Thanks again to Mila and the First Light team for their continued openness to share their progress with us. Get a 7-day free trial and 25% off Blinkist Annual Premium by clicking: bit.ly/DrBenMilesApr24

As a teenager, the joke that had been around for thirty years was that fusion was "always 50 years away". So getting to "always 30 years" or "always 10 years" away is a huge improvement in the span of thirty-odd years.

Smoothbrains not understanding the immensity of the breakthroughs in the past two years be like : "10 yEaRs aWaY FoReVeR DURHUR"

Great, now fusion is only 10 years away

"The landscape has changed, because we now have achieved gain." This is exactly the part tons of people missed about the success of NIF. We can now see the finish line, so we have the tools to chart a course in that direction. It also makes funding easier to justify. Instead of pointing off into the void, we have a flag out there and we can say "See that? Let's go there." This will hopefully snowball, and hopefully means those "20 years away" timelines are effectively frozen.

I don't know if you're aware of it, but there is a fascinating book that really documents the _start_ of the "fusion is always 10 years away" idea, which I think you'd enjoy. It's called "PROJECT SHERWOOD: The U.S. Program in Controlled Fusion", published in 1958 as part of the declassification of the U.S. research into fusion reactions, and contains detailed reports on the U.S.'s research projects from 1951 to 1958. That puts it almost perfectly at the cusp of where people were starting to grasp how difficult a problem this was, and the project reports are detailed enough that you really get the perspective of seeing what that realization like at the time, to the people who were figuring it out. It's almost heartbreaking watching them get to the top of the first hills expecting to be making good progress, and then seeing the expanse of mountain still to climb that was now visible, especially with the hindsight of knowing that even that was a small fraction of what was truly ahead. Even in the dry scientific writing, some of that sense of dauntedness comes through.

So we’ve gone from being 20 years away to being just 20 years away.

Nice video. I like how the breakthrough is basically turning a electric rail gun into a conventional gun. Whereas a conventional gun will have a primer and gunpowder to push a projectile this rail gun uses electricity as a primer and metal foil as a kind of gunpowder that explodes into a plasma and pushes the flyer/projectile. Very cool!

Things always brushed under the carpet: I'll believe them that the approach with the gun works, but the entire lithium curtain thing is a different beast. Lithium is chemcially fairly aggressive and can corrode steel. But you need it to be Lithium because you need to take the excess Neutron of the fusion reaction to produce more of the Tritium used as fuel for the fusion (the only other source of tritium is waste from nuclear fission plants, but the worldwide production is nowhere near enough to run a power plant on.). In short: just getting the fusion rection to be net positive still won't be enough to get a full scale power plant.

Hello Dr. Ben! Thank you for yet another excellent video demonstrating your skills in asking the questions and pursuing the answers. It also helps to have the contacts and the reach you have. Cheers to you~!

Great video. Super excited for the future of fusion.

Thank you for this very interesting analysis of the topic. I see most of the comments below have focussed on the time to commercialisation, but I think the real payload of this video is how mathematical modelling is changing the landscape. Modelling physics requires that we understand enough of the way the universe works such that we can codify a small part of it mathematically. When you are breaking new ground as nuclear fusion is then we see our understanding being challenged every step of the way. The point about this method is that the more we know, the faster we make progress. There are two benefits that pop out of this - first we have a viable fusion reactor, which in itself is a game changer for climate change and geopolitics of the Middle East. - and secondly we have a set of tools which mean we can take greater strides in understanding fundamental physics. Both of those things are game changers and I applaud the progress being made by this team. Congrats - and thank you.

In the 1960s and 70s I didn't hear anyone serious talk about fusion power being 10 or 20 years away. Most serious commentators said it was unlikely there would be real fusion power stations feeding the grid until the middle of the 21st century.

Very cool. Let's keep building fission plants in the meanwhile though.

I remember the time when it was said fusion is always 50 years away. Then it became "always 40", then "always 20", now "always 10". It's just an anecdote about too optimistic predictions. But the progress is constant and noticeable. If nothing else the brute force approach of ITER will be eventually successfull.

If you dig through history, you will find that fusion used to be said to have always been 50 years away. When I visited JET a couple of decades ago, the joke was that fusion was forever 30 years away. More recently I've heard "20 years away". Today was the first mention of it having "always been 10 years away". That's some kind of progress I guess. Edit: just got too the bit of the video where you discuss this!

