My favorite way to spend an hour every Sunday. "90% more R's" cracked me up. Having seen the progress you've made with your speech over time, it's something I forget about until you bring it up!
It has never disturbed me at ALL the way he talks. I just want to listen to the interesting stories really. I live in Sweden and use the letters D and S in a kind of a little bit of a Strange Way compared to the masses, but i am not sure that any therapy on this planet could change this as i have already learned to speak WAY to long ago to learn it ALL over again.😇🙂
as non native english speaking person, i was thinking Isaac Arthur just had an dialect, and often listening the "old" shows for better getting in to sleep, his voice is just perfect to calm down, i see a great progress in getting rid of that dialect...
Just wanted to say that your channel is a good chunk of the reason I just started pursuing a degree in Nuclear Engineering this year! I hope to work on fusion, but we'll see. Thanks for always inspiring me!
Awesome! I hope fusion but please push fission, because that is at least practical now. I would rather replace nuclear fission with nuclear fusion, then replace coal with nothing because fusion didn't work out. Edit: Grammar.
Honestly man, I've been listening so long that maybe the issue is you've trained us to be able to hear you better. But I hardly notice it anymore, I'm just hear for the awesome... thanks for delivering!
Been listening for years, myself. His Spoopy Day vid about ghost armadas was all the spoopier because he's doing so well with his speech therapy. Damn proud of him, actually.
I'm hoping I'm early enough that you'll see this. I want to apologize, to you, Mr. Arthur. Many years ago, when your channel was new, I saw a single video and I think I made some comment about your speech impediment and how I found it annoying at the time. It stemmed from a real difficulty understanding your words at the time, but I didn't express that respectfully. I was a stupid kid, and have grown a lot over the last 12 or so years. This, of course, doesn't excuse my comment, but I hope it puts it into perspective. I came back to your channel after years, and have popped in from time to time ever since. I really admire the way you seem to embrace who you are, and are able to poke fun at yourself. It's a pair of skills I've come to value the older I get. I also noticed you added the ability to turn on CC. Giving people that option does far more than simply clarify your speech, but improves accessibility for those hard of hearing. While I think that's really cool, a part of me has wondered if that comment I made all those years ago was far more hurtful than I could have understood at the time. I admit, I'm doing this in part for my own selfishness to ease my own conscience. Even so, I want to apologize for any pain my lack of consideration may have caused. Thank you for the work you do. It really has been wonderful to see the amount this channel has grown since the orbital mass driver video.
you sound like a great person. thinking about the consequences of your actions is really good, but don't stress yourself out too much. you care, and that's what counts.
Isaac doesn't have a speech impediment, he has a genetic accent. ❤ Every time isaac talks about a single atom being freed it reminds me of lightning. Lightning making O3 with a side product of O. The free radicals are the singular atoms electromagnetically searching for other atoms to be with.
I always just thought he had an accent, maybe it was difficult for him to get to this point, but with youtube being global we are all getting used to more accents, so I never, ever cared lol
I have a speech impediment but it doesn’t give me a “accent” it just makes me sound like I’m having a stroke when I get worked up and I’m not thinking about what I’m saying.
This is honestly my favorite topic on the channel. Ever since I've watched the original video about fusion from 8 years ago I've been hooked on the channel and became very optimistic about the future, OUR future, something we all are likely to witness. The progress may be slow, but it IS there. Cheers, all the best, and waiting (im)patiently for the bright world of tomorrow.
@@undertow2142 More like 3 steps forward, but with plenty of drama. Social engineers won't let power go quietly and few really appreciate liberty, and why it works. The delusion that if only the "right people" were in charge, they would be able to run other people's lives better than those people could themselves. In reality, humans are not an ant colony or the Star Trek borg. We are unique, with individual needs, wants, knowledge, likes, preferences, circumstances, etc. unknown to anyone else, no matter how smart. One size does not fit all.
I really like XKCDs analogy that volume-wise, an iguanas natural metabolism is roughly the heat produced from fusion in the sun, as a great example of the square cube law
Thanks for the in-depth explanation of how fusion works. The best I’ve heard so far on TH-cam. All too often if one clicks on a fusion video there will be the same three minute rehash of the difference between fission and fusion with the same light explanation of the basics of fusion. For the first time I felt as if I was treated to a real dive into the topic. Videos like this is one of the many reasons your channel stands out on TH-cam.
Thank you. This is the first video on fusion where I don't feel like I'm being spoonfed wikipedia articles or being led through a sarcastic snarkfest. Please keep making cool stuff like this!
From one Vet to another youre doing an amazing job, keep it up! Ive been a follower for over 5 years now and your content keeps getter better each year.
I'd love to see the breakdown of vets here. Branch divided by Combat Arms. I was a 94E in the army (radio/comsec repair) but I've seen folks identifying from Blackhawk crew chief all the way to more Arty boys like our dear Mr. Arthur.
Has there been any episodes on settling alien planets with already rich life? Not necessarily intelligent life but more about how you cope with it like crossing diseases or eating alien life.
