After several decades of fusion plasma research, it has been demonstrated conclusively that there is no earthly container that can sustainable house the pressure and temperatures of the sun. It can only exit in space under enormous gravity. The continued pursuit of this magical earthy container is a pipe dream.
@@terranspaceacademy Really? Where are they? Any plasma that touches the wall of any man made container is obliterated immediately. There is no material that can withstand a plasma over 100 million degrees and keep its integrity. Even tungsten, with a melting point of 6,192 degrees (F) and high valence electrons, cannot withstand these temperatures and requires a magnetic bottle to keep the plasma from coming in contact with it. Unfortunately, magnetic confinement sucks. Since 1958 the concept has failed miserably. Billions of dollars and decades have proven that that the concept is a pipe dream. Yet they keep throwing good money after bad. All forms of fusion arrangements have yet to achieve breakeven. The phony announcements of parity with inertial confinement is a fraud. Never including all the actual energy input into these experiments just to make misleading claims to obtain continued funding. The proven, experimental fact is that meaningful, commercial, profitable fusion is not possible on earth. 😀
@@terranspaceacademy Ok. I took a look. Nope. He works on rocket propulsion. He's not a fusion researcher and his 'bottle' is to release ions / plasma directionally to move through space. His rocket engine does not contain the sustained pressures and temperatures required for fusion.
I like the fuel pb11, still prefer the simplicity of Focus Fusion, but I have more hope for fusion with this types of approaches to fusion, then I do for TokaMac reactors and it’s twisted cousin. The Rolls-Royce Mini reactor is basically submarine reactor so it seems like the same old thing repackaged and rebranded, which means you need breeder reactors to have enough of the right type of uranium fuel for everyone, why not go with Molten Salt Reactors in the first place and cut out all those extra steps.
@@jamesowens7176 Yep I’m curious about that one as well, I’m trying to imagine a big molten sphere of Salt laced with thorium and uranium floating in Zero gravity. If they can get Focus Fusion working, it’s perfect for a space, it’s small and needs no superconductors with all the cooling baggage that goes with that technology. th-cam.com/video/6ajqD0hoOMw/w-d-xo.html&si=IC1WNe71IPCcqUJ5
@jamesowens7176 MSRs in space is perfectly possible... BUT... you have to use change in viscosity in conjuction with topological designs of the core chamber to get the full safety aspect. What so I mean by that? Two of the safety aspects of a liquid core are 1) you can rely on a liquid to go down a drain (in a gravity well) so you can engineer a drainage safety system --not everyone uses freeze plugs; 2) Hotter liquid expands (generally) and so you can design a core that only contains enough fissionable liquid to heat up only a certain amount: too hot and the iquid expands out enough that less material is in the core and it stops being as reactive, forcing the whole thing to cool. In microgravity, safety feature 2 still works but feature 1 does not. However, hotter liquids generally have less viscosity. Viscosity greatly effects capillary action (wicking). By designing the shape of the reactor core take advantage of this difference in wicking via difference in viscosity, you can control the movement of a liquid core in mocrogravity to a great extent. So much so that the design for a drain can be replaced with a high-flow viscosity wick for that extra layer of safety as well as to lower pump.power requirements.
@@bmobert Yes the safety aspects of the MSR is very desirable, as well as it short life nuclear waist. Your uses of capillary sounds interesting but not able to fully comprehend it’s Application, but less parts are mostly a good thing👍. Just an odd idea if I might bounce off you, if it’s okay. If one could find a ferrous material that soluble to the molten salt and neutral to the nuclear reaction, could one simulate gravity to a certain extent by the uses of magnet 🧲, there’s other far-fetched ideals that extends this idea like controlling the shape and position of a free floating molten sphere in zero-G for controlling the nuclear reaction. I think Copenhagen atomic has a pump that removes gases while pumping for the sake of corrosion protection that would definitely be useful in such a system, at least I think it was them.
@@YellowRambler Unfortunately, magnetic fields interact very differently than gravity fields. So, I am no expert, but I would guess: no. HOWEVER... remember to ask yourself: what, specifically, are you trying to reproduce? Is it the ability to go down a drain? If so, make the liquid electrically conductive and expose it to electromagnetic fields to pulled it out the drain. Is it the separation of warmer from cooler parts of the liquid? Viscosity wicking, as described. Et cetera. First step in all of engineering: specify, exactly, what you want to get done. The short half life of nuclear waste in MSRs is more about the fuel cycle than the MSR design. MSR is not the only design that burns its fuel to high completion, resulting in low half-life waste. However, remember that lower half life always means higher radioactivity. Long half life means low radioactivity. The lower the radioactivity, the less directly dangerous but the more indirectly dangerous. I like shorter half life because can engineer containers for 300-500 years. But 10,000? 100,000 years? Probably not. Worse, tho, is that waste from current reactors become plutonium mines about 100 years after storage. Bad for proliferation.
