Nuclear fusion, explained for beginners
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 พ.ค. 2024
- What’s really going on with nuclear fusion?? @simonegiertz and I try to explain...
Get your own Oura ring (I got silver, if you want to match!): www.bit.ly/oura-cleo
PART 2 COMING SOON. Subscribe to see it: th-cam.com/users/cleoabram?sub...
You’ve probably heard about nuclear fusion. Maybe you've heard recent news about the Livermore National Lab achieving a nuclear fusion breakthrough called "ignition" - meaning it produced more energy than it took to start the reaction. That's a huge deal! But it leaves other questions unanswered. I wanted to know more.
I started by asking the CEO of the nuclear fusion company Helion all my big questions: What is nuclear fusion, really? I know it happens on the sun, but how can we do it on earth? Are we doing it already? Then, I ask one last question: “I’ve heard about kids building fusion reactors in their moms’ garage… if fusion is so hard… what are THEY doing?” The answer sets off the most fun and ambitious Huge If True episode yet.
It turns out that you can actually BUILD a nuclear fusion device. So I team up with my friend Simone Giertz to try. When something goes wrong, it turns into an explainer on what’s really going on with the world’s most-hyped energy source.
Special thanks to Jessie, Ron and Joben at Helion for helping set up such an exciting shoot (and not giving up!). And thank you to Anna Bresnahan for helping shoot this episode!
Chapters:
00:00 We tried to build a nuclear fusion reactor
03:07 What IS nuclear fusion?
04:51 Thank you, Oura!
05:31 How close are we to nuclear fusion?
07:30 How does nuclear fusion work?
08:31 How does the sun do fusion?
09:21 Magnetic confinement fusion
09:52 Inertial confinement fusion
10:37 Magneto-inertial confinement fusion
11:01 What does fusion LOOK like?
12:03 Why CAN'T we do fusion?
13:33 Why do we need fusion?
Correction:
07:48 In plasma, one or more electrons are torn free from an atom (as opposed to protons and neutrons themselves being "broken into bits"!)
Sources and further reading:
- Watch more from Simone here: / simonegiertz
- The Star Builders: Nuclear Fusion and the Race to Power the Planet, by Arthur Turrell: www.amazon.com/Star-Builders-...
- The Future of Fusion Energy, by Jason Parisi and Justin Ball: www.amazon.com/Future-Fusion-...
- Atomic Awakening: A New Look At The History And Future Of Nuclear Power, by James Mahaffey: www.amazon.com/Atomic-Awakeni...
- Principles Of Fusion Energy: An Introduction To Fusion Energy For Students Of Science And Engineering: www.amazon.com/Principles-Fus...
- “Nuclear fusion power inches closer to reality,” Washington Post: www.washingtonpost.com/techno...
- “Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy,” BBC: • Major breakthrough on ...
- “Fusion Power Explained: Future or Failure,” Kurzgesagt: • Fusion Power Explained...
- “How Helion’s approach to fusion works” • Helion's approach to f...
- “We Went Inside the Largest Nuclear Fusion Reactor, The B1M: • We Went Inside the Lar...
- “Why Private Billions Are Flowing Into Fusion,” Bloomberg: • Why Private Billions A...
Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! www.dropbox.com/request/Edocs...
You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: / cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: / cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: / cleoabram
Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a host and producer of Vox’s TH-cam Originals show, Glad You Asked. She now makes her own independent show, Huge If True. Each episode takes on one big technology innovation or idea, explains what it is, and helps people imagine the ways it could improve the world we live in by answering one simple question: If this works, what could go right?
Vox: www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/
Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16-35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro
Music: Musicbed
Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: th-cam.com/users/cleoabram?sub...
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Welcome to the joke down low:
How does a nuclear physicist ask for a salary increase?
Gamma rays.
Find a way to use the word “rays” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one ;)
Good riddance to the person that stole those packages! Can’t wait to see what they use it for 😂
Thank you Simone and Cleo for being awesome role models for girls everywhere. You are both amazingly talented and intelligent women!
