The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 424. Common Ground on Climate and Nuclear Energy ｜ Dr. Dennis Whyte

00:00:00.940 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

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00:00:57.420 Hello everyone. I had the privilege today to speak with Dr. Dennis White, who, like me, is a denizen of a small town in western Canada, a small prairie town.

00:01:18.780 Be that as it may, he's also one of the world's foremost authorities on nuclear fission and has been at the spearhead of both technical and commercial projects to make fusion technology a reality.

00:01:32.760 And fusion offers the opportunity, essentially, if it can be mastered, of unlimited energy and potentially at a low cost.

00:01:41.040 So it's the ultimate in transformative technologies.

00:01:44.280 We talked about the fact, too, that the fusion revolution, which has been promised, let's say, for decades, which isn't that long a time frame, all things considered,

00:01:53.760 is now being facilitated by tremendous advances in materials technology and computational technology.

00:02:01.640 And that just last year, there was one variant of fusion technology that produced, for the first time, more energy than it consumed, which is a milestone on the pathway towards true commercial viability.

00:02:13.960 And so we talk a lot about exactly what fusion energy is, how it differs from standard nuclear energy, where we are in the process to transitioning, let's say, to the kind of future that would be endless clean energy at an extraordinarily low price, right?

00:02:29.380 And that really brings with it the possibility of lifting all the remaining poor people in the world out of poverty, if we could just get that right.

00:02:36.760 So it's a fairly technical discussion.

00:02:38.920 It'll be very appealing to you, engineering and science types.

00:02:41.600 But for everybody who's interested in the issue of energy more broadly and the science fiction reality that the world is about to become, then follow along with us.

00:02:51.840 So thank you very much, Dr. White, for agreeing to talk to me today.

00:02:55.880 We might as well jump right in.

00:02:57.320 And I think the thing we could do for our viewers and listeners that would be most useful to begin with is to tell them, is for you to tell them what fusion energy is and how that differs from standard nuclear energy.

00:03:11.360 Just like a rationale for the pursuit of fusion energy and a place and placing of it in the proper context with regard to our pursuit of advanced energy and reliable energy supplies.

00:03:24.620 Right. So fusion is the process of fusing together the most abundant and the lightest element, hydrogen, into heavier elements.

00:03:37.420 So it actually changes the element.

00:03:40.340 And this is the process that powers the universe because it powers all stars, including our own sun.

00:03:48.220 And you can think of a star, our own sun.

00:03:50.620 It's a big conversion factory.

00:03:53.280 It's like a standard burner in the sense that it takes the huge masses of hydrogen that the sun is made out of and in the center of it, where the conditions meet the requirement for fusion, it converts the hydrogen into helium.

00:04:08.780 And by that process, it releases staggering amounts of energy per reaction.

00:04:16.500 So, you know, usually when I comment in public about fusion, it's like, so fusion makes life possible in the universe because it's the radiant heat that comes from stars that makes life possible in a place like the planet Earth.

00:04:32.700 So it is the, you think of it, it's the quintessential or fundamental energy source of the universe.

00:04:40.460 That's, that's the starting point.

00:04:42.680 So it distinguishes, why is it such an effective energy source?

00:04:47.340 It's because it changes the element, right?

00:04:50.660 So what happens is that if you take the mass of those starting particles of this before you fuse them together, they have larger mass than the particles that result from this.

00:05:02.700 And you go, but how can that be?

00:05:04.140 Because we all learned in school that, you know, mass cannot be destroyed or created.

00:05:08.700 But this is what Einstein realized was that, in fact, mass and energy are the same thing.

00:05:13.480 And then when you convert them in these processes, you end up with energy.

00:05:18.640 And it's, it's, it's hard to imagine how much of a different process this is than either fission or standard chemical reactions, which is basically what we run the world on today.

00:05:29.420 And in terms of, in terms of comparing it to chemical energy, the average energy released per reaction or per massive particle is about 10 million times larger.

00:05:42.080 That's some amazing, right?

00:05:44.280 So this, this is what, this is why stars in our own sun can last for 10 billion years.

00:05:49.680 I mean, there's an enormous amount of hydrogen in the sun, but if it was running on a chemical process, like burning hydrogen, like you would think of in a fuel cell or something like that, it would only last for a few thousand years.

00:06:01.320 It lasts for 10 billion years.

00:06:02.840 That's the difference between them.

00:06:04.260 And with respect to fission, it's actually, there's a relation there in the sense that fission changes the elements as well, too, but it's literally the opposite process.

00:06:15.480 Fission, as the name implies, splits of parts or fissions, the most unstable, heaviest elements that exist, like uranium.

00:06:24.240 And again, by this equivalent of energy and mass, it releases energy, but it's a completely different physical process.

00:06:31.540 And then we can discuss a little bit more about what that means.

00:06:35.160 But at the starting point, you can say, you know, the universe already voted.

00:06:40.140 Fusion is the energy source of the universe.

00:06:42.620 Just the question is, how do you actually harness it on Earth?

00:06:47.620 And the consequences of harnessing it are very different than either chemical or fossil fuel energy or standard nuclear energy.

00:06:56.440 Now, you said that it's in the deeper reaches of the sun that the fusion reactions take place, and the sun is extraordinarily large, and the conditions there are very much unlike the conditions on Earth.

00:07:15.660 So what are the conditions under which fusion becomes possible, let's say, on the cosmic landscape?

00:07:21.580 And then, how is it that those might be duplicated?

00:07:25.500 How is it even possible to duplicate those on Earth?

00:07:28.040 And also, how is it possible to duplicate them on Earth without things going dreadfully wrong?

00:07:34.500 Right.

00:07:35.840 So, the conditions in the center, so I'll take our, it varies from star to star.

00:07:41.120 Actually, there's slightly, there's nuances to the differences in different types of stars, but I'll take our own sun as the example.

00:07:47.460 It's the easiest one.

00:07:47.980 So, the, as you imagine, like in the center of the Earth, like we learned this in elementary school, like there's, like there's different layers to the Earth, right?

00:07:59.620 You have an outer cold cross, and as you get towards the center, because of the pressure exerted by gravity and the core and the mantle, these are all higher temperature, and they're much denser because they're under so much pressure.

00:08:11.500 The same thing happens in the sun, which is actually larger, much larger than the Earth.

00:08:15.000 And what you can think of is, as you go from the surface of the sun, which has got, is in contact with outer space, that has minimum pressure, and it's actually the coldest part of the sun.

00:08:25.540 So, around 5,000 degrees.

00:08:27.540 And as you start going towards the center of the sun, the temperature keeps increasing, the pressure keeps increasing.

00:08:32.440 And eventually, when you reach the center of the sun, it's approximately 20 million degrees Celsius in the center of the sun.

00:08:40.620 It's under those conditions that, basically, the fusion reaction can start to occur in significant quantities.

00:08:48.220 And that's what's required for a star to essentially ignite, is that there is sufficient conditions of particularly temperature and pressure that allow enough fusion reactions to occur that it starts to keep itself hot to allow other fusion reactions to occur.

00:09:08.900 So, this is interesting, is that there are entities, even our own solar system, you know, which didn't quite make it to stars.

00:09:19.200 So, this is actually in Arthur C.

00:09:21.080 Which one was it?

00:09:22.020 I think 2010, right?

00:09:23.580 Arthur C.

00:09:24.060 Clark, a brilliant scientist and writer, postulated that at the end of that story, you might remember that Jupiter is turned by the aliens into another sun in our solar system.

00:09:35.680 And it's not quite totally possible, but it is interesting.

00:09:40.800 Jupiter basically has a very similar composition to the sun.

00:09:43.400 It just didn't get quite big enough and hot enough in the center to start triggering enough fusion reactions to make it a star.

00:09:49.660 So, what this means is that fusion occurs naturally only really in one place in the universe, and that is in the center of stars, because that's the place where you can get the conditions of particularly the temperature that allow it to remain hot enough to be able to sustain the fusion reactions.

00:10:11.940 And quickly, like, why is that needed?

00:10:15.980 It's because this process of pulling the hydrogen, pushing them together to fuse, means that you have to overcome extraordinary large forces which don't want them to get close to each other, which is a basic force of nature.

00:10:30.880 So, it's the electromagnetic force, because the electrical repulsion between those two particles doesn't want them to come together.

00:10:39.080 So, you have to have high average energy to essentially overcome that barrier and get them to fuse.

00:10:44.640 So, you can think of, like, we use analogies like you have to have your match or your kindling hot enough to get the big fire started.

00:10:51.460 Well, in this case, you sort of have to get enough average temperature or energy to start up the reaction and to get it going.

00:11:00.060 So, those are the requirements.

00:11:03.340 So, this comments then as to why we could imagine that you could make this happen on Earth is the requirement here is actually not so much around the energy,

00:11:15.440 because for almost 100 years, we've actually induced fusion reactions on Earth with particle accelerators.

00:11:23.840 This is one of the first things that was discovered, actually, when particle accelerators were developed in the 1930s.

00:11:31.420 The question is about how you maintain the temperature of this medium, of the hydrogen fuel, that allows it to stay hot enough for it to keep fusing.

00:11:40.920 And the sun and stars work by the fact that how is it allowed that the center of the sun is so much hotter, 20 million degrees?

00:11:50.020 Then, you know, how can it not, this heat, escape?

00:11:54.360 Well, it does escape with finite probability or time scales, but a very long time scales, like, you know, orders of a million years or something like this.

00:12:02.760 And the reason this is happening is because it's the sun's own gravity, which is containing this hot core, which disallows it to escape and dissipate and therefore cool down and then stop the fusion reactions from occurring.

00:12:17.020 So, this is why star, as it turns out, gravity is the weakest of the fundamental forces by a lot, like many, many orders of magnitude.

00:12:25.740 And so, for this reason, in order for fusion to be viable on Earth, you can't do it the same by the exact same process that a star works, because it takes something the size of a star.

00:12:37.900 So, with a few exotic sort of examples, like neutron stars, this is why stars are actually enormously large, because gravity is a very weak force.

00:12:46.380 So, this all, ironically, in some sense, it comes back to what I just commented to, the thing that makes fusion hard is this electrostatic repulsion that is occurring because the two light-charged particles, they both have positive charge, don't want to get close together to fuse.

00:13:02.740 We actually use its cousin, which is the magnetic force, is one of the ways to do this.

00:13:07.460 We replace that gravitational force, which is something which has much higher effectiveness than gravity.

00:13:13.660 And primarily, what we use is the electromagnetic force.

00:13:17.140 And so, that's what we, in fact, primarily use on Earth.

00:13:20.800 Although, it's not exclusively that, it's mostly that's the thing that we use, you know, to sort of recreate these temperatures, particularly, that occur in the interior of the sun.

00:13:34.580 So, your last question was, why isn't that crazy?

00:13:38.460 Like, it seems dangerous for something to have something at such high temperatures on Earth.

00:13:44.360 It's actually the opposite of that.

00:13:47.000 And it comes from a little bit of a subtlety of understanding the thermal balance in a fusion system, is that while the materials, this fuel, gets extraordinarily hot, there's extremely little of the fuel.

00:14:00.200 Like, very, very little of the fuel.

00:14:02.080 So, one of the leading concepts, for example, that's the focus of my own research in magnetic confinement, the energy content of the fuel, even though it's at 100 million degrees, is less than boiling water.

00:14:18.100 Because there's so few particles in it.

00:14:20.360 So, you actually have, you basically need, in order to have something that has high energy content and therefore could be considered dangerous, it has to have high temperature and large numbers of particles of it.

00:14:31.460 So, fusion has very high temperature, but very, very few particles.

00:14:35.320 So, when you put those numbers together, it turns out it's not dangerous at all.

00:14:39.780 And the other thing that makes it safe is because what makes fusion hard on Earth is, in fact, isolating it from anything that is terrestrial, anything that's Earth-like, anything that has temperatures, anything close to what we're used to.

00:14:54.580 Is that what tends to happen is that this fuel will just leak its heat so fast into that medium, it cools down and immediately stops making fusion.

00:15:04.280 So, in fact, fusion has inherent safety built into the physics of it.

00:15:09.240 It's actually not really an engineering safety concern.

00:15:13.820 In many ways, you can't actually use it intentionally to do bad things with it because of those physical properties of the fuel.

00:15:25.040 Okay, so let me see if I've got this straight so far.

00:15:28.040 So, a star aggregates together primarily hydrogen because of gravity.

00:15:33.540 And if there's enough aggregated together, the gravitational density, especially in lower levels of the star, becomes such that fusion reactions can begin to take place.

00:15:48.760 Now, is that primarily because initially of, is it that the atoms are crushed together despite their electromagnetic opposition?

00:15:59.480 They're crushed together by the pressure that's a secondary consequence of the gravity.

00:16:04.400 So, they're just brought into proximity.

00:16:06.480 And so, and what happens?

00:16:08.280 Does, like, one fusion reaction take place and then start a chain reaction under the appropriate conditions?

00:16:15.080 Yeah.

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00:17:53.660 So, no, actually.

00:17:56.040 Which is the other part of, thanks for asking that.

00:17:58.540 That's a very insightful question, actually.

00:18:00.240 It doesn't work through a chain reaction.

00:18:03.280 It works rather through a thermal process, which is different.

00:18:06.880 Let me just quickly explain this, because this is a fundamental difference to fission.

00:18:12.400 So, in fission, what happens, imagine, so here's your great big uranium nucleus.

00:18:18.020 And the fission gets triggered by an extremely simple process in many ways.

00:18:23.140 It's a neutron, which is one of the components of the nucleus, which is made of neutrons and protons.

00:18:28.060 Neutrons have no electric charge.

00:18:30.460 Protons have electric charge.

00:18:32.000 They hold themselves together in the nucleus through the strong nuclear force.

00:18:36.500 A neutron, which can participate in that force, basically gets in proximity to the uranium nucleus,

00:18:42.820 and it splits apart and releases energy.

00:18:46.660 It also releases neutrons when it does that.

00:18:49.860 And so, when those neutrons leave that as a cause of that reaction, if you design the assembly of the uranium, in that case,

00:18:58.340 or other materials which can undergo fission, what you do is you design it such that it's that particle that actually starts the next reaction.

00:19:09.220 So, in a power plant, like in a fission, pardon me, nuclear power plant, you design this very carefully and control it very carefully.

00:19:17.380 On average, when one fission reaction occurs, one particle that is released from that triggers the next fission reaction, and you control that.

00:19:26.360 If you intentionally don't control that, then the process runs away, because that one, say, triggers two more fission reactions,

00:19:34.240 and then four, eight, sixteen, and up it goes, and in fact, that creates an explosion.

00:19:41.720 Fusion does not work that way, because the products that are made by fusion are very, very hard to fuse.

00:19:50.200 They actually don't trigger the next fusion reaction.

00:19:54.660 So, in fact, that almost comes by definition, because what's happening is primarily it's converting the fuel into helium,

00:20:02.100 and helium is an extremely stable nucleus.

00:20:05.240 It actually doesn't want to fuse anymore.

00:20:07.440 That's actually why fusion is such a good process and such an energy-efficient process.

00:20:11.840 So, it's not that particle that wants to fuse anymore.

00:20:15.380 It's the heat, which is released from the fusion reaction, that gets the fuel a little bit hotter.

00:20:22.160 If you get it a little bit hotter, then that will want to make more fusion reactions.

00:20:26.480 And as it releases heat, it'll actually get the fuel hotter, and it'll go up.

00:20:31.620 Why is it more likely for...

00:20:33.940 We talked about the relationship between gravitational pressure and the preconditions for fusion.

00:20:38.920 Why is that more likely at higher levels of temperature?

00:20:44.360 Right.

00:20:44.680 So, that does come from the fundamentals of the process.

00:20:48.040 So, if you take a single reaction of fusion, and you consider the average energy of the particles,

00:20:54.460 that in general, although there's a limit to it, as you increase the average energy, the velocity, essentially,

00:21:01.040 the particles to fuse, that gives them a higher likelihood of overcoming...

00:21:05.060 Oh, I see.

00:21:05.720 Because they're in motion.

00:21:06.740 And then, basically, allows them to do that.

00:21:10.000 And that's actually...

00:21:10.920 And that's a good one to speak about, because as I commented before, accelerators...

00:21:15.580 In fact, I have an accelerator run by graduate students at MIT that can trigger fusion reactions all day long.

00:21:22.080 Because you take an accelerator, you give single particles back basically a high average energy,

00:21:27.720 and you impinge them onto a target of an appropriate composition, you'll trigger these kinds of fusion reactions all day long.

00:21:36.360 That cannot make net energy.

00:21:38.720 It turns out it's because what's happening is basically most of the energy that you're supplying to this particle just gets lost in useless heat, essentially, in the system.

00:21:49.120 What's happening inside of stars, and that's why I said temperature, not energy, is that it's a contained thermal system.

00:21:58.180 What I mean by thermal, this means it's the equivalent that we're used to of thinking about,

00:22:03.240 you know, like we think of water of having a temperature, or air of having a temperature.

00:22:08.800 This medium, which is called a plasma, actually has a temperature.

00:22:12.960 It is a system in which the particles have a distribution of energies based on thermodynamics.

00:22:21.180 And so that's why I call it a temperature.

00:22:23.440 So this is key.

00:22:24.560 It's a thermodynamic process in that sense, is that you have something inside of it.

00:22:28.300 It's that individual particle reaction releases kinetic energy,

00:22:32.700 but because that's forced to give that energy back as heat into the medium,

00:22:36.020 the temperature increases, the average energy of the particles in the medium increases,

00:22:41.420 increases the probability, and this builds up your way to actually, to being able to do that.

00:22:46.760 I see.