This CEO knows how to tell a story. 🙂 I keep my fingers crossed for their success and thank you for today's lesson. BTW. Answering your question in outro, we should pursue both technologies.
I wish i could see fusion in my lifetime, but im only 5 years old, and the average lifespan in my family is 105 years old. So I'll be well gone by the time theyre even close to producing it. But my great great great grandchildren might be around then, so good for them.
@@terranspaceacademy that would be pretty amazing. I wonder what day it's pretty good sized. I'm thinking 25 years but maybe longer if a war is involved
I am all for continued fusion research because I feel the production of waste products weather they be chemical or nuclear should not be left for others in the future to deal with 26:58 Cheers
What is referred to as high level waste fron fission reactors is mostly unused fuel, just use that fuel. And yes, we can do that and gain financial advantage by doing so, just change regulations to make them realistic.
@@terranspaceacademy True but the cost of developing such plants is high and of course the weapons grade Blutonium it's still an issue so why not simply use that 93,000,000 plant at least for energy in our biosphere Cheers
Man-made fission works, has worked for 70 years. Man-made fusion, always just a few years away. I think matter/antimatter energy will be used in space before man-made fusion.
The more people trying to develop a working fusion reactor, the greater the chances someone will do it..I wish them all the best. If they can do it, a lot of our current problems will cease to be. No doubt it will have aerospace applications. Fission R&D shouldn't stop...or work on solar power satellites. Never put all your eggs in one basket.
I appreciate the info on TAE's technology! It's a very informative video about a company that was not even on my radar! I'm with you: I think it's only a matter of time before "we" figure out fusion. BUT, I think we'd be best served to go ahead with our nuclear fission plans in the near future of spaceflight. Even when we do figure out terrestrial fusion, turning it into a viable propulsion means is still likely decades beyond that. NASA's current plans for Mars transit vehicle are in flux, but it's likely to contain both chemical and nuclear thermal propulsion modules (probably one on each end). But we've had fission power generation for decades, and are only now giving serious consideration to finally launching a nuclear thermal propulsion stage. For terrestrial power, I see the promise and potential of fusion, but I think we need to be working at least as hard on molten salt fission reactors. My favorite (as always) is the molten chloride fast reactor, due to its inherent safety and unsuitability to extract weaponizable isotopes, and its ability to use existing highly radioactive waste as fuel. As always, much appreciation for the hard work you put into bringing these lessons to us!
The statement at 2:15, "Nature's preferred source for making energy" is totally non-scientific -- as long as you accept one of the basic tenets of science: energy can be neither created nor destroyed. If you changed the word "making" to "releasing", then you have a valid scientific statement; but we have to remember that just because it is a valid statement doesn't necessarily mean that it is correct.
@@davidhenry5128 One of the greatest degradations of our age is that people have forgotten/not learned the value of precision in the words they use. As long as you are careless about your words and thoughts, you will be easily manipulated. For example, in your statement you say: you can change matter to energy. Is this an accurate statement? Is matter actually different from energy or is it just condensed, "frozen" energy and you are simply creating the conditions under which a phase change can occur?
Nature makes energy from matter. The whole conservation of mass thing goes out the window when you talk nuclear. The mass changers and turns into energy ergo, it's made.
I've always thought that the Rolls-Royce approach is very important. I think we need to invest heavily in uranium salt reactors and then eventually moved to thorium. Fusion will be nice, but it may be 20 more years before it starts to be mature and reliable
Should we have held out, bypassing all the damaging pollution of the steam era, and shot for the holy grail of stored energy? (Batteries). Nope. We had to learn the math before we could visit the machine shop. Rinse, tweak, and repeat is the path to the future.
This was a great video! Thoroughly enjoyed it. I do get a little worried when the narrator starts talking about social justice and also mentions by-products of the research that will benefit electrical grid infrastructure, etc. Achieving a revolutionary level of social justice is bait for investment and by-products are fail-safes in case it doesn't work (or progress is much slower than promised). However, embracing the alternatives of never trying, never having faith, or never getting excited about the possibilities, would only lead to a rather bleak future. My first thought upon viewing the device was that it almost looks small enough to get into space!
Investors don't care about social justice, that's just business-sweet-talk. Neither does TAE care about actually making this energy available to everyone.