Hey from the "misshapen metal bits" comment it sounds like it was your grid that was stolen? I built a fusor as my bachelor thesis at uni, and it was actually really easy to make prototype grids by hand with just stainless steel thread. Also from my experience you might benefit from more "spokes" on your grid.
probably change the world by making a fusion that works and gives more energy
Evil Iron Man suit?
Good thing that stuffs totally not trackable.
As a nuclear engineer, I’m in AWE that you got the CEO of Helion on here! That’s so cool, id love to work for helion I’m so happy you met him
well if you were that sexy im sure he would meet you too haha... :(
At 8:00 you refer to plasma as the disassociation of neutrons, protons, and electrons; however, (in this context) plasma is when the electrons are stripped from the nucleus (ionized) while the protons and neutrons remain bound to each other. I really enjoy your videos.
really enjoy watching the video! But this needs to be corrected or annotated.
Hey, thanks! I've added a correction here, and it should appear as a little info card in the video there: "07:48 In plasma, one or more electrons are torn free from an atom (as opposed to protons and neutrons themselves being "broken into bits"!)"
There were other tiny errors too but there is no need for me to be pedantic it was a goood introduction for anyone not too familiar.
@@CleoAbram There's something wrong with that info card. All I can see is little "ⓘ" symbol on top left but it only says "(null)" when I try to interact with it.
Also at 7:48, when you say that you don't find plasma in a kitchen it made me ask my self if flames or neon lights are plasma. If it is the case then you might have plasma in your kitchen 😉
It's been so much fun watching and seeing some skills that you obviously developed at Vox, but now also storytelling and style and voice that is definitely uniquely yours. Loving the quality of this content and watching it evolve with every new episode!
Don't like breaking the fourth wall, it was fine when som people where doing that, now everyone doing this, and it's enjoying, ruins storytelling.
Reminds me of organizational structure of guilds. Cleo, in my eyes, has gone through an Apprenticeship, Journeyman, and is Master of the video journalism craft. I feel she can have a successful lifelong career with this. Especially if she can bottle her success and market it to others in her trade of video journalism. Beautiful work Cleo, Ill be sharing your work with my students.
Best part is, it’s not political
Awesome working with you on this one - we can’t wait to see the fusor built in Part 2!
is the fusor going to be implementing a FRC configuration?
i wonder if its possible to control a farnsworth fusor with an arduino? and what kind of sensors it would need for the whole contraption to actually sustain itself?
i've looked into these little fusors for quite the while but never had the guts or the money to build one
You guys rock, so many clever people coming at this problem from so many different angles I'm sure something will stick :)
Why is it pink?
Great video Cleo! Thank you!
Hello @HelionEnergy! Amazing tech. Godspeed!
I'm curious what your take is on "climate change"? I suspect your probably "all-in" for obvious reasons. I ask bc despite it's near ubiquity these days, there appears to be a number of fundamental problems with the theory - esp. regarding carbon dioxide.
The true answers to a few questions provide what anyone interested should know about CO2/Earth climate; what was the maximum CO2 level in the past? What is the "ideal" CO2 level for plants? What is the minimum CO2 level for plants?
The current CO2 level in relation to the "true answers" to those questions tells everything one needs to know about what "the consensus" believes causes climate change. I encourage anyone interested to repeat the process. It's well worth it. Very enlightening!
PS, I say "true answers to a few questions" bc the BS is everywhere! From all sides of the debate. The politics attached to this issue are pathetic and sad.
Cleo has said that one of the goals of her channel is to give people informed reasons for hope and optimism.
Watching her learn how to say “nuclear proliferation” made me feel like anyone can do anything.
(Also, Simone is the best, can’t wait for the build.)
I'm the first to comment on how fantastic Cleo's vids are becoming. I really appreciate your hard work and dedication.
thank you!! I really appreciate it. I love making them, and there's so much more we can do.