There comes a tipping point in most technology where before we are working blind then someone finds the light switch and rapid progress is made to the next room and we start searching for the light switch again. We may even go into the wrong room first.

more passion more energy

You're right more than anyone may believe Prof. Miles, when you say: "We have to confirm that the Universe works the way we think it works" when we reach some operating conditions that have never been practiced before. As an example, the forces holding together the atoms of the projectile under that immense speed - do act the way we expect? I would use the fields theory to solve the problem...

Wow, Mila Fitzgerald is a first class communicator. There aren't many people with the advanced knowledge that she has that can communicate it so well.

Great interview and great video as always. This b-21 raider is another example of some complicated technology that's been accelerated by digital design and simulation.

I haven't even finished this video yet, but it amazes me how many things that would change the world, such as Fusion, a cure for aging, a cure for cancer etc, have much less funding that you would expect. You would think that almost unlimited funding would be available for them since they are so important. It is something to see such a lovely physicist.

There is a channeled by the name of improbable matter which at least by my own estimation offers an extremely well informed insight with regards to fusion technology and its myriad of challenges.

Bright Topic! Sorry, I couldn't resist! Congratulations to First Light for their 10mm to 10cm achievement! Go get 'em First LIght!

Love your content, thanks for sharing and explaining. We'll definitely have fusion in about 20 years or so, we promise this time. LoL.

Very well presented

Now, THAT was helpful! Like you kinda said, the announcements focus so much on achieving the next increment, they kinda forget we don't have a clue how hard it was to get here. But yeah, the idea they're working so deep into the fringe of known science that we keep finding new physics quibbles to get past -- that makes MUCH more sense!

so they made a Rifle Cartridge that uses metal plasma instead of gun powder... noice!

Miles: "I didn't understand what any of the words mean" That hit me right in the liver.

Brilliant Light Power

I remember doing some back of the envelope calculation according to which a tiny grain of interstellar ice, hitting a spacecraft traveling at a fraction of the speed of light (such as .1 c) , could cause the hydrogen atoms in it to fuse, making the impact a lot worse. The speeds mentioned here are ~1/1000 of that.

I think we need to explore energy generation via sequential heat pumps using refrigerants with overlapping temperature spans of their phase change cycles. Essentially, we could use waste heat in our environment to generate power. It would only be a portion of the energy input, but it would also produce local cooling. Might be useful in incredibly hot locations where the concept would also be the most effective.

Funny - I saw somewhere the physics we thought we understood for airfoil lift might actually be wrong - but whatever we have come up with until now kinda works out for us.

I like Eric Lerner's approach at LPP with Focus Fusion. The man is beyond brilliant, but he's 77 and one has to wonder how much longer he'll be able to continue that research.

fusion is fascinating, well, trying to attain it.. but i'd love to have a long talk with Mila, seems like a brilliant mind.

So, what she is saying is "measure twice, cut once" is a rule the fusion industry is starting to learn.

I wonder if life extension would be a stronger metaphor than time travel, for learning the spaces we have to work within to achieve our goals.

Helion seems the most fascinating effort to me.

It's never been ten years away. 30 years is the perpetual time period until fusion will be achieved

I am absolutely sure, this will work.

I'm pretty optimistic about fusion. It seems like AI might be instrumental in pushing fusion into commercial viability. Exciting stuff!

I'd really like to hear more about the ML/AI the team using in their simulations and designs. It would seem like an area that is ripe for automated iterative refinement in simulation given that the target state is generally theoretically well understood and the challenges are mostly engineering/behaviour based.

something that is always omited about the sun being hot and dense enough to produce fusion is that it doesnt - only VERY slowly

Just a quick note that NIF stands for National Ignition Facility rather than Nuclear Ignition Facility

More ENERGY 🕺🕺More PASSION 🕺🕺More FOOTWORK

Part of the reason fusion has always been seen as something "20 years away" is because the goal posts have been moving. First it was the challenge of just achieving any fusion at all. We did that. Then it became the challenge of achieving ignition. We've done that. Right now it's the challenge of achieving net positive and producing power.

10X improvemnt sure is nice! Only another 1000X efficiency factor improvement needed to go before it can finally go commercial!

So many of these "breakthroughs" in my newsfeed daily, hopefully this is something significant.

Great video? Fascinating insight on how we are progressing towards cheap energy. Also..say regime one more time... :)

Addendum: I am unsure if this is the origin of future tech being 10 years away, but it was a series of events that influenced the 10 year meme. FYI: An author famous for science fiction writing, Arthur C Clarke, was interviewed twice about space elevators and their potential of becoming a reality ten years apart. The first time he stated they would become a realistic technology 10 years after people stopped laughing about it. The second time he stated the same and added and I believe they've stopped laughing. I believe that's the general story, I leave finding out the specifics to those interested in science fiction to fact predictions or space elevators.