I agree. Meaningful investors wouldn't be swayed. Maybe some naive politicians or small investors if it went public, or maybe he threw in the "social justice" reference hoping to help generate a buzz about the research--yeah, "just business sweet talk." Reminded me of Musk talking about Optimus. I remember his putting in a line about how the robot would help create a world free from want. I thought he was getting a little carried away.
Some investors don't care about social justice. Many do. Or companies wouldn't try to play up to it. Eventually this planet WILL need a lot more power. People aren't going to live at a lower level if they can choose.
The scale of our energy issues is hard to comprehend. Even if you dont agree that climate change is happening or that humans have anything to do with climate change, we need to replace all our carbon emitting technology as quickly as possible: its bad for human health, causing billions of dollars worth of health issues and losing billions in economies around the world; oil is a finite resource that will run out, indeed peak oil very likely happened in the 2000s; the EROI on oil and coal have become atrocious, dragging the worlds economies down to the breaking point; the population implosion of the next decades will mean less workforce to keep this complex carbon-energy infrastructure going... the list goes on and on!! We need to be pouring money and effort into as many options as we can find!! We need a poly-pronged approach to tackle this one, very difficult problem just to keep our energy gobbling system from collapsing out from under us as we try to replace it. That means renewables with storage, modular fission of several types, multiple fusion projects and at least some experimentation into solar orbital beaming. As far as I'm concerned, huge incentives should be given for homes, businesses, and municipalities to invest in photovoltaic installations and power storage, all plugged directly into the grid. This won't and can't make most individuals self-reliant for power, except for extreme examples, but it can greatly reduce stress in the electrical power infrastructure. Any other personal electric generation system --solar thermal, wind, hydro, whatever-- should also be heavily subsidized; and installations need to be standardized for safety and efficiency. Speaking of efficiency: heat pump heating and cooling. That means laundry driers, water heaters and house-holds. Thirty percent of household energy is used to heat and cool, and heat pumps can do the job 3 to 5 times more efficiently, depending on the task. Electrical power grids need upgrades. We've learned a lot since the '50s and '60s when we made the current set of standards, regulations, and equipment. We have more efficent and robust transformer designs, power lines, dielectric materials, and on and on. If we implement what we know into a better power grid, we can reduce power loss and give ourselves just a little more time to achieve the needed miracles. Industrial manufacturing is not well served by renewable power, even in conjunction with storage. It needs industial, base-line power. For this i think fission is the rear-term solution. I like MSRs, I like modular and I like thorium. Regardless of what I like, we need high production, fast turn-around, quick installation, demonstrably extremely high safety (for political reasons), cheap fuel, small footprint and easily and quickly permittable. This tall order is achievable in time by several different proposals but we have to get them fully funded now. Right now. Immediately. We dont know for sure what will stick, so create a tiered funding program that pays out for demonstrative progress, the quicker, the better, within the framework of safety. If I were to make bets, it would be on Elysium. But, that just me. There are many others in the race that look interesting too. Amazing, CANDU is actually rather impressive on many levels. Once we can start getting gigawatts into the grid, we can start using some of that heat to make artificial hydrocarbons out of water and co2. This will ease some of the infrastructure transition stresses. Indeed, if i were the navy, I would court congress to fund the creation of nuclear submarine fuel cows meant to create artificial jet fuel, one or two for each carrier fleet. Once a week or so, she'd surface to fill up the oilers, who would then distribute the fuel t around the fleet. (All US navy ships that are not nuclear can burn jet fuel in their engines, or so Im told. CO2 collection is easier and more efficient from water than air. Submarines are harder to kill than surface ships. This my proposal.) But fusion is the gold ring. (At least until we can make black holes of our own.) Fusion research should be funded to the hilt. Tiered, goal based funding, to be sure. But heavy funding, regardless. I wish my home state id California had funded an Heavy Ion Fusion system back when, instead of the high speed rail boondogle, for example. There are fusion.projects galore and I'd fund them all, demanding proof of progress, certainly, but funding none the less. More than you asked for. But, there you go.
Dust-free world, rust-free moon! Hope we see TAE fusion succeed ultimately, they are the best. Otherwise I would hope for a combined Th232-MSR-fission and Fusion economy, where all the tritium of the reactors can be collected and safely burnt in one fusion-Reactor with little losses. Breeding Tritium fuel in a fusion reactor may be accompanied by harmful, substantial diffusion Losses. Tritium lost into the atmosphere will react to tritiated water and rain down and dissolve into the biosphere! A nightmare; see the problems from the Fukushima water-tanks. (as soon as 3H is in water no "purification" is possible;You can do nothing than: Dilution is the solution to Pollution) Even the much anticipated CO2-neutral, "conventional, green" hydrogen-fuels economy will be plaged by losses, maybe as much as 50%. Methane for airplanes, propane, diesel and methanol for cars, and CarbonMonoxide in steel-making are the better (secondary, transportable, storable) fuel choices! Hydrogen is a "rocket" fuel in all aspects.
