all the burritos I chomped into only to find the inner core was still cold as fuck, lol.
I think I know how to make this a reality... One is to listen to what David Adair says on the subject (which I visualize as two intersecting toroids) and the other is a type of Hydrogen Fusion that has already been proven and is easy cheap and table top, seriously it's something a serious experimenter can make, but it isn't over unity, but is a decent neutron source. What is this mysterious reactor? It was made by the inventor of the CRT TV, Philo Farnsworth (no, not his namesake on Futurama) it involved a spherical electrode charged to a high voltage that speeds Hydrogen nucleus at the center where they collide, IMO this type of idea could be added to these other methods and reduce the demands for pressure and temperature. Search wikipedia for "Inertial Electrostatic Confinement", it's more fun name is the fusor.
Dog fizzing is possible and happens naturally but the result is unstable. Depending on the size of the dog you get anywhere from 2-7 pupticles... otherwise known as chihuahuas.
Dave Armstrong 😂😂😂 lmao
Is that the same fizzing process that requires an ax or sword?
While the axe and sword methods do create a stable fizz, the result is too short lived to be viable for any long term applications.
No one really knows but it is suspected that neutrinos are responsible. As in the double slit experiment, any attempts to observe this process alters the outcome and you simply get a very angry dog.
Is this the fizzing process that sometimes requires cooling with a bucket of water or a hose?
"Planting trees under whose shade they shall never sit" You had me tearing me up there.
4 years later....we just achieved a small net gain with fusion at a lab in California.
A 50% gain is not small!
You guys seriously need to look into how liberally they use the term "net gain".
Spoiler alert, it is not a net gain at all. It's more like a huge net loss, but under a very specifically defined and very niche circumstance, technically, that one little bit, if you don't include anything else needed to run the reaction, it's a "net gain".
Fusion was 15 years away in the 80's, it was 15 years away in this video from 4 years ago, and it's 15 years away today.... In 15 years, it'll be 15 years away.
@@Carrotsalesman Yep, just like every climate change conference and COP summit - they're going to fix everything by the end of the 'present' decade...
You can plant peach trees, those suckers reach 15 feet in 3 years, you can sit in their shade and enjoy their fruit in no time.
But do they provide cake that I can both have AND eat?
Cecer you could eat only some of your cake. You also get to keep some.
Win win.
HAL 9000 damn son
Can you please kill a large portion of humanity and take over the world?
Plant some bamboo, poplar, sequoia or acacia and you've got a great variety of shade to sit under, all well within your lifespan. Or if you want something that'll give you a LOAD of shade, plant a willow. Sounds like a dream to me
If you're having trouble fizzing your dog, I can assist. I'm a fizzassist.
Ha ha!
totally brilliant! 😂 🤣😂🤣 🤣😂🤣 😂🤣 😂
Congrats to Joe for coining a new legal disclaimer:
"No dogs were injuriously fizzed in the production of this video."
Please do not. My wife has too many small dogs, already.
That was quite funny.
The problem with fusion is neither scientific nor technical. It is economical. ITER might sounds very expensive, but it is cheaper than an aircraft carrier and it is paid together by many countries. Yet, because of countries arguing about the bill, ITER has been delayed DECADES, not on the ground of science or technology, but simply countries not wanting to pay their share or asking for more contracts, etc.
The reason why we don't have fusion right now is because the funding was gone. As simple as that. We are below the line that the Americans called "Fusion never" funding line (in reference to the Fusion 10 years, fusion 20 years, etc).
Those private companies are not going to do anything with that, they are only gathering money and spending it in things that have been done already. The latest publications of the MIT endevour are things that have been done in other machines of the same since in the 1990s.
Just give more money to fusion and you will see a huge speed up. It is as simple as that. Germany alone has spent more money every year for the last 10 years in placing solar panels that the cost of one entire ITER, and you are telling me that the countries representing 80% of the worlds economy cannot even afford one ITER? Sure thing.
Fair point.
However, I understand that MIT's SPARC project has already attracted private interest from an energy provider in India - that in itself is a good sign and a promising boost for the project.
The closer someone gets, the more everyone else 'leans in'.
Capitalists slowing down progress, as usual.
@@God-vb5dw
Interesting you say that, as there are a number of innovations that socialist gov'ts. never saw value in, and were developed by western free-market nations instead: The tokamak, EM dispersion design (a.k.a. stealth), microcircuitry, electronic transactions; and I think you missed the part where SPARC is getting private funding - and that project is still prototyping.
@@HuntingTarg They just innovated it for the fun of it. What a waste.
@@God-vb5dw
My sarcasm meter is quite confounded -
In any case, if one expects to conquer the world with pessimism, then one forefeits the right to be dissapointed if one succeeds.
You might learn a lesson from Travant and Volkswagen.
Good day sir.
Thorium generators: You took everything from me!
Fusion generators: I don't even know who you are
Nah. Fusion is cool until you realize its huge investemt, thats alredy driving off nukes, being a fraction as expensive
LOL. Well played. The Thorium people have actually helped the Fusion people. Those molten salts are magic. They've been able to use the Flibe compound specifically to help. If/When fusion comes, there will still be a place for Thorium Molten Salts, because those reactors are essentially the philosopher's stone. The amount of amazing rare elements and compounds that can be created out of those reactors will be needed. Hence those reactors will be used in a utility function. Listening to Kirk Sorenson, he even admits electricity generation is going to be their secondary business model.
@@antaresmc4407
“9 billion dollars is a lot of money”
DoD spending $700 billion a year: “Tis but a scratch”
@@t.3465 the military is an expenditure tho, there is no haste to make it profitable.