Your pronunciation of R over the years has improved so much. I’ve been watching for years and you inspire me to reach personal goals rather than just focus on professional ones!
Fusion Inventor Elevator pitch to the CEO of an energy company -"Fusion energy creation too cheap to meter..." Before the elevator door closes, CEO take's the stairs!!"
Isaac Arthur, sir. I’ve been listening to you since about episode 20. Count this as random and heartfelt. You mention a speech impediment. No one notices. It’s like a brand. You are intelligible and intelligent, which is rare. So don’t know if you’ll read this, but if you do, we get it. I’m Asperger’s and worry constantly. I reckon most of your loyal viewers are similar. Hard to do, dude, but your voice is an asset. Anyway, that’s all. Keep going. LOVE your channel
HB-11 fusion is my favourite - aneutronic Hydrogen-Boron fusion... :) Compact fusion for homes and vehicles would need to be aneutronic to be miniaturized and safe. HB-11 also circumvents boiling water and using turbines, it's a very slick futuristic idea that doesn't get much press.
@@DreadX10 No, they had some method for harvesting electrons from the reaction worked out! But they seem to have cut back in their ambitions for now, the updated HB-11 site doesn't mention it anymore. I'm guessing they want to focus on the main fusion process, so are opting for steam and turbine for now.
@@WokeandProud They have the theoretical side worked out. Aneutronic fusion + harvesting electrons for current instead of using turbines. But it's not something we'll see anytime soon.... :)
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV It's not the harvesting that's the issue its the ionizing radiation released by the process that is. As a result it requires heavy amounts of shielding similar to normal fission nuclear power.
Hi Isaac, I haven't looked at your content in years, but I'm so grateful you're still making such amazingly informative content that peaks my interests. I'm so glad at how successful things have been for you, and hope things keep going well for you in the future 👍
Just the other day I was wondering to myself if I’d really been watching your content for over a decade and then this intro- 😂 one of the best intros of all time. Thanks for creating this amazing content for us Isaac!
Isaac, make a video on the new molten salt powered solar arrays that are set up like a circle of mirrors around a central point and all direct the solar energy to the point on the top, which transfers it to salt while has a very low capacity for heat transfer, and can power the steam turbines that generate the power even on days with little to no sunlight.
LOL Isaac I sincerely appreciate you mentioning your speech impediment. It was having my brain search for an accent. Love your content, just found ya and you got my sub. Thanks again!
I kind like the idea of using bombs for power, it could be a more practical method of nuclear disarmament- instead of having to pay to dismantle the weapon and get nothing, you instead get to power your civilization.
The big problem with energy production isn't the production, it's the storage - we're practically drowning in renewable energy sources here on Earth as it is, but without improved high-capacity batteries, i.e. energy storage on par with carbon fuels in terms of capacity, fossil fuels aren't going anywhere.
@@polygondwanaland8390 Quite so. My point is that unless fusion reactors can be miniaturized enough to fit on ships and aircraft and other vehicles, fusion cannot replace existing low-cost high-density energy storage media in their specific applications
@@alexv3357 Ah, I see what you meant, not grid storage, storage for vehicles. What's wrong with using nuclear/renewables to make methane for that purpose?
@@polygondwanaland8390 Overall cost. Fusion fuel might be abundant, but fusion energy won't be that cheap for a good long time even after it becomes economical.
From the title of the video I expected an overview of the current state of fusion. This was information about fusion in general. Not uninteresting, but not what the title promised.
Fission fuels. If you have breeder reactors that can use U238 and Thorium, then a random rock contains (on average, given elemental abundances) 980 MJ/kg. That's compared to petrol at around 50MJ/kg That's really hard to run out of, if you are using it on earth and not heating the whole of earths surface to red hot. Only using uranium divides this by 4.5. Only using U235 divides this by another 142.
Thanks, I guess its technically not a scifi sunday, as I accidentally flipped it and Thursday episode on aliens on my calendar and by the time I noticed I didn't see point to flipping them back :)
IA, it is not an impediment, it is an affectation… a characteristic feature, nay, it is an advantage: indeed, in a world crammed with mundane people, you, with your captivating voice, are so pleasantly unique. I love it.
@ Hi Hailey. Thanks for pointing this out. I am by no means intending to disparage. I as so many others, really enjoy this channel, and wouldn’t change a thing. I would edit it, but I will leave it as a personal reminder of my linguistic fallibility. Apparently, a word smith I am not. Again thanks. Cheers.
Congratulations on your near-complete domination of the letter 'r'! As a perfectionist myself I know it may not seem good enough to you, but over the years I have observed a progression from "impediment" to "strange accent." Lean into it, you'll never stand out if there isn't something strange about you.
Cryogenic Helium will be used as the cooling System and Tritium will be used as the Fuel. We have solved the cooling and are building 6 Tritium Reactors to provide the Fuel for Fusion Reactors. The test reactors have achieved a Q - 10 result. 10 Times Power out to Power in. The 1st actual reactor is being built right now.