00:22:46.940 So you crush them together, and then, and that increases the probability of fusion to some degree,

00:22:53.060 and then you heat them up, and that increases the probability even further.

00:22:56.500 So I'm curious about the temperature and the movement of the hydrogen atoms. 0.97

00:23:02.580 So this is a stupid question, likely, but the answer doesn't spring to mind. 0.52

00:23:08.440 As you increase the average temperature of the plasma, what actually is happening to the atoms? 0.99

00:23:13.900 Like, are they vibrating back and forth faster?

00:23:17.400 And if they're vibrating back and forth faster, why don't they just go off in a single direction?

00:23:22.340 Why is the motion, like that just, I can't understand that exactly,

00:23:26.860 because you'd think that with a given momentum, they would go in a specific direction.

00:23:30.600 Are they bumping into other atoms? Is that the issue?

00:23:34.300 Yeah. So, right.

00:23:35.400 So now I have to pull up a whole other level about what the medium of the fuel is.

00:23:41.340 And it's because, so the temperatures involved, always infusion, exceed tens of millions of degrees.

00:23:48.880 So it turns out that any matter, when you increase it up to around 5,000 or 10,000 degrees Celsius,

00:23:55.800 it turns into a different phase of matter.

00:23:59.040 So you cannot, you can no longer think of it as atoms in a lattice, as you do in solids,

00:24:05.880 or atoms floating, you know, basically a fluid like water,

00:24:09.880 or even the atoms in this air bumping into each other.

00:24:14.120 It turns into a completely different phase of matter.

00:24:17.140 This is called a plasma.

00:24:18.180 And plasmas have unique properties, because what they're doing is disintegrating the atom.

00:24:26.060 And atoms are made up of, the simplest one is hydrogen.

00:24:29.660 There's a positive charge nucleus.

00:24:33.840 In the case of simple hydrogen, it's just a single proton.

00:24:37.120 And things like deuterium, which is the heavy form of hydrogen,

00:24:40.820 there's a proton and a neutron that are held together.

00:24:43.480 And then there's a single electron, a negatively charged electron around it.

00:24:48.120 So all the matter that we always deal with on Earth, solid, liquid, gas,

00:24:54.680 are all in the phase that they're all stable atoms that hold themselves,

00:24:59.380 that are holding themselves together through the atomic forces, which are in there.

00:25:03.400 Not nuclear forces, which is interesting, atomic forces, which are in there.

00:25:07.380 Once you get up above 5,000 or 10,000 degrees,

00:25:09.800 those temperatures are so high, they start breaking those bonds.

00:25:14.560 And basically what happens is that there's enough energy that, on average,

00:25:19.040 the electrons are all pulled away from their partner that they had here.

00:25:23.060 So the distinguishing feature of a plasma is that, in fact,

00:25:26.940 they're not little atoms wiggling around like this.

00:25:30.260 They're actually freely going around particles that all have electric charge.

00:25:36.780 And particularly when you reach temperatures required for fusion,

00:25:40.200 everything has a charge in it as well, too.

00:25:43.480 The reason this is, so, by the way, plasma is a discipline in and of itself.

00:25:49.540 My, you know, I actually work at a place called the Plasma Science Infusion Center.

00:25:53.460 Plasma is the central medium that you use to make fusion happen.

00:25:58.180 So, like, what is an example of that?

00:25:59.780 Well, it's the sun.

00:26:01.060 The sun is not actually a ball.

00:26:02.680 We think of the sun as a ball of maybe gas or liquid or something.

00:26:07.240 No, it's plasma because everything is above 5,000 degrees in the sun.

00:26:12.620 So this gets a little bit harder to say.

00:26:14.740 So what does this mean about, well, that it's a plasma?

00:26:17.180 Like, why is it special?

00:26:18.420 Why is it difficult to think of?

00:26:19.700 This does go into your question.

00:26:21.800 But how on earth do you actually tame this, right?

00:26:25.560 Well, what happens from this, it goes back to this whole pushing against each other through the electromagnetic forces,

00:26:36.080 and particularly the fact that they've got charges now.

00:26:39.260 Remember I told you before, when the hydrogen protons come together,

00:26:44.000 they don't want to come together too close because they get repulsed from each other.

00:26:48.080 That's actually a force that acts not when the particles physically touch one another,

00:26:54.060 but it's always present because they're interacting through their charges.

00:26:57.800 So particles out here, like, they can be zipping by each other like this,

00:27:01.420 but actually impact each other because they begin to interact with each other through a basic force of nature,

00:27:07.240 which is, again, the electrostatic force.

00:27:10.060 And it turns out, well, it's sort of intuitively almost, and this is why, by the way, plasmas are not intuitive

00:27:17.240 because the physics that dictates them is action at a distance,

00:27:22.360 and therefore they have a really pretty wild set of collective behaviors that has been a source of study in,

00:27:30.380 it's an entire discipline of physics, plasma physics, that has been studied for over 100 years

00:27:35.720 to sort of understand this medium.

00:27:37.820 But in the end, one of the ways we do describe it is you can almost think of, like, a gas,

00:27:43.500 but rather the particles have charge, and so they're bouncing off each other

00:27:47.440 without actually physically touching into each other, which gives them complex sets of behavior.

00:27:51.880 So in the end, in order to contain this, like in the sun, that's happening in the sun,

00:27:56.540 is that this means that there's sort of randomized motion, actually, for any individual particle.

00:28:00.960 As an ensemble, they actually have predictive ways through statistics assist,

00:28:06.400 statistical mechanical descriptions that allow us, like we do in gases and salts and others,

00:28:11.600 that we can sort of describe this in terms of a thermodynamic point of view,

00:28:14.860 even though it's in this crazy plasma state.

00:28:16.740 So it sounds, let me use an awkward analogy maybe, it sounds like a bunch of singular north poles of magnets

00:28:27.640 trying to get along together in a crowded room.

00:28:30.520 Yes.

00:28:30.700 It's not approximately right, because you can imagine pushing north poles together.

00:28:34.200 They don't like to come together.

00:28:35.340 They twist around each other, and you can imagine that being compressed together

00:28:39.760 as a consequence of gravitational force.

00:28:42.300 Now, would it be then that there's a probability distribution that those interacting,

00:28:47.040 those interesting particles are going to actually collide hard enough to fuse?

00:28:52.980 So they're interacting, and now and then, the interaction is such that they fuse,

00:28:57.860 and that there's some set probability of that that increases as temperature and pressure increases.

00:29:02.540 That's exactly what it is.

00:29:05.620 So it's, and in the end, what happens is you can take this statistical approach

00:29:11.200 to the large distribution of particles that are behaving,

00:29:15.840 and you can't predict an individual particle's probability.

00:29:19.400 Right.

00:29:19.620 An enormous ensemble of them, you can start treating them statistically,

00:29:23.260 and that's in fact exactly what we do.

00:29:25.460 We use laboratory measurements of things like we basically take single particles

00:29:29.900 and find out their probability of interacting at a given energy.

00:29:33.100 We measure those extremely accurately, and then what we do is we assume that the system

00:29:37.900 is in this deep thermal state.

00:29:39.900 Essentially, what's happened is it's maximized its entropy effect, effectively,

00:29:43.500 because they bounced off each other so many times.

00:29:45.740 And then you can statistically describe a probability that actually the particles will fuse,

00:29:50.620 and this probability depends only on the temperature.

00:29:54.720 We call this a rate coefficient to be more technical, but that's okay.

00:29:58.800 It's basically just the probability and ensemble of these particles that, in fact,

00:30:02.840 the fusion can occur because of these interactions.

00:30:08.240 Right.

00:30:08.500 And the denser that medium, the higher the probability that those are going to occur.

00:30:13.300 And then we tend to separate those.

00:30:15.180 There's basically one function, and this is key, actually, in fusion,

00:30:18.300 which we might get a little bit more into, is that we consider the independent parameter

00:30:25.180 or the controlling parameter primarily temperature because it is an absolute requirement.

00:30:31.600 So if you take the most simple fusion reaction, there's minimum temperatures

00:30:36.720 that you can get net energy out of it.

00:30:39.040 It tends to be about, for the terrestrial sources, so it's about 45 million degrees Celsius.

00:30:45.120 That depends only on the temperature.

00:30:47.180 So we tend to break it out.

00:30:49.040 There's one part of the reactivity depends on the temperature,

00:30:53.200 and then we separate, and there's another one that depends on the density of the fuel.

00:30:57.220 And this is actually intuitive, right?

00:30:59.180 It's like, oh, it's like I've got to, if so as I increase the density of the fuel

00:31:03.460 and I have fixed probability for an average ensemble of them,

00:31:07.100 I can calculate how much, how many fusion reactions I'll make in that medium,

00:31:12.260 in a unit of time, in a fixed volume.

00:31:15.280 And so this is really important because this informs us about how much,

00:31:19.740 for a terrestrial energy source, how much fusion power,

00:31:23.940 because every time a fusion reaction occurs, it releases energy.

00:31:26.840 So we can actually calculate from this directly the amount of power that we make

00:31:31.680 in a fixed volume of this fuel once we reach those conditions.

00:31:34.400 And it depends on the density of the fuel and the temperature of the fuel.

00:31:38.620 Yeah.

00:31:38.860 Okay, okay.

00:31:39.580 So now we've explained how this occurs in the sun.

00:31:44.060 We've explained why it isn't a runaway process.

00:31:47.900 We've described the relationship between pressure and temperature.

00:31:50.820 But then we're stuck with the next mystery, which is, well, you don't have the sun on earth.

00:31:56.040 You don't have that gravitational pressure, that volume of hydrogen.

00:31:59.660 How do you duplicate the conditions that are necessary to produce fusion?

00:32:05.500 How do you produce temperatures approximating, you said, 45 million degrees?

00:32:10.480 It's an unimaginable temperature.

00:32:12.140 It's no wonder that things cool down when a fusion reaction would cool down

00:32:17.880 if it touches anything earthly, because that would be like plunging it

00:32:20.900 into the most frigid deep freeze imaginable.

00:32:23.760 So how do you duplicate these conditions, however temporarily on earth?

00:32:28.780 You do something like make these electromagnetic containers.

00:32:32.860 And I know that you use laser beams to increase the density,

00:32:36.300 but maybe you can walk us through the construction of the electromagnetic container.

00:32:40.820 What technical innovations that's dependent on?

00:32:44.080 And then how you attain those temperatures and pressures?

00:32:47.900 Right.

00:32:48.640 So I've introduced two of the three requirements for fusion.

00:32:55.000 So one is the temperature.

00:32:56.240 The other one is the density of the fuel.

00:32:59.220 The third one is a, before I start, before I talk about the technology,

00:33:04.200 I'll just describe what it means conceptually.

00:33:07.800 So we call this confinement.

00:33:09.500 What I mean by confinement is that because these systems must be thermal,

00:33:17.260 thermalized, namely the fuel must have a temperature.

00:33:20.840 Technically what that means is what I've actually allowed to happen

00:33:24.500 is that the fuel medium is having way more interactions with themselves

00:33:32.700 that don't fuse.

00:33:34.380 It's just like thinking about the particles in this room colliding off each other.

00:33:38.180 All those things, what they do is they exchange energy and momentum.

00:33:41.760 And that's actually what allows the system to thermalize.

00:33:44.600 And once in a blue moon, a fusion reaction will basically happen.

00:33:48.100 So that's what's going on.

00:33:49.760 So what that means is that you must have a system that provides particle and energy containment.

00:33:55.980 What I mean by this is that it's okay because this fuel is isolated in some way away from everything else

00:34:03.660 so that you basically allow those non-fusing reactions to occur and you don't really care

00:34:11.000 because you provide containment.

00:34:12.940 So what does this mean conceptually?

00:34:14.760 It's like whatever you think of your fuel assembly on this is that there's some physical mechanism

00:34:22.260 which is disallowing it to basically touch anything that's at room temperature or even close to it.

00:34:28.080 So it's isolating in some way.

00:34:30.800 So that's the concept.

00:34:32.160 So we call this the energy confinement time.

00:34:35.580 And the way that you can think of it, just sort of close your eyes, imagine you've got some ensemble

00:34:40.240 and you put some unit of energy into this and you kind of wait and you say,

00:34:44.520 oh, it took this long to cool.

00:34:46.420 That characteristic time is called the energy confinement time.

00:34:48.900 This was conceived of by a scientist in the 1950s, Lawson,

00:34:54.340 who came up with, who realized this important, added this important concept into play.

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00:36:05.480 So it turns out that when you look at a fusion system is that once you reach a certain temperature,

00:36:15.920 it's actually, and it takes a little bit of math, but it's like whatever,

00:36:19.680 it's pretty much the first thing you teach like entering grad students at MIT

00:36:23.740 about how to establish fusion energy system is that it requires a minimum amount of containment

00:36:32.500 for a given amount of how many fusion reactions you're making.

00:36:37.340 And that's set by the density because you've, in this, in this, you've assumed some kind of temperature in it.

00:36:43.140 Um, and it turns out when you work through the math of it, it's the product of the density of the fuel

00:36:49.420 and this energy confinement time that actually make, realize what you want, which is to get net energy out of the system.

00:36:57.620 And particularly the ultimate goal, which is you basically put in almost no external energy

00:37:02.920 and the whole thing is just keeping itself hot by its own fusion reactions.

00:37:07.080 So it's very important.

00:37:08.120 This, and the reason, and the story that's a little bit complicated,

00:37:11.080 but it's so important to understand infusion because this is, this is unlike a lot of,

00:37:16.380 usually when you think of physical system, it's rare to come across a product of two important parameters

00:37:21.700 controlling each other, namely you multiply them by each other, right?

00:37:25.340 And it turns out the physics doesn't care about the absolute number about those,

00:37:29.880 as long as the multiple of them actually meet this minimum level on Earth.

00:37:35.520 And that was density and confinement time?

00:37:37.560 It's density and confinement time.

00:37:39.080 So it's how many particles there are per unit volume,

00:37:42.160 and then you multiply it by this characteristic time.

00:37:45.360 By how long you hold it together?

00:37:47.180 Basically how long it holds its energy, technically, right?

00:37:51.040 Okay, okay.

00:37:51.720 Okay, all very good.

00:37:52.580 And so this is what confuses a lot of the public about fusion,

00:37:56.500 because you'll see this picture.

00:37:58.020 There's this great big magnet.

00:37:59.260 Wow, they did fusion.

00:38:00.480 Or you see this other thing, which is an electrode.

00:38:02.400 They made fusion.

00:38:03.440 Or you see this laser.

00:38:04.780 They made fusion.

00:38:05.560 What the heck do these things have to do with each other?

00:38:08.200 What's happening is that they're using the same physical principle that I just talked about,

00:38:12.660 but they're vastly changing the density and confinement time,

00:38:16.900 basically about how you get to the multiple of those two.

00:38:19.620 And so you can imagine what this is, is that if I allow the density to be very, very high,

00:38:25.220 then I don't need a very long energy confinement time.

00:38:28.500 And vice versa, if I make the density very low, I must get a high energy confinement time.

00:38:35.120 And that's actually the approaches that are there.

00:38:38.280 So just a quick comment, because this is why it is a little confused.

00:38:45.880 If you look, right now, the two methods of getting there that certainly have obtained the most publicity,

00:38:54.340 but also probably the furthest along in terms of the scientific accomplishments,

00:38:59.340 is in magnetic fusion, which is the focus of my work,

00:39:03.260 which is, in that case, we use very, very low-density fuel.

00:39:08.220 The density of the particles in this is 100,000 times less than air.

00:39:13.600 It's very, very undense.

00:39:16.660 And this requires an energy confinement time of around one second,

00:39:21.320 which doesn't seem very long.

00:39:22.560 But recall, what you're doing is, like, the particles that you're containing at 100 million degrees

00:39:28.080 have such high average velocities that when they fuse,

00:39:31.780 like I'm here in Rhode Island right now,

00:39:33.980 they would go from Rhode Island to Los Angeles in about three seconds.

00:39:37.440 That's how fast they're going.

00:39:38.880 So containing these kinds of things for a second is a pretty impressive feat indeed, right?

00:39:43.120 And that's that approach.

00:39:44.420 And this is the one, and how do we do this?

00:39:46.420 We use the magnetic force to basically force those,

00:39:50.740 and I can get back to more details and that.

00:39:53.180 But just this comparison of that.

00:39:54.540 Then I go to the other extreme of this.

00:39:57.120 It's our colleagues that have performed this with lasers.

00:40:00.580 And in the lasers, the lasers are actually not heating the fuel,

00:40:03.720 they're compressing the fuel.

00:40:05.360 They're achieving densities, which are about 10 billion times higher

00:40:09.800 than what we're using in a magnetic fusion.

00:40:12.440 And correspondingly, the energy confinement time

00:40:14.780 is a fraction of a billionth of a second.

00:40:18.600 And there are people and companies and other groups

00:40:22.280 which are approaching things which exist in those in-between areas as well too,

00:40:26.940 things like pinches and so forth.

00:40:28.760 So this is one of the reasons for...

00:40:31.620 It's an interesting one.

00:40:33.520 It's both, I would argue, an advantage,

00:40:35.780 but also has been one of the challenges of fusion.

00:40:38.820 There's so many...

00:40:40.240 Because it turns out when you vary those physical parameters by so much,

00:40:44.380 it actually vastly changes the technology

00:40:46.980 that you're thinking about how you would actually get there.

00:40:50.040 So this is an interesting thing as of thinking about

00:40:52.760 how you develop it as an energy source

00:40:54.560 because you've got a lot of choices.

00:40:56.160 But there's so many choices, it's led to this...

00:40:59.220 It's an interesting race in some sense, right?

00:41:01.880 About how you would get there.

