1
00:00:00,480 --> 00:00:09,280
so guys we are here on location at general fusion where they are attempting

2
00:00:05,520 --> 00:00:14,480
to build the world's first commercially

3
00:00:09,280 --> 00:00:16,480
viable nuclear fusion power plant and uh

4
00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:22,320
it might not look like much but the only way that the technology

5
00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:27,199
inside could be any more space age would be if i was actually shooting on the

6
00:00:24,720 --> 00:00:30,640
moon today so why don't we go take a look

7
00:00:28,640 --> 00:00:35,440
after i tell you about tunnelbear tunnelbear makes really simple easy to

8
00:00:33,280 --> 00:00:41,290
use vpn applications so you can enjoy a more open internet check them out at

9
00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:49,760
tunnelbear.com LTT

10
00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:57,120
so what exactly is nuclear fusion well

11
00:00:54,960 --> 00:01:02,239
on an atomic level basically you take a couple of hydrogen

12
00:00:59,840 --> 00:01:04,799
atoms get them up to a really high temperature

13
00:01:03,440 --> 00:01:09,119
and then you like smash them together

14
00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:13,040
once they're fused you'll be left with a helium atom

15
00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:18,560
oh i'm steven today so because one proton plus one proton equals two

16
00:01:15,360 --> 00:01:21,759
protons and you'll get some energy or

17
00:01:18,560 --> 00:01:24,080
rather you'll get a lot of energy like

18
00:01:21,759 --> 00:01:29,119
like ten times what you'd get from a nuclear fission reaction like the ones

19
00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:32,720
that power traditional nuclear plants so

20
00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:36,560
that all sounds super cool already and we haven't even gotten to the best part

21
00:01:34,159 --> 00:01:44,079
yet nuclear fusion works around the clock unlike solar or wind and it's 100

22
00:01:40,479 --> 00:01:46,799
clean and safe the reaction is actually

23
00:01:44,079 --> 00:01:51,920
incapable of causing a meltdown or other radioactive incident and as much as this

24
00:01:49,759 --> 00:01:58,240
might look like some kind of a you know death ray the only direct

25
00:01:55,600 --> 00:02:03,119
byproducts are helium like for party balloons and energy so

26
00:02:01,119 --> 00:02:07,600
no depleted uranium seeping into the environment for thousands of years no

27
00:02:04,960 --> 00:02:13,440
greenhouse gas emissions and get this the fuel for it is practically free you

28
00:02:10,720 --> 00:02:18,879
input deuterium a hydrogen isotope that you can extract from ordinary seawater

29
00:02:15,920 --> 00:02:18,879
with a centrifuge

30
00:02:19,120 --> 00:02:23,200
oh that's awful

31
00:02:22,319 --> 00:02:29,680
and lithium and some critics might point out that

32
00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:34,640
these materials particularly lithium are not technically renewable but

33
00:02:32,560 --> 00:02:40,319
at least for heavy water the reaction uses so little of it and there's enough

34
00:02:38,239 --> 00:02:44,720
sitting around that by the time we run out the sun will have enveloped the

35
00:02:42,319 --> 00:02:51,200
earth anyway so uh yeah i think we are probably good there

36
00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:54,160
well okay then Linus if it's so great

37
00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:58,319
why is fusion power taking so long ah i'm glad you asked

38
00:02:56,400 --> 00:03:02,800
while the fundamental principles have been reasonably well understood for

39
00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:07,760
decades the engineering and science required to build something practical in

40
00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:13,200
the real world are well in scientific terms a total to get right in order for

41
00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:16,280
nuclear fusion to occur between two hydrogen atoms they need to be heated up

42
00:03:15,519 --> 00:03:21,519
to 150 million degrees celsius that's about

43
00:03:19,760 --> 00:03:27,440
10 times hotter than the center of the sun and you've got to do that efficiently

44
00:03:25,120 --> 00:03:30,959
no one's going to buy a fusion power plant that consumes more power than it

45
00:03:29,760 --> 00:03:35,920
outputs duh so then how would you get something

46
00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:41,840
that hot ah well

47
00:03:38,959 --> 00:03:47,360
you could use a device called a talkamac to make a plasma donut and then