With a fusion reactor, you expect to get it back... With nukes, that cost about half that give or take, costs arent recovered until over a decade past and they arent more profitable than the alts until over 2, again give or take. And their fuel and maintenence is already negligible... Taking twice the expense and probably taking more time to build, yes, the fuel is dirt cheap and waste management arguably less annoying, so you are saving in the already negligible part of the cost... it just makes no economic sense, who cares about a project that wont be profitable until you're old? There is such a thing as an investment at the too long term, at least in economics...
@@antaresmc4407 well, at least it goes to serve the benefit of humanity rather than being wasted on endless wars
There's been quite a significant progress on fusion in recent years and more discoveries will be made once the newest projects come online, but overall the field has been cash strapped for decades. Countries are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons with which they kill other people, but they can't stop complaining about how a few billion dollars aimed at fusion research are so going to devastate their economies. It's pathetic to be honest considering how much energy we need as a civilisation.
If anyone ever looked at the global world from an outsider's perspective, they would wonder what the actual hell is going on with humanity.
It has been grossly OVERFUNDED for decades. It is nothing more than a scam. We have been hearing the same, "we are making progress, but we need another few billion dollars" for decades. It is time to close down this confidence game.
If anyone interpreted the actions of whole countries the way they interpreted the actions of individuals, most countries would come across as egotistical violent psychopaths...
So... Yeah. It's interesting the behaviour we accept from countries (and corporations) when we'd be absolutely horrified if individual people acted that way...
lol, thanks for clarifying what weapons are used for.
Yup right
I'm still optimistic that it can be done. It's an exciting time with the smaller companies working on smaller solutions, Lockheed Martin for example. I hope to be around long enough to see ITER start up - fingers crossed ! I really enjoy your channel Joe - the content's entertaining as well as being nicely researched.
Thanks man!
Did you actually just call Lockheed Martin a "smaller company"? They are probably the largest government contractor in the US and have revenue in the billions. How exactly are they a smaller company? A more precise example would be one such as Tri-alpha Energy or Tokamak Energy.
Lockheed martin - small company 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
The largest Millitary hardarwe contrator in the world. From the F series of fighter jets to milltry GPS sataalights to the Preditor and Reaper Drone programs to Navel ship mounted Railguns. Oh! they also wer the guys producing anti-mille lasers for "Project starwars" (which has a rescent 2nd wind) .
Oh they also built the Atlas series of launch vehicles and in the 60's they almost built a re-usalbe rocket engine before going over time and budget.
I hear you brother.
I've been hearing, "Fusion power will be here in another 20 years", all my life and I'm now 55. Wake me up when it's here.
We'll all be taking that long dirt nap befor that happens.
@@Grantos1ea dirt nap?
@@robbenvanpersie1562 he’s saying we’ll be dead before it happens
Yep, Been hearing that since I was a boy and I'm 62 now
Let me know when the reach “Break-even”. Then we’ll talk
The delayed gratification of the fusion quest may have no human equal, whereas hugging your French bulldog is immediately gratifying.
Nuclear fusion's only 1 A.U. away ;)
But the means to grab it, use it, and power civilization, to the tune of 21 Trillion watts per day, is not. I wouldn't even be challenging your statement, if we were proceeding to do this. I see this claim on Reddit, all the time.
Fusion power plants may not be so far off after all. Unlike all other fusion projects which are massive publicly funded research platforms and look to turn out results years or decades from now that will then be used to design the next generation of research reactor. Lockheed Marten's fusion project (which wasn't mentioned in this vid) is as far as I know 100% privately funded and it's moving much much faster. They are building their 3rd or 4th reactor design since 2014. Their Compact Fusion design is radically different than anything else yet conceived and in my opinion has decent chance of success. The company isn't too forth coming on details, but they were just granted a patent and the buzz is they may have functional reactor in as little as a year from now.
Whatever is going on the company is behaving very much like they are developing a product they intend to take to market, not like they're conducting a science experiment that could one day lead to a breakthrough.
THX 1138 Lockheed Martin has been awfully quiet, but they have a good chance. The top reactor are Lockheed Martin, General Fusion and the Wendelstein Stellerator. Lockheed Martin only has engineering reputation to back them really.
THX 1138 Most designs are still far away from success in a timely fashion. Except for the inertial fusion reactor that uses proton boron fusion. Uses off the shelf dual lasers so it’s cheap to build.
We're always going to need more energy. Wind turbines kill lots of birds. And places need to be clear cut for solar cell farms. Both are dependent on changes in the weather. We need other options for sudden changes in power demands. And if we get off earth, we'll need fusion anyway.
Lockheed Martin made a lot of noise several years ago claiming they would have a demo model to show by about now. They have yet to demonstrate much. If I understand, they are basically using a polywell design. Electric field containment rather than magnetic. College kids have been building small one's in their basements. One conversation with some who knows the Skunkworks told me that they people there now are not the same ones who made the Blackbird spy plane and stealth fighter technology. They are new people there now. Someone else also claimed that they have to scale up their reactor by about 100 times (volume and cost) to maybe (if it works at all) achieve surplus energy which can be put out onto the grid. Tokamaks and their similar stellarators so far are the most proven technology.
There are couple of aspects that tend to be ignored in this kind of videos ('Why do we not have fusion yet'):
(1) A lot of the fusion research in the last 50 years was fundamentally basic research. There were literally huge holes in our knowledge about the behavior of plasma, how to control such strong magnetic fields, how to deal with the temperature etc.
(2) The funding for fusion research is nothing compared to the money put into fusion research. Primarily because it doesn't have any direct military applications. The cost of ITER at 15 billion USD for example is still much smaller than the Manhattan Project and the budget of the MP included very little research money.
(3) A lot of the cost is a direct result of appeasing every contributing party. ITER for example is not allowed to source its magnets from a single party like any normal construction project would. It has to get them from every party that wants to test its equipment. This is a huge problem when talking about very high precision material, i.e. sub-millimeter precision for parts in the meter range.