The image at 6:29 is what the LLNL will be interested in using this technology for.

PB fusion might be nice. Much less bad nuclear waste but still some radioactive waste from those neutrons I think.

Ben, fascinating video, thanks. Question: Assuming we succeed in providing a high proportion of our energy needs from fusion, we would then be converting stored potential energy into extra surface heat. Would this be a problem? I have often wondered the same about Geothermal accelerated heat released to the surface. The key difference with SolarPV and solar derived energy sources (wind, hydro, etc.) is that they do not add energy to the earth, rather they simply convert a part of the incoming energy before it eventually reverts back to what it anyway becomes without intervention - surface heating.

I was dubious but at 10:40 Mila has a good point about why 10cm is good news for bigger stand off distances.

Great video. Very well communicated. How will the debris be removed from the chamber ?

Question: wouldn't a tapered unit send the projectile farther than the current design? The cloud could stay longer in focus.

Any update on the nex generatiion launcher Machne 4? They saiid they should be breaking ground this year. It sounds huge at 75m diameter, maybe these breakthroughs means it doesnt need to be so big. Did the full funding come through?

She said fusion doesn't produce radioactive waste, but all those metal parts that have to be replaced because they've been irradiated by fast neutrons are radioactive. I don't know what the decay lifetime of neutron activated metals are, but the lack of actual danger has never stopped anti-nuclear opposition in the past.

I need to be a PhD student. My exact idea when looking at this problem was to add a layer that would absorb the energy in order to push the object. Make it like a cartridge. Keep it simple.

Will we ever achieve micro-fusion like they have in Star Wars?

2:28 we are not trying to recreate the condutions at the core of the sun. Instead we need temperatures abd pressures far higher than the center of the sun so as to increase the rate of fusion far more than what happens at the center of the sun.

braking the speed of light is probably tougher the fsion but sice their is no problematic enemy of fission power to figth. adainst.

you make it almost sound like each and every discovery on the macro level will take 20 years per discovery. I wonder if a quantum computer with super AGI could make a difference?

In a fision reactor the reaction supplies the energy to keep going. Couldn’t the fast neutron in a fusion reactor be used in a similar manner?

It's interesting to me that at the center of the sun, where fusion occurs and has a density of 160 g/cc (not a near vacuum), produces less energy per unit volume than a human body does. Fusion is a pipe dream, promising incredible things, and will continue to promise these things until the end of time.

Have you done any videos on Helion?

This is a great video but you said something early on that I'd never really given much thought to till now. The fusion of deuterium and tritium produces helium and, basically, a naked neutron. What happens to the latter? I get that it carries away energy which it imparts to water molecules by bouncing into them, but then what? I didn't think of unbound neutrons as something that exists normally, or at least not in a stable way?

If they combine all the current fusion efforts, Imagine A tokomak donut magnet with two rail guns firing deuterium foam frozen pellets into the center of the donut from each side ( the donut on edge). With six lasers at each side, on 45 degree angles, aimed at the center. All controlled by AI. The guns pulse foam pellets, into the center at regular times. The magnetic donut holds them in place, while the lasers add extra heat, and keep the fuel in the center, by AI control. The heat can be removed by liquid lithium, and direct electrical power

Have they tried making in a shape of a shaped-charge to keep the projectile from dispersing?

Just like 10 years ago, fusion is 10 years away

By the time fusion is commercially viable The Thunderstorm Generator will be in its 3rd commercial iteration

Excellent presentation! Just FYI, the "N" in NIF stands for "National" not "Nuclear."

I think the most difficult part is to make it economical. Nuclear power plants are probably cheaper and more efficient. So it will be very hard to compete against that.

The lasers used in the National Ignition Facility reportedly require a tremendous amount of electricity far exceeding the Fusion energy currently being achieved. Perhaps the gun approach will be a more efficient approach.

Did they stop the projectile at 10cm, or did it vaporize at that distance? If they stopped it, why?