35:22 “…Space, handily, has a vast abundance of-empty space.” Trust Isaac to weave a context in which this is a genuine insight relevant to the conversation. ;-)
IIRC, _The Saint_ had nothing to do with cold fusion; it was just a label slapped on the MacGuffin; you could've swapped out the cold fusion with Captain America's super serum and the movie wouldn't change.
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." - E. F. Schumacher
@@juimymary9951 Turns out we do _not_ have infinite resources. But it is also true that, despite a tendency to put everything in dollar values, the various resources we _do_ have aren't entirely fungible. And there are diminishing returns. If you've got a supply of uranium and centrifuges, there's not all that much you can do with them to further fusion, and by the same token a supply of deuterium isn't terribly useful in building out your fission energy production.
I agree, but also if a bunch of cultists could draw a pentagram on the ground and summon hellfire, I'd use that to boil water too lol I think we ought to be building fission and researching fusion harder
Have you ever seen a video or read a book on fusion where they talked about the wave theory of the elements? QM and QFT are all about waves and waves only, but when fusion is discussed it’s all about banging particles. Waves no longer seem to exist in any of their contrivances.
Thanks for this video Isaac. My friend in grad school's Dad did nuclear and with so much news this is timely for understanding. I'm really interested in your thoughts for short term and long term energy for the 21st and 22nd centuries. Looking forward to the Upcoming Energy Technologies video for January 😊
I just did some napkin math on literally exploding hydrogen bombs as the energy source for an extremely large power plant, and it actually might be cost effective. Granted the up front investment required would make it by far the most expensive power plant built in history, and even the US government would struggle to pay for such a structure(realistically multiple structures with staggered detonations). Each structure would probably need to be somewhere around 3 miles in radius and would need to be a dome with thick walls lined with coolant pipes.
I would love to see a follow-up video concentrating on stellarators. And, I tend to think smaller is more efficient. Also, I tend to believe that getting free neutrons from a colocated fission reactor would be helpful. Therefore, another follow-up discussing fission reactor control (delayed neuron production) would facilitate a discussion of sequential fusion of progressively heavier isotopes i.e. Helium 3 and Boron would yield new ideas. After all, continuing to do the same things is why we are not making faster progress.
Woot. He's almost the same age I am. My senior year project in Physics was on nuclear reactions, so I explained everything from nuclear decay, to fission to fusion with descriptions of applications. A good chunk was the discussion of fusion, fusion reactors, and the state of fusion research as of 1989-1990. The next year at my optics class in college I reported on laser.fusion in detail. So this is interesting to see how things go.
The chart at 3:40 lists the sun as a “Yellow Dwarf”. That was its listing a number of years ago. Now that we have better telescopes it’s judged to be one of the larger types.
At 1:40 it's not "incredible" but "CREDIBLE" fusion research going on. Much more important. Also, I found your closed captions to be hilarious throughout this section, knowing what you were really saying. (it's not your speaking but the AI generating the CC's that's at fault.) (I'm kind of hard of hearing so sometimes I try to use the CCs to understand, but if I can't understand, then I've found that the Closed Caption AI usually doesn't get it either. I'm talking about other UTubes also of course. I wonder if you can have someone proof read the CC's. I realize that would be time a consuming task, so no worries.)
A fusion bomb power plant crater would also have a nice upside of producing unlimited pure water without the need for filtration. Though the brine on the bottom I'd imagine could become impossibly thick from seawater. Project PACER 'proved' (I doubt there wasn't bias) that it wasn't economically viable though.
I wish I had this kind of confidence in the future. Personally I've resorted to cherishing what I have now. I can't even justify adopting a couple of cats because I'm not convinced I'll be able to provide for them for the next ~15 years.
reg Nebula: great thing for creators, really, but I miss the social network aspects YT has and the apps are still buggy on phone size screens and don't work on any of the tablets I own. Would love to get a lifetime membership to support it but it's hard to justify when it's basically more a donation to a great idea than something I'll be able to use.
Electromagnetic forces are strong enough at that range to keep two protons from binding. Interestingly, the strong force isn't strong enough by itself to hold any two nucleons together. That's why we don't have di-neutrons. Deuterium (proton-neutron) can exist because the proton and the neutron can have the same spin, which gives them a bit more binding energy. Di-neutrons and di-protons can't have the same spin because of the Pauli exclusion principle; fermions can't be in the same energy state if all their properties are the same, so di-neutrons and di-protons need to have opposite spins, but then they don't have enough binding energy.
The idea of building a mega structure to contain and absorb all the energy from a modern Hydrogen bomb is interesting. What if we just built smaller nukes to reduce the size of the structure?
I do think that lawns should be algae tanks regardless of whether or not we get a good hydrocarbon harvester, if only because it would take all that carbon back out of the atmosphere at onto the ground where we can actually deal with it.
I seems as though the physicists who design a reactor, may end up having their children complete the first collision, and if VERY lucky their grandchildren building the next iteration. I'm not crying you're crying 😭
personally i think the best use of the fusion technology we have so far is to speed up the deep level boring required for the mass adoption of geothermal everywhere.
