Thanks for the kind words!

ITER is being designed in a way that they can swap out and test lots and lots of designs for heat transfer and fuel breeding. There are a lot of unknowns within the engineering context. These systems all add to the overall knowledge.

I agree with both of you here, Helion is much more promising for energy generation than NIF (they are more focused on nuclear weapons testing I think), however ITER is still highly valuable for answering the research questions needed for commercial tokamaks

Glad you found it useful! Video on electricity generation in the works which I think you might find interesting! :D

@@ZirothTech Would absolutely love a video like that! Will you talk about project pacer? 100 pellets per second is really unnecessary, like you said the fuel pellet could be scaled in size. Energy production should definately focus on this instead of scaling the number of individual fusion reactions. That way, once the burnrate problem gets improved the reaction could sustain itself indefinately, so laser efficiency wouldnt even matter at that point.

The quip is more accurately _"Fusion power is 20 years away, and always will be."_ Another good quip is that _"The impossible is always one generation behind that thing's creation."_ Just made that one up, but looking at history it doesn't feel far off.

My pleasure!

It took us 150 years to get to space... like... we know stuff but we don't do it... a few make a lot of effort... if many made a little we would be far more advanced but we (humans) are not really much smarter than the next less intelligent species on this planet.

I have been doing a lot of research into them for a few months and am excited by what I see! I expect I will do a video about them when I think there is something unique I can add to the conversation!

Agreed, was thinking the same as I was watching. Ziroth's point that this should drive more funding seems very cogent to me though.

It's not, the only point to this facility is creating fusion and getting a positive energy output.

No, the breakthrough means commercial nuclear fusion is only 15 years away and will always be 15 years away.

Thanks for watching!

@@ZirothTech thanks for creating!

Glad it was helpful!

No...

Thank you!

20 more years 😂

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Nothing will bring world peace...

If this technology gets funded then there won’t be any reason to throw billions into useless wind and solar technology nobody can afford. What’s wrong with you?

Fusion has had massive funding for years. This result probably came to an expense of leaving other groundbreaking prospects for later (or never).

Kinetic energy, these are then caught by a blanket on the outside of the reactor and the kinetic energy is captured as heat in a cooling fluid. Hope that helps!

@@ZirothTech thank you

@@ZirothTech Um, the US experiment plans to retain the heat for continued fusion and uses the magnetic field to turn the generator, not steam.

Thanks for the comment. The burn wave is the spreading of ignited (burning) fusion fuel from the centre of the fuel pellet outwards. It is called a burn wave as it is similar to how when you ignite gas, for example, the flame spreads across it like a wave. Hope this helps :D

@ZirothTech Okey thank but at what speed does the wave propagate. Can some fusion fuel escape the wave or how does some material not get fused?

@@zanpodlesnik4337 I am not actually sure on the exact speeds, but yes exactly, some of the fuel explodes out faster than the burn wave, so it doesn't get fused! Trying to design a pellet that allows more of the fuel to fuse is definitely a big priority.

@ZirothTech Aaa thank you very much for the clarification!

my brother in christ it was already in miles

@@40watt53 said _"my brother in christ it was already in miles"_ 1) miles per second, which most Americans can't imagine. Miles per hour, however, is how Americans drive. 2) I'm happily atheist, so I'd appreciate leaving me out of your proselytizing. 3) to many a Southerner what you said is almost as bad as 'Bless your heart' which effectively translates to 'you're so stupid I bet you might drown in the rain' and seen as downright harassment. So if you're a Southerner too, feel free to store that sentiment where the dog cleans after eating something nasty.

@@LabGecko 1. id say after a number gets large enough in mph it starts to get unintuitive and mps takes over, how do i know this? i am american and miles per second IS more intuitive 2. yeah me too its just a phrase man 3. what

There would be a shielding blanket around the reactor walls that absorbs the neutrons, heating up and transferring the heat to a water to steam loop. They might be able to use liquid metal as the shield or shield cooling material enabling a higher temperature and efficiency in the electricity output. I think up to 55% is possible, but the liquid metal is a pain for corrosion so it's not a clear win

@@Canucklug why not mix the liquid metal with anti seize over the copper as the shielding blanket to absorb the heat and transfer the heat through connected copper water vapor chambers. Also aluminum or stainless steel fins can help regulate over heating around the shielding with fans 😂

@@xXBobbyXx86 😅

They did achieve fusion. Humans have been achieving fusion since Rutherford and Oliphant in 1934. Even kids do it in their garage these days. They didn't achieve system break-even. If you watch the actual press conference you will see that they are very open about this - they make the clear distinction between the Q at the Hohlraum and the Q of the whole plant. It is the journalists that run away with the sensationalist part and gloss over or completely leave out the other details. Nothing suspect there. They were even particularly up-front about this primarily being a weapons research facility, and that energy generation research is just a tiny part of their work.

400 times as much as was produced

They got only 1 % of the total that went in

Except that our carbon capture technology is pathetic, and even if it wasn't nobody is really trying all too hard to get it done. Furthermore, there are vast areas of land that have no realistic value going on around there. The issue with Solar is that it would require serious cooperation between countries. For example, Chihuahuan desert has a shitton of land that nobody is using.