4:11 The only 'viable' way is continuous small feed through streams with high probility of fusion, much like particle colliders do, but with short cyclotronic accelerators, since the goal is fusion, not breaking. WIth the right angle and speed, this may be achievable, where the angle of each particle is the most decisive factor. In nature, nothing happens without reason, this means that the success or failure to fuse has factors in it. These factors are then speed differential, vector, angle and initial energy (heat). For 'viable' fusion, the heat must be as low as possible, while other factors are to be optimized in order to drain the initial energy factor. That would then only be speed differential, vector of collision with angle in there somewhere. Possibly heat oscillation is a factor since it would then also make the speed variable, with this then mitigated by lowering the speed by heat (the oscillation) by using the least amount of heat during collision. Personally, I'd think that truly cold fusion has the best chance, with that meaning not without neutrons but low in temperature like nearing 0K, to reduce the speed variability, but also using the correct angle and speed to create fusion. This can be done theoretically, but with any succcesfull fusion, heat would be relased, and would then be a block for the newer arriving fusion particles. It would make a great way to create larger atoms from smaller ones, but it would still require way more energy than comes out. In both cases, either for creating energy or creating larger atoms, the speed and the angle are most important during the collision since these determine whether or not during that collision merger happens, succesful fusion.

We got rail gun surplus parts in 1994 and used them to shrink coins

An electromagnetic pulse (EMP), also referred to as a transient electromagnetic disturbance (TED), is a brief burst of electromagnetic energy. The origin of an EMP can be natural or artificial, and can occur as an electromagnetic field, as an electric field, as a magnetic field, or as a conducted electric current. The electromagnetic interference caused by an EMP can disrupt communications and damage electronic equipment. An EMP such as a lightning strike can physically damage objects such as buildings and aircraft. The management of EMP effects is a branch of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) engineering. The first recorded damage from an electromagnetic pulse came with the solar storm of August 1859, or the Carrington Event.[1] In modern warfare, weapons delivering a high energy EMP pulse are designed to disrupt[2] communications equipment, the computers needed to operate modern warplanes, or even put the entire electrical network of a target country out of commission.[3] General characteristics An electromagnetic pulse is a short surge of electromagnetic energy. Its short duration means that it will be spread over a range of frequencies. Pulses are typically characterized by: The mode of energy transfer (radiated, electric, magnetic or conducted). The range or spectrum of frequencies present. Pulse waveform: shape, duration and amplitude. The frequency spectrum and the pulse waveform are interrelated via the Fourier transform which describes how component waveforms may sum to the observed frequency spectrum. Types of energy Main article: Electromagnetism EMP energy may be transferred in any of four forms: Electric field Magnetic field Electromagnetic radiation Electrical conduction According to Maxwell's equations, a pulse of electric energy will always be accompanied by a pulse of magnetic energy. In a typical pulse, either the electric or the magnetic form will dominate. In general, only radiation acts over long distances, with the magnetic and electric fields acting over short distances. There are a few exceptions, such as a solar magnetic flare. Frequency ranges A pulse of electromagnetic energy typically comprises many frequencies from very low to some upper limit depending on the source. The range defined as EMP, sometimes referred to as "DC to daylight", excludes the highest frequencies comprising the optical (infrared, visible, ultraviolet) and ionizing (X and gamma rays) ranges. Some types of EMP events can leave an optical trail, such as lightning and sparks, but these are side effects of the current flow through the air and are not part of the EMP itself. Pulse waveforms The waveform of a pulse describes how its instantaneous amplitude (field strength or current) changes over time. Real pulses tend to be quite complicated, so simplified models are often used. Such a model is typically described either in a diagram or as a mathematical equation. " " Rectangular pulse " " Double exponential pulse " " Damped sinewave pulse Most electromagnetic pulses have a very sharp leading edge, building up quickly to their maximum level. The classic model is a double-exponential curve which climbs steeply, quickly reaches a peak and then decays more slowly. However, pulses from a controlled switching circuit often approximate the form of a rectangular or "square" pulse. EMP events usually induce a corresponding signal in the surrounding environment or material. Coupling usually occurs most strongly over a relatively narrow frequency band, leading to a characteristic damped sine wave. Visually it is shown as a high frequency sine wave growing and decaying within the longer-lived envelope of the double-exponential curve. A damped sinewave typically has much lower energy and a narrower frequency spread than the original pulse, due to the transfer characteristic of the coupling mode. In practice, EMP test equipment often injects these damped sinewaves directly rather than attempting to recreate the high-energy threat pulses. In a pulse train, such as from a digital clock circuit, the waveform is repeated at regular intervals. A single complete pulse cycle is sufficient to characterise such a regular, repetitive train.