00:41:03.260 Right, so you can vary the density using various technologies

00:41:08.540 and you can vary the time to confinement using various technologies.

00:41:15.340 Now, how exactly in your magnetic fusion designs,

00:41:20.000 how exactly do you confine?

00:41:24.560 Like, I'm trying to conceptualize this.

00:41:28.240 You're using very, very powerful magnetic fields.

00:41:31.520 I read that you've produced magnetic fields

00:41:33.940 that are many multiples of the force of the Earth's,

00:41:37.740 the entire Earth's magnetic field.

00:41:39.900 Now, I'm wondering,

00:41:41.640 why doesn't that take a staggering amount of energy

00:41:44.760 just to manage that?

00:41:46.340 But also, what exactly...

00:41:48.520 How do you conceptualize the confinement space?

00:41:51.260 Like, is it an enclosed magnetic field?

00:41:53.980 And then inside that,

00:41:55.620 there's this relatively low-density hydrogen?

00:41:59.940 And is it...

00:42:01.440 When does it become hydrogen plasma?

00:42:04.420 And then, if you're only confining it for a second,

00:42:07.960 well, you don't want a power plant that only works for a second.

00:42:11.700 So, I don't see how to jump from that

00:42:14.320 to something approximating a sustainable power source.

00:42:18.100 Yeah.

00:42:18.720 Yeah, so I'll parse that out.

00:42:20.580 So, first of all,

00:42:22.140 so this will focus on magnetic confinement.

00:42:24.980 So, the physical principle that's being used to contain the particles

00:42:30.400 is another fundamental force called the Lorentz force,

00:42:34.500 which is that if you have a charged particle that is in movement

00:42:38.580 and there's a magnetic field present,

00:42:42.000 it will exert a force on that charged particle.

00:42:44.340 So, it's an operation.

00:42:48.900 Yeah, well, it's actually...

00:42:50.980 So, this takes...

00:42:52.360 I'm going to use my hands to try to get this.

00:42:54.720 So, magnetic fields,

00:42:56.340 most people know this from using a compass

00:42:58.680 and, oh, there's a...

00:42:59.900 So, there's two things that are important about a magnetic field.

00:43:02.200 It's amplitude, it's magnitude, right?

00:43:04.680 And it has a direction

00:43:06.060 because the way that we comment, it's a vector, right?

00:43:08.780 So, it has a direction, okay?

00:43:10.120 So, I'm just going to tell you,

00:43:11.260 I've got a magnetic field which is going like this, right?

00:43:14.380 It's in this direction, it's pointed in this direction,

00:43:16.840 and there's a certain amplitude to it.

00:43:18.940 So, what this means is when I put charged particles

00:43:21.060 in the presence of this magnetic field,

00:43:23.740 it exerts a force on it,

00:43:25.180 which is an interesting force, by the way.

00:43:26.780 It's a force that always acts in a direction

00:43:28.780 that is orthogonal to the direction of the charged particle.

00:43:33.200 When you work out the math of this,

00:43:34.440 what this forces the particle,

00:43:36.280 any particle to do like this,

00:43:38.420 is that it will execute a circular orbit like this

00:43:41.220 around the magnetic field.

00:43:43.560 So, no matter how fast it's going,

00:43:45.700 it basically holds...

00:43:46.940 It's like it ties it to the magnetic field like that.

00:43:50.140 And this is for both negative and charged particles.

00:43:52.340 So, remember my...

00:43:53.880 The collection of...

00:43:55.020 Or recollection of the definition of a plasma,

00:43:57.740 so when it gets hot enough

00:43:58.720 that most of the particles become charged,

00:44:01.700 and that's certainly true in fusion plasmas.

00:44:03.800 So, every single individual particle

00:44:06.740 is actually feeling a containment force

00:44:08.800 which is coming from that magnetic field.

00:44:12.160 Okay.

00:44:12.580 So, what does that mean?

00:44:13.960 So, what that means is...

00:44:15.160 And there's...

00:44:15.880 Oh, by the way,

00:44:16.400 and there's another special one,

00:44:18.320 is that not only is it orthogonal

00:44:19.940 to the direction of the charged particle,

00:44:24.000 it also must be orthogonal

00:44:25.420 to the direction of the magnetic field itself.

00:44:27.640 So, what this means is that you can think of these

00:44:31.140 as like barber poles of motion of the particles

00:44:34.120 that they're going along like this.

00:44:36.120 They do not get affected in the direction

00:44:38.160 that is along the magnetic field.

00:44:40.240 So, there is no containment along the magnetic field.

00:44:42.740 So, in general, what we do with this

00:44:44.680 is we come up with a set of topologies

00:44:47.280 of magnetic fields.

00:44:48.980 Primarily, what we do is we make them

00:44:50.520 close back on themselves

00:44:51.760 so there is no end to the magnetic field, right?

00:44:53.960 And the way you do this is...

00:44:56.840 Okay, so that...

00:44:57.720 So, in the end, you can think...

00:44:58.740 You had it right conceptually.

00:45:00.160 It's basically...

00:45:00.920 You can think of these vectors or lines...

00:45:03.580 We conceptualize them as lines of magnetic field

00:45:06.020 and magnetic force.

00:45:07.680 And this basically,

00:45:09.020 when it's put together

00:45:09.820 in a particular configuration,

00:45:11.520 it becomes extremely effective

00:45:12.880 at holding this very hot fuel

00:45:14.840 because that force is exerting

00:45:16.220 because that circular motion

00:45:17.800 doesn't allow them to escape

00:45:19.440 unless some other thing happens,

00:45:20.960 like they collide into another particle or something,

00:45:23.140 which sets...

00:45:23.940 Is the strength of the magnetic field

00:45:26.800 necessary proportionate

00:45:28.440 to the average speed

00:45:29.620 of the particles in question?

00:45:32.280 So, the higher the temperature,

00:45:33.640 the higher the magnetic field required,

00:45:35.880 the more powerful

00:45:36.480 the magnetic field required?

00:45:38.060 So, technically,

00:45:38.820 the force that is exerted

00:45:40.280 is proportional to the charge of the particle,

00:45:42.840 but that doesn't matter

00:45:44.120 because that's fixed

00:45:44.660 because it's always the same.

00:45:45.960 The velocity of the particle...

00:45:47.620 The velocity of the particles

00:45:48.900 increases the temperature,

00:45:50.260 increases...

00:45:51.020 Right, okay.

00:45:51.880 It goes up as the square

00:45:53.820 of the velocity

00:45:54.680 and it increases

00:45:56.300 as the strength

00:45:56.880 of the magnetic field

00:45:57.820 as well.

00:45:59.000 Okay.

00:45:59.500 So, in the end,

00:46:00.360 what that ends up being

00:46:02.580 in a proper...

00:46:03.620 For fusion's sake,

00:46:05.200 what this means

00:46:06.040 is that in magnetic confinement

00:46:07.900 has very...

00:46:08.680 critical consequences

00:46:11.220 is that when you solve the particle's motion.

00:46:17.700 In the end,

00:46:18.440 what that means

00:46:19.100 is that if you now consider

00:46:20.680 I'm the magnetic field

00:46:21.940 pointing like this,

00:46:23.200 what we care about

00:46:24.140 is the size of this orbit.

00:46:26.320 The thing that...

00:46:26.980 The size of this orbit

00:46:27.820 because it's basically

00:46:28.580 a circular orbit.

00:46:30.100 And if you keep everything else fixed

00:46:32.160 and increase the strength

00:46:33.320 of the magnetic field,

00:46:34.820 the size of that orbit decreases.

00:46:36.560 It shrinks

00:46:38.540 because the force is better

00:46:39.680 so basically holds it closer

00:46:41.460 to the magnetic field

00:46:42.500 is what you want.

00:46:43.940 And this is really important

00:46:45.040 because it turns out

00:46:47.000 from that other argument

00:46:48.040 that although there are

00:46:49.680 different arguments about this

00:46:51.640 is that the first argument

00:46:53.320 about the requirement

00:46:54.180 of the temperature,

00:46:55.460 it turns out that there is

00:46:56.540 a optimized temperature

00:46:58.400 to access fusion.

00:46:59.580 It's about 100 million degrees

00:47:01.080 for the leading kind of fusion

00:47:03.680 that we consider on Earth

00:47:04.540 which is not the same

00:47:05.600 as it is and that's why

00:47:06.480 it's a different temperature

00:47:07.260 than the Sun

00:47:07.860 because it's actually

00:47:08.700 a different fuel combination

00:47:10.080 that we use.

00:47:10.860 It's the heavier forms of hydrogen.

00:47:13.020 But anyway,

00:47:13.500 that's at about 100 million degrees.

00:47:15.140 So basically anytime

00:47:16.260 if you're a fusion

00:47:18.100 power plant designer,

00:47:19.900 you more or less

00:47:20.540 always pick that temperature

00:47:21.880 because it's the easiest one

00:47:23.380 to achieve.

00:47:24.880 And that means that

00:47:26.080 the temperature

00:47:26.760 is approximately fixed

00:47:28.320 and therefore the velocity

00:47:29.680 is approximately fixed

00:47:31.120 and therefore generally,

00:47:33.100 in general,

00:47:33.740 what you're controlling

00:47:34.520 is the strength

00:47:35.400 of the magnetic field

00:47:36.360 to make that orbit

00:47:37.640 smaller and smaller

00:47:38.800 and consequently make

00:47:41.080 the engineering system

00:47:42.440 that you have to build smaller.

00:47:44.700 Right.

00:47:44.980 Does that also increase

00:47:46.340 the density of the fuel?

00:47:48.760 Ah, it does

00:47:50.200 but for more subtle reasons.

00:47:53.200 And it depends on what kind of,

00:47:55.020 it depends on the details

00:47:56.340 of the shape

00:47:57.080 of the magnetic bottle

00:47:58.000 that you make.

00:47:58.580 But in general, yes.

00:48:00.080 Yes, but it's not

00:48:01.380 so straightforward

00:48:01.960 of a path

00:48:03.400 to tell you about

00:48:04.080 how it does it.

00:48:05.100 But in general,

00:48:06.320 the density of the fuel

00:48:07.340 is allowed to increase

00:48:08.520 which is important

00:48:09.780 because that actually means

00:48:10.960 you can access

00:48:11.940 then net energy gain

00:48:14.180 if you're at higher density,

00:48:16.800 this allows you to do it

00:48:17.840 at lower energy confinement time

00:48:19.500 which is a sort of

00:48:21.760 a double win in the system

00:48:23.240 if you want to think

00:48:24.240 of it that way.

00:48:25.100 Okay, so now,

00:48:26.000 okay,

00:48:26.280 so a couple of questions there.

00:48:28.000 Go ahead.

00:48:29.200 No, no, yeah.

00:48:29.600 Yeah, well,

00:48:29.920 and you had an important one

00:48:30.980 about the one second business.

00:48:32.400 So this is really a...

00:48:33.320 Yes.

00:48:33.740 Right, so

00:48:34.680 the one second

00:48:36.480 is not the duration

00:48:37.840 of the existence

00:48:39.160 of the fuel.

00:48:40.380 It's the characteristic time

00:48:42.140 at which it holds energy.

00:48:44.560 So namely,

00:48:45.400 this,

00:48:46.200 so if you really think

00:48:46.900 of it this way,

00:48:47.880 it's almost like I think of

00:48:48.840 because it's the middle

00:48:49.920 of winter right now,

00:48:50.620 I'm thinking of heating

00:48:51.400 our house and so forth.

00:48:52.420 You can think of

00:48:53.120 when I put a unit of energy

00:48:54.860 into this house,

00:48:56.200 there'll be some

00:48:56.720 characteristic time,

00:48:57.720 like a few hours

00:48:58.560 that'll basically

00:48:59.300 like leak out,

00:49:00.660 right,

00:49:00.940 to the outside environment.

00:49:03.220 That's,

00:49:04.220 but the house is still here

00:49:05.380 all the time.

00:49:07.180 That's more of what we're doing.

00:49:08.400 So this one second

00:49:09.540 is that leakage time.

00:49:10.940 It's not how long

00:49:11.840 the house lasts.

00:49:12.980 Yeah.

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00:50:33.720 Okay, okay.

00:50:35.000 Now, you have to

00:50:36.380 segregate the system

00:50:38.300 from the ice-cold temperatures

00:50:40.440 of terrestrial reality,

00:50:42.420 let's say.

00:50:43.280 How in the world,

00:50:44.380 then, do you,

00:50:45.700 how do you actually

00:50:46.800 harness the heat

00:50:47.900 that's thereby generated?

00:50:49.260 How do you turn that into,

00:50:50.440 well, transmissible energy

00:50:52.760 or mechanical force?

00:50:55.120 Right.

00:50:55.900 And there's a variety

00:50:56.560 of ways to do it,

00:50:57.120 but I'll,

00:50:57.620 so I'll walk through

00:50:59.260 the system of how you do this.

00:51:00.360 I'll use magnetic confinement

00:51:01.580 and it varies a little bit

00:51:03.020 if you change,

00:51:03.600 if you use other

00:51:04.380 containment schemes,

00:51:05.440 but whatever,

00:51:06.420 it's good.

00:51:07.120 So in the end,

00:51:07.720 basically,

00:51:08.180 whatever you're doing

00:51:09.220 to provide this for,

00:51:10.160 so like the magnetic fields

00:51:11.940 that we make

00:51:12.500 use an electromagnet.

00:51:14.300 This electromagnet

00:51:15.420 is not in physical contact

00:51:17.520 with this fuel at all

00:51:19.040 because the electromagnet

00:51:20.700 makes a magnetic field

00:51:22.060 at a distance.

00:51:22.840 In fact,

00:51:23.460 the leading way

00:51:24.100 that we do this

00:51:24.760 is we configure

00:51:25.500 these magnetic fields

00:51:26.480 and in fact,

00:51:27.000 the magnetic field

00:51:27.600 can't even escape

00:51:28.380 the magnets.

00:51:29.380 It's just sort of

00:51:30.160 encased inside of these.

00:51:32.260 So usually,

00:51:32.840 you think of these

00:51:33.280 as large circles

00:51:34.320 or D shapes.

00:51:35.620 You put these

00:51:36.060 in a particular configuration

00:51:37.380 and on the inside,

00:51:38.520 what you have

00:51:39.080 is this,

00:51:39.560 you know,

00:51:39.840 beautiful kind of

00:51:40.660 magnetic cage

00:51:41.740 which is on the inside of it.

00:51:43.300 So the electromagnets

00:51:44.720 have no idea.

00:51:45.820 There's like a star

00:51:47.160 inside of them

00:51:47.980 and the star,

00:51:49.140 all they're feeling

00:51:50.080 is the magnetic field

00:51:51.140 that's coming from

00:51:52.200 the electromagnets.

00:51:53.660 That's the key.

00:51:54.420 It's physical isolation

00:51:55.460 of the systems

00:51:56.260 completely from one another.

00:51:58.240 Right?

00:51:58.420 Because that's also

00:51:59.120 confusing to everyone.

00:52:00.220 It's like,

00:52:00.760 so it's not a physical container

00:52:02.780 in that sense

00:52:03.900 that's holding the fuel.

00:52:06.780 Right.

00:52:07.040 It's like the gravity,

00:52:07.780 it's analogous in some ways

00:52:09.320 to the gravitational field

00:52:11.220 that keeps the Earth

00:52:12.000 in orbit around the sun.

00:52:13.320 Exactly.

00:52:13.900 It's an action at a distance.

00:52:14.960 That's the right way

00:52:15.600 to think of it, right?

00:52:16.580 So it's doing it

00:52:17.400 through that process.

00:52:19.220 Right.

00:52:19.560 So then this goes to,

00:52:22.120 well,

00:52:23.260 what is fusion energy?

00:52:25.100 Like,

00:52:25.400 where is the energy?

00:52:27.020 That's the important thing.

00:52:28.020 Yeah.

00:52:28.080 And how do you get access to it?

00:52:29.780 Right.

00:52:30.300 So the original energy source,

00:52:32.820 as I said,

00:52:33.260 is that the two particles collide

00:52:34.840 and they actually make new particles.

00:52:38.200 and by the nature of the fact

00:52:40.640 that this is coming from

00:52:41.740 the strong nuclear force,

00:52:43.120 which is the thing that holds

00:52:44.280 all nuclei together,

00:52:46.700 what that means

00:52:48.380 is that the energy

00:52:49.780 is actually in the kinetic energy

00:52:52.020 or the velocity

00:52:52.900 of the particles

00:52:53.840 that result from this.

00:52:55.580 The fusion particles.

00:52:56.720 The fusion particles, yeah.

00:52:58.360 So we take heavy forms

00:53:00.080 of hydrogen,

00:53:00.980 like deuterium,

00:53:02.300 and fuse them together.

00:53:04.540 And then what will come out,

00:53:05.560 it's actually the same

00:53:06.880 subatomic particles.

00:53:10.580 The neutrons and protons,

00:53:12.780 it's the same number

00:53:13.620 that come out afterwards.

00:53:14.600 They're just rearranged, right?

00:53:16.260 So for example,

00:53:17.240 deuterium, deuterium

00:53:18.300 can come together.

00:53:20.300 And then what you would have

00:53:21.160 is something called,

00:53:21.900 you can have helium-3,

00:53:25.680 which is one,

00:53:27.120 which is two protons

00:53:28.160 and one neutron

00:53:28.820 and then one spare neutron.

00:53:30.540 Or you can rearrange it

00:53:32.060 into another way

00:53:32.940 that it's actually a,

00:53:34.720 it's a proton

00:53:36.920 and a,

00:53:39.200 I'm losing track.

00:53:40.900 It's a, right,

00:53:42.360 it's a proton

00:53:42.960 and a triton,

00:53:46.380 which is a proton

00:53:47.360 and two neutrons.