I would go that route too... I think we need RTG with thermovoltaics over a fusion fed (neutrons) thorium reactor that starts a bigger fusion reactor. Dr. Goldberg's design :-)
While it’s interesting your beautiful imagery, it highlights ESA- which is currently falling flat on its face. Are you trying to goose them to up their game maybe?
1960's 1960's Canada And Eastern US Blackout There are national security issues with centrally distributed electrical power. In the 1960s I was living in Canada, when a transformer in the grid distribution site in Buffalo failed. and most of eastern Canada and the eastern US went dark. There were only two of these transformers available at that time and it would take many months, or even years to manufacture additional transformers. A later security analysis pointed out that there are only a dozen distribution nodes around the US relying on this type of transformer and if they were sabotaged it would take months if not years to get the US electrical grid back up again now consider if millions of businesses and homes, with solar and energy storage,as well as electric vehicles, it would be damn near impossible to shut it all down and this type of distributed power generation and storage would increase National security. Unfortunately I rarely ever hear this brought up as the big disadvantage of centrally distributed power generation. Another point is historically wars are often start over access to energy, such as recently the access to petroleum products. If there is no need to secure importation of energy sources, I suspect it would greatly reduce the reasons for countries to go to war. And an additional bonus would be that it would not only lower the cost of living, (the cost of energy is what drives inflation), the money consumers would save would give them a better quality of life and more spending power, which would drive the economy to greater heights, something that businesses would appreciate. I believe the best solution would be a hybrid grid, combining most areas that could be supported locally together with distribution to take care of sudden loads or breakdowns, it's a flexible approach that would address the issues and reduce the vulnerability of sabotage. Scientia Habet Non Domus, (Knowledge Has No Home) antiguajohn
What I think? Climate change and social justice, gage me. I guess it’s pointless to mention how the Mesozoic was on average 25 degrees C, the Holocene climate optimism, the Medieval Warm Period, and the Little Ice Age. Neither balloon data nor satellite data point to catastrophic global warming, but this guy carries on like it is as well established as the world is round. It’s annoying. Molten salt thorium reactors are much further along and should probably be where our focus should be, before we have to buy them from China. Fission has always been the ultimate power source that was always 20 years into the future. Maybe these folks can pull it off, but I wouldn’t put all my eggs in their basket.
Technically the ocean level is a thermometer. 2/3 of current rise is from thermal expansion, and 1/3 from ice melting. Every phenomenon requires raise of themperature. So global warming is a fact, the problem is in the narration only - it has minimal impact on our lifes and biosphere.
I wish I was younger so I could be here to see it. What a wonderful time it’ll be.
Hang in there.
You will see this stuff happening in our lifetime 😌 a lot to look forward to
After several decades of fusion plasma research, it has been demonstrated conclusively that there is no earthly container that can sustainable house the pressure and temperatures of the sun.
It can only exit in space under enormous gravity.
The continued pursuit of this magical earthy container is a pipe dream.
Wrong I'm afraid my friend. Several containers here on Earth have sustained pressures and temperatures much higher than that experience by the sun.
@@terranspaceacademy
Really? Where are they?
Any plasma that touches the wall of any man made container is obliterated immediately. There is no material that can withstand a plasma over 100 million degrees and keep its integrity. Even tungsten, with a melting point of 6,192 degrees (F) and high valence electrons, cannot withstand these temperatures and requires a magnetic bottle to keep the plasma from coming in contact with it.
Unfortunately, magnetic confinement sucks. Since 1958 the concept has failed miserably. Billions of dollars and decades have proven that that the concept is a pipe dream. Yet they keep throwing good money after bad.
All forms of fusion arrangements have yet to achieve breakeven. The phony announcements of parity with inertial confinement is a fraud. Never including all the actual energy input into these experiments just to make misleading claims to obtain continued funding.
The proven, experimental fact is that meaningful, commercial, profitable fusion is not possible on earth. 😀
Magnetic bottles... Dr. Chang Diaz had a nice one in Houston that you can go see.
@@terranspaceacademy
Ok. I took a look. Nope.
He works on rocket propulsion. He's not a fusion researcher and his 'bottle' is to release ions / plasma directionally to move through space.
His rocket engine does not contain the sustained pressures and temperatures required for fusion.