48
00:03:44,959 --> 00:03:50,879
manipulate it with liquid helium cooled magnets

49
00:03:48,640 --> 00:03:57,040
sounds promising you could take a uh see here

50
00:03:54,400 --> 00:04:02,080
peppercorn sized piece of frozen deuterium and then

51
00:03:59,120 --> 00:04:07,280
bombard it from all sides at exactly the same time with what is quite literally

52
00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:12,159
the world's most powerful laser effectively blowing up the outside

53
00:04:10,239 --> 00:04:16,560
compressing the inside enough to start the reaction and

54
00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:22,400
both of those methods have actually succeeded at using nuclear fusion to get

55
00:04:19,440 --> 00:04:24,479
close to producing more power than they consumed

56
00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:29,600
but the problem is that via both of those

57
00:04:26,800 --> 00:04:34,960
methods it is extremely difficult to actually harness the power to generate

58
00:04:32,320 --> 00:04:38,240
electricity ah

59
00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:43,759
i'm not gonna do that again general fusion's approach is kind of

60
00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:45,680
like a hybrid of the other two

61
00:04:43,759 --> 00:04:50,960
and it operates kind of like a super high tech diesel engine so first they

62
00:04:48,639 --> 00:04:54,160
use one of these guys to create a 5 million degree ball of plasma

63
00:04:53,199 --> 00:04:59,440
then they rapidly compress it with

64
00:04:56,600 --> 00:05:03,600
steam-powered pistons the pressure from which

65
00:05:00,320 --> 00:05:06,400
heats it to 150 million degrees

66
00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:10,960
at that point the deuterium kind of ignites releasing energy

67
00:05:08,639 --> 00:05:15,280
and if all this sounds difficult don't worry in real life it is way

68
00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:21,600
harder this is general fusion's last generation

69
00:05:18,960 --> 00:05:27,520
large-scale plasma injector where they prototyped their process of creating a

70
00:05:24,560 --> 00:05:32,240
plasma of sufficient quality that it can survive for long enough for the pistons

71
00:05:30,240 --> 00:05:35,520
in the compression chamber to fully compress it

72
00:05:33,520 --> 00:05:42,080
so during a cycle these valves right up here will inject

73
00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:44,000
just two milligrams of deuterium evenly

74
00:05:42,080 --> 00:05:47,199
into the chamber which goes all the way around in a ring then

75
00:05:46,400 --> 00:05:52,960
one million amps at 15 000 volts so this is

76
00:05:51,120 --> 00:05:59,039
about the same as your average lightning bolt goes across the electrical feed

77
00:05:55,919 --> 00:06:02,720
right here and strips the electrons off

78
00:05:59,039 --> 00:06:05,120
the deuterium creating a ball of plasma

79
00:06:02,720 --> 00:06:08,639
these particles then spin around the ball of plasma

80
00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:13,600
wrapping it in its own magnetic field creating an insulating layer around the

81
00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:17,120
plasma to give it a longer lifespan from there

82
00:06:14,479 --> 00:06:21,919
these big electromagnets here will push the ball of plasma out the front of the

83
00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:25,600
injector into the compression chamber which would be under this part right

84
00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:32,160
over here now the rest of this guy which is actually

85
00:06:29,360 --> 00:06:38,080
about the front two thirds is just for data collection

86
00:06:35,280 --> 00:06:44,560
every test that they run generates about a Gigabyte of data and even after 150

87
00:06:41,919 --> 00:06:50,080
000 experiments there is still work to do i guess that's why general fusion is

88
00:06:47,039 --> 00:06:50,960
so open about showing off their work

89
00:06:50,080 --> 00:06:56,880
because even if you stole all the drawings and

90
00:06:53,840 --> 00:06:59,440
built yourself one of these machines

91
00:06:56,880 --> 00:07:03,120
there are literally hundreds of thousands of variables to tune for

92
00:07:01,360 --> 00:07:08,639
plasma quality so you'd basically have built yourself a

93
00:07:06,319 --> 00:07:14,160
multi-million dollar paperweight on the subject of millions of dollars much of

94
00:07:11,039 --> 00:07:17,199
the research is actually done on smaller

95
00:07:14,160 --> 00:07:20,560
less expensive little injector

96
00:07:17,199 --> 00:07:23,120
prototypes like spector here these guys

97
00:07:20,560 --> 00:07:28,960
only take a couple of months to create instead of years and they give the team