00:53:48.120 So it basically

00:53:48.520 is just rearranged them

00:53:50.320 and those have lower mass

00:53:51.380 and they release energy.

00:53:53.240 But because it interacts

00:53:54.360 through that mechanism,

00:53:55.420 in terms of the energy

00:53:56.340 is only,

00:53:57.080 it's released

00:53:57.740 in the kinetic energy

00:53:59.220 of those particles

00:54:00.540 that come flying off.

00:54:01.540 and what happens

00:54:02.520 is that it's,

00:54:03.780 when you write out

00:54:04.740 the equations

00:54:05.260 of the conservation equations,

00:54:07.620 it's the lightest particles

00:54:09.500 that,

00:54:10.600 the energy gets partitioned

00:54:12.500 in a way

00:54:12.880 that has to do

00:54:13.780 with the,

00:54:14.420 with the masses

00:54:15.420 of the,

00:54:16.400 of the things

00:54:16.920 that result from this.

00:54:18.460 And what happens-

00:54:19.040 And they can escape.

00:54:19.980 They can,

00:54:20.400 they escape

00:54:20.920 from the magnetic chamber?

00:54:22.240 It depends,

00:54:23.460 actually.

00:54:23.900 So some of them

00:54:24.900 have electric charge

00:54:26.520 and some of them

00:54:27.360 don't have electric charge.

00:54:28.560 In particular,

00:54:29.360 if it's a neutron,

00:54:30.600 which is one of the

00:54:31.340 fundamental particles,

00:54:32.240 it has no electric charge

00:54:33.660 and therefore it is,

00:54:35.600 it can escape

00:54:36.220 the medium immediately.

00:54:37.780 It escapes the magnet.

00:54:38.860 Because that has

00:54:39.560 no electric charge,

00:54:40.500 it feels no interaction

00:54:41.740 with the other

00:54:42.720 plasma particles,

00:54:44.060 let alone

00:54:44.620 the magnetic field,

00:54:45.760 which it has no interaction

00:54:46.720 with.

00:54:46.920 So it escapes.

00:54:48.060 So I'll use this one

00:54:49.120 because it's,

00:54:50.320 the,

00:54:50.520 the most prevalent

00:54:52.420 approach right now

00:54:54.100 is deuterium-tritium fusion.

00:54:56.060 And what happens there

00:54:57.100 is that those are

00:54:57.980 the two heavy forms

00:54:58.780 of hydrogen

00:54:59.380 and what is released

00:55:01.040 is a helium,

00:55:03.160 just a,

00:55:03.660 a,

00:55:03.960 a,

00:55:05.160 a normal helium

00:55:06.920 nucleus

00:55:07.740 and a neutron.

00:55:09.680 So the helium

00:55:10.680 has two protons,

00:55:12.440 two neutrons,

00:55:13.060 so it has a net charge

00:55:14.260 in it.

00:55:15.040 This cannot escape.

00:55:16.920 The magnetic bottle

00:55:18.500 because it's feeling

00:55:19.340 that force

00:55:19.980 from the magnetic fields.

00:55:21.780 More,

00:55:22.460 more,

00:55:23.160 not say more important,

00:55:24.500 but just as,

00:55:25.060 just as important,

00:55:26.180 it is also feeling

00:55:27.300 the electrostatic reactions,

00:55:29.240 like you said,

00:55:30.160 the magnets pushing

00:55:31.220 against one,

00:55:32.160 the poles pushing

00:55:33.140 against each other.

00:55:34.040 Well,

00:55:34.480 it has electric charge

00:55:35.560 just like all the other

00:55:36.400 particles in it.

00:55:37.420 So it has

00:55:38.020 way more energy

00:55:39.440 than all the other,

00:55:40.380 than the average energy

00:55:41.480 of the particles

00:55:42.080 that it's in.

00:55:42.680 and therefore

00:55:43.820 it starts

00:55:44.260 undergoing collisions.

00:55:45.260 So it's sort of like

00:55:45.960 releasing like a cannonball.

00:55:48.260 I think it's like a cannonball

00:55:50.440 into one of those,

00:55:51.400 you know,

00:55:51.620 those kid,

00:55:52.000 those kiddie things

00:55:53.260 where they have 0.98

00:55:53.940 the big balls

00:55:54.880 that they can go play in.

00:55:55.960 It's like putting

00:55:56.380 a cannonball into that. 0.97

00:55:57.860 It's like,

00:55:58.380 it basically forces

00:55:59.600 the cannonball

00:56:00.340 to give its energy

00:56:01.160 into all those other ones.

00:56:02.400 That's what's happening

00:56:03.500 because that's the heavy particle

00:56:05.580 that has a mass

00:56:06.380 of four units

00:56:07.540 because it's got four,

00:56:08.720 got two protons,

00:56:09.800 two neutrons.

00:56:11.500 And there's a total mass

00:56:12.720 of five particles.

00:56:13.940 It has the inverse of those

00:56:14.960 so it gets one

00:56:15.820 out of five,

00:56:17.520 sorry for the math,

00:56:18.520 but it means,

00:56:19.040 so that means

00:56:19.580 it has 20%

00:56:20.780 of the fusion energy

00:56:22.080 is released.

00:56:23.460 So that's very important

00:56:24.680 because like,

00:56:25.860 where does that energy go?

00:56:27.280 This is the heat.

00:56:28.560 Remember,

00:56:28.960 way back at the beginning

00:56:30.140 of this,

00:56:30.460 that in the end,

00:56:31.100 fusion sustains itself

00:56:32.400 by the fact

00:56:33.560 that the particle energy

00:56:34.860 which is released

00:56:35.580 by these single events

00:56:37.380 actually just ends up

00:56:39.040 as being heat

00:56:40.320 that is distributed

00:56:41.060 amongst all the rest

00:56:42.280 of the fuel

00:56:42.800 and this helium

00:56:43.920 will not fuse again

00:56:45.640 because it doesn't want

00:56:46.400 to fuse

00:56:46.760 because it's extremely stable.

00:56:48.480 So it's basically

00:56:49.280 the ash product

00:56:50.220 of fusion.

00:56:51.860 By the way,

00:56:52.560 just a quick comment,

00:56:54.000 why fusion

00:56:54.900 is that the process,

00:56:57.000 the ash product

00:56:58.000 of the thing

00:57:00.260 that releases energy

00:57:01.180 is helium,

00:57:02.380 which is a harmless

00:57:03.640 neutral gas,

00:57:05.120 right?

00:57:05.640 Wonderful.

00:57:06.140 Unlike fission

00:57:08.000 where the thing

00:57:09.320 that's made

00:57:09.920 by the reaction itself

00:57:11.500 is this soup

00:57:13.760 or mix

00:57:14.340 of just

00:57:14.860 of hundreds

00:57:16.900 of radioisotopes

00:57:18.080 because you're splitting

00:57:18.860 apart this really

00:57:19.640 unstable uranium.

00:57:21.000 So that's one

00:57:21.600 of the other

00:57:21.900 fundamental differences

00:57:22.780 between fission.

00:57:23.380 Part of the cleanliness

00:57:24.540 of the process

00:57:25.320 and the simplicity

00:57:26.180 in some sense

00:57:26.960 of the process.

00:57:28.220 Okay,

00:57:28.500 so you have this

00:57:29.140 increasingly hot

00:57:30.420 plasma

00:57:31.360 and you explained

00:57:33.840 the mechanisms there.

00:57:35.000 How is that converted

00:57:36.000 into usable electricity?

00:57:38.060 Yeah,

00:57:38.640 so in some way

00:57:39.940 you've got to get back,

00:57:41.140 you've got to get this

00:57:41.880 back into heat.

00:57:43.020 That's essentially

00:57:43.960 how you're going

00:57:44.420 to do it.

00:57:46.400 So,

00:57:47.500 and the two,

00:57:48.660 I like to say,

00:57:49.660 fusion is basically

00:57:50.880 two forms

00:57:51.400 of recycling heat.

00:57:52.620 So it's taking

00:57:53.160 this major

00:57:54.800 kinetic energy

00:57:55.700 in these local

00:57:56.520 particles

00:57:57.000 and converting it

00:57:57.720 into heat.

00:57:58.600 So the first mechanism

00:57:59.560 I just described,

00:58:00.320 which is that

00:58:01.440 heats the fuel

00:58:02.660 itself.

00:58:03.440 This is the key

00:58:04.360 mechanism

00:58:05.020 about how you

00:58:06.340 make fusion

00:58:07.020 a net energy

00:58:07.840 source on Earth.

00:58:08.800 It's actually,

00:58:09.660 it was that process

00:58:10.580 that was solution

00:58:11.340 to this thing

00:58:12.020 with the product

00:58:12.680 of the density.

00:58:13.540 It's actually

00:58:13.940 that process

00:58:14.740 because what it's

00:58:15.520 telling you is that

00:58:16.340 you're making

00:58:16.920 enough fusion reactions

00:58:18.160 that you're basically

00:58:19.440 able to keep

00:58:20.400 the system hot

00:58:21.960 because it's

00:58:23.420 keeping itself hot

00:58:24.400 and that,

00:58:24.960 in this form of fusion,

00:58:26.560 that's 20%

00:58:27.200 of the energy.

00:58:28.620 Very important.

00:58:29.200 80% of the energy

00:58:32.540 in that reaction

00:58:33.260 is in a neutron.

00:58:34.400 It cannot be contained

00:58:36.380 or it doesn't

00:58:37.500 interact with this.

00:58:38.240 So it interacts

00:58:41.200 very weakly

00:58:41.980 with matter

00:58:42.520 because it doesn't

00:58:43.180 have an electric

00:58:43.780 charge.

00:58:44.400 So there,

00:58:45.320 what you have to do

00:58:46.260 is put something

00:58:47.440 in front of it.

00:58:49.280 And what we tend

00:58:50.180 to think of

00:58:50.640 is either something

00:58:51.540 of a liquid

00:58:52.260 or a solid

00:58:53.080 that forces

00:58:54.740 this neutron,

00:58:55.740 which is like

00:58:56.040 a cannonball,

00:58:56.820 again,

00:58:57.120 another cannonball

00:58:57.980 going into this

00:58:58.880 and you force

00:58:59.820 it to undergo

00:59:00.600 interactions

00:59:02.180 with the atoms

00:59:03.040 that are in

00:59:04.040 that solid

00:59:04.780 or liquid base.

00:59:05.540 This tent,

00:59:05.920 by the way,

00:59:06.280 this thing we call

00:59:07.160 a blanket

00:59:07.700 because you basically

00:59:08.880 wrap the fusion

00:59:10.360 thing around it.

00:59:11.640 And the idea

00:59:12.180 is that we force

00:59:13.240 these neutrons,

00:59:13.980 even though they

00:59:14.460 escape the plasma

00:59:17.700 and magnetic fields,

00:59:19.500 they're forced

00:59:20.160 to interact

00:59:20.840 with this blanket.

00:59:21.560 And after,

00:59:23.560 you know,

00:59:23.940 it varies

00:59:24.980 on the design,

00:59:25.760 but after about

00:59:26.540 30 or 40 collisions

00:59:28.020 kind of in general,

00:59:29.860 they basically

00:59:30.400 give up all their energy.

00:59:32.320 And where is this energy?

00:59:33.420 It's actually,

00:59:34.280 it's in the motion

00:59:36.320 of the atoms

00:59:37.880 that were in that blanket.

00:59:40.040 Right,

00:59:40.280 so that's like

00:59:40.780 heating up water

00:59:41.540 with it,

00:59:42.060 say.

00:59:42.420 I don't know

00:59:43.080 what you use

00:59:43.600 in the blanket,

00:59:44.240 but,

00:59:44.920 uh-huh.

00:59:45.660 Yeah,

00:59:45.900 so this is actually

00:59:47.060 why fusion

00:59:48.100 isn't,

00:59:48.620 it's another reason

00:59:49.240 why fusion

00:59:49.760 is such an attractive

00:59:50.720 energy source.

00:59:52.240 This all sounds

00:59:52.820 very exotic,

00:59:53.700 but actually

00:59:54.300 as a,

00:59:55.540 if you just

00:59:56.060 close your eyes

00:59:56.820 and think,

00:59:57.900 I give you

00:59:58.640 a fusion power plant,

00:59:59.780 what are you actually getting?

01:00:00.780 You're getting

01:00:01.120 a heat source.

01:00:03.340 Because this thing,

01:00:04.800 this blanket

01:00:05.240 that heats up,

01:00:06.780 you know,

01:00:07.100 you just get out

01:00:07.840 this heat

01:00:08.280 and then you do

01:00:08.920 whatever you use

01:00:10.100 to use heat for.

01:00:11.420 Make electricity,

01:00:12.460 run industrial power plants,

01:00:14.620 make synthetic fuels.

01:00:17.520 It's,

01:00:18.000 it's really just,

01:00:19.040 it's adaptable

01:00:20.120 to almost anything

01:00:20.960 that you can imagine

01:00:21.840 that we use

01:00:22.340 from any other

01:00:22.880 fundamental energy source.

01:00:24.400 Yeah.

01:00:24.920 Right.

01:00:25.320 Okay,

01:00:25.700 so let's turn away

01:00:27.040 from the engineering elements

01:00:29.400 and the practicalities

01:00:31.420 of the process

01:00:32.280 to the practicalities

01:00:34.620 of producing

01:00:35.320 a usable energy source.

01:00:36.680 So,

01:00:37.040 I've got two questions

01:00:38.240 there,

01:00:38.660 really.

01:00:39.740 I know there's been

01:00:40.720 tremendous,

01:00:42.560 look,

01:00:42.860 we have reliable

01:00:43.700 fission energy already,

01:00:45.360 although

01:00:45.700 some of the plants

01:00:47.540 seem very complex.

01:00:48.760 they're built

01:00:49.320 as one-offs,

01:00:50.300 there's tremendous

01:00:50.980 bureaucratic red tape,

01:00:52.300 there's a bit of a problem

01:00:53.180 with nuclear waste,

01:00:54.220 people are afraid of it.

01:00:56.480 It's got a bad name,

01:00:58.060 but I saw a company

01:00:59.200 the other day,

01:00:59.860 for example,

01:01:00.720 I think I'm going

01:01:01.200 to interview the CEO

01:01:02.160 that's produced

01:01:03.140 this very cool

01:01:03.940 little nuclear reactor

01:01:04.940 that just sits

01:01:05.560 on the back of a truck

01:01:06.520 and that can be pulled

01:01:07.420 to a,

01:01:07.940 you know,

01:01:08.120 like a northern community

01:01:09.180 to some,

01:01:10.580 and these,

01:01:11.340 there's all these

01:01:11.820 thorium salt reactors

01:01:13.040 and so forth

01:01:13.760 that have come

01:01:14.220 on the market recently

01:01:15.180 and it looks like

01:01:16.100 we're starting

01:01:16.560 to mass produce them

01:01:17.740 and so,

01:01:18.580 like it seems to me,

01:01:19.480 and I'm certainly

01:01:20.040 ignorant about this,

01:01:21.080 but it seems to me 0.99

01:01:21.860 that if we had

01:01:23.260 the political will,

01:01:24.520 we could be turning

01:01:25.560 to fission energy

01:01:26.640 at a much higher scale

01:01:28.100 than we have been

01:01:29.300 and so we have fission

01:01:30.460 as a potential alternative

01:01:31.760 and the fusion problem

01:01:33.540 is very interesting

01:01:34.420 to solve technically,

01:01:35.620 but why not devote

01:01:37.220 our attention

01:01:38.020 more particularly

01:01:39.240 collectively

01:01:39.920 to the fission issue?

01:01:41.440 Why pursue fusion?

01:01:42.560 And then if we're going

01:01:44.200 to pursue fusion,

01:01:45.860 where are we with fusion?

01:01:47.200 Because I'm old enough

01:01:48.240 now that,

01:01:49.700 you know,

01:01:50.060 fusion has been

01:01:50.880 10 years in the future

01:01:52.200 for 50 years,

01:01:53.280 so how are you,

01:01:54.240 what do you feel

01:01:54.780 about all those issues?

01:01:57.000 Yeah,

01:01:57.300 so I'll get back to,

01:01:58.500 so I mean,

01:01:59.120 to make it clear,

01:02:00.180 I am personally

01:02:01.060 totally in favor

01:02:03.740 of deploying fission

01:02:05.920 at a larger scale,

01:02:07.520 you know,

01:02:07.880 to meet our energy

01:02:08.820 security demands.

01:02:11.100 It's actually,

01:02:12.140 you know,

01:02:12.300 the reality

01:02:12.900 is that fission

01:02:13.780 is one of the,

01:02:15.160 if not the safest

01:02:16.100 forms of energy

01:02:17.160 that we use right now.

01:02:18.760 It's a great fit

01:02:19.920 into the things

01:02:20.660 that renewables are not.

01:02:21.980 Renewables are a lot

01:02:22.800 of great things,

01:02:23.560 but they're not reliable

01:02:24.740 because of their intermittency

01:02:26.060 and their low power density.

01:02:27.980 Fission is like that

01:02:29.720 as well too.

01:02:30.240 And as you commented too,

01:02:31.640 it's like,

01:02:32.380 we've got a lot

01:02:33.220 of experience with this

01:02:34.200 and we know

01:02:35.480 that we can,

01:02:36.320 you know,

01:02:36.580 we can make it work.

01:02:38.880 So I guess my comment too

01:02:40.980 would be,

01:02:41.440 would be sort of

01:02:42.280 a meta comment

01:02:43.040 at first,

01:02:44.340 which is,

01:02:45.500 which is

01:02:46.360 the staggering challenge

01:02:48.520 of if we,

01:02:49.780 if we really are serious

01:02:51.040 about decarbonization,

01:02:52.300 which in my opinion

01:02:53.000 as a society,

01:02:53.740 we are not yet serious

01:02:54.880 about it

01:02:55.480 just based on the math

01:02:57.100 of where we are.