Very informative, definitely subscribing
Hey, I’m a PhD student at the uk’s national lab for fusion. Just wanted to say that this is a really good introductory video to fusion and explains very difficult concepts well in a short space of time
I just came across your channel about a week ago and WOW your videos are genuinely so amazing. The pacing, the storytelling, the editing, everything. It feels somehow both incredibly professional and conversational at the same time. Can't wait to see where you take this channel!
This is so great! I really enjoyed watching two of the biggest nerds I follow online geek out together ☺️
Shame on the TH-cam algorithm for taking until today to let me know Cleo had her own channel! Great video, informative, entertaining, and flows nicely through the facets of the topic. I'm looking forward to digging into the rest of them!
The editing flow you have, where you jump out of the frame to the editor and explain things - I really really like it. You always seem to manage to do it at times to explain the stuff that I'm thinking.
Also it is great to see some underlying themes from the channel show through on different videos. You mentioned about the possibilities of having unlimited energy back in your clean energy video and the idea of reducing being mis-stated. I'm really looking forward to seeing the video in another 6 months and where things might lead.
Congrats on the explanation, I loved this 101 on fusion. Thank you!
Some of the issues that fusion systems are experiencing are how to overcome the great complexity of engineering challenges required to maintain a running fusion system. The systems being developed now only last for a very small blip of a second.
I believe the more experiments we can do on a smaller scale (just as you did) the greater the ingenuity we can throw at the engineering difficulties of constructing a running fusion system and the faster we can achieve a sustainable outcome.
Build small fusion kits in many Labs and Unis. Start playing with our ingenuity in problem-solving and experimenting faster. Unleash our most powerful weapon; a network of minds.
Something we need to remember is that having the culture to play with ideas and methods is just as powerful in problem-solving as building a massive methodical laboratory process.
Hi Cleo I work for an R&D center in Mexico. I'm really impressed for your communication ability to describe Physics fundamentals with ease. Many thanks! I'm your fan now.
As someone who has been working in this field for some time now, its nice to see one of the creators I follow doing a video about it! Fusion is hard but the recent batch of experimental results gives me hope.
You should look into deep geothermal. It holds 90% as much promise for cheap electricity, but it's relatively simple tech and only a couple of years away. It doesn't get enough press, I don't know why.
The potential answer to deep geothermal is ironically a fusion technology that uses the super powered microwave system used for heating plasma to drill in the deep layers. Large scale test in 2024 by Quaise Energy!
Obviously the video was good, the way you tell story, all the editing and the play with camera that's all amazing. The topic was little blurred but I guess waiting for part 2 will be worth it.
There's often some cynicism when people build "garage fusors", maybe in part because it's often linked to slightly overhyped articles about "genius teens".
However -- too many people think that the goal of hobby engineering projects is to end up with an original invention, or a functional product.
The important bit is the knowledge, the skills, the insights gained along the way!
Projects like these inspire people to learn more about physics, visit makerspaces, work on their own projects, or even convince kids to get STEM degrees, which is a major win!
I’m a high school STEM teacher. My chem class is doing nuclear chemistry right now, so I’m showing this to them. I may show it to my engineering class as well. I wish I could easily coordinate it with my algebra and geometry classes, but I’ll see most of them in chem.
P.s. Whenever I face similar mispronunciation proliferations, I either switch to easier-to-say and/or smaller words: weaponization, militarization or arming all work pretty well. Complete ideas like “runaway military repurposing,” “exponential arms propagation,” and “uncontrolled weapons development,” all express proliferation people better than the obscure word itself (to most people).
Ok, now I can't wait to see part 2, I loved this video, your organization of the parts and editing.
The subject is very interesting and I hope you are having a lot of fun with the building with Simone. You two are awesome
More collabs like these with Simone please. This was awesome. Two of you are really great at what you do.
Not gonna lie - as a physicist, whenever journalists try to talk about physics it usually makes me cringe pretty hard .
But this video was actually really competent and got almost everything right, well done!
I absolutely LOVE that ad timer in the upper left that tells us what you're saying is an ad. Wish everyone did that on TH-cam... much respect for you.
I love your way of storytelling, Cleo. Keep on doing what you do
The colab we all wanted but don't deserve
TH-cam colabs are the best... I only binge watch TH-cam.