Especially the first item is responsible for many of the breakthrough steps. It's just so easy for the media reporting on them to fail to illustrate them as stepping stones.
Thank you. Finally someone with actual insight in the topic.
These videos always make it look like the delays of machines like ITER are because of science or technology, but it is not true, it was just money.
In fact, the improvement on tokamaks was much faster than the Moore's law or the growth in efficiency of the combustion engine, until the money stop flowing. Of course you cannot make this very complicate research without money.
It is so absolutely frustrating.
"Planting trees, under who's shade they will never sit" Thanks for that.
I think the full greek proverb goes "Society grows great when old men plant trees under whose shade they shall never sit."
+soapChalk Thanks mate.
I've been a hard line skeptic about fusion energy for a long time. Back in the sixties I read an article in Business Week that quoted some physicists as claiming that fusion energy was only twenty years away. The thought of cheap almost unlimited energy got me really excited. Remember, this was the early days of computing technologies when companies like IBM and government agencies were the only entities deeply involved in this type of research. This constant drone that fusion power was only twenty years away soon gave me a jaded outlook on the future of this technology. However, the rapid advancement in computing power has given me renewed hope. I won't be around long enough (I'm 78) to see the fruits of the work of the physicists and engineers who are advancing this technology, but I do now believe that it will be achieved. It will be a mammoth game changer.
The reason why fusion is always "30 years away" is due to the changing political landscape, aka funding cuts. The amount of money going into fusion research has plummeted since the 60s. Every time a certain political party has control of congress/house, cuts are made to areas of science and research while more money gets pumped into our military. If funding wasn't slashed to basically nothing, we WOULD probably have fusion energy already. It's one of the few areas of science where you can literally throw money at the problem, and see a direct increase in performance/results. They're testing magnetic confinement and trying to control that super hot plasma. To test their models, to find the most efficient way to do this requires tests. Lots of tests. An INSANE amount of tests. And these tests cost loads of money, Eventually you do all you can and need a larger reactor. That costs billions. Then you need to begin the tests all over again. It's trial and error, but in fact, it's more like fine tuning. If fusion research had unlimited funding, we'd have a working fusion reactor supplying power to the grid in less than a decade. Half of that time would be just building the reactor.
How can your informative, well delivered volley of facts regarding the subject warrant 1.1k thumbs down? I enjoy your content and presentation 👍👍
Don't underestimate the power of pessimism and conservatism.
*There has been no serious leap forward in technology that has not included government funding at some point (and is usually successful with public/private partnership, as these two are not merely complimentary, they are synergistic).*
Preach, brother! Preach!
No serious leap in technology has ever been made that didn't include water at some point. So we need the scientists and workers to drink more water.
Do you see what I did there? Do you see your mistake? Do you understand that water and government funding are so ubiquitous that they are non-factors?
Government funding perverts everything it gets involved in. War on drugs? Increase drug addiction among other things. War on poverty? Increased poverty. FDA? Causes 1000 times as many deaths as would occur if there were no regulations on medicine at all.
Transistors, one of the biggest leaps forward in living memory, were not the result of government funding. Transistors were a product of Bell Labs, which received its funding from operating revenue of the various systems that AT&T operated. Transistors were the origin of the semiconductor industry (including the computers you and I are using), and sprang from the housing boom that accompanied the end of WW2. More housing meant more copper for wiring and a copper shortage just as the public demanded more telephones, and particularly private lines. The crunch required multiplexing, so Bell Labs developed T-carrier (24 voice channels, with signalling, on two pairs of wire). It could be done with tubes but the power and shelter requirements were daunting and the cost was high. More details at The History Guy's video, "
The Most Important Invention of the 20th Century: Transistors" th-cam.com/video/OuFlISa73Sw/w-d-xo.html
(Retired after 34 years in communications and IT support)
@@nonsensicalrants1703 All American problems which has a government that's run as a corporation. Not really relevant since most of these research projects are not American anyway. You might not be aware of this, but we don't all have governments like that. You have a government like that because you're fine with it being run by corporate interests. And apparently you want more of it to so you're getting what you deserve. Enjoy your slavery.
I'm fine with paying for research with my tax money. What is stupid is that after we've payed for the research then corporations take over and make us pay to use the research we payed for. So no, I think that if our taxes payed for it then then we all get to benefit from it and corporations shouldn't be allowed to use it. If private corporations payed to develop it they wouldn't share the research with anyone, so they shouldn't be allowed to use research that was publicly funded either.
The 2030s will be here in just 12 years. I feel old. I remember when the 2030s existed in the realm of science fiction. Now it's right around the corner. Yikes!
I am excited about fusion, but I'd like to be young enough to enjoy it! I will be in my 60s when it becomes a thing. :-\
Maikeli7: Motovlogger Since 2007 crazy to think ill be 29 years old...
Don’t worry! At 60 you still have a solid chunk of life left to enjoy whatever wonderful technologies the 30’s will bring.
Also, speaking of new technologies, I feel like research into life extension is picking up some wind lately.
So by the time the 30’s come around we might be expected to live even longer than we are expected to live today!
Its going to be a awesome world. Cheap almost limitless energy, Life extension, AGI & ASI, Robots, BMI's, realist VR worlds, the end of drudgery, cures to nearly everything, advanced nanotech, genetic engineering, advanced 3-d printing, the end of scarcity and even more mind blowing things. A life of your choice and on to the singularity.
Man, I sure hope I live long enough to be able to either augment or upload!
I certainly hope so! I'm so excited to see what is coming!
One of my favorite aspects of your videos is that you present the pros and the cons of something, evidence for and against. Also that you tend to have a lightning-round sum-up where often you'll list the cons and pros in the opposite order. The human brain as a bias to remember the last thing mentioned, so that helps to make sure the viewer is left with a nuanced impression of whatever topic.
