The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast


424. Common Ground on Climate and Nuclear Energy ｜ Dr. Dennis Whyte


Summary

With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you might be feeling this way. In his new series, "Depression and Anxiety," Dr. Peterson provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that while the journey isn't easy, it's absolutely possible to find your way forward. If you're suffering, please know you are not alone. There's hope, and there's a path to feeling better. Go to Dailywire Plus now and start watching Dr. B.P. Peterson's new series on Depression and Anxiety. Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve. Dr. Dennis White is a denizen of a small town in Western Canada, a small prairie town. He is 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. And fusion offers the opportunity, essentially, if it can be mastered, of unlimited energy, and potentially at a low cost, it s the ultimate in transformative technologies. In this episode, we talk to Dennis White about what fusion is and how it differs from standard nuclear energy in terms of process and what it s like to be a nuclear physicist and nuclear engineer in the 21st century. We discuss the benefits and challenges of fusion and nuclear fusion, and how fusion can be harnessed to achieve breakthroughs in the pursuit of clean, affordable, sustainable and abundant energy. . and why nuclear energy is the quintessential energy source of the universe. and nuclear power is the most important energy source in the world the most fundamental energy source in the universe or the most powerful and most powerful in the history of our existence of all of us as we know it , and why it s better than any other energy source we ve ever known we need to learn how to harness the power of fusion not only in order to get there, but how it s going to be better than we can be better, not better, and how we can get there so we can more why we should be better what s better, and how we should get better and how to do it, when we can do it and what we can achieve it, and why we have the best of it , why it matters it s so much more


Transcript

00:00:00.940 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.
00:00:06.480 Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety.
00:00:12.740 We know how isolating and overwhelming these conditions can be, and we wanted to take a moment to reach out to those listening who may be struggling.
00:00:20.100 With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you might be feeling this way in his new series.
00:00:27.420 He provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that while the journey isn't easy, it's absolutely possible to find your way forward.
00:00:35.360 If you're suffering, please know you are not alone. There's hope, and there's a path to feeling better.
00:00:41.780 Go to Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on depression and anxiety.
00:00:47.460 Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve.
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.
00:23:02.580 So this is a stupid question, likely, but the answer doesn't spring to mind.
00:23:08.440 As you increase the average temperature of the plasma, what actually is happening to the atoms?
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
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.
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
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.
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
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
01:27:07.360 saying that darn it
01:27:08.820 that looks pretty
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
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
01:37:07.100 unquote stupid questions let's right
01:37:08.500 it's actually an insightful question
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