Love the video, kinda wish you had mentioned ITER as this is the experiment that will tell us if tokamak reactors can work at scale as a power plant. Maybe your friendly ceo asked you not to as that's a competing technology. Perfectly understandable if so!
Loved to see that stellerator picture too!
I'm an engineer for UW Madison Plasma Physics where we're currently building WHAM, an axisymmetric mirror using next generation high-temperature superconducting magnets. We're a much smaller team than HELION, ITER, etc., but we will still be making groundbreaking discoveries in the next couple years. We hope to make first plasmas by summer 2023! Reach out if you want to learn more; we don't have the publicity of these larger experiments, but you can find out more be searching for 'Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror'.
I really love how cleo goes entirely against the masses here saying "hey, the problem is not using too much energy, it is having too little". It's something I have believed in for a long time, and I am not alone with this.
kardashev scale my man, the one true measurement stick for civilization ;)
It's magical thinking though. The lack of time and resources we have makes it so that we can't just innovate and consume our way out. Fusion is actually a good example of something that's theoretically possible but may very well not be applicable or scalable to help much. It's why believers have to rely on erroneous fluffy notions like, 'we did other electricity stuff before.'
@@snizami I'm with you on Fusion not being a thing. It's often hard for me to understand cleo's optimism, but she geht's some fore Points right.
@@christianschmitt2409 it's just a very troublesome kind of optimism to have when facing such a crisis. The 'Don't Look Up' kind. I think the video that started it all is an even better example. Recall the example of adding insulation vs having abundant energy such that we won't even need to insulate. Insulation is a known, practical, lasting solution that effectively acts at least as well as adding extra energy to the equation. Why! Why undermine realistic and urgent mitigating requirements with mirage like hopes of abundant energy just over the horizon? The polished graphics presented by a skillful and seemingly well meaning person makes it all the more worrying.
@@snizami that's a good point. Not adding insulation would be rather stupid. however, having abundant energy doesn't have to stop us from doing that. Energy will still not be free. and I totally see optimism being dangerous in this time. at any time, really.
It's crazy that the main caveat of not getting more energy out than we put in has already been solved just two months after this video was posted
By who?
@@RedaKadem The US department of energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
@@magicvibrations5180 well, it's still tentative. For actual practical use, it still needs to be about a 100 times more efficient and we need to be able to reproduce it at a much faster rate, but we're getting there!
@@shirshajitsingha7567 not even close. 300 units in, 3 out. sounds like a giant gulf to me.
@@magicvibrations5180 Magnetic confinement reactors (tokamaks and stellarators) are much closer to commercial power generation though. The DEMO reactor planned to be built after ITER will most likely already be able to actually put power into the grid.
Small correction, in a plasma the neutrons and protons don't separate. It's just the electrons that stop orbiting the nucleus
The quality of your videos gets better and better everytime! I'm loving it! The writing, the editing, the animations, you're killing it!
Truly inspiring and intuitively conveying information.
It's also amazing seeing the video quality and Polishness (no idea if that's a word) ramping up over the past year.
Not trying to be a party pooper or anything, but this is all over the place. It's like a dream. Airplane, banana, elephant, green box, shake the camera and then switch the music again and someone says something random. Just stay on topic and don't try too hard with the effects.
I really had the felling that with this video I am not a step ahead but a step backwards it doesn't bring me nothing new but maybe it's good for a younger audience... but Simone is great! She explains well and she built a chair for dogs that always want to sit next to us!? Fantastic! That's really cool I subscribed her channel!! Thank you Simone! 🙂🙂
Great video as always. Especially love the editing style - the inclusion of the actual premiere files as a transition is a cool additional. Goes a long way to show the transparency and authenticity you show through the wider process.
Great channel and content. Looking forward to part 2.