I kinda got a smile when I realized the method to boil water was to fire a gun at a target. That's the simplistic version of the metal foil essentially detonating and firing a projectile basically like a standard gun. Just observational humor.😉

I like your videos on fusion. And this one is no excrption. You seem very confident, that fusion could one day solve our energy problems. There remains the question though, if we switch all energy production to a relatively cheap source that basically runs on heat, while the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere remains as high as it is now, doesn this create an additional warming problem?

The idea of a bean counter standing behind a physicist trying to develop a time machine and telling him to "Hurry up" amused me.

nice

I think there's an importance difference between the approach used here is that used by, say, Tesla to autonomous vehicles. This used modelling based on "theory" i.e. physics. And used that model to conduct simulated experiments whereas all the modern AI stuff is, arguably, devoid of domain theory and promises to achieve mastery only by scaling data and compute. There is no underlying theory of driving that companies are using. Here, the modelling was actually a simplified model, which is what you do with models. They have to be simplified, but you can still get value from it. Modern AI approaches don't work with simplified models because they are purely data driven.

I still don't know why we aren't researching geothermal. The only problem is digging the hole deep enough. We know that the heat is down there. This seams like a much better way forward for a green energy future to me.

"There are very few other domains that human beings operate in where that fundamental check and vet process ... is actually necessary." I think there are tons of domains like this; any science that deals with complexity and especially those with relatively limited data. So ecology, psychology, public health, health care, economics, etc. Of course physics has many domains dealing with complexity as well, such as fluid dynamics.

What makes you believe that practical fusion is possible on Earth? We have discovered places like Oklo where nuclear fission occurred naturally, however we have no examples of self sustaining fusion reactions at a sub stellar scale (

Yeesh, when I was a teen, back in the Seventies, I read some articles in magazines from the Fifties talking about how fusion was going to come online in the Sixties. Now I'm in my sixties, and will possibly not see it in my lifetime. Well, it can join the permanent bases on the Moon and Mars.

so the flyer will protect the projectile from evaporated?

*1:00** Why is it always, 10, 20 years away? Because people know that people have short term memories and that 10 years is too long for them to "remember to ask if anything happened in 10 years".* i.e., it's a scapegoat date so they don't have to give a concrete answer. Anyone that knows what they are doing has a concrete answer.

We know where the finish line is. We just don't know what the race track looks like or what obstacles are on it. We are the first ones in the race, so no one can tell us what to expect

That's fantastic news! I can rest easy knowing that my great grandchildren will have all the cheap energy they need while digging through the rubble for scraps of food and fighting other survivors and wild dogs for water!

8:36 one of the benifits of fusion … is it does not produce radioactive waste 8:56 you want you permanent hardware a safe distance away from the fusion reaction otherwise you start irradiating that hardware.

I assume the deuterium and tritium are either easy / cheap to produce or occur naturally?

I always thought the sun cheated by using quantum tunneling, and that's only made possible, but the sheer volume of particles, which we can't do. Which is why this is always a dead end, until you find something super clever to take the place of the tunneling. hence why our reactors have to be hotter , under more preasure, and in this case, Shooting the particles at each other.

If they learn to actually control the angle at which the particles collide, this will increase output. Why ? The assymetrical nature of the reaction, where one part, the deuterium has no symmetry, makes difference in the applied forces till they connect. Pretty certain that the angle of collission matters. So, getting two streams, one of deuterium and one of tritium, where both particles are being angularly controlled has an impact on the success ratio of the merger into helium.

Once again, you took a complex, interesting and highly relevant topic and presented a concise, entertaining and very educational video - congratulations and thank you. Your concluding remarks on bringing the physics of the universe to engineering working devices seems to mark another major step in our taking apparently esoteric knowledge and turning it into practical uses. This has seemed to have previously encountered the barrier imposed by limits of the mental and physical capacity of humanity. Now, "outsourcing" to computers of testing ideas and solutions through modelling scenarios is removing the barrier of human computational capacity. I see this as potentially as big a developmental driver of the human mind as was the making and using tools by early humans. Now for the neural link between brain and computer!

great i cant wait to buy my first fusion toaster.

2:38 are you sure that “fast neutrons” are actually producing heat?

Seems like pulsed fusion is actually the way to go

Yet, another way to boil water ....! Seems to me we need a better way to separate the 2 H from O.... As far as "how far away is it?", I recall the 60's 70's 80's 90's experts responding to Congress "it's 10 years away" to the question "when will we have viable batteries available for e-vehicles?". To optimize launching of the projectile, pass it through Grok AI.