98
00:07:26,160 --> 00:07:34,639
valuable insight in between larger projects mind you even this kind of

99
00:07:31,599 --> 00:07:37,840
thing does not come easy

100
00:07:34,639 --> 00:07:39,440
every aspect of this research is complex

101
00:07:37,840 --> 00:07:44,560
and expensive like okay here how do you know

102
00:07:42,400 --> 00:07:49,120
if your plasma is at five million degrees

103
00:07:45,520 --> 00:07:50,000
you can't just stick a k probe in it

104
00:07:49,120 --> 00:07:56,160
ah so it turns out you have to shine a

105
00:07:52,639 --> 00:07:58,720
super strong laser through the plasma

106
00:07:56,160 --> 00:08:04,879
and then measure the small bit of light that is deflected by the plasma and this

107
00:08:01,759 --> 00:08:07,199
is only about one in every quadrillion

108
00:08:04,879 --> 00:08:11,599
photons that you pump in that get turned into some kind of useful signal so

109
00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:17,520
interpreting that data is quite literally the full-time job of bill here

110
00:08:15,039 --> 00:08:19,759
who has a phd from the university of maryland

111
00:08:18,879 --> 00:08:25,680
and that is just one example but

112
00:08:23,360 --> 00:08:33,440
they are making progress inside this cage is the largest and most

113
00:08:29,759 --> 00:08:35,519
powerful plasma injector in the world

114
00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:40,240
it's the latest generation of the one that we looked at earlier and they're

115
00:08:37,120 --> 00:08:43,120
running tests on it every day in hopes

116
00:08:40,240 --> 00:08:48,160
of using a similar model to create a fusion demonstration plant in as little

117
00:08:46,080 --> 00:08:52,080
as four to five years so

118
00:08:49,440 --> 00:08:57,839
unlike the other one this guy is actually hooked up do you see all these

119
00:08:54,720 --> 00:09:01,040
containers around me these are capacitor

120
00:08:57,839 --> 00:09:03,920
banks so when all of them are operating

121
00:09:01,040 --> 00:09:10,040
they'll be capable of 20 gigawatts of power that's enough to send

122
00:09:06,839 --> 00:09:12,000
16.5 deloreans back in time

123
00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:16,800
simultaneously the problem though is that when you're

124
00:09:14,240 --> 00:09:23,279
unleashing a lightning bolt worth of power you throw out a ton of electronic

125
00:09:20,320 --> 00:09:28,399
interference it's such a big problem that all of the sensor data has to be

126
00:09:25,760 --> 00:09:33,920
transmitted through fiber optic cables to a nearby faraday cage full of general

127
00:09:31,040 --> 00:09:36,640
fusion's own custom-made digitizer boards

128
00:09:34,800 --> 00:09:41,279
they ended up designing their own because creating an electronics

129
00:09:38,640 --> 00:09:46,560
engineering department was cheaper than buying gear like this off the shelf now

130
00:09:43,920 --> 00:09:50,800
general fusion weren't the first ones to come up with the idea of

131
00:09:48,880 --> 00:09:56,720
smashing plasma but the us naval research lab's

132
00:09:53,480 --> 00:09:59,440
incredibly named project Linus ended up

133
00:09:56,720 --> 00:10:03,360
getting abandoned back in the 1970s because there were a couple of problems

134
00:10:01,120 --> 00:10:07,839
they just couldn't overcome behind me

135
00:10:05,440 --> 00:10:13,600
is a couple of solutions this is general fusion's piston driven

136
00:10:10,640 --> 00:10:19,040
compression chamber proof of concept now the real one would have many more

137
00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:23,560
pistons but the operating principle would be similar

138
00:10:20,640 --> 00:10:30,240
every piston would push down simultaneously with a tolerance of about

139
00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:33,279
10 microseconds injecting liquid metal

140
00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:36,480
stored in the pistons and in the 1000

141
00:10:33,279 --> 00:10:39,600
RPM spinning grid on the inside

142
00:10:36,480 --> 00:10:41,600
and that metal would squeeze the plasma

143
00:10:39,600 --> 00:10:45,040
bubble that would be injected from the top

144
00:10:42,640 --> 00:10:50,720
now the timing for all this has to be so precise because much like squeezing a