As a physics researcher in Caltech, Plasma isn't a cloud of subatomic particles like protons and neutrons, its just a gas of mostly charged cations and electrons
Here we go :
proliferation
/prəlɪfəˈreɪʃn/
I am more excited about what MIT is trying to do with geothermal energy than Fusion. Geothermal energy is a well proven technology. MIT is just working on the technology to be able to drill deeper than we currently can. That will allow us to utilize geothermal energy anywhere on earth. On top of that they say it can be used on existing coal and natural gas power plants to generate endless clean energy
Great video! But don't do clickbait like that... By that standard I also tried to build a fusion reactor in my kitchen. I just happened to have five extra packages missing.
Ladies, you are just amazing and your contents are addictively well made!!!!!!!
Simone is one of the most delightful people on the Internet. But honestly, if I ever ran into her walking around LA, I think I'd be even more excited about meeting Scraps.
You have some great ideas that I love seeing, and the talents and skills to tell a compelling story. I really appreciate you even showing your mistakes in a funny way. I can't wait to see part two!
The quantity of videos are just 📈📈📈
I’m 100% behind continuing to research fusion reactors. Just not at the cost of slowing down our deployment of other tech like solar and wind.
Like you said in the video, it feels like fusion has “almost been a thing” for a long time. There’s just too much risk that we never really manage to get it to work so we shouldn’t put all our eggs in that basket.
Plasma physics PhD student here! I LOVED THIS VIDEO! Thank you for shedding light on fusion research :) Good Luck!
This channel is fantastic! I wish I had heard of it before! Thanks Simone for bringing me here, I always go to TH-cam to laugh at something, but you two are making me smarter by all means 😂😂😂
ITER is a test reactor in France which may show that it can produce more energy than it consumes in fusion. You could add that in Part 2. Although we are at the beginning of a long journey, there are already reactors that can produce a Plasma.
😁
Dont try this at home!
Buuut moooom
Can't wait to see you and Simone build an Electric Field confinement Fusion Reactor!
Because that's the only easy way to do Fusion, where you just make a very strong spherical electric field, and all the charged particles oscillate back and forth between the walls and collide with each other in the center.
It just takes _WAY_ more energy to run it compared to the output, but it's a very good neutron source! (be careful with the radiation please)
(I just started with my Master's in "Science & Technology of Nuclear Fusion" :) )
Just look up the Farnsworth Fusor. And yes, the Farnsworth name was given to the professor in Futurama. :) I made one with some PVC pipes, a small vacuum pump, and a 10kv sign transformer. It only made plasma, but it was working.
You could use a Bell jar if you want. If you do start to fuse material, be careful, they can spit out x-rays.
Sublimation skips a phase change when you add more energy . Love seeing new people get involved, and build something cool .
I can't help but to think the CEO looked alot like Dr Octopus, just younger... and they both loved the idea of sun on earth
About 15 years, I was thinking about building one. It was large amount of power (that will definitely kill you) that made me think twice about it.
Actual title: We TALK about building a nuclear fusion reactor.
13:32 - That's a very good point and I am glad your friend mentioned it.
Girls like these drive me crazy. They're smart enough to want to be with but too smart to be with me. Excellent work
This is the first time I come across your channel. I just want to say that I really enjoy your channel and unique creative and narrative style. It's also great to see women sharing their passion for science :) Thank you, I learned a lot.
Clean, affordable, abundant energy would fundamentally change the world. Looking forward to part two!
Why do people assume it's going to be affordable
I've just discovered your channel, it's fantastic! Thank you, the world needs more creators like you. :)
We don’t need to recreate a fusion reactor when the sun is literally the biggest fusion reactor in space. We just need solar and storage 😂
yep, they are idiots...
The choice to show the editing software, and zip in and out of the frames was brilliant. Gives an interesting connection to the video.
Literally two of my absolute favourite educational TH-camrs in a single video? Sign me up!!!
Fusion is fascinating. Especially to those here.
A very early idea I had was to put D&T in a hollow sphere and charge the sphere positive. Nuclei don't repel to the center as I may want because the cross section area of a samplng cone increases with the square of the distance while repulsion decreases with its square simultaniously so there is no preference for the center.
