You guys, humanity is another step closer
to harnessing the nuclear powers of the sun.
[MANIACAL LAUGH]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hey guys, Trace here, for DNews, with some engineering
and physics that might change the world.
A lot of time, we get you on here
and we talk to you about those things.
They're more conceptual and sometimes
really complicated and kind of jargony.
Whoosh.
But this, oh man, this is juicy.
This week scientists announced that they
can produce many suns-- seriously, for real this time.
I know, they've been saying, give us 30 more years
and we'll have it.
They might have been closer than they thought.
We are close to solving the mystery of fusion power
that keeps the Sun going.
While nuclear fission gets a bad rap,
nuclear fusion is completely different.
It's one of the holy grails of science.
Fusion offers a near limitless pollution-free cheap source
of energy.
The deuterium to power the reaction--
harnessed from seawater.
And it's waste is the super-rare helium 3 or helium 4
or perhaps more deuterium-- plus ideally, hundreds of times
more energy than we put in.
No big deal.
The best part, we get all of this with no more radiation
than we're exposed to in an average day.
Fission involves using heat and pressure
to split an isotope of uranium.
Fusion involves combining two atoms into one.
Both release huge amounts of energy.
But the whole fusion thing, so much more efficient.
The National Ignition facility has
used 192 laser beams to create an x-ray pocket
inside of a 77-ton machine.
The pocket super heats the hydrogen deuterium fuel
and excites the particles.
As hydrogen has a positive charge,
atoms normally repel each other.
But inside that pocket, as the small piece of fuel
burns at 100 million Kelvin, they move so fast,
they slam into each other, fusing and creating new atoms,
releasing massive amounts of energy in the process.
This is amazing stuff.
While these scientists have confirmed
that they can create this reaction for a microsecond,
they can't sustain it.
And without sustaining it, they won't
be able to use it to create electricity.
They say we haven't perfected that little pellet of deuterium
fuel.
It's microscopically uneven.
And those imperfections cause it to burn up too quickly.
But never mind that.
Even though we're not sure how it works,
the EU, the US, China, India, South Korea, and Russia
are all funding a single fusion plant in France,
separately from the NIF.
It's a different design, but here's to hoping one of them
gets this to work, because I could
use some cheap, clean energy right about now.
So there's one tiny little thing that I probably
should point out.
Scientists are saying that we are about 30
years from flipping the switch on a power plant,
so there's that.
But hey, let's be optimistic, right?
Guys?
Are you on board with this fusion power thing,
or should we just forget it and stick only
to renewables and other proven technologies?
Let us know your power thoughts in the comments.
And be sure you subscribe for more DNews.