145
00:10:48,399 --> 00:10:56,320
water balloon in your hands if you don't compress it evenly then it'll kind of

146
00:10:53,200 --> 00:10:58,560
splurt out or break apart and that would

147
00:10:56,320 --> 00:11:01,760
cause a misfire assuming everything goes right though and the simulations say it

148
00:11:00,800 --> 00:11:06,640
should the fuel ignites fusion occurs

149
00:11:04,720 --> 00:11:13,279
and that liquid metal gets heated to about 600 degrees celsius after which it

150
00:11:10,720 --> 00:11:18,000
gets circulated through insulated pipes by a magnetohydrodynamic pump to a

151
00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:23,360
traditional steam turbine power generator just like what you would find

152
00:11:20,560 --> 00:11:27,120
at a coal or a natural gas power plant today which should make general fusion

153
00:11:25,920 --> 00:11:32,240
solution sort of a drop-in upgrade for an

154
00:11:30,160 --> 00:11:34,399
existing facility now

155
00:11:33,200 --> 00:11:39,600
fun fact it is not a perpetual motion machine

156
00:11:37,440 --> 00:11:43,600
because it does require a constant supply of fuel

157
00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:49,760
but some of the steam that gets generated is actually going to be used

158
00:11:46,560 --> 00:11:50,880
to actuate the pistons keeping the cycle

159
00:11:49,760 --> 00:11:55,040
going general fusion hopes that once they

160
00:11:52,959 --> 00:12:01,760
reach production they'll be able to run one of these reactions every second

161
00:11:57,920 --> 00:12:02,720
generating about 100 to 200 megawatts of

162
00:12:01,760 --> 00:12:10,240
power about the sweet spot for replacing existing coal power plants in developed

163
00:12:06,959 --> 00:12:12,399
countries and not so much that it would

164
00:12:10,240 --> 00:12:16,959
blow up the power distribution systems in developing countries a market where

165
00:12:15,040 --> 00:12:21,760
the most new power generation will have to happen in the coming years now none

166
00:12:19,680 --> 00:12:26,720
of this is a sure thing i mean nothing in life is but

167
00:12:23,519 --> 00:12:28,639
if general fusion and its investors

168
00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:34,399
which includes jeff bezos apparently by the way can stay on course

169
00:12:31,519 --> 00:12:38,399
then the future looks really bright not just for their company but also for the

170
00:12:36,800 --> 00:12:42,639
world speaking of companies with bright

171
00:12:40,079 --> 00:12:47,040
futures are you finding as a freelancer or small business owner that the thing

172
00:12:44,639 --> 00:12:50,959
holding you back is spending your time on complicated accounting software

173
00:12:48,880 --> 00:12:54,880
instead of just doing your work well freshbooks is the solution you're

174
00:12:53,200 --> 00:12:59,360
looking for it's a simple way to be more productive more organized and get paid

175
00:12:57,680 --> 00:13:02,959
faster you can create and send professional looking invoices in less

176
00:13:00,959 --> 00:13:06,959
than 30 seconds you can set up online payments with just a couple of clicks to

177
00:13:04,639 --> 00:13:10,399
get paid up to four days faster you can see when your client has seen your

178
00:13:08,480 --> 00:13:14,399
invoice and put an end to those guessing games and you can take the whole

179
00:13:12,480 --> 00:13:19,040
experience with you on the go tracking your hours and expenses with their iOS

180
00:13:16,639 --> 00:13:24,000
and Android apps so for an unrestricted 30-day free trial go to freshbooks.com

181
00:13:21,680 --> 00:13:28,000
tech tips and enter Linus tech tips in the how did you hear about us section

182
00:13:25,680 --> 00:13:32,000
we'll have that linked below so thanks for watching guys if this

183
00:13:29,920 --> 00:13:36,160
video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that

184
00:13:34,639 --> 00:13:40,639
like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we've featured if

185
00:13:38,800 --> 00:13:45,040
you are a large government and you're watching this

186
00:13:42,720 --> 00:13:48,160
5 to 15 years in the future whatever don't worry about anyway also linked in

187
00:13:46,560 --> 00:13:51,680
the description is our merch tour which has cool shirts like this one and our

188
00:13:49,760 --> 00:13:54,560
community forum which you should totally join