ITER is a deuterium-tritium reactor, but it is intended to produce it's own tritium by using a lithium blanket to absorb those neutrons and at the same time produce new tritium.
Because this is a presentation of nuclear fusion *technology* and the theory behind the decisions that get made about it. Nobody's working on CNO cycle fusion because it requires even higher temperatures than hydrogen fusion. Which is to say it's way way harder than the thing we haven't achieved in half a century of work, even before you factor in the complication of dealing with more ingredients in your plasma.
@@HypoceeYT The higher temperatures are not really a point, it is more about plasma stability and the issue of a plasma which contain more than just two different nuclides. Temperature of more than 300 million Kelvin had been achieved in multiple experiments. trying a cno reactor might be an attractive shortcut; if i had Elon Musks money i would try something like this. There is no better fuel.
Last I heard from the group is they need about 50 million to prove if there "new" first principle will pan out. Its hard to find an investor when you need that much to see if you should continue on a project that failed one time already.
What we need to invent is a nuclear power plant that can built within one election cycle
Hot take here… maybe we should elongate the election cycles? Maybe to 10 years like in stellaris?
@@juimymary9951....wait 4 more years until HOPEFULLY the REcession president is gone.
@@juimymary9951 Ahahaha. God no.
No. You just need someone rich enough to want it. Just ask Bill Gates.
@@juimymary9951 ELONgate? Hmmm...
My favorite way to spend an hour every Sunday.
"90% more R's" cracked me up. Having seen the progress you've made with your speech over time, it's something I forget about until you bring it up!
you can pretty much take his first video and see how massively far he has come since
reminds me of that film. ' being John Malcovich'
It has never disturbed me at ALL the way he talks. I just want to listen to the interesting stories really. I live in Sweden and use the letters D and S in a kind of a little bit of a Strange Way compared to the masses, but i am not sure that any therapy on this planet could change this as i have already learned to speak WAY to long ago to learn it ALL over again.😇🙂
as non native english speaking person, i was thinking Isaac Arthur just had an dialect, and often listening the "old" shows for better getting in to sleep, his voice is just perfect to calm down, i see a great progress in getting rid of that dialect...
I kinda hope he doesn't make anymore progress, he sounds great IMO! Distinctive voice and more than understandable and clear now!
Just wanted to say that your channel is a good chunk of the reason I just started pursuing a degree in Nuclear Engineering this year! I hope to work on fusion, but we'll see. Thanks for always inspiring me!
Same.
Good on both of ya. Nuclear engineering is hard work!
Same!
Awesome! I hope fusion but please push fission, because that is at least practical now. I would rather replace nuclear fission with nuclear fusion, then replace coal with nothing because fusion didn't work out.
Edit: Grammar.
Glad you are choosing this path. All the best to you in your studies and careers!
Hydrogen Bomb manufacturers prefer the term "one time reactor" for their product.
One-time two-stage reactor?
Disposable reactor? It'll vaporize itself 😆
Fun fact: A single One-Time-Reactor can reduce the energy use of an entire city to almost zero!
@@RiversJ Biodegradable haha
I think single use would test better.
"Now with 90% more letter 'r's" was comedy gold. Nicely done.
Honestly man, I've been listening so long that maybe the issue is you've trained us to be able to hear you better. But I hardly notice it anymore, I'm just hear for the awesome... thanks for delivering!
Been listening for years, myself. His Spoopy Day vid about ghost armadas was all the spoopier because he's doing so well with his speech therapy.
Damn proud of him, actually.
It's definitely no where near as pronounced as before. At this point it's unlikely many people would have any trouble understanding.
Agreed
I'm hoping I'm early enough that you'll see this. I want to apologize, to you, Mr. Arthur. Many years ago, when your channel was new, I saw a single video and I think I made some comment about your speech impediment and how I found it annoying at the time. It stemmed from a real difficulty understanding your words at the time, but I didn't express that respectfully. I was a stupid kid, and have grown a lot over the last 12 or so years. This, of course, doesn't excuse my comment, but I hope it puts it into perspective.
I came back to your channel after years, and have popped in from time to time ever since. I really admire the way you seem to embrace who you are, and are able to poke fun at yourself. It's a pair of skills I've come to value the older I get. I also noticed you added the ability to turn on CC. Giving people that option does far more than simply clarify your speech, but improves accessibility for those hard of hearing. While I think that's really cool, a part of me has wondered if that comment I made all those years ago was far more hurtful than I could have understood at the time.
I admit, I'm doing this in part for my own selfishness to ease my own conscience. Even so, I want to apologize for any pain my lack of consideration may have caused. Thank you for the work you do. It really has been wonderful to see the amount this channel has grown since the orbital mass driver video.
+
He does not have a PhD
you sound like a great person. thinking about the consequences of your actions is really good, but don't stress yourself out too much. you care, and that's what counts.
Thank you for apologizing to this guy. It's way better than most I hear. I'm sure he appreciates it.