I like the fuel pb11, still prefer the simplicity of Focus Fusion, but I have more hope for fusion with this types of approaches to fusion, then I do for TokaMac reactors and it’s twisted cousin.
The Rolls-Royce Mini reactor is basically submarine reactor so it seems like the same old thing repackaged and rebranded, which means you need breeder reactors to have enough of the right type of uranium fuel for everyone, why not go with Molten Salt Reactors in the first place and cut out all those extra steps.
MSR are the most promising fission reactors IMO, though im not sure how easy they would be to adapt to space use.
@@jamesowens7176
Yep I’m curious about that one as well, I’m trying to imagine a big molten sphere of Salt laced with thorium and uranium floating in Zero gravity.
If they can get Focus Fusion working, it’s perfect for a space, it’s small and needs no superconductors with all the cooling baggage that goes with that technology.
th-cam.com/video/6ajqD0hoOMw/w-d-xo.html&si=IC1WNe71IPCcqUJ5
@jamesowens7176
MSRs in space is perfectly possible... BUT... you have to use change in viscosity in conjuction with topological designs of the core chamber to get the full safety aspect.
What so I mean by that?
Two of the safety aspects of a liquid core are
1) you can rely on a liquid to go down a drain (in a gravity well) so you can engineer a drainage safety system --not everyone uses freeze plugs;
2) Hotter liquid expands (generally) and so you can design a core that only contains enough fissionable liquid to heat up only a certain amount: too hot and the iquid expands out enough that less material is in the core and it stops being as reactive, forcing the whole thing to cool.
In microgravity, safety feature 2 still works but feature 1 does not.
However, hotter liquids generally have less viscosity. Viscosity greatly effects capillary action (wicking). By designing the shape of the reactor core take advantage of this difference in wicking via difference in viscosity, you can control the movement of a liquid core in mocrogravity to a great extent. So much so that the design for a drain can be replaced with a high-flow viscosity wick for that extra layer of safety as well as to lower pump.power requirements.
@@bmobert
Yes the safety aspects of the MSR is very desirable, as well as it short life nuclear waist.
Your uses of capillary sounds interesting but not able to fully comprehend it’s Application, but less parts are mostly a good thing👍.
Just an odd idea if I might bounce off you, if it’s okay. If one could find a ferrous material that soluble to the molten salt and neutral to the nuclear reaction, could one simulate gravity to a certain extent by the uses of magnet 🧲, there’s other far-fetched ideals that extends this idea like controlling the shape and position of a free floating molten sphere in zero-G for controlling the nuclear reaction.
I think Copenhagen atomic has a pump that removes gases while pumping for the sake of corrosion protection that would definitely be useful in such a system, at least I think it was them.
@@YellowRambler
Unfortunately, magnetic fields interact very differently than gravity fields.
So, I am no expert, but I would guess: no.
HOWEVER... remember to ask yourself: what, specifically, are you trying to reproduce? Is it the ability to go down a drain? If so, make the liquid electrically conductive and expose it to electromagnetic fields to pulled it out the drain. Is it the separation of warmer from cooler parts of the liquid? Viscosity wicking, as described. Et cetera.
First step in all of engineering: specify, exactly, what you want to get done.
The short half life of nuclear waste in MSRs is more about the fuel cycle than the MSR design. MSR is not the only design that burns its fuel to high completion, resulting in low half-life waste.
However, remember that lower half life always means higher radioactivity. Long half life means low radioactivity. The lower the radioactivity, the less directly dangerous but the more indirectly dangerous.
I like shorter half life because can engineer containers for 300-500 years. But 10,000? 100,000 years? Probably not. Worse, tho, is that waste from current reactors become plutonium mines about 100 years after storage. Bad for proliferation.
This CEO knows how to tell a story. 🙂
I keep my fingers crossed for their success and thank you for today's lesson.
BTW. Answering your question in outro, we should pursue both technologies.
He does indeed. We must all hope for a breakthrough.
I wish i could see fusion in my lifetime, but im only 5 years old, and the average lifespan in my family is 105 years old. So I'll be well gone by the time theyre even close to producing it. But my great great great grandchildren might be around then, so good for them.
You are a funny dude
They'll have He3 going within ten years of getting back on the Moon with a good sized colony.
@@terranspaceacademy that would be pretty amazing. I wonder what day it's pretty good sized. I'm thinking 25 years but maybe longer if a war is involved
يأتي يوم يتحد به الذكاء الاصطناعي الكمومي والأندماج النووي في تشكيل مستقبل الأرض إلى الأفضل....❤
لا نملك إلا أن نأمل أخي .
I am all for continued fusion research because I feel the production of waste products weather they be chemical or nuclear should not be left for others in the future to deal with
26:58 Cheers
What is referred to as high level waste fron fission reactors is mostly unused fuel, just use that fuel.