After years I changed the goal. The new goal is to balance away the the nuclear repulsion separating the D&T nuclei Maybe a foam metallic glass sphere having very small precisely spherical hollows is the answer. The hollows may be defined by lithium microspheres. Spray the grounded sphere with Positively charged ions of interest.
Aloha
Also Fusion combines atoms (as in FUSE atoms together), and fission divides atoms (like a fissure), easiest way to remember the difference, one fuses, one creates a fissure.
Since you asked us to show a way to use the word rays, i am writing this. Hope this gives me a raise among the people who still havent figured out what i am talking about.
The proliferation issue is pretty complicated but that was a nice way to say why “controlled fusion” can’t be used to make a bomb.
Fission has a tendency to produce smaller amounts of more energetic materials. This is because the freed subatomic particles need somewhere to go. A freed proton might join up with some heavy uranium. The product of hydrogen fusion is helium… a necessary element for chip manufacturing that is becoming scarce.
Simone: There's an easy way to remember which is fusion vs. fission.
When you weld 2 pieces of metal together, you "fuse" them into 1.
That's where Fusion gets its name. It "fuses" 2 atoms into 1.
This was a great video, and I can't wait to see the fusor working, I'm rather jealous:)
Just a couple more quick additions.
I think the biggest problem we see with people thinking that "fusion is always 30 years away", is that it's presented as a binary. It's either here now, or it's not. What gets lost is the enormous amount of progress that has been made. In your aviation analogy, we are far beyond the point of strapping some leather/canvas to your arms and jumping off of a cliff. We're probably more in the Wright Brothers era: It can be done, in small bursts. It's not practical yet, but as long as we can keep progressing, it will be quite soon.
Consider ITER: We are right now building a fusion reactor that will at its core produce around 10 times as much energy as is put in. It's still a research reactor, so it has other inefficiencies and problems, but it's focused on the core tech. Testing out combining a bunch of theories, advances, etc. A critical theory it is expanding on is simply that "Tokamak" style fusion reactors get more and more efficient the larger they are. So far this is the case, but will it continue? Just a few of the other key things it is testing are production of Tritium and how different materials handle the harsh environment inside the reactor.
My final parting thought on Fusion is rather simple: We should be putting a large effort into making it a reality, because it is the ONLY future power option we have. Solar, wind, coal, natural gas, wave, etc. are all on a different scale, and are already in the ballpark of their maximum potential. If we are to have any hope for a greater future, including but not limited to real space travel, we HAVE to make fusion work. The only other 2 comparable power technologies are Fission ( which unfortunately people refuse to use, and is a whole extra discussion ), and Anti-Matter ( which is more of a battery, since we have no natural source of it. )
You guys are so awesome!!! I originally wrote a long drawn out explanation of the many ways you did that, but after reading YOUR AWSOME sums it. Please keep up the great work and I look forward to seeing more great things from you two in the future
Pink Panther Superhero with the Superpower of Fusion Energy
With that title you should know people are expecting to actually see something built.
I love your communication style which fits so nicely with Simone as well. Great video and I’m looking forward to Part 2.
I think it's really interesting to ponder "what happens when we have (effectively) free energy?" I think it's gonna open up entirely new problems around scaleability - we are, after all, still constrained with the raw materials to work with on this one planet. Transforming those resources without energy constraints...well, it seems to just move the constraint in the equation. But still, of course, I think it's a pretty great trade-off to where we are right now!
It's really cool that fusion has now been done with more energy released than was put into it 🤩
I hope the package thief is struck by plasma "rays"
I look forward to the jokes at the footer of your descriptions now
I love the organization and integration of the editing timeline into the video to help navigate the narrative
A really fun think about Fusion, is that with cheap and abundant energy we can do other fun things. Like putting a Butt-ton of energy into reacted chemicals and reverse the process, such that the chemical reaction can re-react latter. So not the Fallout Universe future with fusion reactors everywhere, but like petrol-batteries.
Woahhh that was inspiring! Amazing work Cleo, can't wait to see what you and Simone make
I watched a video about Helion’s fusion project a few weeks ago and now this project is like the icing on the cake! To watch two smart people do something they haven’t done before!