Dogs ARE hard to fis!
That needs to be on a shirt
The process of creating a dachshund is more complicated. The secret to it is to teach the dog to walk only with his front legs first.
oh. I read fist... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Only by hand. Just stick it in a tokamak, it'll fis real good.
Brian Wilkins you can put a bikini on then and get a hotdog...
Just yesterday I was asking my self how the fusion progress it going! Thanks for the upload but stop reading minds, it's scary af
I knew you'd say that.
Did you knew it because you read it from my mind? Or are you some sort of modderator of this simulation were living in and you implemented the thought of the fusion progress so that i would write down the coment?
I went on a fusion binge (watched/ read many hundreds of fusion shiz) the last few weeks so I probably got here due to youtubes algorithms knowing fusion was on my mind based on watch history... Joe are you part computer code? lol
Is that an angry wet koala?
DO NOT FISS THE DOG!! 🐕
Can I fiss the iron though?
I've invented a dog fission machine!
I thought you said fist at first..
Don't lewd the loli nucleus!
Ever had your dog fiss on the carpet?
I have a fusion story. 10th grade, Earth Sciences class, 1974. We each had a science project to work on, and as the semester drew to a close, we had to share our project findings with the class in a short presentation. One of the weird guys in the class started his presentation by saying he was going to demonstrate "Nuclear Fusion." "Yeah, right," some of us laughed at the preposterous idea. But he proceeded anyway. He had a Bunsen burner under a stand that held a metal bowl. In the bowl he melted a large quantity of paraffin wax - to the point where it was boiling like crazy. And "Now," he said, "here is the nuclear fusion reaction." He then took a turkey baster full of water, and squirted it on the hot boiling wax. What happened next was amazing. The entire lab bench went up in bright flames and smoke. Eerily, the smoke took on the shape of a rather impressively-sized mushroom cloud. Impressive to see it up close and indoors, anyway. Hot molten wax sprayed out everywhere in an 8 foot radius. The students in the front row got some of that. The teacher, Ms. Scott, was not amused at all, and said afterwards that she would review each project before it was presented. Probably a wise move. So what really happened? The squirt of water vaporized the boiling wax into a big cloud of flammable gas, and the Bunsen burner simply ignited it. Basically, the science project was a grease fire. And perhaps showed why water is very bad way to put out a grease fire. But I know some of the students actually thought they had witnessed nuclear fusion in a high school science lab, courtesy of a 10th grade stoner dude. The whole incident made an impression on me that I'll never forget. I later repeated the "experiment" in my backyard, under somewhat better-controlled conditions. I used a much smaller dish of wax, and just a small alcohol lamp to heat it, and I still got a large display of fire and smoke. But please, don't try this at home. Ever! It is a huge, scorched, waxy mess to clean up. And you may set something on fire that is not supposed to be on fire. In closing, I'd just like to say - I loved that science class.
thanks for sharing this story
@@0topon I've followed the developments of fusion energy all my life - and I've often wondered why nuclear scientists haven't discovered the hot wax method. :-)
Proper fission of a dog requires a cat. Basic science Joe. I am disappoint.
Or a charged cat, aka a cation.
No, you need (a) Schrödinger's cat.
Everyone knows if a dog and a cat touch they would annihilate. Now thats the energy source of the future.
Barry On 😂😂😂😂
So it needs a cat-alyst. 😁
the answer to nuclear waste..... Low-pressure sodium reactors. These reactors can use nuclear waste as fuel with an efficiency of 95% (so we are told). LPS reactors operate at lower pressure (as the name suggests), so they are safer, easier to make ;fail safe' and a lot harder to make 'meltdown'. Fuel for an LPS reactor does not need to be refined to the same extent as a regular reactor, in fact if you love close to the sea, you can refine fuel for the LPS reactor from the sea water. They are building an LPS power plant (only a small one at 500MW) as proof of concept. This could be a stop gap while we wait for the holy grail that is fusion energy. Personally I am not holding my breath for this one.
John McGuinness sounds nice
I, too, love close to the sea.
Sodium leaks
*Sebastian S*
A man has not lived until he has loved close to the sea.
kgbme no, the current answer is stop using uranium and start using thorium for nuclear fission power, in the long run, we should stop fission but currently if we stopped using fission, 20% of our energy production would drop
That little burrito joke got me good.
"The temperature inside this apple pie is over 1000 degrees. If I squeeze it, a jet of molten bramley apple will squirt out. Could go your way; could go mine. Either way, one of us is going down!!!!"
We need an update on this!!
The sun is really incredible slow at burning its fuel (which is a good thing), way to slow for a practical power plant. So we have to recreate something many times more extreme than the center of the sun.
Good point.
two things i hope to see in my lifetime. Fusion and some evidence of life elsewhere in the universe . . . to quote a great man . . . "a microbe would be just fine" . . . . i am late to the series but have been binge watching your videos and have been following fusion for some time, thanks for the great info.
Fusion in our lifetime might happen might not but finding even a microbe on an other planet in our lifetime that's even more unlikely sad but true i think.
One may complement the other. If we're able to make Fusion power possible in flight, there's a high chance it'll allow us to traverse outside the solar system to find planets with hospitable atmospheres, and there's a very high chance that any planet like that has life on it.
For those of you wondering;
Deuterium-Tritanium Fusion is 868 quadrillion kw per ton. That is 5000-6000 times more than the amount of energy in a year or needed.
That's tritium, another isotope of hydrogen, along with deuterium. Tritanium is a fictional metal from Star Trek.
Ohk cool
@@chrisschembari2486 lol
Tritium is expensive
Yes Deuterium is in heavy water. If the Hydrogen is replaced by Deuterium, this is what heavy water is. Deuterium is the next isotope up from Hydrogen, Hydrogen being a proton and an electron. Deuterium having a Neutron proton and an electron. Tritium is the next up, with two neutrons one proton and an electron. Then one begins with the Helium isotopes, and then Helium.