Isaac doesn't have a speech impediment, he has a genetic accent. ❤ Every time isaac talks about a single atom being freed it reminds me of lightning. Lightning making O3 with a side product of O. The free radicals are the singular atoms electromagnetically searching for other atoms to be with.
I always just thought he had an accent, maybe it was difficult for him to get to this point, but with youtube being global we are all getting used to more accents, so I never, ever cared lol
@viperswhip It's called rhotacism.
I have a speech impediment but it doesn’t give me a “accent” it just makes me sound like I’m having a stroke when I get worked up and I’m not thinking about what I’m saying.
Nah, he's just ahead of the times. In the future, we will all have this accent. It's going to be in style.
It is the ultimate non-rhotic accent.
This is honestly my favorite topic on the channel. Ever since I've watched the original video about fusion from 8 years ago I've been hooked on the channel and became very optimistic about the future, OUR future, something we all are likely to witness.
The progress may be slow, but it IS there.
Cheers, all the best, and waiting (im)patiently for the bright world of tomorrow.
“2 steps forward one step back.” This week feels like 3 steps back.
@@undertow2142 More like 3 steps forward, but with plenty of drama. Social engineers won't let power go quietly and few really appreciate liberty, and why it works. The delusion that if only the "right people" were in charge, they would be able to run other people's lives better than those people could themselves. In reality, humans are not an ant colony or the Star Trek borg. We are unique, with individual needs, wants, knowledge, likes, preferences, circumstances, etc. unknown to anyone else, no matter how smart. One size does not fit all.
I really like XKCDs analogy that volume-wise, an iguanas natural metabolism is roughly the heat produced from fusion in the sun, as a great example of the square cube law
Or about the same as an active compost-pile.
Could we please see an episode about The Future of Medical Technology?
yes please
“Near-mid term”!
Thanks for the in-depth explanation of how fusion works. The best I’ve heard so far on TH-cam. All too often if one clicks on a fusion video there will be the same three minute rehash of the difference between fission and fusion with the same light explanation of the basics of fusion. For the first time I felt as if I was treated to a real dive into the topic. Videos like this is one of the many reasons your channel stands out on TH-cam.
Thank you. This is the first video on fusion where I don't feel like I'm being spoonfed wikipedia articles or being led through a sarcastic snarkfest. Please keep making cool stuff like this!
0:48 lol 😂 you have a great sense of humor brother. Amazing content. We await your next video !!!
Honestly I've listened to enough of your videos I don't even notice it anymore I consider it an accent as anyone else would have
From one Vet to another youre doing an amazing job, keep it up! Ive been a follower for over 5 years now and your content keeps getter better each year.
I'd love to see the breakdown of vets here. Branch divided by Combat Arms. I was a 94E in the army (radio/comsec repair) but I've seen folks identifying from Blackhawk crew chief all the way to more Arty boys like our dear Mr. Arthur.
Has there been any episodes on settling alien planets with already rich life? Not necessarily intelligent life but more about how you cope with it like crossing diseases or eating alien life.
Got a beer and a pack of hot chilli and lime chips 🎉
It's only 8 am where I live but that sounds good to start a Sunday morning. :)
@ it's 22:12 hours here in Western Australia ✌🏻️
👍
Also hey Isaac, you forgot the drink and snack line 🤪 jokes aside, I've been watching for years and years. Never stop ✌🏻️
Cheers... It's 8am in Minnesota LOL
Your pronunciation of R over the years has improved so much. I’ve been watching for years and you inspire me to reach personal goals rather than just focus on professional ones!
Happy Arthursday everyone! Wait... Isaacsunday?!
Issacsunday for sure.
SundIAy?
Sund-I-A?
Fusion Inventor Elevator pitch to the CEO of an energy company -"Fusion energy creation too cheap to meter..."
Before the elevator door closes, CEO take's the stairs!!"
That’s me, but he loved it
Any corporations with the money to invest in fusion infrastructure will want to keep the price of electricity high.
Isaac Arthur, sir. I’ve been listening to you since about episode 20. Count this as random and heartfelt. You mention a speech impediment. No one notices. It’s like a brand. You are intelligible and intelligent, which is rare.
So don’t know if you’ll read this, but if you do, we get it. I’m Asperger’s and worry constantly. I reckon most of your loyal viewers are similar.
Hard to do, dude, but your voice is an asset.
Anyway, that’s all.
Keep going. LOVE your channel
Best video I've seen so far about nuclear fusion. Keep up the good work!👍
HB-11 fusion is my favourite - aneutronic Hydrogen-Boron fusion... :)
Compact fusion for homes and vehicles would need to be aneutronic to be miniaturized and safe.
HB-11 also circumvents boiling water and using turbines, it's a very slick futuristic idea that doesn't get much press.
"circumvents boiling water"
Does that mean that the kinetic energy of the resulting Helium is used directly to spin a turbine?
@@DreadX10 No, they had some method for harvesting electrons from the reaction worked out!