I understand the studies behind fusion energy and I respect it, why wouldn’t we just use Solar since the Sun is the biggest creator of Fusion energy?
Or we try many different things...and anyways they do talk about the sun....did you not watch?
Knowing Simone that reactor is probably going to be one hell of a popcorn maker.
at 6:31 when the ceo talks about using fusion to perhaps add some more energy. That is an understatement. In thermonuclear bombs, fusion releases orders of magnitude more energy than the fission portion. The fission bomb serves the purpose to 'ignite' the uncontrolled fusion process - yes, it is that difficult. Fission bombs doesn't release enough energy to destroy the world,. The thermonuclear bombs, on the other hand, can alter geological feature - create large craters, take a chunk off of a mountain etc... If you look at the five permanent members of the UN security council: US, Russia, China, UK and France, they all have one thing in common - every country has thermonuclear weapons.
btw, because the fusion process is so hard to initiate and maintain, the chance of nuclear meltdown event is much lower.
Pretty sure Cleo and Simone will be the ones to solve fusion.
15:08 At least you didn't say nook-ya-lur. That's really good.
The ceo looks like Dr.Octavius who was also trying to do nuclear fusion !! 🤯
It's only a matter of time until we are able to stabilize fusion plasma for extended amounts of time, but sadly the prejudice against fission sets back the development of fuision despite fusion actually holding this huge potential for (compareatively) clean, sustainable and effecient energy!
Also in regards to space travel!
Wow! The production value and creativity of the edit are leading. Congrats and you've got me hooked for part 2.
7:50 plasma is when electrons are abstracted from nuclear centers. It's not dissociation of all subatomic particles. You won't have individual protons and neutrons floating around (except for the edge case of 1H where the nucleus is a single proton). One way to think of it is that it's a hot enough state for the electromagnetic force to be overcome so electrons that would otherwise orbit nuclei at lower temperatures are able to float freely around... or they'll be moving to fast to remain in orbit around those nuclei. A temperature could be reached in which the nuclear forces could be overcome, but that would be trigger a new phase change past the electromagnetic plasma to a baryon-photon plasma (in which nuclei have fallen apart). The universe at large was in this state for the first 300,000 years after the big bang and temperature would be somewhere around a billion Kelvin. For the simple electromagnetic plasma for fusion, we're usually talking temperatures around 20,000 Kelvin.
Jeeez you do some really cool stuff with this channel Cleo, tbh it's really motivating to push myself in my own way to do something cool
40 years I worked in a physics lab where they did research on laser heating of plasma. So we are 40 years on with little progress. Also I was told that the nuclear waste of a fusion reactor is also huge, due to the enormous size of the core holding the plasma. Which will become radioactive due to particles hitting it…
Well, I wouldn't say "there's a controversy in the [fusion] community about which materials would scale." It's actually pretty clear that it would be easiest using deuterium (heavy water that's abundant in ocean water) and tritium which can be bred from lithium. The whole helium-3 thing is a much more remote option, because it's *much much* harder to get it to do fusion.
What really gets me is that scientists have been working on harnessing fusion power since the 1950s and we still don't have a working reactor! Considering the urgency, why don't we have a Manhattan project to develop it???
I already use Fusion.. It’s from Gilette, my razor 🪒 blade
lol
This channel is such a gem.
An interesting project and what a wonderful duo! I'm looking forward to seeing more from you two.
After you've got fusion figured out, can you do a bioreactor next? The carbon-capturing kind? Thanks!
“Fusion is not 20 years in the future.
It’s 50 years in the past - and we missed it.”
In the 80's I heard that nuclear fusion was about 25 years away. I think that's still the case.
I just found your channel and I have to say, brilliant explanation with so crisp editing, looking forward to see more from you!
BTW, there is a common instance of plasma states: electrical sparks. They show several of the qualities of plasma: they're really slippery & hard to control and very responsive to magnetic fields.
Recently, a group of people was able to gain energy from fusion (a small amount, but still progress!)