It is actually fascinating. The Early atoms and thier isotopes give a really clear example of the basics of Nuclear synthesis and how all shit is made up.
BTW, in the very early Universe. Well early but not very early, very early on there was nothing but generations of elementary particles and radiation. But once the Universe had expanded and cooled sufficiently for the first Atoms to form, there was only Hydrogen, and Helium in the whole Universe. With possibly a minuscule smattering of Lithium.
Everything else. ll heavier elements have been forged in the cores of stars, up to Iron. Where the process ceases to give up extra energy and now begins to take energy. Everything heavier than Iron is forged in the incredible,unimaginable temperatures and pressures in Nova's, Supernova's. We have also reasonably recently discovered also in the collisions of Neutron stars.
For at least eight years during the 80s and 90s I worked on the RF heating systems at JET. I also did work in the main control room. Working on this project, with some of the smartest people I know, was without doubt the best and most meaningful job I've ever had.
A day without fusion is like a day without sunshine.
Or a starry night.
FrankyPi There are no starry nights without fusion. Those stars need fusion to shine.
JoeNathan Howard That's exactly what I meant.
Thats funnier than it should
Ha Ha Ha Ha love it
I share your cynicism, but also your muted enthusiasm.
This reminds me of an awesome video I saw about the Thorium reactor... oh wait that was you too.
188,000 views and only 8000 likes? I just don’t get people sometimes
Mitch Hicks its pronounced fissing
I believe that fusion will be a dud & Thorium will take over.
This is the video that should be on trending
You keep adding links to other videos and it makes it really easy to fall down rabbit holes, so...thanks bro
1) Fission also happens in nature: "Nuclear power is often perceived as a technology that defies the natural order - but simply head to Africa and you’ll find the world’s first and only natural nuclear reactor. Located in the Oklo region of Gabon in Africa, the Oklo Reactor consists of 16 uranium-rich sites where self-sustaining nuclear chain reactions took place billions of years ago. The reactors ran for a few hundred thousand years, averaging 100 kW of power output during that time." (inhabitat.com/the-oklo-reactor-the-worlds-only-natural-nuclear-reactor/)
2) A lot of the stuff happening in nature is highly dangerous and just because something is "natural" (as happening on its own in nature) it does not mean it is "good" (for us). Otherwise why bother to build an advanced civilization in the first place? Many people have a bias against synthetic (man made) risks when in fact they could not survive a few days without being sheltered by the sophisticated products of modern civilization. Natural risks are way more deadly...
3) Fusion is great but fission is not bad either. It depends on the type of fission reactor as there are many designs with different advantages and disadvantages. Power, or even electric energy, is not the only useful product they create saving and improving thousands of lifes every year (medical and industrial applications of radioisotopes! ) Plus there are ways to deal with products that many consider "waste" and storing it for 100000 years is not the name of the game. Look i.e. at the russion BN800 reactor - one mans trash is another mans treasure.
Thx! On top of it we seem to sit on a giant fission reactor buried in the earth's core. Fission is natural and natural is neither good nor bad. Here in Austria/Germany most or at least very, very many people think nuclear power is against nature or even a doomsday technology. They hold similar beliefs about genetic engineering and other aspects of science and technology. All of that while they indulge in the products of modern civilization... If you would like to have a discussion or further comments on the topic I would appreciate if you could visit my channel and in particular this video: th-cam.com/video/XVecner-aCE/w-d-xo.html
Definitely a popular misconception that fission isn't natural, but there are a ton of misconceptions about nuclear power, I'll stop here, there are so many common myths about nuclear power I could probably write a book about it, lol.
Was literally about to type this myself. thank god i scrolled down lol
That burrito joke really got me haha
dELTA13579111315 i didnt get it. Cuz i barely eat burito's
I’m totally fused about this!
lilbahr It's better to be fused than confused.
Dude, 1st time seeing your channel and you crack me up.
I like how you're teaching science but you keep it light and fun.
That's what people need in order to keep engaged and actually learn something.
You sir have a new subscriber 🤘🤘!!!!!
Looking forward to seeing more of your content.
Fissing dogs is illegal in most states.....most.
And mandatory in the remainder?
The problem with private industry taking over, is that the majority of the hard work and funding has come from tax dollars. Now just as the technology is making massive advances, private industry comes in to cease control and turn the technology from something for the greater good into something for obscene profit. It happens all the time with pharmaceuticals and medicine and information technology. I'd rather a utopian future as seen in Star Trek as opposed to that of George Orwells 1984
What's your solution, then? That the only allowable products based off of government research must be developed, produced and, and distributed by the government? Not only is that extremely inefficient, but that sounds closer to 1984 than whatever corporate conspiracy you're pushing.
Yeah its a bit frustating that the technology produced by everyone is gonna be used to make a few really rich but we have no other option, science needs to be funded and private investors aren´t gonna invest in a thing that can´t be profitable in short term
Everyone still benefits. It's like the question: if in a group of five, you would rather have everyone have five dollars, or would you rather have one guy have fifty and the rest ten. All other things equal.
Too true. When there is no profit let the taxpayer pay and when their is profit charge the taxpayer. Neo liberal economics in a nutshell.
Private industry is not taking over, it's getting involved, two very different things. Plot twist, tax dollars coming from private industry as well. We need government funded research, just as much as we need private industry involvement. Unless you want Orwellian 1984 style society dominated by absolute government control.
Plz don't fizz a dog plz
Please do.
Do you know how many great shows I saw at the "Mid Hudson Civic Center"? Dude. Thanks for bringing me back to my childhood!
I saw those guys from DragonBall-Z fuse and I knew that they were on to something.