But they seem to have cut back in their ambitions for now, the updated HB-11 site doesn't mention it anymore.
I'm guessing they want to focus on the main fusion process, so are opting for steam and turbine for now.
Fusion will be a thing one day compact fusion on the other hand is complete nonsense.
@@WokeandProud They have the theoretical side worked out.
Aneutronic fusion + harvesting electrons for current instead of using turbines.
But it's not something we'll see anytime soon.... :)
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV It's not the harvesting that's the issue its the ionizing radiation released by the process that is. As a result it requires heavy amounts of shielding similar to normal fission nuclear power.
Hi Isaac, I haven't looked at your content in years, but I'm so grateful you're still making such amazingly informative content that peaks my interests. I'm so glad at how successful things have been for you, and hope things keep going well for you in the future 👍
Another fantastic video! Never thought about the rate of fusion compared to the total mass present of the sun - really changes the perspective.
Just the other day I was wondering to myself if I’d really been watching your content for over a decade and then this intro- 😂 one of the best intros of all time.
Thanks for creating this amazing content for us Isaac!
Isaac, make a video on the new molten salt powered solar arrays that are set up like a circle of mirrors around a central point and all direct the solar energy to the point on the top, which transfers it to salt while has a very low capacity for heat transfer, and can power the steam turbines that generate the power even on days with little to no sunlight.
You have always been my grand wizardry inspiration.
You can hear the pleasure Isaac Arthur takes in using words with 'r' in them.
LOL Isaac I sincerely appreciate you mentioning your speech impediment. It was having my brain search for an accent. Love your content, just found ya and you got my sub. Thanks again!
I kind like the idea of using bombs for power, it could be a more practical method of nuclear disarmament- instead of having to pay to dismantle the weapon and get nothing, you instead get to power your civilization.
Disarmament will never happen.
@@HD-mp6yy one can dream tho
Much like general every-day useful quantum computing and nuclear disarmament, nuclear fusion is 'just around the corner'.
@@MattExzy The others are theoretically possible under the laws of physics. Disarmament goes against basic logic.
@@HD-mp6yy And should never happen. NATO has already admitted that without Russia's nukes, we would already be in WW3.
Best sci-future channel on TH-cam, hands down. Ruddy remarkable
The big problem with energy production isn't the production, it's the storage - we're practically drowning in renewable energy sources here on Earth as it is, but without improved high-capacity batteries, i.e. energy storage on par with carbon fuels in terms of capacity, fossil fuels aren't going anywhere.
@alexv3357
Fair observation...
Let's hope Form Energy is the start of a trend, am I right?
Fusion would be baseload like fission, gas, or geothermal. You don't need a lot of storage with a high baseload capacity.
@@polygondwanaland8390 Quite so. My point is that unless fusion reactors can be miniaturized enough to fit on ships and aircraft and other vehicles, fusion cannot replace existing low-cost high-density energy storage media in their specific applications
@@alexv3357 Ah, I see what you meant, not grid storage, storage for vehicles. What's wrong with using nuclear/renewables to make methane for that purpose?
@@polygondwanaland8390 Overall cost. Fusion fuel might be abundant, but fusion energy won't be that cheap for a good long time even after it becomes economical.
This is gonna be good
From the title of the video I expected an overview of the current state of fusion. This was information about fusion in general. Not uninteresting, but not what the title promised.
Great video as always. Thank mate!
Isaac’s, brilliant educational vid, I learnt a lot!
Would love to see you do an episode on other potential types of fusion. Hydrogen-Boron options, laser based z-pinch and other stuff like that.
Fission fuels. If you have breeder reactors that can use U238 and Thorium, then a random rock contains (on average, given elemental abundances) 980 MJ/kg. That's compared to petrol at around 50MJ/kg
That's really hard to run out of, if you are using it on earth and not heating the whole of earths surface to red hot.
Only using uranium divides this by 4.5. Only using U235 divides this by another 142.
Thanks!
You're welcome!
Another most informative sci-fi Sunday episode on a complex topic.
A good informative update.
Thanks, I guess its technically not a scifi sunday, as I accidentally flipped it and Thursday episode on aliens on my calendar and by the time I noticed I didn't see point to flipping them back :)
Solar wasnt a distant dream back then, it powered some expensive calculators, first time Ive ever noticed a "mistake" Arthur, tut tut 😂
Indeed, solar could easily provide a decent chunk of our electric needs if we could somehow get around the problem of battery storage.
IA, it is not an impediment, it is an affectation… a characteristic feature, nay, it is an advantage: indeed, in a world crammed with mundane people, you, with your captivating voice, are so pleasantly unique. I love it.
Affectation means artificial, even w/ intent to impress. Obviously not what you're trying to say :)
@ Hi Hailey. Thanks for pointing this out. I am by no means intending to disparage. I as so many others, really enjoy this channel, and wouldn’t change a thing. I would edit it, but I will leave it as a personal reminder of my linguistic fallibility. Apparently, a word smith I am not. Again thanks. Cheers.