O

Each type of solution viability really depends on the economy. Before China entered the market, nobody thinks the solar solution is economically viable. China has her geopolitical issue. Solar heating solution in Sahara desert is obviously viable, but the Saudi is not pumping money into it apart from buying up the land. When oil is depleted in Middle East, they will build solar in the desert and sell the electricity across the Gibraltar strait to Europe. So each technology will has its chance when the economic makes sense. As for fusion, it is beyond the end of the line we can see for now.

@Valdimir Nobody is putting money into carbon capture because the leftist is using global warming as a reason to ditch fossil energy. They don't want a solution to global warming that would keep us on fossil. They are idealists who wants cheap, clean, and limitless energy. Just as they want a utopian society with unlimited resources.

@@peterwan9076 Yeah, the instant you brought in "the leftists" your opinion became irrelevant. This is a story of actual science. None of this shit relates in any way which political party runs 'Murica or whatever other tribal divide you have in your mind. Elon offered massive rewards for people who come up with good carbon capture solutions, and yet, we are still not even close to being as good as just planting trees, and even planting as many trees as possible wouldn't solve our pollution issue. But I mean, you are clearly politically driven, so talking to you is a waste of my time. enjoy your life.

I am working on another video with details about how electricity is generated from the reactions, as it was too much of a divergence from the main topic for this video

I knew I would get this wrong ahaha

Once the first bit of fusion starts, there shouldn't be a need for more external energy during that reaction - however, every time there is a new fuel pellet the reaction starts over, so another laser beam is needed! Hope this helps :D

Yes these are great points. I definitely don't think NIF's main concern is fusion energy generation (I should have mentioned that in the video!) - However, this achievement is great for the fusion community as a whole I think :D Thanks for your comment!

@@ZirothTech I am quite excited and jealous at the same time for not being part of this achievement. In 1997, I was offered to be trained as an Control Room operator in the UoR/LLE Improved Omega Laser (it was expected that the 60-beam Improved Omega would achieve Ignition in Direct Drive mode by the early 2010s!), to be transferred to LLNL/NIF later. In my Ph.D. arrogance, I decided against taking that job. As a foreigner, I was elegantly kicked out first from ICF and later of the USA a few years later, as many of my fellow (non-Russian) HED students from UoR. I had many offers to work in DEWs from the USN/NRL and the USAF/ABL, plus SAIC (!!!), Sandia and LANL. But no matter what exceptional was my resume, not having a Green Card at least ruined my HED career.

What are your thoughts on developments in Chirped Pulse Amplification laser systems? There are 2 or 3 private fusion start-ups pursuing this as a means to achieve ICF. At least 2 of them are not in the US.

@@MattNolanCustom I did my thesis experiments in the first CPA laser in the world! It was designed and built by Gerard Mourou (apparantly not a very nice Nobelist ... !) in the Tabletop Terawatt (T³) Laser Group, Lab of Laser Energetics, UoRochester. Also I was the grad in charge of all the High-Vacuum Pumps for the Spatial Beam Filters of the T³ Laser. All LLNL/NIF lasers are CPA driven. The problems are two: * they are all Nd:Glass lasers with very poor conversion efficiency of electrical into optical energy (< 1%). The wasted energy is huge (~100 MJ) a d it overheats the Nd:Glass amplifier discs so much that the UoR/LLE Omega ICF Laser could not be fired more than 9 times (newer 60 beam configuration) to 14 times (old 24 beam configuration) daily. * the Nd:Glass laser operates at 1054 nm (IR) wavelength. It MUST be converted to 527 nm (green) and then to 352 nm (UV) light passing the beams through KDP crystals. Unless you have a very patient, neat, crafty and dedicated Grad/postdoc (preferably a nice Chinese or Indian girl, instead of a n@sty Russian 508!) aligning the crystals, your conversion efficiency may drop very badly (I do not remember well - after 25+ years! -, but the T³ laser at it's best was ~60 % per pass.)* So it us not what kind of amplification technique you use in your laser drivers. It is the wavelength - as SHORT as possible!! - and energy pulse stability what are the relevant factors for a suitable Laser-Plasma interaction with the fuel pellet (particularly in Direct Drive - no Hohlraum case - mode) Nd:Glass lasers are OK for SCIENCE, but for a practical, profitable ICF reactor ... 💩! In 1992, Jack Kelly - the chief designer of the LLNL/Shiva ICF reactor (the first ICF reactor ever built. It is shown in the 'Tron' movie from Disney) - was hopeful that by around 2010 the Semiconductor Diode Lasers may be built powerful and energetic enough (in the Gigajoule range) to operate in the proper wavelengths with electrical to optical energy conversion close to 90+ %! Unfortunately, this feat - that would be a really significant TECHNICAL breakthrough for Laser-driven ICF!!! - has not been realized. * When (as a junior Grad) I was introducd to Dr. Craxton (a brilliant Brit theorist, who invented the KDP crystal IR to UV converter.) I was quite disgusted with him for some years. I told him that I got into Plasmas/ICF to develop Rocket Propulsion for Interplanetary Spaceships. Craxton implied it was a moronic hope, 'That is Science Fiction, not Science! Years later I shared a plane seat with him to a APS Plasma conference; he was a really nice guy then. I found that academic HED/ICF physicists are quite hostile to R&D for Space Propulsion & Power applications. Federal labs guys are pretty enthusiastic about Fusion rocketry in all its modes!! Unfortunately, I was born in the wrong country (and too much of a bachelor to marry for a Green Card ... ) to get the job I dreamed in LLNL/LANL/NRL 😥.