01:02:57.980 But if at some point,

01:02:59.420 you know,

01:03:00.360 let's put it this way,

01:03:01.180 we know mathematically

01:03:02.440 sometimes human civilization

01:03:04.160 will run out

01:03:05.020 of fossil fuels.

01:03:06.360 We can argue

01:03:07.200 about what it is,

01:03:07.840 but it will

01:03:08.300 because it's a finite resource.

01:03:11.060 And we need to think

01:03:12.300 about what is

01:03:12.940 a sustainable

01:03:13.600 and deployable

01:03:15.200 almost universal

01:03:17.140 high energy density

01:03:19.260 dispatchable

01:03:21.180 energy source.

01:03:22.140 and I,

01:03:25.240 our choices

01:03:25.900 are so few

01:03:26.920 that that's,

01:03:28.200 it's basic,

01:03:29.060 it's not my argument

01:03:29.920 about fission

01:03:30.620 versus fission.

01:03:31.600 It's just like,

01:03:32.120 I want to set up

01:03:33.720 alternatives

01:03:34.220 on the table

01:03:35.160 to let me do this

01:03:36.340 because this is the way

01:03:37.240 almost all,

01:03:38.280 you know,

01:03:38.540 I would argue

01:03:39.080 all technologies

01:03:40.120 work.

01:03:41.300 We don't have

01:03:42.020 monolithic solutions

01:03:43.740 to these complex problems.

01:03:45.380 They just don't

01:03:46.000 really exist.

01:03:46.780 And so my comment

01:03:48.900 to this is that

01:03:49.560 in many ways,

01:03:50.360 I think the free market

01:03:51.400 will decide this

01:03:52.480 as well too

01:03:53.140 because there are

01:03:54.560 just intrinsically

01:03:55.600 different properties

01:03:56.800 of fusion

01:03:57.300 about its inherent

01:03:58.240 safety,

01:03:59.500 about the long-term

01:04:00.700 consequences

01:04:01.480 of the,

01:04:02.680 of the waste products

01:04:04.420 that come out of fusion.

01:04:05.840 The ability to license

01:04:07.380 them is very different

01:04:08.560 than fission.

01:04:09.560 So while it has,

01:04:10.600 you know,

01:04:11.080 a commonality

01:04:11.960 in some of the physics

01:04:13.040 to,

01:04:13.380 you know,

01:04:13.860 to fission,

01:04:14.380 it's really such

01:04:14.980 a different energy source

01:04:16.260 and there are so few

01:04:17.300 other options

01:04:18.020 in the long-term,

01:04:19.160 it's like,

01:04:19.480 let's do this

01:04:20.320 in some sense now

01:04:21.740 while we have

01:04:23.200 the resources

01:04:23.880 and the wherewithal

01:04:24.800 to actually,

01:04:25.520 you know,

01:04:25.860 get after this problem.

01:04:27.700 Right.

01:04:27.860 So you're not seeing them

01:04:28.900 at,

01:04:29.280 you're not seeing them

01:04:29.940 in competition

01:04:30.680 in some sense at all

01:04:31.880 and your point is that?

01:04:33.380 I am not,

01:04:33.580 well,

01:04:33.700 because,

01:04:34.440 you know,

01:04:34.780 fusions,

01:04:35.520 you know,

01:04:35.860 the timescale is such

01:04:37.120 that fission can be

01:04:37.880 deployed now,

01:04:39.540 right?

01:04:39.900 Yeah.

01:04:40.160 And we've got that.

01:04:41.520 But there are,

01:04:42.160 there are serious

01:04:43.400 consequences.

01:04:44.120 Look,

01:04:44.700 any technology

01:04:45.620 has consequences.

01:04:47.240 Like,

01:04:47.720 if somebody comes

01:04:48.660 and says,

01:04:49.100 I've got a technology

01:04:49.920 and it's got zero

01:04:50.640 societal and environmental,

01:04:52.560 you know,

01:04:53.220 consequences,

01:04:54.280 then go buy a bridge

01:04:55.340 or something.

01:04:55.820 It's like,

01:04:56.200 it doesn't exist,

01:04:57.120 okay?

01:04:57.440 It just doesn't.

01:04:58.640 And we know about these,

01:04:59.520 like,

01:04:59.680 we know about the consequences

01:05:00.920 of fossil fuels,

01:05:02.620 which have been,

01:05:03.240 you know,

01:05:03.400 honestly have been

01:05:04.160 the reason that we get

01:05:05.340 to live the way

01:05:05.980 that we do now.

01:05:06.660 Right.

01:05:07.260 By burning fossil fuels.

01:05:08.520 But we also know

01:05:09.700 there are direct

01:05:10.480 health consequences.

01:05:12.060 We can track these

01:05:12.940 through,

01:05:13.400 you know,

01:05:14.580 through air quality

01:05:15.480 is a direct link

01:05:16.580 actually to people,

01:05:17.600 you know,

01:05:17.780 dying prematurely

01:05:18.840 of asthma.

01:05:19.420 Like,

01:05:19.600 we know these things,

01:05:20.440 right?

01:05:20.700 There's always a consequence.

01:05:22.400 So,

01:05:22.880 that's the meta view,

01:05:23.700 I would say,

01:05:24.180 is that,

01:05:24.720 you better get after,

01:05:26.220 you better get after these.

01:05:27.800 And so,

01:05:28.080 what does it mean

01:05:28.580 about a scalable

01:05:29.420 energy source?

01:05:30.340 And this is an interesting one

01:05:31.420 and about deploying it

01:05:32.500 at a global level.

01:05:33.620 Well,

01:05:34.140 an interesting one

01:05:34.940 that comes,

01:05:35.500 and it's not a criticism,

01:05:36.700 of fission,

01:05:37.500 but it's just the reality

01:05:38.300 of it,

01:05:39.080 is that because

01:05:40.080 of the physical process

01:05:41.560 that fission works on

01:05:43.300 is actually at the heart

01:05:44.740 of actually how you make

01:05:46.020 a nuclear weapon,

01:05:47.540 is that all we have

01:05:48.340 has been made to fission,

01:05:49.960 is that you must have

01:05:50.860 proliferation,

01:05:51.820 you know,

01:05:52.600 control.

01:05:52.880 In fact,

01:05:53.180 next week I'm going to be

01:05:53.980 at a workshop

01:05:54.460 that's discussing

01:05:55.200 proliferation aspects of this.

01:05:57.940 So,

01:05:58.140 you have to take this

01:05:59.020 into account.

01:06:00.260 And you don't have

01:06:00.740 that problem with fusion.

01:06:02.400 Well,

01:06:02.760 it's a different problem

01:06:04.080 in fusion.

01:06:04.760 It's actually such a new

01:06:05.780 technology versus

01:06:06.580 we're sort of figuring

01:06:07.560 it out.

01:06:07.860 In general,

01:06:08.740 you don't,

01:06:09.120 because you don't,

01:06:10.040 in the end,

01:06:10.820 you don't require

01:06:11.600 uranium or plutonium

01:06:12.780 on a fusion device.

01:06:14.100 So,

01:06:14.240 it's like,

01:06:14.620 it's very different.

01:06:15.780 Okay.

01:06:16.600 So,

01:06:16.840 that's that one.

01:06:18.060 And also,

01:06:18.620 and I think,

01:06:19.720 you know,

01:06:20.020 for,

01:06:20.320 although people would argue

01:06:22.520 that there are solutions

01:06:23.800 to that,

01:06:24.220 like the long-term

01:06:24.920 waste storage one

01:06:26.220 is an interesting one,

01:06:27.240 is that because

01:06:27.960 in fission,

01:06:28.820 this is linked

01:06:29.280 to the physical process

01:06:30.520 really of the fission itself.

01:06:32.280 In fusion,

01:06:33.400 the physical process

01:06:34.340 doesn't actually make

01:06:35.360 any radioactive waste.

01:06:37.000 It makes helium.

01:06:38.020 But the engineering

01:06:39.200 that you put around this,

01:06:40.800 like what you make

01:06:41.360 this blanket out of

01:06:42.220 and what you do

01:06:42.640 these other things,

01:06:43.860 these are engineering

01:06:45.120 and design choices

01:06:46.220 that you have

01:06:46.920 about improving

01:06:47.760 the public acceptance

01:06:49.840 and the viability

01:06:50.680 of the licensability

01:06:51.600 of the fusion one.

01:06:52.900 It's an engineering choice

01:06:54.420 that you have,

01:06:55.300 even though there's

01:06:55.900 some pretty severe,

01:06:57.100 you know,

01:06:57.340 challenges around

01:06:58.560 making that engineering work.

01:06:59.780 So that's where

01:07:01.340 I would comment to that,

01:07:02.620 you know,

01:07:02.860 and in the end,

01:07:03.840 the fact,

01:07:04.800 and I should get back

01:07:05.580 to this one,

01:07:06.560 is that it is,

01:07:08.040 like the,

01:07:09.040 you know,

01:07:09.380 they call it,

01:07:10.020 we have to watch out

01:07:10.920 how you use analogies,

01:07:11.900 but the holy grail

01:07:13.200 of energy,

01:07:14.580 the things in this,

01:07:15.380 why?

01:07:16.200 It's because

01:07:17.000 it actually uses

01:07:19.060 very few raw materials

01:07:20.900 to build the thing

01:07:22.480 if you build it effectively,

01:07:24.100 and the fundamental fuel source

01:07:25.880 is essentially inexhaustible

01:07:27.980 on Earth

01:07:29.000 and freely available

01:07:29.980 to everyone.

01:07:31.080 It's like,

01:07:32.160 that's why you pursue it,

01:07:33.740 right?

01:07:35.460 But it's important

01:07:36.380 to understand,

01:07:37.040 like,

01:07:37.780 what is it you're pursuing,

01:07:39.140 which I think

01:07:39.480 was your second question.

01:07:41.700 Right,

01:07:42.260 well,

01:07:42.660 I'd like to,

01:07:44.280 I'd like to take

01:07:45.280 the skeptical approach

01:07:46.740 to that now,

01:07:47.720 because,

01:07:48.200 as I said,

01:07:49.960 this is,

01:07:50.500 this has been for so,

01:07:51.780 now look,

01:07:52.280 I mean,

01:07:52.500 we haven't really been

01:07:53.420 trying to develop

01:07:54.260 fusion technologies

01:07:55.320 for very long,

01:07:56.320 if you think on any,

01:07:57.980 like,

01:07:58.420 reasonable timescale

01:07:59.840 of technological advancement.

01:08:01.480 I mean,

01:08:01.680 we're so accustomed

01:08:02.660 to having complex

01:08:04.060 technological problems

01:08:05.240 solved within the spans

01:08:07.220 of single lifetimes

01:08:08.620 that we think

01:08:09.240 anything that takes,

01:08:10.140 like,

01:08:10.600 200 years

01:08:11.340 is hopeless.

01:08:12.420 And so,

01:08:12.940 I'm certainly not making the case

01:08:14.720 that fusion

01:08:15.260 is an uncrackable problem,

01:08:17.180 but,

01:08:17.340 but having said that,

01:08:19.720 it has been continually

01:08:21.320 announced

01:08:22.440 for many decades

01:08:24.060 that,

01:08:24.660 you know,

01:08:25.000 fusion is a decade

01:08:26.080 into the future,

01:08:26.960 viable fusion,

01:08:27.620 and that would be fusion,

01:08:28.900 as you pointed out,

01:08:29.800 that produces more energy

01:08:30.900 than it takes to produce.

01:08:32.420 And so,

01:08:32.880 now you've been involved

01:08:34.040 in a,

01:08:35.040 until recently headed,

01:08:36.720 very thorough project

01:08:39.580 developing this magnetic technology

01:08:41.440 that we described.

01:08:42.560 You stepped down

01:08:43.600 from that position

01:08:44.500 in November,

01:08:45.940 if I have my facts straight.

01:08:48.800 So,

01:08:49.520 tell us about that project,

01:08:51.140 tell us where you think

01:08:52.060 we are on the fusion horizon,

01:08:54.240 and,

01:08:55.020 and,

01:08:55.060 and what you think

01:08:56.820 the next steps

01:08:57.940 and something approximating

01:08:59.300 a timeline might be.

01:09:00.320 And maybe you could also

01:09:01.160 tell us

01:09:01.700 why we might not,

01:09:04.100 why we might be optimistic

01:09:05.240 about that timeline.

01:09:07.760 Yeah,

01:09:08.260 right,

01:09:09.080 right,

01:09:09.360 and again,

01:09:09.740 the meta comment is,

01:09:11.100 it's interesting on AI,

01:09:12.800 right,

01:09:13.660 like,

01:09:14.240 the term artificial intelligence

01:09:15.500 was invented

01:09:16.380 in the 1970s,

01:09:17.860 which is,

01:09:18.160 which is,

01:09:18.920 you know,

01:09:19.140 fittingly about the same time

01:09:20.540 that fusion technology

01:09:21.600 really started taking off

01:09:22.920 as well too,

01:09:23.960 right,

01:09:24.280 or maybe it's in the 60s,

01:09:26.080 like Marvin Minsky,

01:09:26.920 and so,

01:09:27.080 anyway,

01:09:28.100 like,

01:09:28.440 these ideas are around

01:09:29.840 because they survive

01:09:31.120 because they're compelling ideas

01:09:32.680 is my argument.

01:09:33.840 And then all of a sudden,

01:09:34.980 things happen

01:09:35.720 that all of a sudden

01:09:36.460 makes this thing

01:09:38.100 that people conceive of,

01:09:40.140 oh yeah,

01:09:40.660 I get the dream of this,

01:09:42.120 right,

01:09:42.560 and all of a sudden,

01:09:43.260 things happen

01:09:44.120 that all of a sudden

01:09:44.740 make it,

01:09:45.340 you know,

01:09:46.040 a reality,

01:09:47.240 like you see something

01:09:48.060 right around them.

01:09:48.700 So,

01:09:48.940 I'll pull back,

01:09:50.540 that's the meta comment,

01:09:51.780 like why,

01:09:52.360 fusion,

01:09:53.580 right,

01:09:53.960 so,

01:09:54.860 so some of it

01:09:55.540 is the pull,

01:09:56.520 right,

01:09:57.020 that I would argue

01:09:58.920 that as a society,

01:10:00.340 if we really are serious

01:10:01.860 about decarbonizing,

01:10:03.720 the set of choices

01:10:05.240 we have in front of us

01:10:06.480 about replacing 82%

01:10:08.060 of our fundamental energy,

01:10:09.960 which comes from

01:10:10.620 still from fossil fuels

01:10:11.680 and basically hasn't changed

01:10:12.920 in decades,

01:10:14.460 you need just massive amounts

01:10:16.440 of carbon-free energy,

01:10:17.980 like massive amounts.

01:10:19.220 so that pull

01:10:20.540 that is coming

01:10:21.540 from that

01:10:22.260 has increased

01:10:23.080 significantly

01:10:24.380 compared to like

01:10:26.040 the 90s

01:10:26.680 or something like,

01:10:27.240 1990s.

01:10:29.340 Very important.

01:10:30.740 I think the,

01:10:32.980 it's actually not,

01:10:33.880 and it's even more

01:10:34.560 nuanced than that,

01:10:35.460 it's not just

01:10:36.560 access to that

01:10:37.880 kind of energy,

01:10:38.920 it's like the realization

01:10:40.120 that renewables alone,

01:10:41.860 because of their

01:10:42.480 intrinsic limitations,

01:10:44.100 like trying to run

01:10:45.080 a gigawatt,

01:10:46.560 you know,

01:10:46.780 chemical processing plant

01:10:48.220 on renewables.

01:10:50.860 Especially when it's cold.

01:10:52.680 Yeah, well,

01:10:53.320 I mean,

01:10:53.540 the science doesn't,

01:10:54.420 you know,

01:10:54.560 the science is against it,

01:10:55.600 it's not,

01:10:55.980 nothing needs renewables,

01:10:56.700 you just have to be

01:10:57.460 cognizant of the,

01:10:58.760 of the limitations

01:10:59.960 of any kind of energy source.

01:11:02.020 It's like the limitation

01:11:02.960 in fusion,

01:11:03.540 by the way,

01:11:04.180 like you can't make,

01:11:05.240 you can't make a,

01:11:07.140 a fusion power plant

01:11:08.280 that heats this home,

01:11:09.260 because everything's

01:11:10.000 got to be at bigger scale,

01:11:11.040 it has to make way more power

01:11:12.100 than would be appropriate

01:11:12.960 for heating this home.

01:11:13.960 Everything's got limitations,

01:11:15.160 yeah.

01:11:15.480 Right.

01:11:15.720 Surround on those. 0.99

01:11:17.280 So,

01:11:18.080 so the,

01:11:18.780 so I think this was

01:11:19.800 part of it,

01:11:20.680 and then,

01:11:21.140 of course,

01:11:21.500 what happens,

01:11:22.260 like in a lot of,

01:11:23.820 so fusion,

01:11:24.960 this distinguishes it,

01:11:26.340 the science I described

01:11:27.540 has been known

01:11:28.200 for a long time,

01:11:29.880 and the criteria

01:11:30.580 to make fusion

01:11:31.120 has been known

01:11:31.480 for a long time.

01:11:32.620 So what happens

01:11:33.320 is the reality

01:11:34.140 of actually making

01:11:35.080 fusion practical,

01:11:36.940 as usual,

01:11:37.940 it comes from synergies

01:11:40.380 of technological

01:11:41.800 and scientific advances

01:11:43.180 that tend to make you

01:11:44.240 feel that it's ready

01:11:45.020 for prime time.