Congratulations on your near-complete domination of the letter 'r'! As a perfectionist myself I know it may not seem good enough to you, but over the years I have observed a progression from "impediment" to "strange accent." Lean into it, you'll never stand out if there isn't something strange about you.
Thank you Arthur! Very cool!
Cryogenic Helium will be used as the cooling System and Tritium will be used as the Fuel. We have solved the cooling and are building 6 Tritium Reactors to provide the Fuel for Fusion Reactors.
The test reactors have achieved a Q - 10 result. 10 Times Power out to Power in. The 1st actual reactor is being built right now.
35:22 “…Space, handily, has a vast abundance of-empty space.” Trust Isaac to weave a context in which this is a genuine insight relevant to the conversation.
;-)
You finally did the video i asked for a while ago :)
Good stuff as usual.
Cold fusion did have two good movies associated with it: "The Saint" and "Chain Reaction".
IIRC, _The Saint_ had nothing to do with cold fusion; it was just a label slapped on the MacGuffin; you could've swapped out the cold fusion with Captain America's super serum and the movie wouldn't change.
The movie Chain Reaction was not about nuclear fusion.
@@terijackson1 actually it is "non polluting hydrogen" it's cold fusion.
@ilkoderez601 my take on the movie that it was the discovery of an economical way to separate hydrogen from water. Am I wrong?
@@ilkoderez601 I guess you were right. Anyway I've been a big fan of Keanu Reeves scince Bill and Ted, The Matrix and John Wick.
lol brought to you with R’s I’ve been watching you for a long time I think since your first video. Keep on doing great work.
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." - E. F. Schumacher
I wouldn’t hold my breath, fission actually works and needs more construction and investment.
You know that we can do both, right?
Kinda like chasing the Dragon.
@@juimymary9951 Turns out we do _not_ have infinite resources.
But it is also true that, despite a tendency to put everything in dollar values, the various resources we _do_ have aren't entirely fungible. And there are diminishing returns. If you've got a supply of uranium and centrifuges, there's not all that much you can do with them to further fusion, and by the same token a supply of deuterium isn't terribly useful in building out your fission energy production.
I agree, but also if a bunch of cultists could draw a pentagram on the ground and summon hellfire, I'd use that to boil water too lol
I think we ought to be building fission and researching fusion harder
Have you ever seen a video or read a book on fusion where they talked about the wave theory of the elements?
QM and QFT are all about waves and waves only, but when fusion is discussed it’s all about banging particles. Waves no longer seem to exist in any of their contrivances.
Thanks for this video Isaac. My friend in grad school's Dad did nuclear and with so much news this is timely for understanding. I'm really interested in your thoughts for short term and long term energy for the 21st and 22nd centuries. Looking forward to the Upcoming Energy Technologies video for January 😊
As a long time listener the now with 90% more R’s really got me.
So Fusion power has moved from a perpetual "20 years and holding" to "on the 20 years horizon and holding" .
Cool !
Big _DOIN's_ !!
I just did some napkin math on literally exploding hydrogen bombs as the energy source for an extremely large power plant, and it actually might be cost effective. Granted the up front investment required would make it by far the most expensive power plant built in history, and even the US government would struggle to pay for such a structure(realistically multiple structures with staggered detonations). Each structure would probably need to be somewhere around 3 miles in radius and would need to be a dome with thick walls lined with coolant pipes.
I would love to see a follow-up video concentrating on stellarators. And, I tend to think smaller is more efficient. Also, I tend to believe that getting free neutrons from a colocated fission reactor would be helpful. Therefore, another follow-up discussing fission reactor control (delayed neuron production) would facilitate a discussion of sequential fusion of progressively heavier isotopes i.e. Helium 3 and Boron would yield new ideas. After all, continuing to do the same things is why we are not making faster progress.
I would like CERN to have used the stellerator
Woot.
He's almost the same age I am.
My senior year project in Physics was on nuclear reactions, so I explained everything from nuclear decay, to fission to fusion with descriptions of applications. A good chunk was the discussion of fusion, fusion reactors, and the state of fusion research as of 1989-1990. The next year at my optics class in college I reported on laser.fusion in detail.
So this is interesting to see how things go.
The chart at 3:40 lists the sun as a “Yellow Dwarf”. That was its listing a number of years ago. Now that we have better telescopes it’s judged to be one of the larger types.
At 1:40 it's not "incredible" but "CREDIBLE" fusion research going on. Much more important.
Also, I found your closed captions to be hilarious throughout this section, knowing what you were really saying.
(it's not your speaking but the AI generating the CC's that's at fault.)
(I'm kind of hard of hearing so sometimes I try to use the CCs to understand, but if I can't understand, then I've found that the Closed Caption AI usually doesn't get it either. I'm talking about other UTubes also of course. I wonder if you can have someone proof read the CC's. I realize that would be time a consuming task, so no worries.)
You are a national treasure 😂👍
great video as always. i was hoping for you to make a video on habitability of kepler 62f, that planet is very interesting IMO
A fusion bomb power plant crater would also have a nice upside of producing unlimited pure water without the need for filtration. Though the brine on the bottom I'd imagine could become impossibly thick from seawater.