Da Koos fusion-ha!
you're not much of a fissicist are you
He's clearly a fusioncist...
You're all wrong, hes a confucian.
yhea if you can't even fiss a dog.
Maybe he is member of the antifi - The anti fisscist movement. Some say they label anything not fusion, as fission, so better keep an eye on that group, a bit shady.
Wow okay I'm sad how long that took me to get.
ok we need to update with the new breakthrough
So.. every year for the last 70 years we've heard "It's just 30 years away!". I fully expect that every year for the next 50 years, we'll hear "It's just 12 years away!"
In 1970 the buzz was it was 15 years away. Creating life in a test tube was 20-25 years away. So many unfulfilled expectations based on more optimism than knowledge.
According to Google it's now only about 4 years away
@@Demonsmith42 Well, China has just created a nuclear fusion test reactor.. it is claimed that it is hotter than 10x the core of the sun...
@@Demonsmith42 after next 4 years we'll hear its 10 years away 😂
@@kaimanyu586 china says many things... if theese things are correct, is another thing ^^
Joe, you are correct, fusion is coming and it is just eight minutes away. That is as close as we will get.
They've built the fission bomb. They've built the fission fusion bomb. They've even built the fission fusion fission bomb. If you want government to build a fusion reactor just tell them it's for powering a weapons system.
Tracy Dillon only works for USA funded research, coz Muricans
Except this isn't the cold war anymore. No one cares about advancing huge explosions
Tell them it's for the Cold War and they will perfect cold fusion.
Yeah, it's a pity that finding newer better ways to kill ourselves seems to be a such a driver of scientific/technological advancement.
On the other hand, haven't a lot of tech achievements been the result of searching for newer better ways to consume pornography or satisfy our prurient desires? The internet, or now AR/VR? I feel like i read a convincing case for the internet as it exists now essentially being just a byproduct of porn-distribution systems. I'm probably wrong. But all this new 'haptics' tech... ignoring the family-friendly clean demos i've seen, that's gotta be all about telecopulation or virtual sex at heart, no?
I always liked the idea of Percolator Earth.
Keep it simple. We already got all the pressure heat we need right here.
All you should need is a long straw, a volcano or a deep hole in the ground.
Couple to steam turbines, generators and heat distribution grids.
Add water and start brewing. :))
And hey, while we're at it; Lets use sea water for the process to create extra fresh water surplus !
Next stop; Jungles of Sahara ?
It is always just so easy to imagine and say isn't it.
There are quite a number of engineering challenges with what you suggest.
Though Hydrothermal is actually a thing in some part of the world where they are particularly Volcanic, living near a suitable plate boundary or where there is stable surface activity.
Actually cracking Fusion is something a few orders of magnitude superior.
It is something Humanity needs to get to grips with is the Human race is to thrive and continue to expand our horizons.
Inexhaustible, reasonably inexpensive, non polluting electricity is some serious civilisational game changer.
Thorium cycle in a molten salt reactor produces waste that is 10% the weight of traditional 235 fission - and "only" lasts some 300 years not 10,000 years. That needs to be said.
300 years is doable. In my family that’s three grandmas. + 10,000 years will never be done successfully and we’ll definitely end up irradiating the human race
@@nicksurfs1 Breeder reactors will basically be fuelled from all that 10k year "waste" which actually contains 95% of the fissionable potential of the uranium..
That's one of my favorite quotes. Old men planting trees for the next generation.
2020, fusion, still the energy of the future...
This video was only made two years ago, give it time. I'm guessing we'll have commercial fusion energy by the 2040's-2050's.
Just 18 years more ! ;-)
@@northernskies86
Yeah, always 20 years ahead :p
And theres been some massive leaps forwards in the last two years.... So yeah.
And always will be
Sustained nuclear fusion is kind of like the SLS, It is only 3 years away, and in just 3 short years it will still be only 3 years away.
kind of like.. hyperloop? lmao
Glad you're here doing this Joe. A read of the comments exemplifies that you're sorely needed.
I'll try and fiss my cat see if it's any easier Joe
Everyone knows cats are the most fissile animal.
Michael Farrell I
Often, they hiss in the process.
I've since found that out.....
Yes. You can do it 9 times
"It's pronounced nook-yoo-lar" (Homer Simpson)
new-queue-lar
Nucleon plant
“Nuke-ah-ler”, - George W. Bush
Depends on where you're from.
Expected to finally see the dog fission... Dissapointed.
Fission is a pretty good name for a dog. Better than Deefor.
Zywl Profesor, you should Make a nuclear reactor.
Tries to fiss dog*
You: why are the animal cruelty society at my door? I'm doing science here!
Give it 20 years
I made a dissertation on fusion and another one on real time ray-tracing at school back in the 90ies. They were both exciting subjects back then even if they were both unrealistic at the time. I think it's very exciting that we are at a point were they might both be reality "soon".
I love your videos, they are always so entertaining and informative.
I appreciate that!
I went to the Civic Center to get tickets for TOKAMAK, but they were sold out!
TOKAMAK is IMMORTAL! ......[and Stellarator is Cradle of Filth ;)]
I love the dog cameos. It gets my puppies all excited.
I work in research of how the energy market will function over the next 20-30 years and the big stumbling block we are facing is a technology to replace gas peaking plants which are able to turn on and off quickly to meet peaks and troughs in demand. Batteries are a possibility, but would need to massively improve to be feasible for this kind of application. At the moment they are only viable for very short term fluctuations. But if fusion does get off of the ground, it would actually make an incredible good peaker system and would allow a very efficient and reliable energy grid.
I would've thought fusion, like fission would be a baseload supply.
But, I guess it may be possible - a peaking plant above all else has to have a fast response time to variations in demand...