01:11:45.820 and I'll,

01:11:47.020 and I'll comment

01:11:48.160 on this,

01:11:48.740 is that really

01:11:49.420 in the last 10 years,

01:11:51.460 there's been a really,

01:11:52.380 I think,

01:11:52.700 a set of those.

01:11:53.640 One of them has been

01:11:54.320 computational power.

01:11:55.640 It's a really complex problem.

01:11:57.960 You know,

01:11:58.380 one of the,

01:11:59.120 the origins of the,

01:12:00.960 of the company

01:12:01.560 that we launched

01:12:02.140 out of MIT

01:12:02.720 and some of the ideas

01:12:03.920 that we've been pursuing

01:12:04.840 came out of my classroom.

01:12:06.540 When I say this,

01:12:07.640 it's like the computational power

01:12:09.060 that's available

01:12:09.640 to my students

01:12:10.560 in a single semester class

01:12:12.300 at MIT

01:12:13.140 surpasses

01:12:14.080 the people,

01:12:15.080 the computational power

01:12:16.180 available to people

01:12:17.100 one generational goal

01:12:18.240 that we're actually

01:12:18.780 trying to design

01:12:19.500 the biggest effusion

01:12:20.520 experiment in the world.

01:12:21.520 It's like,

01:12:22.240 that's going to,

01:12:23.000 that's going to make

01:12:23.900 a difference,

01:12:24.400 right?

01:12:24.760 Because it's a complex problem.

01:12:27.100 I think the,

01:12:28.300 the other part is

01:12:29.600 because,

01:12:30.160 you know,

01:12:31.660 a fusion's advance

01:12:33.140 seemed to take a hiatus

01:12:34.460 because we were trying

01:12:36.300 to figure out the way

01:12:37.180 past that next threshold,

01:12:38.700 particularly of,

01:12:39.840 the scientific threshold

01:12:40.660 was getting net energy,

01:12:42.280 which meant that,

01:12:43.040 what that means

01:12:43.700 is that when you hit that,

01:12:44.960 you're actually,

01:12:45.620 the fusion reactions

01:12:46.940 are the dominant

01:12:47.680 heat source in it

01:12:48.620 and there are multiple

01:12:50.600 approaches to that

01:12:51.640 and we were,

01:12:53.140 it was a big step

01:12:54.360 and we needed to get

01:12:55.120 our scientific feet

01:12:56.240 underneath us

01:12:57.000 and that was honestly

01:12:58.340 like a two-decade process.

01:12:59.980 I was heavily involved

01:13:01.020 personally in that

01:13:01.800 as well too.

01:13:02.620 That's a major,

01:13:03.540 major,

01:13:04.220 major scientific,

01:13:06.540 you know,

01:13:07.100 task to basically

01:13:08.120 get after these things

01:13:09.380 and that particularly

01:13:10.520 evoked itself

01:13:11.700 in forms of advanced

01:13:13.520 magnetic confinement devices,

01:13:15.480 one called ETER,

01:13:16.300 which is in the south of France

01:13:17.440 and now our own experiment,

01:13:19.360 you know,

01:13:20.040 that's been launched

01:13:20.780 out of MIT

01:13:21.320 and Commonwealth fusion systems

01:13:23.820 and also,

01:13:24.640 with the laser fusion,

01:13:26.120 which had a big breakthrough

01:13:27.540 approximately a year ago

01:13:29.180 as well too

01:13:29.740 and guess what,

01:13:30.980 like one of them

01:13:31.620 did break through,

01:13:32.660 right,

01:13:32.900 the laser experiment

01:13:33.940 got to the point

01:13:35.180 where they got the fuel

01:13:36.180 to the place

01:13:36.800 where the fusion reactions

01:13:38.080 were the dominant heat source,

01:13:39.860 an amazing scientific accomplishment.

01:13:42.340 Right.

01:13:42.400 And this was the thing

01:13:42.940 that sort of broke through

01:13:43.820 the news cycle,

01:13:44.740 if you remember,

01:13:46.000 in December of 22,

01:13:47.260 yeah,

01:13:47.560 very,

01:13:48.140 very important

01:13:48.700 and of course,

01:13:49.400 everybody looked at it,

01:13:50.280 it's like everybody,

01:13:51.040 you know,

01:13:51.520 calmed down about an energy source

01:13:53.040 next week,

01:13:53.900 but a major scientific accomplishment

01:13:55.680 and this is,

01:13:56.580 you know,

01:13:57.760 this is the fruit

01:13:59.140 of decades of work,

01:14:01.200 right,

01:14:01.720 that the general public

01:14:02.960 won't see.

01:14:03.460 So that's the second one,

01:14:04.520 like we really know

01:14:05.900 a lot more

01:14:06.680 than we did 20 years ago

01:14:07.940 through that

01:14:08.660 and through computation

01:14:09.580 and the computation,

01:14:10.760 by the way,

01:14:11.100 affects the science

01:14:11.860 and the engineering

01:14:13.460 for sort of the synergistic buildup.

01:14:15.400 Right, right.

01:14:15.860 And then the final one

01:14:17.420 was advances

01:14:18.220 in technologies

01:14:19.440 that come from places

01:14:20.540 that weren't necessarily

01:14:21.560 in fusion

01:14:22.060 and that's one of the ones

01:14:23.380 that we discovered

01:14:24.080 was that namely

01:14:24.860 there was a commercialization

01:14:26.460 of a new kind of technology,

01:14:28.240 a new kind of superconductor material

01:14:30.320 that was going to

01:14:32.160 apparently allow us

01:14:33.520 to greatly improve

01:14:35.520 the efficiency

01:14:36.780 of the magnetic bottle

01:14:38.220 that we were making

01:14:39.160 in that approach.

01:14:41.400 And interestingly,

01:14:42.280 like the path of that one

01:14:43.540 came from

01:14:44.680 a fundamental science discovery

01:14:46.460 in the late 1980s,

01:14:47.920 won the Nobel Prize in physics.

01:14:49.900 Everybody went crazy

01:14:50.960 because this is

01:14:51.540 so-called superconductor,

01:14:53.040 which could say superconducting

01:14:54.120 at extraordinarily

01:14:54.960 for that kind of technology,

01:14:57.100 high temperatures.

01:14:58.220 Usually superconductors

01:14:59.080 are near absolute zero.

01:15:01.240 This is at a stunning

01:15:02.060 like 70 degrees

01:15:03.220 above absolute zero

01:15:04.200 remains superconducting.

01:15:05.800 But that took,

01:15:06.720 you know,

01:15:07.020 over 20 years

01:15:08.720 to commercialize.

01:15:11.860 And it turns out

01:15:12.900 our team was ready

01:15:13.940 sort of with the right

01:15:14.820 set of ideas

01:15:15.420 to take that new material

01:15:16.800 now in a commercial form

01:15:18.440 and in terms of a tape

01:15:19.500 and in turn it

01:15:20.920 into a highly performing

01:15:25.760 electromagnet

01:15:26.960 that produces this cage.

01:15:28.660 And that's in fact

01:15:29.400 was a major pursuit

01:15:31.000 of my group

01:15:33.040 at MIT

01:15:34.340 and now the commercialization

01:15:35.980 aspect of this

01:15:36.740 with Commonwealth Fusion Systems,

01:15:38.420 which a couple years ago

01:15:39.920 essentially demonstrated

01:15:41.400 this quantum jump

01:15:43.620 and the capability

01:15:44.820 of the magnet

01:15:45.520 to be an effective container

01:15:46.780 for the fuel.

01:15:48.620 And just to put

01:15:49.060 that one in context

01:15:50.380 is that that was

01:15:51.660 approximately

01:15:53.480 a factor

01:15:54.520 of 20 to 40

01:15:56.040 improvement

01:15:57.360 in the efficiency

01:15:59.800 of this.

01:16:00.320 So this meant

01:16:00.780 that the cost

01:16:01.600 of achieving,

01:16:03.200 of being able

01:16:03.640 to build a device

01:16:04.480 that would see

01:16:05.100 fusion

01:16:05.660 this net energy

01:16:08.780 gain

01:16:09.220 for the first time,

01:16:10.200 it shrunk it

01:16:10.780 by a factor

01:16:11.520 of approximately

01:16:12.140 30 to 40.

01:16:13.680 So that's an enormous

01:16:14.800 one which goes...

01:16:16.140 So, but by the way then,

01:16:18.020 and now there are

01:16:18.540 other fusion concepts

01:16:19.600 which can also use

01:16:21.180 that breakthrough

01:16:23.120 along with the computing

01:16:24.240 power

01:16:24.660 to design it.

01:16:25.840 In fact,

01:16:26.100 early this morning

01:16:26.920 I was having a conversation

01:16:27.920 with my MIT colleagues

01:16:29.160 about how we might

01:16:30.100 apply this

01:16:30.660 to a different configuration.

01:16:33.000 All this being said

01:16:34.000 is that

01:16:34.320 it's a lot of details

01:16:35.580 I know to go through.

01:16:36.900 Look at technology

01:16:38.100 breakthroughs.

01:16:39.200 They always happen

01:16:40.200 this way.

01:16:41.200 That namely,

01:16:41.760 there's things

01:16:42.200 which are sitting there

01:16:43.100 which are ideas

01:16:44.600 but are hard

01:16:45.560 to imagine

01:16:46.520 self-consistently

01:16:47.880 together

01:16:48.320 as a commercial product

01:16:49.500 or something

01:16:49.880 that we can all use.

01:16:51.780 And then what happens

01:16:52.540 is a couple of

01:16:53.300 things pop together

01:16:54.860 and all of a sudden

01:16:56.180 what seemed impossible

01:16:57.300 becomes...

01:16:58.560 I'm not going to say

01:16:58.960 inevitable.

01:16:59.380 I would never say

01:16:59.840 inevitable

01:17:00.280 because that's

01:17:00.980 too much hubris

01:17:02.120 but I think

01:17:03.700 it becomes

01:17:04.100 much more likely

01:17:05.180 actually around on this.

01:17:06.580 And of course

01:17:07.020 the important thing

01:17:07.860 for this

01:17:08.420 is that

01:17:08.860 is there

01:17:09.860 a customer

01:17:11.060 on the other side

01:17:12.120 if you're thinking

01:17:12.540 about commercialization?

01:17:13.660 And the argument here

01:17:14.580 is that in the energy world

01:17:15.740 we become hungrier

01:17:17.080 and hungrier

01:17:17.760 for these kinds of products

01:17:18.740 not less hungry

01:17:19.520 for those.

01:17:21.020 And I think

01:17:22.220 that's why

01:17:22.840 the landscape

01:17:25.220 has changed

01:17:26.060 for fusion.

01:17:27.460 Okay, okay, okay.

01:17:28.580 So you're pointing to

01:17:30.080 clear advances

01:17:30.940 on the laser side,

01:17:32.860 advances in material technology,

01:17:34.540 stunning advances

01:17:36.100 in computational ability

01:17:37.400 which I presume

01:17:38.140 enables you

01:17:39.120 to model

01:17:39.860 the things

01:17:40.460 that you would

01:17:41.000 otherwise have

01:17:41.680 to build and test

01:17:42.660 much more precisely,

01:17:44.140 much more rapidly.

01:17:45.560 And so you can see

01:17:46.360 an acceleration

01:17:46.980 of movement

01:17:47.900 towards the end goal.

01:17:49.160 How far away

01:17:49.880 do you think...

01:17:50.980 Maybe this is

01:17:52.400 an unfair question

01:17:53.240 and if it is

01:17:53.980 deal with it

01:17:54.680 however you want

01:17:55.320 but how far away

01:17:56.500 do you feel

01:17:57.160 that the teams

01:17:58.940 that you've been leading

01:17:59.880 or the team

01:18:00.320 that you've been leading

01:18:01.000 is away

01:18:01.500 on the magnetic

01:18:02.580 containment side

01:18:03.600 from producing

01:18:04.740 reaction

01:18:05.840 that produces

01:18:06.520 more energy

01:18:07.120 than it consumes?

01:18:08.300 I mean,

01:18:08.560 you talked about

01:18:09.260 commercializing this

01:18:10.240 and I know

01:18:11.120 there are plans

01:18:11.620 in the work

01:18:11.980 for that

01:18:12.280 so I presume

01:18:12.900 you feel

01:18:13.420 that you're

01:18:14.120 on the threshold

01:18:14.760 of this

01:18:15.180 or close to it.

01:18:17.120 How do you know that

01:18:18.180 and how do you

01:18:18.980 track your progress

01:18:19.880 and predict?