And yes, we can do that and gain financial advantage by doing so, just change regulations to make them realistic.
Fast neutron reactors could use and burn away the waste.
@@terranspaceacademy True but the cost of developing such plants is high and of course the weapons grade Blutonium it's still an issue so why not simply use that 93,000,000 plant
at least for energy in our biosphere
Cheers
I say charge forward charge forward and if they get fusion, perfected use it
Absolutely.
كل شيء بالكون عبارة عن طاقة....
أو مهم...
Outstanding explanation of fusion and the TAE approach by their CEO. I can understand why the state of California is underwriting this project.
We think it has merit :-)
Man-made fission works, has worked for 70 years. Man-made fusion, always just a few years away. I think matter/antimatter energy will be used in space before man-made fusion.
Interesting... Scooping it up from the VA belts?
@@terranspaceacademy Yes, that would be the most available source, then later as we expand, the magnetic field around Jupiter.
It’s only 20 years away 🤣😎
So is the celestial doorway for some of us :-)
The more people trying to develop a working fusion reactor, the greater the chances someone will do it..I wish them all the best. If they can do it, a lot of our current problems will cease to be. No doubt it will have aerospace applications.
Fission R&D shouldn't stop...or work on solar power satellites. Never put all your eggs in one basket.
We agree. I think ITER absorbed enough money to get many other ideas off the ground.
I wonder how they will deal with the release of neutrons. I don't think anyone has mastered that problem yet
Very, very low level. Some water shielding should work fine.
I am hopeful they can crack the code! Imagine if they had the resources that ITER has....maybe TAE will show the world that it can be done!
I know! You could fund a thousand smaller innovative companies for what the ITER is costing.
I appreciate the info on TAE's technology! It's a very informative video about a company that was not even on my radar!
I'm with you: I think it's only a matter of time before "we" figure out fusion. BUT, I think we'd be best served to go ahead with our nuclear fission plans in the near future of spaceflight. Even when we do figure out terrestrial fusion, turning it into a viable propulsion means is still likely decades beyond that. NASA's current plans for Mars transit vehicle are in flux, but it's likely to contain both chemical and nuclear thermal propulsion modules (probably one on each end). But we've had fission power generation for decades, and are only now giving serious consideration to finally launching a nuclear thermal propulsion stage.
For terrestrial power, I see the promise and potential of fusion, but I think we need to be working at least as hard on molten salt fission reactors. My favorite (as always) is the molten chloride fast reactor, due to its inherent safety and unsuitability to extract weaponizable isotopes, and its ability to use existing highly radioactive waste as fuel.
As always, much appreciation for the hard work you put into bringing these lessons to us!
Thank you James!
I'LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT IT'S HYPE
At this point... China's rolling on thorium though.
The statement at 2:15, "Nature's preferred source for making energy" is totally non-scientific -- as long as you accept one of the basic tenets of science: energy can be neither created nor destroyed. If you changed the word "making" to "releasing", then you have a valid scientific statement; but we have to remember that just because it is a valid statement doesn't necessarily mean that it is correct.
That is just a word play, you can change matter to energy, this is the point of nuclear energy.
@@davidhenry5128
One of the greatest degradations of our age is that people have forgotten/not learned the value of precision in the words they use. As long as you are careless about your words and thoughts, you will be easily manipulated.
For example, in your statement you say: you can change matter to energy. Is this an accurate statement? Is matter actually different from energy or is it just condensed, "frozen" energy and you are simply creating the conditions under which a phase change can occur?
Nature makes energy from matter. The whole conservation of mass thing goes out the window when you talk nuclear. The mass changers and turns into energy ergo, it's made.
I've always thought that the Rolls-Royce approach is very important. I think we need to invest heavily in uranium salt reactors and then eventually moved to thorium. Fusion will be nice, but it may be 20 more years before it starts to be mature and reliable
It's always 20 years away.
Nuclear is not twenty years away, though you could say that about fusion perhaps, nuclear was here fifty years ago.
Should we have held out, bypassing all the damaging pollution of the steam era, and shot for the holy grail of stored energy? (Batteries). Nope. We had to learn the math before we could visit the machine shop. Rinse, tweak, and repeat is the path to the future.
:-)
Well... see ya in 2030. love to see it and how it not gonna melt and give more energy.
Hopefully we will my friend.