@@Tordogor thank you for all the details. I did read somewhere that some folks were looking at using laser diodes, but I don't recall now if that was actually happening or what was projected / hoped to be happening.

Just out of interest, how much Tritium is available for use in these reactors each year? A few grams?

Tritium can be made by irradiating lithium iirc. In theory once the reaction can be made efficient enough to be profitable, it can irradiate enough lithium to make it's own tritium. You just have to provide the deuterium and lithium, both of which are very common. (assuming I'm remembering this correctly)

@@cerebralm this isn't economically sound because you need a lot of energy for that process... ITER's "blanket" will try to generate some for it's own needs - but the concept is not even tested: From the ITER's original site: "the next step on the way to commercial fusion power, about 300g of tritium will be required per day to produce 800 MW of electrical power." 300g of tritium per day.... this alone is such a massive challenge. So much effort for so exotic, unproven, not economical, and always 30 years in the future tech, yet fully working nuclear plants are closing (Germany) and so little effort for creation of better nuclear tech - like Thorium reactors...

@@LyubomirIko I agree, even current-gen fission would be such a huge step forward for humanity if it was funded properly. But there really IS a huge amount of political inertia against anything that would revolutionize energy. It's all suppressed, whether it's theoretical fringe over-unity physics, fusion, fission... hell, even the American alcohol prohibition was started in part to stop people making their own ethanol additives. The political/corruption problems are harder then the physics problems at this point.

Sounds like you didn't watch the video haha

They did

monsterositylabs = E=mc(troll)

I definitely don't think the national ignition facility is scalable for useful energy production, and maybe even their reactor design would struggle to scale even at a modern plant - however I think inertial confinement fusion as a whole may have promise, and the findings from it are definitely going to be valuable for other more commercial scale systems!

Lol, if you have any doubts about US research capabilities, just check where this platform was created, where you are bashing the USA.

They always do ahaha

I agree, this is a small part in the whole process. There are many great fusion projects that I keep seeing, definitely a lot of great work in China.

You are right, we are far from producing electricity from fusion, so I was wondering whats the point of making such a big fuzz about a laboratory result. The history of science is filled with situations where things worked great in a laboratory but were not feasible for large scale use or production.

Actually the company involved is talking an electric producing device 2024, per a 30min documentary with them saying.

Space age tech is coming to earth!

@@ZirothTech Scenes from Star Trek into Darkness were shot at the lawrence livermore national laboratory!

Good luck making all the steel, nitrates (for fertilizer for food) and all the concrete we (apparently) need as a 21st Century Civilization with those solar panels on your shingles. Yes, homes can be quite self-sufficient if they are in the right climate, but humanity as a whole cannot.

@@MattNolanCustom I disagree, we have the ability to do the solar, wind energy project. Many are trying to create sun powered panels in out of space. So we have the means, but space is the wrong idea. This new atomic idea might just create really bad environmental outcomes. Another thing we need to do is realize that the larger our population grows the faster it will grow. We need to keep our population down. The more we leave this for later, the more serious of a problem it shall become, and the higher the unethical actions we will have to take. We are also not using geothermal energy to the fullest extent, in fact our geothermal technology is quite weak and not being use any where close to its fullest state.

@@samuelmiensinompe4902 the nub of this is that nuclear power provides around 10,000 more energy per fuel mass than anything else. It has the potential to be very resource lean. Solar, wind, battery storage are all very land and resource intensive, plus they and geothermal are geographically limited - they don't work everywhere, or all the time. We don't have the mining and refining infrastructure to support the whole world running on renewables, plus most of those resources are in politically unstable countries where the work force is highly exploited. Fission has major (though overblown and over-emotionalised) waste problems. Fusion much much less so. It would be unethical *not* to pursue trying to make fusion work. Ultimately, we will need a mix of energy sources. Diversity is strength. Solar, wind, tidal and geothermal will be part of that mix. My money is on fusion being a major player too. Before we get there, we need to do more with fission. Fusion makes fission a bridging technology rather than an end-game. That also makes it more appealing.

@@MattNolanCustom I think where we get our energy also has to do with the power of politics. Right now our food source would be so much ethical and environmental if it was plant based. But governments are still giving subsidies to the meat and dairy, not the agriculture industry.

@@samuelmiensinompe4902 well we can agree on the politics usually skewing what we should be doing for the best. Let's hope objectivity prevails eventually...

Why are you so anti science? This is a huge help. These people are working to improve our lives and you make this condescending comment about them, disgusting.

it aint free energy dude, burning coal isnt free energy but you still gain energy from the process

@@40watt53 shut up Carl