Fusion, the energy of the future and always will be......love it. I've been following this since the 60's and have heard "it's only a decade away" about every five years since.
Yep. the us navy said 20 years ago that they had figured out cold fusion and that it would be a common civilian source in twenty years…. so. . 20 minus 20 = now. I despise people that are dishonest.
Right. In a scientific magazine issued in 1978, "scientists" planned fusion would be an industrial electricity source in 2020-2030. Today, they talk about 2080.
*I've been hearing that fusion power was "just around the corner, maybe 15 years away", since 1965. And yet we are only on the edge of a functional system now (that the Bose condensate hypothesis has been proven, and is being used in the real world).*
Sadly fusion power is very low sponsored by governments. with ITER the biggest project is under its way. But it could be better financed. For comparison: ITER costs about 25Billion ( for planning, building and operation) - The US military expenses amount to >500billion$ per year. Its still relatively slow because all partners share the knowledge. The project itself is not easy.
You can see on their site the current progress: www.iter.org
Fusion was twenty years away, fifty years ago. At this point, I'll believe it when I see it. I've spent my whole life with the hype and now it's really old hype.
Don't give up now. especially since we are now on the verge of a breakthrough. nuclear fusion will become a sustainable power source faster then you think... and when you least expect it. in fact a couple of reactors of this type are supposed to start up next year 2019.
Very similar to what they said 40 years ago.
It's definitely possible. We're just not sure how
@Peter Cohen Same. While I eagerly await Fusion as a replacement for literally all our power sources I'm not going to hold my breath. I'll be putting Solar panels up on my house as soon as I can afford it.
Peter Cohen Low earth orbits by 2007 for me and to buy tickets to do. I gave up on them letting us do that to.
Excited? You made me cry I didn't know of any of these advancements. I think like twice a month how awesome could it be that we could have fusion energy but thought it was still a dream impossible to acomplish so i never actually researched.
Every time I hear about clean energy is this and solar panels in my mind, now I will actually have hope for fusion.
Everything in science is built upon the work or the mistakes of someone else, that passion is what makes science so important, so meaningful to many of us. I consider myself a scientist, I'm a chemist and an enthusiast for science in general. Each time I think on how we discovered things and how our entire society stands in the ground job made by Faraday I get chills and I get sad that he never got to see it. This is more than just science, this is human history. Be proud, we will always improve, we will make mistakes but we will always walk forward with knowledge!
Here's how to make fusion, you put a spoon in a microwave and the microwave in a air compressor.
Or grapes if you run out of metal
That must be a small ceiling fan.
Plasma ?
I can see Randy Savage saying exactly this in his Wrestlemania performance persona... |`D
You forget the magnets to hold the plasma in place...
1:39 Geocaching? HAHA!
My favorite outdoor hobby!
And in your case such a terrain rating would easily become a *T6*
Lol I'm super hyped about fusion - it's literally the whole reason why I'm going to school rn
Go stare at the sun, it's as close as we will get.
I loved that you referenced the Clock of the Long Now, incredible project.
Also the dog.
It's pretty exciting and it's refreshing to see in near future we will have unlimited amounts of clean renewable energy.
Only if they can make obscene profits from it.
11:45 Turns turbans to generate electricity? Sounds legit.
indians would become of high value when this takes off :D
Yes, I've been to India and there are more turbans than you could shake a stick at!
So that explains india's engineering prowess
Once the era of fusion power begins, it will be chic to be a sikh.
I guess you don't do humour. No worries, not everyone can.
No mention of the Lockheed program? C'mon man, it's happening at AREA 51! You could have had 10 million views with that in the title!
I love reading comments on videos on subject matter such as this. It makes me realize that there are so many minds in this world gifted with so much knowledge. It makes me have faith in humanity again. I believe that you we us can accomplish this. How could we not with so much genius in this world.
I'm an old guy - 73 years to date. I first became interested in how a nuclear (fission) bomb works when I was a teenager. It was pretty simple stuff - simply a circle of guns all firing sub-critical mass lumps of plutonium or uranium-235 into the centre of the circle so that the colliding lumps build into a super-critical mass of fissile material... BOOM! Then came fusion! The hydrogen bomb needed enormous energy to fuse the hydrogen atoms into helium - and release a bit of energy at the same time! A helium-4 atom has less mass than 2 hydrogen-2 (deuterium) atoms. To fuse the 2 deuterium atoms you need a huge temperature and pressure... say something like 100 million degrees Celsius. You can create that temperature and pressure using a nuclear fission bomb - like the one they dropped on Hiroshima in WW2. So to create nuclear fusion you use nuclear fission... BOOOOOOM! But to control that release of energy so that you can use it to power your central heating - that's another story. In the 1970's I first learned about the Tokamac (a 'torus' like a huge tyre filled with deuterium plasma concentrated so that it doesn't touch the walls of torus container) as the promise to create controlled nuclear fusion within around 10 years. That was nearly 50 years ago... I have recently seen several sites claiming that there have been real breakthroughs and that controlled nuclear fusion really is achievable in a time frame of 10 to 15 years. That's the thing for old guys. I've heard that so often that I don't believe it any more!
nuclear fusion will always be 20 years away. but with these advancements we might bring it down to 15!
Ben McGarry I can’t wait the next 50 years so we can be down to 10
Yay!
Oh Joe how I love your videos!
Thanks!
I know one way to really easily create fusion conditions! you set off a fission bomb...
I first heard about fusion in the 1970's. It seemed an unreachable dream back then. The technical problems insurmountable. This news is very inspiring.
Nice t-shirt
FILIP SRAMEK yup, a bunch of peckers, and a left(?)-nut
what I find mind boggling is that all these forms of energy from coal, oil, nuclear fission and now fusion reactors are all well and good, but at the end of the day its steam engines that drive the turbines that produce the electricity. after more than 100 years no one has come up with an alternative to steam power.
