Fusion Energy is About to Unlock Humanity's Destiny

hey 42 here inside the burning heart of the Sun is the most powerful power plant in our solar system an awesome massive plasma at 15 million degrees Celsius it is so hot and under such immense pressures that the Sun's core is the most perfect environment in our solar system for a remarkable reaction to happen nuclear fusion at the center of all atoms is a nucleus that has a positive charge usually when two nuclei collide they repel and bounce off each other like two positive ends of a magnet inside the Sun however the nuclei are being compressed together under such immense pressures and high temperatures that they have nowhere else to go the power of their repulsion is too weak to overcome the overbearing force so usually they do the only thing they can do combined and so the two nuclei fuse hence nuclear fusion creating the larger atom in the Sun this is usually hydrogen atoms fusing to become helium atoms nuclear fusion causes the Sun to burn away 4.3 million tons of mass per second the equivalent of exploding four trillion her Ashima bombs every second a byproduct of this is energy and lots of it it radiates from the Sun and bathes our solar system in light and life without this reaction occurring ceaselessly as it has done for 4.6 billion years the Sun would die and so would all life we know now what if we could create our own miniature Sun here on earth well that's exactly what scientists all over the world are currently trying to do simulating nuclear fusion in a controlled environment by creating a fusion reactor could supply planet Earth with unlimited clean energy for the rest of humanity's existence and it gets better the only fuel needed is plain old seawall see water happens to be rich in deuterium one of the most ideal hydrogen isotopes needed for nuclear fusion and there is enough sea water to power our planet for two billion years fusion has huge benefits over nuclear fission fission is the process of splitting atoms used by our current nuclear reactors fusion is significantly cleaner than fission there is almost no nuclear waste to speak of the amount of energy produced is also incomparable using equal quantities of fuel fusion releases at least four million times the energy of burning coal and at least four times the energy efficient just a tiny half a gram of hydrogen fuel produces 500 megawatts of electricity Fusion produces no greenhouse gases only helium which is inert but what if it all goes up in flames surely Chernobyl would look like a tea party compared to a meltdown it's a fusion reactor after all it is simulating the Sun and the Sun is a big and scary fireball well actually no fission is a chain reaction nuclear power plants are essentially harboring it controls nuclear bomb if we lose control then the chain reaction takes over and boom fusion is the complete opposite in the event of a meltdown or other accidents there would be no chain reaction it's hard enough to create the perfect conditions for fusion to happen in the first place so if anything did go awry then the conditions would no longer be right for fusion to occur and the reaction would almost immediately stop fusion then it seems is one of those rare things in life that is all pros without a single cob it truly is the holy grail of energy production so why aren't we building them everywhere well there is currently one rather large con we can't bloody do it fusion requires the most perfect conditions to take place I mean it is like trying to create the Sun in miniature on planet earth inside a box that's not going to be easy the frustrating thing about fusion is that we know for sure it is possible Einstein's theory of relativity sorted that realization 100 years ago attempts to create a fusion reactor began in the 40s you've probably heard all about them and how fusion energy is only 30 years away well they told us that in the 40s and then again 30 years later they proclaim the same thing yet again in fact there is a pervasive joke amongst the scientific community that fusion energy will always be just 30 years away is this really true is unlimited clean energy only a pipe dream that we can never realize well maybe not amazingly scientists have already done it there are two primary types of fusion reactor design one invented by Russian scientists is called the tokamak this is a large torus surrounded by powerful electromagnets the torus is filled with fuel which is heated up by the electromagnets and thus becomes a super hot plasma and when I say hot I mean fake in hearts the plasma must reach a hundred and fifty million degrees Celsius before fusion can be achieved tokamak show immense promise for achieving successful fusion on earth but it is far from easy for example the plasma mustn't touch the walls of the container if it does then it cools down too fast and fusion can't happen the second design called inertial confinement fusion consists of a very large football with the walls lined with the world's most powerful lasers no one fortunately we aren't trying to build a desktop a tiny pellet of the fuel the size of a peppercorn is placed in the center of the container and at precisely the same time the lasers all fire striking the pellet from every angle simultaneously if successful the pellet has no choice but to implode creating huge temperatures and immense pressures perfect conditions for the atoms within the fuel pellet to fuse together the first design has been successful in 1997 the jet tokamak reactor in Oxford successfully produced 16 megawatts of power output great so what's the holdup well they had to use 24 megawatts of heating to run the experiment a net loss of energy which rather contradicts the point of power production scientists have a neat symbol for the ratio of power used in an experiment compared to the amount of power it produces q if an experiment achieves a key worth one it has broke even on power consumption and output when a queue of more than one is achieved nuclear fusion will be a viable means of power production the jet reactor produced a queue of 0.67 but a new joint project in southern France backed by the EU India Japan Korea Russia China and the u.s. called eater thinks it has the final solution eita claims it will create the first true star on our planet and the absolutely huge reactor they are creating several times the size of jet is predicted to achieve a queue of 10 so for every megawatt they put into it 10 megawatts of clean energy will be produced so they say it sounds fantastic until you learn that Ito won't even be turned on until 2025 and it's only a proof-of-concept it will never produce energy for civilians if it works it's estimated that it will be a further ten years after eater before fusion energy power plants are available for real-world usage so that could be 2035 or even 2050 since bureaucracy often delays such projects immensely perhaps fusion is yet another 30 years away after all don't get me wrong Itza is an essential and amazing project and quite a feat of political collaboration too but in 30 years a lot can happen the population is going to balloon even more energy needs will skyrocket with China and emerging powers like India on the rise and an awful lot more fossil fuel is going to be consumed but you see I think fusion energy is a lot lot closer than that for one major reason private industry just look at how ridiculously wealthy the current oil and gas companies are the company that is the first to crack commercially viable nuclear fusion is going to generate immense investment and wealth not to mention political and military power that's exactly why the world's largest defense contractor Lockheed Martin is currently developing a compact fusion reactor that could be carried inside a van and power an entire city but it's not just the big boys there are literally hundreds of startups worldwide that are racing to be the first to bring nuclear fusion to the masses some claim within the next ten years three of the most ambitious private enterprises are canada-based general fusion who have designed a unique steam-powered piston reactor that works along a similar principle to record combustion engine Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is a big fusion proponent he has invested millions into general fusion tokamak energy in the UK that aims to produce more compact tokamaks and commonwealth fusion systems in the u.s which has the same goal to create a compact reactor with competition comes progress especially competition amongst well-funded private entities the entry of private companies into the realm of space travel has proven that but what makes all these attempts so different to the many that have come over the past century that promised nuclear fusion within the next thirty years well this time it really is different all those previous attempts may not have proved beautiful but they were by no means wasted they provided the world with invaluable research most world altering discoveries and inventions over history did not originate from lightbulb moments in which a scientist wakes up one day and has a game-changing revelation some perhaps but most of them were the result of cumulative research over many decades or centuries by hundreds of different scientists all over the world building upon the scientific papers and research from their peers and predecessors the best example of this cumulative research is in your pocket no not that why do you have that in your pocket I'm talking about your smartphone this device less than a centimeter thick has more computing power than all of NASA's computers put together when they put man on the moon and it only exists because of decades of small but meaningful incremental improvements many thousands of them in fusion the rate of these small discoveries is increasing rapidly helped in part by improved AI just take a look at this chart of the number of fusion related discoveries over the past 50 years we know fusion works the Sun has proven that and there will come a point perhaps very soon when all these small incremental improvements reach a critical mass and positive G fusion will finally be achieves when that happens the world will quickly become a very different place but how well there are obvious environmental benefits to finally having a reliable abundant clean energy source some scientists think that fusion energy could be humanity's sole savior from destroying our own planet through global warming according to some of the more pessimistic predictions out there if we don't crack nuclear fusion within the next 30 years humanity could be doomed but something that is far more tangible and certain is that nuclear waste would stop being produced current nuclear fission power keeps our modern world ticking over it's far more reliable than the alternatives and today it is actually safer than renewable energy seriously look it up but it does have a deadly by-product that we still don't quite know how to store safely in a way that may not harm future generations but beyond living in a cleaner world the unlimited energy that Fusion would bring into the world would change earth forever electricity costs would plummet meaning that developing countries would be able to steam ahead and well develop like never before such nations would finally have access to energy hungry applications such as advanced water treatment something that after the initial costs of being covered energy would become so cheap it would be just handed out to all citizens by some nations almost like a human brains with unlimited energy space exploration could accelerate astronomically imagine being able to send the large man spacecraft into the depths of space that had an onboard fusion reactor multiple generations could live and die aboard this craft without it needing to ever return to Earth back on earth the scale of projects would reach previously unforeseen horizons with unlimited power sci-fi dreams like floating cities on the water city's huge theme parks and resorts in the desert underwater and in the frozen wastes of Antarctica would all become financially feasible once we have developed all the ancillary technology now you may not necessarily want a huge theme park in the desert and these are obviously no more than senseless ramblings from my brain it may not happen like this but change would happen on a tremendous scale the important lesson here is not to give up on impossible dreams the very fact that humanity is still striving to better itself whether it be fusion energy or medical advances is a remarkable thing indeed when we are being bombarded 24/7 by news of climate change and impending doom one should never fail to underestimate the resolve and the ingenuity of the human spirit thanks for watching I've recently launched my first book which I'm crowdfunding stick a flagon is a thousand years of bizarre history from Britain and beyond the crowdfunding campaign has reached one hundred percent so it's definitely going to be published thanks so much to everyone who has already pledged but there are still some stretch goals to reach so if you want to get your hand on a first edition signed copy then head on over to unbound watch the launch video if you haven't already and plus today thank you