This was a great video! Thoroughly enjoyed it. I do get a little worried when the narrator starts talking about social justice and also mentions by-products of the research that will benefit electrical grid infrastructure, etc. Achieving a revolutionary level of social justice is bait for investment and by-products are fail-safes in case it doesn't work (or progress is much slower than promised). However, embracing the alternatives of never trying, never having faith, or never getting excited about the possibilities, would only lead to a rather bleak future. My first thought upon viewing the device was that it almost looks small enough to get into space!
Investors don't care about social justice, that's just business-sweet-talk. Neither does TAE care about actually making this energy available to everyone.
I agree. Meaningful investors wouldn't be swayed. Maybe some naive politicians or small investors if it went public, or maybe he threw in the "social justice" reference hoping to help generate a buzz about the research--yeah, "just business sweet talk." Reminded me of Musk talking about Optimus. I remember his putting in a line about how the robot would help create a world free from want. I thought he was getting a little carried away.
Some investors don't care about social justice. Many do. Or companies wouldn't try to play up to it. Eventually this planet WILL need a lot more power. People aren't going to live at a lower level if they can choose.
I want to see Thorium to U-233 breeder reactors too.
That would be amazing.
I think we need to not concentrate on one tech. We need to take care of the right now but keep the future in mind.
There are many companies working on competing ideas right now :-)
Finally harvesting Electrons from the Fusion Reaction. No more Steam Engine BS.
I love direct energy conversion!
The scale of our energy issues is hard to comprehend.
Even if you dont agree that climate change is happening or that humans have anything to do with climate change, we need to replace all our carbon emitting technology as quickly as possible: its bad for human health, causing billions of dollars worth of health issues and losing billions in economies around the world; oil is a finite resource that will run out, indeed peak oil very likely happened in the 2000s; the EROI on oil and coal have become atrocious, dragging the worlds economies down to the breaking point; the population implosion of the next decades will mean less workforce to keep this complex carbon-energy infrastructure going... the list goes on and on!!
We need to be pouring money and effort into as many options as we can find!! We need a poly-pronged approach to tackle this one, very difficult problem just to keep our energy gobbling system from collapsing out from under us as we try to replace it.
That means renewables with storage, modular fission of several types, multiple fusion projects and at least some experimentation into solar orbital beaming.
As far as I'm concerned, huge incentives should be given for homes, businesses, and municipalities to invest in photovoltaic installations and power storage, all plugged directly into the grid. This won't and can't make most individuals self-reliant for power, except for extreme examples, but it can greatly reduce stress in the electrical power infrastructure. Any other personal electric generation system --solar thermal, wind, hydro, whatever-- should also be heavily subsidized; and installations need to be standardized for safety and efficiency.
Speaking of efficiency: heat pump heating and cooling. That means laundry driers, water heaters and house-holds. Thirty percent of household energy is used to heat and cool, and heat pumps can do the job 3 to 5 times more efficiently, depending on the task.
Electrical power grids need upgrades. We've learned a lot since the '50s and '60s when we made the current set of standards, regulations, and equipment. We have more efficent and robust transformer designs, power lines, dielectric materials, and on and on. If we implement what we know into a better power grid, we can reduce power loss and give ourselves just a little more time to achieve the needed miracles.
Industrial manufacturing is not well served by renewable power, even in conjunction with storage. It needs industial, base-line power. For this i think fission is the rear-term solution.
I like MSRs, I like modular and I like thorium.
Regardless of what I like, we need high production, fast turn-around, quick installation, demonstrably extremely high safety (for political reasons), cheap fuel, small footprint and easily and quickly permittable. This tall order is achievable in time by several different proposals but we have to get them fully funded now. Right now. Immediately. We dont know for sure what will stick, so create a tiered funding program that pays out for demonstrative progress, the quicker, the better, within the framework of safety.
If I were to make bets, it would be on Elysium. But, that just me. There are many others in the race that look interesting too. Amazing, CANDU is actually rather impressive on many levels.
Once we can start getting gigawatts into the grid, we can start using some of that heat to make artificial hydrocarbons out of water and co2. This will ease some of the infrastructure transition stresses. Indeed, if i were the navy, I would court congress to fund the creation of nuclear submarine fuel cows meant to create artificial jet fuel, one or two for each carrier fleet. Once a week or so, she'd surface to fill up the oilers, who would then distribute the fuel t around the fleet. (All US navy ships that are not nuclear can burn jet fuel in their engines, or so Im told. CO2 collection is easier and more efficient from water than air. Submarines are harder to kill than surface ships. This my proposal.)
But fusion is the gold ring. (At least until we can make black holes of our own.) Fusion research should be funded to the hilt. Tiered, goal based funding, to be sure. But heavy funding, regardless. I wish my home state id California had funded an Heavy Ion Fusion system back when, instead of the high speed rail boondogle, for example.
