Great interview and great facts such as Larmor radiuses and chilly 200k degree tokamak edge temperatures! I have looked up some unbelievable fusion facts when I heard a stat on the speed of ions in a tokamak and realized fusion is almost too cool to describe. Subject to mistakes on my part: Tokamaks - deuterium ions spin around a tokamak chamber 90,000 times a second, the ITER central magnet will induce a current in the plasma with the amperage of 500 lightning bolts, the SPARC magnets can hold 2/3rds of a lightning bolt's amperage with the wattage cost of a lightbulb (except for the big watts to keep them cool) General Fusion - their demonstration plant under construction will hammer the secondary pistons in the walls with primary pistons with the combined weight of two Eiffel towers at 100 mph Helion - their FRC plasmas are shot at each other with a combined speed 7 times faster than a lightning bolt (also true of TAE), their energy conversion is up to 90% efficient in theory and the magnetic crunch of 10 tesla has enough force to lift 100 Statues of Liberty NIF - their laser delivers 25 times the Earth's steady state energy production rate for 10 billionths of a second, the record laser fusion shot had a power equivalent to 40 billion simultaneous home run hits but happened so fast that the total energy was 'only' that of 8000 fully hit home run balls, their fusion shots of the last year were the first time in history that fusion fuel released more energy than was directly absorbed by the fuel other than in explosions triggered by fission bombs (you can google "gonzo fusion reactor descriptions" for the reddit posts on r/fusion)
When will we get usable fusion? We did it! For decades it took more energy going in than what came out but we've finally reversed that! I'm so excited for a promising future and can only hope that we get this new energy to replace all of our carbon energies before the point of no return.
Fair point. It's just a start. On the other hand, we've only unlocked new types of energy a single digit number of times in human history, so they'll still deserve credit for that.
![ค้างคืนโรงเก็บกระสวยอวกาศร้างกลางทะเลทราย [Around The World Ep. 3]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E5bWZQhABJE/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for having a fun and informative science show (with out any swearing and other off-topic topics). A show I can and do recommend.
Thanks for recommending the show! Glad that you are enjoying it.
Great interview and great facts such as Larmor radiuses and chilly 200k degree tokamak edge temperatures!
I have looked up some unbelievable fusion facts when I heard a stat on the speed of ions in a tokamak and realized fusion is almost too cool to describe. Subject to mistakes on my part:
Tokamaks - deuterium ions spin around a tokamak chamber 90,000 times a second, the ITER central magnet will induce a current in the plasma with the amperage of 500 lightning bolts, the SPARC magnets can hold 2/3rds of a lightning bolt's amperage with the wattage cost of a lightbulb (except for the big watts to keep them cool)
General Fusion - their demonstration plant under construction will hammer the secondary pistons in the walls with primary pistons with the combined weight of two Eiffel towers at 100 mph
Helion - their FRC plasmas are shot at each other with a combined speed 7 times faster than a lightning bolt (also true of TAE), their energy conversion is up to 90% efficient in theory and the magnetic crunch of 10 tesla has enough force to lift 100 Statues of Liberty
NIF - their laser delivers 25 times the Earth's steady state energy production rate for 10 billionths of a second, the record laser fusion shot had a power equivalent to 40 billion simultaneous home run hits but happened so fast that the total energy was 'only' that of 8000 fully hit home run balls, their fusion shots of the last year were the first time in history that fusion fuel released more energy than was directly absorbed by the fuel other than in explosions triggered by fission bombs
(you can google "gonzo fusion reactor descriptions" for the reddit posts on r/fusion)
Pretty cool stuff. Thanks so much for sharing!
When will we get usable fusion? We did it! For decades it took more energy going in than what came out but we've finally reversed that! I'm so excited for a promising future and can only hope that we get this new energy to replace all of our carbon energies before the point of no return.
The Q-value is a funny measure. Imaging a coal plant bragging that they are getting much more energy out than it took to ignite the coal.
Fair point. It's just a start. On the other hand, we've only unlocked new types of energy a single digit number of times in human history, so they'll still deserve credit for that.
But don't call a plasma physicist a nuclear physicist.