Project PACER 'proved' (I doubt there wasn't bias) that it wasn't economically viable though.
I wish I had this kind of confidence in the future. Personally I've resorted to cherishing what I have now. I can't even justify adopting a couple of cats because I'm not convinced I'll be able to provide for them for the next ~15 years.
Fantastic way to start the day; beautiful coffee, delicious hashish, and a super deep dive into the subatomic mechanics of nuclear fusion reactions🙏
And after two minutes, you are light-years ahead of the video, have to rewind it to get back on track, so you go for another cup of coffee....
reg Nebula: great thing for creators, really, but I miss the social network aspects YT has and the apps are still buggy on phone size screens and don't work on any of the tablets I own. Would love to get a lifetime membership to support it but it's hard to justify when it's basically more a donation to a great idea than something I'll be able to use.
Watching this at 1am feels weird, bet this it still gonna be an good episode
Late night SFIA :)
@isaacarthurSFIA frfr but now I need to fix my sleep problems so goodbye yall
Longtime cool vid
Not #1, but with ❤
Fusion (a secure and "endless" energy source) is the key to a good future! Promote this topic!!!
When the protons collide and for di protons why doesn't the strong force keep them together?
Electromagnetic forces are strong enough at that range to keep two protons from binding. Interestingly, the strong force isn't strong enough by itself to hold any two nucleons together. That's why we don't have di-neutrons.
Deuterium (proton-neutron) can exist because the proton and the neutron can have the same spin, which gives them a bit more binding energy. Di-neutrons and di-protons can't have the same spin because of the Pauli exclusion principle; fermions can't be in the same energy state if all their properties are the same, so di-neutrons and di-protons need to have opposite spins, but then they don't have enough binding energy.
Man, it’s been a rough week, did we really have to think about Sun death too, lol
Another satisfying video for Nerd Art Sunday. Thanks again!
The idea of building a mega structure to contain and absorb all the energy from a modern Hydrogen bomb is interesting. What if we just built smaller nukes to reduce the size of the structure?
I’m a firm believer in the future of Clarktech and it being key to fusion and interstellar travel.
I do think that lawns should be algae tanks regardless of whether or not we get a good hydrocarbon harvester, if only because it would take all that carbon back out of the atmosphere at onto the ground where we can actually deal with it.
Happy Sund-Eye-Aye!
I like the HB1 style Hydrogen Boron fusion.
HB - 11
:)
I just made the same comment!
Perfect candidate for compact fusion in the future.....
I'm watched your content for so long that I don't even notice your voice changing unless you mention it.
I seems as though the physicists who design a reactor, may end up having their children complete the first collision, and if VERY lucky their grandchildren building the next iteration.
I'm not crying you're crying 😭
Cope-mechanism = Nice touch !
I have this reoccurring feeling that neutrinos are going to be key that eventually unlocks physics.
personally i think the best use of the fusion technology we have so far is to speed up the deep level boring required for the mass adoption of geothermal everywhere.
New updates and impacts on nuclear fusion are always the same: we don't have a way or even a clue how to get there😊!
What video did you watch lmao
IIRC, tritium is also produced in heavy water reactors
Yes, I'm gonna kick myself if I left that out.
Update! It’s now 29 years away and always will be!
Great episode already!
We will shortly be needing many of these and as portable as possible
You are my favorite Leo after John Leguizamo
What happened to the lattice confinement fusion project that won the NASA NIAC grant a year or two ago?
its finally at the horizon
its just 20 years away
we are nearly there
ITER is a deuterium-tritium reactor, but it is intended to produce it's own tritium by using a lithium blanket to absorb those neutrons and at the same time produce new tritium.
Why is the CNO cycle not presented? this is the thing behind the exponential energy output of heavy stars.
Because this is a presentation of nuclear fusion *technology* and the theory behind the decisions that get made about it. Nobody's working on CNO cycle fusion because it requires even higher temperatures than hydrogen fusion. Which is to say it's way way harder than the thing we haven't achieved in half a century of work, even before you factor in the complication of dealing with more ingredients in your plasma.
@@HypoceeYT The higher temperatures are not really a point, it is more about plasma stability and the issue of a plasma which contain more than just two different nuclides. Temperature of more than 300 million Kelvin had been achieved in multiple experiments. trying a cno reactor might be an attractive shortcut; if i had Elon Musks money i would try something like this. There is no better fuel.
15:56 coolest periodic table ever.
Was on the polywell forums, I am eagerly awaiting video.
Last I heard from the group is they need about 50 million to prove if there "new" first principle will pan out. Its hard to find an investor when you need that much to see if you should continue on a project that failed one time already.
Excellent comparisons
Fusion is the antithesis of super conductivity 😮
Awesome video! Thx
at 11:14 . . . that's the kind of Megaproject I love
R O F L
I am reminded of the British Interplanetary Society's Project Daedalus