Photovoltaic cells don't have any spinning parts.
@@goldenfloof5469 It's not really a true alternative yet, though. Wind and solar power do, finally, get us away from the "boil a huge kettle" model of generation (NB hydro power sort of doesn't though; you're still using water to spin a turbine, but in the liquid phase rather than the gaseous), but they don't represent a large enough fraction of total energy production to be true replacements, and possibly never will as we continually increase our energy consumption. There are a few ideas floating about on how to produce electricity without going through the steam-driven intermediate step, but they are all in a similar spot to fusion in being "about 25 years away", and likely will be for another good long while too :)
@@talltroll7092 ....Okay?... You're not wrong... But I was just saying solar panels produce electricity without the spinny bits.
I didn't say anything about any of the other stuff you tried to clarify for me.
@@goldenfloof5469 Lol, yes, you are totally correct. It's just that we are going to be needing the spinny bits for a while longer yet. The OP was expressing their astonishment that we still haven't really got beyond boiling a huge kettle as our primary source of electricity, and that however clever a fusion reactor we might build, it's probably going to just be the most technically advanced way to boil that kettle we have ever come up with. It's just such an odd match, using 21st century (or 22nd century, who knows?) tech to... make steam spin a thing. The ancient Greeks had executive toys that did that
It’s because all those solutions work by creating heat, and steam engines are highly efficient at turning heat into usable energy.
I want a hoverboard and fusion energy!!
Great show as always Joe!
Please pat pupper for me please!
Thanks!
Sir, you have one of top informative, entertaining, and brilliant channels; and you present your material so very well (great sense of humor too ;-) . When watching your videos, I always pause if I need to leave the screen for any reason so I won't miss anything. hats off to you, Sir.
Hey Joe, it appears there’s a little echo or something funny with the audio. It could just be my headset, just thought I’d give you the heads up. Another great video!
Not your headset. I actually did a lot of work to clean that up if you can believe it. What happened is I have my condenser mic that I use for podcasts and livestreams and I have my wireless mic that I use for videos. I accidentally left my condenser mic on for about the first half of the recording, so you get the close up sound from the lav mic and more of the room noise with the condenser. So yeah... sorry about that.
Joe Scott No worries! It doesn’t take away from the video, just a nit picky thing. This video make me start to wonder about the effects that fusion energy would have on organizations such as spacex. What leaps could be made if a mars colony could just start with fusion energy as the basis. Just some really exciting stuff we will get to see in our lifetimes!
Sounded fine to me. Maybe you were hearing the background music and didn't recognize it.
I think we will, eventually, have fusion energy, but never in a compact reactor, due to the need for shielding from neutrons.
Xenon absorbs neutrons. It was a problem in the Pu when they first built the A - bomb. It was discovered when it kept the pile from maintaining self-sustaining fission.
I see the radioactive 135 isotope has been used as a nuclear poison but is stable xenon good enough to make a compact shield? Somehow I doubt it but I'm no nuclear scientist so might be wrong.
You'd be surprised at how small they can get. Ie here's a company building the world's smallest fusion reactors. They've just finished providing their concept was possible, now they're going to start ramping up power levels to try and achieve fusion power. It's exciting :)
th-cam.com/channels/uSlFJbBUIj1zfJLRnGXSow.html
If we could make enough of the kind of energy changing Hydrogen into Helium,
then we might be able to call such synthetic atoms generators of fusion energy.
An atom expressing qualities of a heavier one seem to have learned new skills...
If added force is continuous in strenght & qualities, can't we call it a generation ?
we never expect that tecnology would "evolve" this much in this years maybe they will find a way to make it tiny, even if that realy takes 50 years
FUSION! My favorite kind of music :) ...Oh you mean something different?? :)
Low cost energy production in a closed loop vacuum system: You have a water tank filled with degassed deionized water, the water then goes through black pipes held in glassed-in insulated boxes so sunlight is captured to heat the water "it can get hot enough to boil at sea level" the piping then goes to a spray nozzle where the hot water instantly vaporizes the steam then goes to a turbine that drives an electrical generator, after the turbine the steam and any water that condensed in it travel at a downward angle through a pipe with a condensation coil around it to a large vacuum chamber that has heat transfer fins inside this preheats water from a large reservoir tank that then feeds to the starting tank.
The constant rapid condensation of the steam combined with a volume of the vacuum chamber being 3x or larger than the volume of steam produce at any given time maintains the vacuum level so the process continues.
Once private industry capitalizes upon the research the government originally funded then reimbursment/royalties should be reciprocated.
That never happens, private industry always keeps the money. Just look at the pharmaceutical industry that charges outrageous amounts for government discoveries.
@@jerryb.9754 agreed. Now we know why senators making roughly 100k a year retire being multi-millionares. Its a scam and we as taxpayers fund this nonsense
@@RODWALLBANGER Overall, it's a net positive for humanity. Plus, those companies generate new profits from those new products which turn into new tax revenue for the government. (Though, as it stands now, those particular companies likely don't pay as much as they're supposed to.) That's why we need is a simple tax code with no loopholes or paid-for favors from said politicians that would assure the taxpayer at least some repayment for that initial funding. A flat tax maybe? Solves all sorts of problems.
Stephen Hornick III i like your thinking
Its called corporate taxes we used to have them
No fiss dog!
The most satisfying video to my OCD that i've ever watched!!!
number of likes (1.7k) is one tenth of the number of views (17k). and the number of of dislikes (17) is 1% of the number of likes (1.7k)
Holy shit you're not kidding around with that OCD, are you.
Potato Powered Hamster you have no idea! i'm constintly overanalysing situiations trying to find patterns. it's so fraustrating!!!!
Aluminium sunglasses!! I've had mine for at LEAST two decades! Where have YOU been!