There are fusion.projects galore and I'd fund them all, demanding proof of progress, certainly, but funding none the less.
More than you asked for. But, there you go.
That is very true. If everyone lives at the level of Europeans, let alone Americans, we need a lot more power.
Dust-free world, rust-free moon! Hope we see TAE fusion succeed ultimately, they are the best.
Otherwise I would hope for a combined Th232-MSR-fission and Fusion economy, where all the tritium of the reactors can be collected and safely burnt in one fusion-Reactor with little losses. Breeding Tritium fuel in a fusion reactor may be accompanied by harmful, substantial diffusion Losses. Tritium lost into the atmosphere will react to tritiated water and rain down and dissolve into the biosphere! A nightmare; see the problems from the Fukushima water-tanks. (as soon as 3H is in water no "purification" is possible;You can do nothing than: Dilution is the solution to Pollution)
Even the much anticipated CO2-neutral, "conventional, green" hydrogen-fuels economy will be plaged by losses, maybe as much as 50%. Methane for airplanes, propane, diesel and methanol for cars, and CarbonMonoxide in steel-making are the better (secondary, transportable, storable) fuel choices! Hydrogen is a "rocket" fuel in all aspects.
I would go that route too... I think we need RTG with thermovoltaics over a fusion fed (neutrons) thorium reactor that starts a bigger fusion reactor. Dr. Goldberg's design :-)
While it’s interesting your beautiful imagery, it highlights ESA- which is currently falling flat on its face. Are you trying to goose them to up their game maybe?
They need to be motivated :-) They have great CGI but very little in the sky! (Copyright 2023 Prof. Vox!)
Rabies not a concern? Rollo’s too quick to be bitten?
Rabies?
1960's 1960's Canada And Eastern US Blackout
There are national security issues with centrally distributed electrical power.
In the 1960s I was living in Canada, when a transformer in the grid distribution site in Buffalo failed. and most of eastern Canada and the eastern US went dark.
There were only two of these transformers available at that time and it would take many months, or even years to manufacture additional transformers.
A later security analysis pointed out that there are only a dozen distribution nodes around the US relying on this type of transformer and if they were sabotaged it would take months if not years to get the US electrical grid back up again
now consider if millions of businesses and homes, with solar and energy storage,as well as electric vehicles, it would be damn near impossible to shut it all down and this type of distributed power generation and storage would increase National security.
Unfortunately I rarely ever hear this brought up as the big disadvantage of centrally distributed power generation.
Another point is historically wars are often start over access to energy, such as recently the access to petroleum products.
If there is no need to secure importation of energy sources, I suspect it would greatly reduce the reasons for countries to go to war.
And an additional bonus would be that it would not only lower the cost of living, (the cost of energy is what drives inflation), the money consumers would save would give them a better quality of life and more spending power, which would drive the economy to greater heights, something that businesses would appreciate.
I believe the best solution would be a hybrid grid, combining most areas that could be supported locally together with distribution to take care of sudden loads or breakdowns, it's a flexible approach that would address the issues and reduce the vulnerability of sabotage.
Scientia Habet Non Domus,
(Knowledge Has No Home)
antiguajohn
Combine it with solar and battery and you have resilience.
This video was an absolute nothing burger with side of word salad 😂
Sorry you feel that way but Low Cal though I guess...
The minute he said "climate change & social justice"... I knew this was all a scam.
Yes of course. All a scam. We're all being paid off by Big Green! Still waiting for my check though...
What I think? Climate change and social justice, gage me. I guess it’s pointless to mention how the Mesozoic was on average 25 degrees C, the Holocene climate optimism, the Medieval Warm Period, and the Little Ice Age. Neither balloon data nor satellite data point to catastrophic global warming, but this guy carries on like it is as well established as the world is round. It’s annoying.
Molten salt thorium reactors are much further along and should probably be where our focus should be, before we have to buy them from China. Fission has always been the ultimate power source that was always 20 years into the future. Maybe these folks can pull it off, but I wouldn’t put all my eggs in their basket.
I'm sorry, but at this point climate change is as well established as the world being round. To deny it is to deny basic physics.
Technically the ocean level is a thermometer. 2/3 of current rise is from thermal expansion, and 1/3 from ice melting. Every phenomenon requires raise of themperature.
So global warming is a fact, the problem is in the narration only - it has minimal impact on our lifes and biosphere.
@@peceed hi, thanks for the reply. I agree, it has been warming since the Earth left the Little Ice Age somewhere between 1850 and 1875.
MTRs are very viable. And yes, the climate has warmed in the past. This time its on us and leading to mass extinction.