01:18:21.800 Yeah, so one of them

01:18:22.740 is that there's

01:18:23.400 a place

01:18:24.180 about an hour drive

01:18:25.260 away from here

01:18:25.920 in suburban Boston

01:18:26.940 that has built

01:18:28.000 the buildings

01:18:28.540 in which it will be in

01:18:29.480 that has built

01:18:30.080 the factory

01:18:30.560 that is building

01:18:31.120 the magnets

01:18:31.720 which basically

01:18:32.720 took the magnet

01:18:34.120 development

01:18:34.540 that we did

01:18:35.180 jointly

01:18:35.540 with the company

01:18:36.300 at MIT

01:18:36.880 between MIT

01:18:37.500 and the company

01:18:38.040 and they're

01:18:38.380 building the magnets

01:18:39.220 in fact

01:18:40.040 on this podcast

01:18:41.040 I'm missing

01:18:41.600 my weekly meeting

01:18:42.560 about the magnet

01:18:44.140 fabrication

01:18:44.820 okay

01:18:45.400 because that's

01:18:46.600 how real it is

01:18:47.400 the money is there

01:18:48.600 the team is there

01:18:49.500 it's putting it

01:18:50.180 together

01:18:50.540 and

01:18:51.560 right now

01:18:54.760 the projection

01:18:55.320 is it's a few

01:18:56.120 years away

01:18:56.720 like a couple

01:18:57.540 of years away

01:18:58.260 I can't speak

01:18:59.420 in detail

01:18:59.880 about schedules

01:19:00.460 but that's okay

01:19:01.020 so that kind of

01:19:02.200 puts us into context

01:19:03.140 and what do we mean

01:19:04.260 by it

01:19:04.720 right

01:19:05.080 it is

01:19:06.220 something that

01:19:07.160 makes fusion

01:19:07.880 at a commercially

01:19:08.780 relevant scale

01:19:10.180 namely that it's

01:19:11.040 in the orders

01:19:11.620 of hundreds

01:19:12.100 of millions

01:19:12.620 of watts

01:19:13.240 of fusion

01:19:13.720 power

01:19:14.300 and it makes

01:19:15.580 and it has

01:19:16.300 a net energy

01:19:16.940 gain

01:19:17.520 in the plasma

01:19:18.580 which is a

01:19:19.140 fundamental requirement

01:19:20.200 obviously to make

01:19:21.220 a net energy

01:19:21.920 system

01:19:22.540 around on that

01:19:23.480 so you

01:19:24.380 you know

01:19:24.860 sometimes I would

01:19:26.400 ask you

01:19:26.920 you know

01:19:27.240 you as

01:19:27.900 you know

01:19:28.180 somebody who

01:19:28.580 obviously

01:19:28.860 you know

01:19:29.320 is a

01:19:30.000 you're

01:19:30.380 scientifically

01:19:30.800 literate

01:19:31.380 but not

01:19:31.700 an expert

01:19:32.200 in fusion

01:19:32.700 if you see

01:19:33.300 something like

01:19:33.880 that

01:19:34.260 you know

01:19:34.860 do you think

01:19:35.840 fusion

01:19:36.440 is taking

01:19:37.080 a big step

01:19:37.660 towards

01:19:38.020 commercialization

01:19:38.900 right right

01:19:39.780 well what you

01:19:40.480 see is that

01:19:41.060 people are

01:19:41.500 willing to

01:19:42.260 bet resources

01:19:43.580 they actually

01:19:44.260 have at hand

01:19:45.060 on that

01:19:45.480 realization

01:19:45.960 and so

01:19:46.640 you'd assume

01:19:47.560 if they're

01:19:48.540 sensible people

01:19:49.400 and I suspect

01:19:50.020 they are

01:19:50.460 that they've

01:19:50.880 done their

01:19:51.220 due diligence

01:19:51.800 and believe

01:19:52.740 that this

01:19:53.200 is a possibility

01:19:54.340 in some

01:19:54.880 time frame

01:19:55.400 that makes

01:19:55.800 the investment

01:19:56.340 worthwhile

01:19:56.880 and that

01:19:57.780 they're more

01:19:58.180 interested in

01:19:58.780 that than

01:19:59.140 they would

01:19:59.440 be investing

01:20:00.020 in fission

01:20:00.780 for example

01:20:01.420 which is a

01:20:01.860 more proven

01:20:02.260 technology

01:20:02.880 so that

01:20:04.500 you know

01:20:04.820 that's how

01:20:05.180 it looks

01:20:05.440 from the

01:20:05.740 outside

01:20:05.980 I have

01:20:06.780 two issues

01:20:08.260 that came

01:20:10.000 up in our

01:20:10.380 discussion

01:20:10.780 that I didn't

01:20:11.380 get quite

01:20:11.860 cleared up

01:20:12.380 that I'd

01:20:12.720 like to

01:20:13.020 return to

01:20:13.520 and then

01:20:13.780 we can

01:20:14.100 move the

01:20:14.480 discussion

01:20:14.860 forward

01:20:15.260 more generally

01:20:15.860 again

01:20:16.200 when the

01:20:17.860 plasma forms

01:20:18.960 and the

01:20:19.280 electrons

01:20:19.720 are stripped

01:20:20.280 off

01:20:20.740 the hydrogen

01:20:22.020 plasma

01:20:22.480 what happens

01:20:23.200 to the

01:20:23.500 electrons

01:20:24.020 the electrons

01:20:25.160 are contained

01:20:25.800 as well

01:20:26.260 too

01:20:26.500 so a

01:20:27.520 fundamental

01:20:27.780 feature

01:20:28.360 of the

01:20:28.720 plasma

01:20:29.140 is essentially

01:20:29.780 an equal

01:20:30.620 set of

01:20:31.660 negative

01:20:32.080 and positive

01:20:33.140 charged

01:20:33.560 particles

01:20:34.000 that's actually

01:20:34.800 one of the

01:20:35.080 definitions

01:20:35.540 of plasma

01:20:36.340 oh really

01:20:37.100 so they're

01:20:38.300 in the

01:20:38.600 soup

01:20:38.920 they're in

01:20:39.560 the soup

01:20:39.920 which is

01:20:41.380 interesting

01:20:42.000 because they

01:20:42.540 do not

01:20:43.440 fuse

01:20:43.840 together

01:20:44.260 they're

01:20:44.520 fundamental

01:20:44.880 particles

01:20:45.440 that do

01:20:46.360 not

01:20:46.540 change

01:20:46.920 and in

01:20:47.220 fact

01:20:47.460 they're

01:20:48.100 an interesting

01:20:48.580 one

01:20:48.900 because

01:20:49.400 it's a

01:20:50.340 good

01:20:50.500 if you mind

01:20:51.160 I'll just

01:20:51.560 divert this

01:20:52.160 because it's

01:20:52.460 an interesting

01:20:53.000 technical

01:20:53.960 challenge

01:20:54.520 if you think

01:20:54.860 this way

01:20:55.380 is that the

01:20:56.240 electrons

01:20:57.120 have way

01:20:58.100 less mass

01:20:58.940 than the

01:20:59.380 other

01:20:59.560 they're

01:20:59.900 2000 times

01:21:00.820 less massive

01:21:01.600 than the

01:21:02.260 other parts

01:21:03.340 so this is a

01:21:04.060 weird fluid

01:21:04.780 it's one of the

01:21:05.360 reasons why

01:21:05.840 plasma physics

01:21:07.580 is complex

01:21:08.700 because you have

01:21:09.440 a fluid where

01:21:10.140 the two

01:21:10.500 particles have

01:21:11.100 a difference

01:21:11.540 of mass

01:21:12.100 of an

01:21:12.360 inertia

01:21:12.780 of a factor

01:21:13.440 of 2000

01:21:14.120 from each other

01:21:15.220 so they

01:21:16.180 behave

01:21:16.600 they can

01:21:16.980 behave quite

01:21:17.620 differently

01:21:18.040 so for

01:21:18.480 example

01:21:18.820 the size

01:21:19.360 of that

01:21:19.640 orbit

01:21:19.960 that I

01:21:20.260 mentioned

01:21:20.600 it's

01:21:21.280 inherently

01:21:21.680 100 times

01:21:22.440 smaller

01:21:22.880 for the

01:21:23.320 electrons

01:21:23.700 than it

01:21:23.960 is for

01:21:24.220 the other

01:21:24.480 particles

01:21:24.960 which means

01:21:25.860 this is why

01:21:26.340 it's a

01:21:26.560 difficult

01:21:26.840 physics

01:21:27.240 problem

01:21:27.560 because you're

01:21:27.860 dealing across

01:21:28.580 very different

01:21:29.020 spatial scales

01:21:29.840 because of that

01:21:30.400 but it's

01:21:32.520 interesting

01:21:32.840 in an

01:21:33.120 earthly fusion

01:21:34.660 system

01:21:35.200 these are

01:21:35.960 really important

01:21:37.340 why is this

01:21:38.520 because you've

01:21:39.380 got this

01:21:39.760 equal ensemble

01:21:40.680 of the

01:21:42.600 hydrogen

01:21:44.020 species

01:21:44.580 the nuclei

01:21:45.580 and the

01:21:45.960 electrons

01:21:46.420 they're all

01:21:46.940 together like

01:21:47.560 this

01:21:47.820 they're actually

01:21:48.500 exchanging

01:21:49.240 energy to

01:21:50.160 each other

01:21:50.540 through collisions

01:21:51.140 as well too

01:21:51.740 but when the

01:21:52.440 fusion reaction

01:21:53.180 occurs

01:21:53.720 this particle

01:21:54.800 that is

01:21:55.560 ejected

01:21:56.080 is so

01:21:56.620 energetic

01:21:57.220 that it's

01:21:58.200 actually going

01:21:58.820 even though it

01:22:00.280 has a mass

01:22:00.920 which is way

01:22:01.620 more than

01:22:02.060 the electrons

01:22:02.580 it's actually

01:22:03.240 going at a

01:22:03.780 velocity

01:22:04.280 which is

01:22:05.060 actually about

01:22:05.700 the same

01:22:06.200 as the

01:22:06.500 electrons

01:22:06.940 because it's

01:22:07.580 got so much

01:22:08.240 pop to it

01:22:09.640 and through

01:22:10.520 reasons I

01:22:11.740 won't derive

01:22:13.260 this means

01:22:14.180 that actually

01:22:14.640 that very

01:22:15.440 fast particle

01:22:16.240 technically

01:22:17.700 gives most

01:22:18.560 of its energy

01:22:19.280 into the

01:22:19.800 electrons

01:22:20.260 not into

01:22:21.280 the rest

01:22:22.420 of the

01:22:22.720 fuel

01:22:23.000 so the

01:22:23.840 electrons

01:22:24.240 get hot

01:22:25.180 and then

01:22:26.000 the electrons

01:22:26.700 actually

01:22:27.440 exchange

01:22:28.800 energy

01:22:30.020 through

01:22:30.360 collisions

01:22:30.760 with the

01:22:31.400 fuel

01:22:31.800 and then

01:22:32.240 it's the

01:22:32.580 fuel that

01:22:33.060 makes the

01:22:33.520 fusion

01:22:33.900 but the

01:22:34.880 rate of

01:22:35.460 fusion

01:22:35.780 fuel

01:22:36.180 actually

01:22:36.800 is a

01:22:37.460 thing that

01:22:37.800 sets the

01:22:38.200 rate at

01:22:38.580 which those

01:22:38.940 energetic

01:22:39.300 particles

01:22:39.780 go out

01:22:40.140 and hit 0.77

01:22:40.460 the electrons

01:22:41.120 wow

01:22:41.900 so you

01:22:42.760 see the

01:22:43.240 physical

01:22:44.300 coupling

01:22:44.840 within this

01:22:45.600 is complex

01:22:46.600 because there's

01:22:47.140 essentially three

01:22:48.060 independent

01:22:48.720 species

01:22:49.420 sort of

01:22:50.660 navigating this

01:22:51.680 with each

01:22:52.000 other through

01:22:52.440 collisions and

01:22:53.520 power battles

01:22:54.100 this is just

01:22:54.760 one of the

01:22:55.480 kinds of

01:22:56.100 complexities that

01:22:56.920 we deal with

01:22:57.520 in fusion

01:22:57.900 systems

01:22:58.480 yeah

01:22:58.900 so okay

01:22:59.960 so I had

01:23:00.600 a thank you

01:23:01.000 for answering

01:23:01.460 that I had

01:23:01.940 a question

01:23:02.400 too on the

01:23:03.460 conceptualization

01:23:04.740 side of this

01:23:05.460 with regards to

01:23:06.160 the justification

01:23:06.900 for

01:23:07.700 for fusion

01:23:09.740 technology

01:23:11.380 now you

01:23:12.760 you justified

01:23:14.020 it and

01:23:14.920 I'm not putting

01:23:15.800 words in your

01:23:16.280 mouth and I

01:23:16.860 hope not to

01:23:17.460 but one of

01:23:18.260 the angles

01:23:19.640 of justification

01:23:20.380 that you

01:23:21.120 adopted was

01:23:22.200 you know an

01:23:23.400 emphasis on

01:23:24.040 decarbonization

01:23:24.940 but it seems

01:23:25.740 to me that

01:23:26.300 the proponents

01:23:28.200 of fusion

01:23:29.700 power have

01:23:30.740 a better

01:23:31.420 environmental

01:23:33.080 sustainability

01:23:33.740 argument than

01:23:34.580 decarbonization

01:23:35.500 so for

01:23:36.720 example we

01:23:38.000 know that

01:23:38.560 there's almost

01:23:39.320 nothing more

01:23:39.920 tightly tied to

01:23:41.160 economic

01:23:42.520 progression and

01:23:44.080 success the

01:23:44.800 amelioration of

01:23:45.600 absolute poverty

01:23:46.400 than decreased

01:23:47.640 energy cost

01:23:48.460 I mean that's

01:23:50.160 a it's almost

01:23:51.680 a one-to-one

01:23:52.360 relationship because

01:23:53.240 energy is work

01:23:54.120 and work is

01:23:54.740 productivity and

01:23:55.700 productivity is

01:23:56.980 wealth and so

01:23:58.240 that's not much

01:23:59.500 of a complex

01:24:00.960 causal scheme

01:24:01.820 it also turns out

01:24:03.220 that if you get

01:24:04.000 the average

01:24:05.180 GDP of

01:24:07.200 absolutely of the

01:24:09.000 absolutely poverty

01:24:10.260 stricken up to

01:24:11.980 about 5,000

01:24:13.420 US dollars per

01:24:14.520 year they

01:24:16.140 start taking a

01:24:17.040 long-term view of

01:24:18.280 environmental

01:24:18.840 sustainability at

01:24:20.020 the local level

01:24:20.920 because instead of

01:24:22.200 having to scrabble

01:24:23.100 for their lunch in

01:24:23.980 the dirt and burn

01:24:24.900 dung they can

01:24:25.940 start thinking about

01:24:26.820 what sort of

01:24:27.500 greenery might be

01:24:28.880 around for their

01:24:29.640 children right and

01:24:31.160 so it seems to me

01:24:32.140 that instead of

01:24:34.200 following the green

01:24:36.100 pathway so to speak

01:24:37.380 and and pointing to

01:24:40.020 the utility of

01:24:40.820 fusion energy as a

01:24:42.360 substitute for

01:24:43.600 fossil fuels which

01:24:46.100 in in principle

01:24:46.960 might become more

01:24:47.760 expensive as they

01:24:48.600 become more scarce

01:24:49.440 and which also

01:24:50.660 could be used

01:24:51.520 perhaps more wisely

01:24:53.160 for the production

01:24:53.940 of chemicals rather

01:24:54.920 than to burn

01:24:55.820 exactly because

01:24:56.380 it's a rootstock

01:24:57.240 right yeah

01:24:57.740 well absolutely

01:24:58.340 absolutely and

01:24:59.380 absolutely and

01:25:00.640 and for fertilizer

01:25:01.480 as well let's say

01:25:02.480 that beating the

01:25:05.460 drum for driving

01:25:06.760 the cost of energy

01:25:07.800 down to the lowest

01:25:08.560 possible level

01:25:09.460 you know conceivable

01:25:10.820 seems to me to be a

01:25:12.060 a more appropriate

01:25:14.680 and potentially

01:25:15.680 deeper long-term

01:25:17.240 say public relations

01:25:18.560 strategy like what

01:25:19.860 could we do with the

01:25:20.820 world if we had an

01:25:21.740 inexhaustible source of

01:25:23.140 inexpensive energy I

01:25:25.040 mean it makes

01:25:25.980 enterprises like

01:25:27.720 desalinization

01:25:29.360 for example widely

01:25:32.020 possible and and well

01:25:34.000 that would be a

01:25:34.560 wonderful thing given

01:25:35.340 that in principle

01:25:36.320 we're going to be

01:25:37.040 facing water shortages

01:25:38.080 in the future as

01:25:39.020 well so I'm

01:25:40.100 wondering what's

01:25:41.380 what's your view

01:25:42.160 with regards to the

01:25:43.260 viability of fusion

01:25:44.360 as a genuinely

01:25:45.780 inexpensive and

01:25:47.300 universally available

01:25:48.500 source apart from

01:25:49.940 the fact of its

01:25:50.980 cleanliness and safety

01:25:52.160 which is obviously

01:25:52.960 relevant yeah

01:25:54.420 right so that that

01:25:56.300 is that is actually

01:25:57.620 the challenge I would

01:25:58.940 argue in front of us

01:26:00.140 as technologists who

01:26:01.240 propose fusion

01:26:02.880 fusion energy systems

01:26:05.420 right is that I

01:26:07.080 feel you know my

01:26:08.780 belief is that we've

01:26:09.640 gotten past the point

01:26:10.780 where we were pretty

01:26:12.640 because we've

01:26:13.280 demonstrated so many

01:26:14.420 of the different parts

01:26:15.620 of the system like the

01:26:17.060 science of it while it

01:26:17.900 sounds like science

01:26:18.520 fiction has actually

01:26:19.420 been done by the way

01:26:20.780 for example 100

01:26:21.780 million degrees which

01:26:22.700 sounds like science

01:26:23.380 fiction we ran an

01:26:25.140 experiment on the

01:26:25.920 campus of MIT where

01:26:27.100 when we ran the

01:26:27.840 experiment 30 times a

01:26:28.980 day for a few seconds

01:26:29.860 at a time we'd made

01:26:31.080 the fuel 100 million

01:26:31.980 degrees like this

01:26:33.600 I remember we had a

01:26:34.960 VIP visitor who said

01:26:36.680 who saw one of these

01:26:37.600 and they said why

01:26:38.120 isn't everybody

01:26:38.660 applauding because we

01:26:39.540 do it we do it we

01:26:41.360 did it we did it 30

01:26:42.260 times a day the

01:26:43.380 scientific viability

01:26:44.580 is there and what

01:26:46.400 was missing were two

01:26:47.340 components I would

01:26:48.200 argue so one one

01:26:49.260 was does the you

01:26:50.880 know were you past

01:26:52.400 the point where you

01:26:53.160 felt like when the

01:26:54.040 system became more

01:26:55.540 self-determined and

01:26:56.460 heating itself that it

01:26:57.620 was going to be it

01:26:59.000 was everything was

01:26:59.560 going to behave you

01:27:00.460 know properly and

01:27:01.820 it's not all the

01:27:02.440 way obviously there

01:27:03.260 but the laser fusion

01:27:04.240 result has been in a

01:27:05.280 major impetus to us 0.98

01:27:07.360 saying that darn it 0.97

01:27:08.820 that looks pretty 0.98

01:27:09.880 good and the project

01:27:11.340 that called spark

01:27:12.600 which is the one

01:27:13.200 which is outside of

01:27:13.980 Boston basically that

01:27:16.180 shows it for magnetic

01:27:17.120 fusion and also so

01:27:18.920 shows the fusion

01:27:19.900 power at a commercial

01:27:21.180 type of scale it's

01:27:23.040 like I think your

01:27:23.820 question about the

01:27:24.640 essentially the

01:27:25.760 physical reality of

01:27:26.960 fusion like fades

01:27:28.040 away and what

01:27:29.260 becomes the question

01:27:30.520 now is what price

01:27:31.840 point can you

01:27:32.480 deliver the

01:27:33.240 yeah right right

01:27:34.280 and as you heard

01:27:36.480 from so you know

01:27:37.240 because all the

01:27:37.720 exotic parts of this

01:27:38.620 containment and all

01:27:39.440 it's like of course

01:27:41.080 that's still important

01:27:42.000 but now it comes to

01:27:43.420 the effectiveness of

01:27:44.520 the integrated

01:27:45.060 engineering system that

01:27:46.160 you're building the

01:27:47.160 so-called blanket like

01:27:48.280 how effectively do you

01:27:49.580 extract the heat what

01:27:50.440 like it sounds like

01:27:52.020 simple things but it's

01:27:52.720 not like what

01:27:53.240 temperature do you

01:27:54.140 extract the heat at

01:27:55.100 this is enormously

01:27:56.140 important in terms of

01:27:57.360 the thermodynamic

01:27:57.940 efficiency what you

01:27:59.040 might use the power

01:28:00.480 for you know how

01:28:02.240 reliable are those

01:28:03.400 systems because they're

01:28:04.880 in pretty intense

01:28:05.640 environment right so

01:28:06.580 how reliable are the

01:28:07.460 components inside of

01:28:08.800 them how long will it

01:28:09.800 last these are the

01:28:11.160 things and that's why

01:28:12.320 you know although some

01:28:14.200 of my colleagues still

01:28:14.980 disagree with this I

01:28:15.860 feel the fusion

01:28:16.680 technology the fusion

01:28:18.060 development world has

01:28:19.080 changed in the last

01:28:20.000 few years is that we're

01:28:21.080 starting to ask the

01:28:21.920 question of how what

01:28:23.640 will the cost be not

01:28:24.920 whether or not can do

01:28:26.080 it right and I think

01:28:27.860 that's a good deal