Channel: Thoughty2

Views: 1,885,170

Rating: 4.7746458 out of 5

Keywords: fusion, fusion energy, fusion power, nuclear fusion, thoughty2, iter, tokamak fusion reactor, taylor wilson 2019, taylor wilson, thorium, fission reactor

Id: LADbinZcEyM

Length: 16min 11sec (971 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 06 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/donotclickjim]

Summary of video

We know fusion is possible because of the sun. We know we can actually currently produce fusion by way of two methods: Tokama and Inertial Confinement Fusion. The problem with these current approaches is we still use more energy than we produce. However, with the increasing amount of competitors entering the market (ITER, Lockeed Martin, GeneralFusion, Tokamak Energy, CommonWealth Fusion Systems) we are seeing an accelerated rate of fusion discoveries that hopefully will result in us seeing a reactor break the Q > 1 benchmark for achieving more energy out than put in.

[u/hitchens123]

Like cure for cancer, it's always just around the corner.

[u/Origami84]

As with all cut-edge techs, please remember one thing: it is possible we will *never* achieve them. This is something that should be remembered for all things sci-fi: ai, space travel, and certainly fusion technology. There is always the chance that the structure of reality does not allow the realization of techs as we wish them - in this case, that commercially viable fusion power is impossible due to lack of materials or similar.

​

And i deeply wish that all sci-fi techs will be achieved. I just want everyone to remember that only because we wish for something, it doesnt mean we will get it. So, let's work for it.... but let's also keep our expectations in check.