01:28:28.780 well so this is very

01:28:30.580 but it's still hard by

01:28:31.700 the way I mean

01:28:32.280 right right right it

01:28:33.380 varies across the all

01:28:34.560 these different

01:28:34.960 approaches about how

01:28:35.920 you might and the

01:28:36.840 cool thing is that

01:28:37.960 there's like 30 some

01:28:39.600 things you know huge

01:28:41.080 varieties of scientific

01:28:42.420 you know maturity and

01:28:44.340 so forth that are

01:28:44.940 trying to answer that

01:28:46.180 question because in the

01:28:47.200 end what answers that

01:28:48.620 question about the you

01:28:51.380 know is the

01:28:51.760 marketplace right right

01:28:53.660 is that that's what's

01:28:55.160 going to do it

01:28:55.820 in fact we're going

01:28:57.020 to there's you know

01:28:58.280 we're doing a study of

01:28:59.260 this at MIT right now

01:29:00.380 which is we're

01:29:01.640 calculating with

01:29:03.100 understanding and some

01:29:04.320 projections of energy

01:29:05.920 markets like where will

01:29:06.960 that be so that namely

01:29:08.520 all new energy sources

01:29:09.800 tend to penetrate at

01:29:11.440 some more expensive

01:29:12.460 energy you know some

01:29:13.420 point because people

01:29:14.660 are saying well it's

01:29:15.200 okay because it's a new

01:29:15.960 energy source will kind

01:29:16.800 of give you a break but

01:29:17.740 if you want to deploy it

01:29:18.640 at mass scale you got

01:29:20.140 to get it competitive to

01:29:21.240 the other ones and

01:29:22.300 then you sort of look at

01:29:23.040 the relative advantages

01:29:24.040 and disadvantages so

01:29:25.100 that's exactly where we

01:29:26.280 should go and you know

01:29:28.160 i think the simple

01:29:29.060 answer is if you get

01:29:30.200 if you get fusion in

01:29:32.220 the right ballpark and

01:29:33.240 enter it and start

01:29:34.180 reducing the price of

01:29:35.440 it it's incredibly

01:29:37.440 disruptive to the

01:29:38.660 energy right right it's

01:29:39.840 right of course because

01:29:40.740 because it's so

01:29:42.020 expandable you know

01:29:44.040 that's one of the and

01:29:45.660 in the end it does the

01:29:46.520 physics or the science of

01:29:47.960 the energy source does

01:29:49.100 matter right and in the

01:29:50.680 end you cannot physically

01:29:52.300 increase the solar radiant

01:29:53.800 heat flux on the surface

01:29:55.200 of the earth it's a it's

01:29:57.460 right right and you can't

01:29:59.500 snap your fingers and make

01:30:00.760 the wind intensity higher

01:30:02.120 or things like that and

01:30:03.260 all these different things

01:30:04.640 is that this is why we

01:30:06.380 pursued fusion is that you

01:30:08.160 look at the the i the 0.97

01:30:09.920 ideal of fusion is you you

01:30:11.720 can't run out of the

01:30:12.920 resources apparently it's

01:30:14.240 sort of as far as you know

01:30:15.420 about deploying this right and

01:30:17.160 so that end goal is that it's

01:30:19.020 like if it becomes

01:30:20.420 inexpensive and you can

01:30:21.440 deploy it at fast time

01:30:22.700 scales it becomes a

01:30:23.740 dominant energy source this

01:30:25.340 is why people want to

01:30:26.280 invest in it because it's

01:30:27.820 not just it's not just

01:30:29.080 altruism it's it's like

01:30:30.800 this is a business

01:30:31.500 proposition but we've got

01:30:33.580 this serious challenge of

01:30:35.120 that it's still a pretty

01:30:36.200 we've only turned that

01:30:37.320 corner in the last few

01:30:38.300 years and what this means

01:30:40.180 is that we're facing the

01:30:41.120 challenge of how do you

01:30:42.540 take these different

01:30:43.580 concepts and actually

01:30:44.720 deliver on the full

01:30:46.520 integrated energy product

01:30:47.980 we've got a long ways to

01:30:49.780 go on that

01:30:50.560 well we have you know on

01:30:53.840 the optimistic side we

01:30:55.160 have we have quite a

01:30:56.140 world waiting for us if

01:30:57.320 we're sensible and

01:30:59.060 fortunate i mean you can

01:31:00.060 imagine that imagine here

01:31:01.820 so i know a group of

01:31:03.620 people who are avidly

01:31:05.900 pursuing atomic level

01:31:07.920 deposition in 3d printing

01:31:10.700 which opens up the

01:31:12.440 possibility that we'll

01:31:14.100 literally be able to print

01:31:15.220 anything we can model and

01:31:17.520 then at scale and then

01:31:18.720 very inexpensively and so

01:31:20.520 just god only knows what

01:31:23.000 that's going to produce and

01:31:24.680 these aren't pie in the sky

01:31:25.960 technologies these sorts of

01:31:27.420 printers already exist and

01:31:28.740 they're working very hard on

01:31:30.760 making them economically

01:31:32.780 viable and distributable and

01:31:34.620 dirt cheap as well

01:31:35.700 eventually and so that's

01:31:37.560 remarkable and then we have

01:31:38.860 these ai systems that are

01:31:41.720 now conversation level that i

01:31:44.220 can envision being put into

01:31:47.100 technologies that will be

01:31:48.320 able to teach every child on

01:31:49.780 earth every single subject

01:31:51.580 there is at their level of

01:31:53.520 comprehension and also

01:31:55.000 exceedingly inexpensively and

01:31:57.760 then with this if this can i

01:32:00.440 just give an anecdote to that

01:32:01.660 actually sure sure because

01:32:03.080 we're both we're both

01:32:03.780 professors or have been

01:32:04.920 professors and it's uh i

01:32:07.280 recall my colleagues when chat

01:32:08.920 gpt came out they were

01:32:10.260 rapidly using you know they

01:32:12.340 were checking to see well how

01:32:14.300 would students like cheat

01:32:15.500 basically yeah yeah and done

01:32:17.660 all over and they're putting

01:32:18.640 qualifying exam questions and

01:32:20.200 so forth and like my comment

01:32:21.740 to them was you might be not

01:32:23.360 realizing whose job this might

01:32:25.140 imperil

01:32:25.620 yeah no kidding

01:32:27.860 right what does this mean but

01:32:30.280 but by the way it's like it

01:32:31.920 as i i as usual with these big

01:32:35.400 disruptive ones which i think

01:32:37.080 usually would be as well too

01:32:38.080 people probably look at it a

01:32:39.720 little bit incorrectly is that

01:32:41.740 if i by the one of the i'm

01:32:44.960 sorry for the sideline but you

01:32:46.240 know one of the greatest

01:32:47.100 challenges we have right now

01:32:48.660 infusion is people and it's

01:32:51.380 because this transition from a

01:32:53.060 science only program to

01:32:54.440 thinking about integrated

01:32:55.680 engineering energy products

01:32:57.320 right very fast basically in

01:32:59.860 fact i just wrote a paper it

01:33:01.180 just in fact i'm giving a

01:33:02.240 seminar uh national webinar on

01:33:04.300 friday about it it's like our

01:33:06.060 academic system is just like

01:33:08.440 because it's frozen in that

01:33:09.980 place that it was you know

01:33:11.280 like academic systems are

01:33:12.820 right they can't have really

01:33:14.200 long lag times and lead times

01:33:16.140 it's like oh my gosh it's like

01:33:17.980 we are not ready for this at

01:33:19.680 all right and so in fact we

01:33:22.020 don't even have the right

01:33:22.700 distributions of kinds of

01:33:23.880 expertise and faculty and so

01:33:25.480 forth it's like oh well what

01:33:27.480 what if in fact i you know and

01:33:29.400 there's set of what if i can

01:33:30.840 because i one of my i would

01:33:32.020 argue my specialties is is

01:33:34.020 integrated fusion design

01:33:35.720 analysis and that's one of my

01:33:37.420 classes i get to teach you

01:33:39.240 know order 15 to 20 students

01:33:40.860 every one or two years at

01:33:42.400 mit what if i could teach

01:33:43.920 thousands of students of that

01:33:45.300 through ai like right right

01:33:47.880 absolutely and so the synergies

01:33:49.760 in this are amazing the other

01:33:50.980 part well which is in fact we

01:33:52.400 just signed an agreement with

01:33:53.720 the international atomic energy

01:33:55.240 agency that we are now we are

01:33:59.040 active and very very actively

01:34:01.080 pursuing um ai use to

01:34:04.140 basically be the entity that

01:34:06.180 runs the power plant oh yes

01:34:08.900 oh yes of course of course right

01:34:10.780 and are the ai systems helping

01:34:12.860 you now already with design

01:34:14.600 it was almost ready for it and i

01:34:18.540 almost i almost thought about

01:34:19.860 using it in my design course that's

01:34:21.400 coming up actually in a few weeks

01:34:22.860 it wasn't quite ready for prime

01:34:24.200 time for that but here's of course

01:34:26.100 what the amazing thing about being

01:34:28.040 at a university by the way the

01:34:29.460 students have already started to do

01:34:31.460 this and so what what what did

01:34:33.800 they do is i told you we ran this

01:34:35.640 experiment it's a integrated fusion

01:34:37.780 experiment had electromagnets in it

01:34:40.180 it made this magnetic cage had the

01:34:41.840 hundred million degree fuel had this

01:34:43.560 amazing set of measurement tools and

01:34:45.260 so forth um but it also had people

01:34:47.840 running it which is in so all that

01:34:49.500 data is of course recorded and used

01:34:51.480 but it also had people experts who are

01:34:54.480 examining the data and inferring things

01:34:57.420 about the performance of the fuel and

01:34:59.600 so forth uh but that was sitting there

01:35:01.740 as essentially as a static not really

01:35:03.960 useful um set of of of dialogues that

01:35:07.600 had happened in that they're training

01:35:09.760 they're training an ai uh language uh

01:35:13.280 format basically on sort of 20 plus

01:35:17.360 years of human expertise built right

01:35:20.280 right ai thing it's just like right oh

01:35:22.320 my gosh like like so this is what i

01:35:25.340 also find so cool about being a

01:35:26.800 technologist by the way you never it's

01:35:29.060 always these synergies of things that

01:35:30.860 like that apply to each other like

01:35:32.580 these new superconductors and a new

01:35:34.380 kind of magnet then a new kind of ai

01:35:36.020 then a new kind of thing and then you

01:35:37.460 you just keep bootstrapping yourself up

01:35:39.420 all the way to the technological ladder

01:35:41.360 i think it's yeah well you know you're

01:35:43.460 you're you're at a point now where if

01:35:45.920 there was enough of your published and

01:35:48.140 spoken material is that you can have a

01:35:49.980 dialogue with yourself about problems

01:35:51.680 you haven't solved so i'll give you an

01:35:53.600 example we built an ai system recently

01:35:56.480 based on the first part of a book that

01:35:59.460 i'm writing and the book is an analysis

01:36:02.660 of deep themes in biblical stories so you

01:36:05.720 could imagine that your bright students

01:36:07.740 are going to put together all the

01:36:08.960 relevant literature that pertains to

01:36:10.680 your engineering problems and at least

01:36:12.720 you'll have a partner that'll be

01:36:14.600 something like an instantiation of you

01:36:16.720 that you could or you and your

01:36:18.260 colleagues that you could discuss these

01:36:19.820 problems with

01:36:20.720 yeah even better that it's an

01:36:22.720 accumulative one of those right and

01:36:24.640 right um and you know i've been at

01:36:27.660 fusion now for 30 some years uh a

01:36:31.120 faculty member it's like i can tell you

01:36:33.380 almost all of my insightful breakthroughs

01:36:36.460 came with a version of that which is

01:36:38.340 that we already had this it's called it's

01:36:40.040 called training students at a

01:36:41.740 university yeah right right like why do

01:36:43.280 we why do we have universities one of

01:36:44.880 the reasons is we accumulate people in

01:36:46.780 the same place and we take senior

01:36:48.680 people who convey certain aspects of

01:36:51.220 basic knowledge and so forth which are

01:36:52.760 required to make sense of the problem

01:36:54.540 but it's like i'm like almost every

01:36:57.680 innovation that has ever come has been

01:36:59.440 sitting there talking with the student

01:37:01.000 of explaining about why such and such a

01:37:03.200 thing is a problem and they go and they

01:37:05.440 they ask some you know what quote 1.00

01:37:07.100 unquote stupid questions let's right 1.00

01:37:08.500 it's actually an insightful question 1.00

01:37:10.060 because in some sense they're in me

01:37:11.920 they're training their own neural network

01:37:13.960 right yeah right definitely and then all

01:37:16.360 of a sudden you sort of see it from a

01:37:18.100 different angle or you take it from a

01:37:19.680 different approach it's been almost all

01:37:21.500 the totality of my innovations in the

01:37:23.720 last you know 25 years but almost all

01:37:26.260 through student interactions so it's

01:37:27.880 another version of that i think is is

01:37:30.040 what i'm what i'm saying yeah um so

01:37:32.560 right those are the kinds of uh and by

01:37:34.820 the way that is another one where you

01:37:36.660 talked about um in fact i left that off

01:37:39.480 i should i should have reminded myself

01:37:40.940 of that one which is additive

01:37:42.600 manufacturing is another one of those

01:37:44.800 aspects that is coming to bear in fusion

01:37:48.640 because in the end we build these

01:37:50.380 complex physical objects the ability to

01:37:53.520 design it from the ground up um is just

01:37:57.620 and to produce variance rapidly oh my gosh

01:38:00.240 yeah um like a simple example is you know

01:38:03.420 in the end you while you got this

01:38:04.840 containment system there has to be this

01:38:06.440 really effective essentially heat

01:38:08.320 exchanger on the outside of this to

01:38:10.400 remove this kinetic and get it into a

01:38:12.600 usable heat form um you know the way i

01:38:15.540 would describe this to date is we we

01:38:17.180 build because because we can build it

01:38:18.760 this way you know you build square

01:38:21.140 blocks of things and you put a round

01:38:22.480 hole in it and you pass you know some

01:38:24.260 fluid through it to get it to cool

01:38:25.720 nature never cools anything that way

01:38:28.900 take a look at a leaf right but additive

01:38:32.000 manufacturing allows us to make the

01:38:33.800 equivalence of leaves or like the

01:38:36.600 capillary systems in our own in our own

01:38:38.640 bodies it's like what that means we

01:38:41.320 don't even know right even at the atomic

01:38:42.880 scale to do it at the atomic scale

01:38:46.080 which means you can start mimicking

01:38:47.940 biological functions as well too yeah

01:38:50.400 as well yeah amazing yeah it's almost

01:38:52.640 like a science fiction world that we live

01:38:54.320 in it's amazing people sort of comment

01:38:56.440 that it's like our again sort of medical

01:38:59.900 that are pessimistic about where we're

01:39:02.300 going it's if you'd have shown me when i

01:39:05.320 was uh you know when i was a young boy

01:39:08.260 in rural saskatchewan you were showing me

01:39:10.740 this technology i would have thought i was

01:39:12.320 living in a movie right right absolutely

01:39:15.800 and it's a new movie every day at the

01:39:17.920 moment well that was great man i i really

01:39:20.360 appreciate well first of all stepping us

01:39:23.520 through the complex technical elements of

01:39:26.920 understanding the fusion technology which i

01:39:29.500 think we managed very well and then

01:39:31.080 moving effectively from that into the

01:39:34.060 practical realization and the problems at

01:39:36.420 hand and also interleaving with that you

01:39:39.440 know a sense of i would say it's like 1950s to

01:39:43.360 1970s can do engineering optimism something i

01:39:46.500 really loved about engineers in general about

01:39:48.740 mit in particular certainly saw that at

01:39:51.060 stanford too and with the silicon valley

01:39:53.100 types is that there isn't a problem that we

01:39:55.020 can't crack and it's lovely to see that

01:39:57.620 spirit still alive at mit um for everyone

01:40:01.580 watching and listening i'm going to continue

01:40:03.260 this conversation as i always do on the daily

01:40:05.820 wire plus side it turns out that dr white and i

01:40:08.760 have some autobiographical features in common

01:40:11.640 because he grew up like i did in western

01:40:14.320 canada and so i'm going to harass him about

01:40:16.740 that and see how he emerged from that

01:40:18.660 canadian prairie environment into a position

01:40:22.300 of foremost influence at mit we're going to

01:40:25.560 talk to about how his interest in fusion

01:40:28.240 technology in engineering and physics

01:40:30.480 developed and so um as some of you watching

01:40:34.060 and listening no i'm very interested in how

01:40:36.540 people find their purpose find their

01:40:38.860 meaning and the interweaved relationship

01:40:41.840 between the demands of their conscience

01:40:43.960 right the problems they're trying to solve

01:40:46.200 that lay themselves in front of them as

01:40:48.480 objects for them to take responsibility for

01:40:52.120 and then the spontaneous interest that

01:40:54.420 manifests itself to people around topics that

01:40:57.540 you know aren't it's very it's very it's a

01:41:02.640 very curious thing how interest finds its

01:41:05.680 home in as a saskatchewan prairie boy you

01:41:08.540 got obsessed with fusion technology it's

01:41:12.140 like well why well that's what we're going

01:41:14.140 to delve into on the daily wire plus side so

01:41:16.540 you guys who are watching and listening can

01:41:18.420 join us there if you're inclined to in the

01:41:21.520 meantime thank you very much dr white for

01:41:24.420 walking us through all that and for agreeing

01:41:26.100 to be a guest on my show um congratulations

01:41:28.380 on the success that you've had we'll be

01:41:30.980 watching to see how this unfolds over the

01:41:33.920 next few years including the success of

01:41:36.280 this commercial enterprise because it's an

01:41:38.040 exciting possibility that that's that that's

01:41:40.560 making itself manifest and so um and to

01:41:43.140 everybody watching and listening in the daily

01:41:44.680 wire plus crew thank you very much for your

01:41:47.200 time and attention good getting to know you a

01:41:50.040 bit and uh thanks again thanks for the

01:41:52.680 opportunity appreciated it

01:41:54.680 you

01:41:55.680 you

01:41:57.680 you

01:41:59.680 you

01:42:01.680 you

01:42:03.680 you

01:42:05.680 you

01:42:09.680 you

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - February 19, 2024

424. Common Ground on Climate and Nuclear Energy ｜ Dr. Dennis Whyte

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