Podcasts about Tokamak

-Samsung goes on an audio buying spree: https://www.engadget.com/audio/samsung-is-paying-350-million-for-audio-brands-bowers--wilkins-denon-marantz-and-polk-131514754.html?guccounter=1 -Tokamak reactor magnet is beefy: https://gizmodo.com/iter-just-assembled-the-worlds-most-powerful-fusion-magnet-2000597387 -Philips is debuting 3D printed replaceable parts: Philips Debuts 3D Printable Components To Repair Products -The alchemists were right all along: Scientists find lead really can be turned into gold (with help from the Large Hadron Collider) -Amazfit Active 2 review -DJI is sort of giving up on the US: DJI is skipping the US with its most advanced drone yet -China is slowing everyone's roll https://www.sustainability-times.com/environmental-protection/china-disrupts-earths-rotation-nasa-confirms-massive-project-is-slowing-the-planet-with-unprecedented-global-consequences/ -Cyber Skirmishes. Walz Telemessage usage and GlobalX air hack. https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/05/05/2044211/messaging-app-used-by-mike-waltz-trump-deportation-airline-globalx-both-hacked-in-separate-breaches -Google is going ham with it's new G logo! https://9to5google.com/2025/05/12/google-icon-update/ -Rich Peeps suck! https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/07/two-thirds-of-global-heating-caused-by-richest-study-suggests

Fusion Nucléaire: portes ouvertes au Tokamak de lʹEPFL Double merle, double problème Les lignes de Nazca et Maria Reiche, archéologue passionnée

Limitless Energy Source?The future of energy is changing, and business leaders NEED to know what's coming.Michael Ginsburg, President of Tokamak Energy USA, distills he groundbreaking potential of fusion energy and how it can revolutionize our world!

Jeff Peachman, PhD student at the University of Washington, gives today's Fusion News update - summarizing the major recent headlines in fusion energy. Links to all of the stories mentioned are included below. 1. Helion raises $425M to help build a fusion reactor for Microsoft https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/28/helion-raises-425m-to-help-build-a-fusion-reactor-for-microsoft/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACCHSANyin08I0FOcqSOfIR23FAoJh1rpHCxk-5f309sZIVfh3VYtpCEzicMBZFkEJ8J585dolFgu5sJrDyMefIClG23AXCb88_FqwreC_ta2lJwHsMycK-xW94q9B6uwnodJL_m8hUysYvtPtZK7Tot8T_3LVCUQSO1DscFQljr  2. Deploying Advanced Energy Tech Faster https://www.weforum.org/meetings/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2025/sessions/deploying-advanced-energy-tech-faster/  3. UKAEA to invest £200m to advance fusion fuel development https://www.neimagazine.com/news/ukaea-to-invest-200m-to-advance-fusion-fuel-development/  4. SMART: One step closer to nuclear fusion with its first plasma https://phys.org/news/2025-01-smart-closer-nuclear-fusion-plasma.html  Bonus: Exclusive: Images show China building huge fusion research facility, analysts say https://www.reuters.com/world/china/images-show-china-building-huge-fusion-research-facility-analysts-say-2025-01-28/ Private companies aim to demonstrate working fusion reactors in 2025 https://www.science.org/content/article/private-companies-aim-demonstrate-working-fusion-reactors-2025 

TechCraft, votre émission de divertissement Technologique & vidéo-ludique. Nos liens: Site TechCraft: www.techcraft.fr Live: http://live.techcraft.fr Flux rss: http://techcraft.podcloud.fr/rss E-Mail: podcast@techcraft.fr Twitter : @TechCraftPDC BlueSky : @techcraft.fr Discord: http://discord.techcraft.fr PodCloud : https://techcraft.lepodcast.fr/ News High-tech Quenton: Le démarchage téléphonique, c'est fini irslo: Tiktok dans le giron de Microsoft et Oracle Binzen : assemblage de news Quenton: 30 pour 30 binzen: du coq à l'âne Les News Gaming irslo: Xbox partout et nulle part ? Le dossier de la semaine irslo: Comment et pourquoi j'ai quitté les produits Adobe (LR et PS). Quenton: Soleil artificiel! irslo: MS et la Fusion La parenthèse Microsoft irslo: Je te déconnecte ou pas ? Irslo: Le droit voisin, ça vous parle ? Et LinkedIn ? irslo: Win10, toujours vivant !!! CONCLUSION Site TechCraft: www.techcraft.fr E-Mail: podcast@techcraft.fr Twitter : @TechCraftPDC Discord: http://discord.techcraft.fr PodCloud : https://techcraft.lepodcast.fr/

Warum leuchtet die Sonne? Das haben wir überraschend lange nicht gewusst. Mittlerweile wissen wir Bescheid: In ihrem Inneren findet Kernfusion statt. Und wenn wir das auch auf der Erde hinkriegen könnten, wäre das super. Das ist aber gar nicht so einfach. Wie die Kernfusion im Inneren der Sonne funktioniert und wo das Problem mit der künstlichen Kernfusion liegt, diskutieren Eva und Jana in dieser Folge. Ihr könnt uns gerne bei [Steady](https://steadyhq.com/de/cosmiclatte/), [Patreon] (https://patreon.com/CosmiclattePodcast) oder [Paypal](https://paypal.me/cosmiclattepod) unterstützen!

Quali sono le aziende più performanti nell’aggiudicarsi le commesse del più grande progetto di ricerca sulla fusione nucleare? Tra le infrastrutture di ricerca, le facility dedicate alla ricerca sulla fusione nucleare - il Santo Graal dell’energia - sono tra le più complesse e sfidanti dal punto di vista tecnologico. In queste macchine, per esempio, un gas di idrogeno ionizzato, a oltre 100 milioni di gradi di temperatura, viene mantenuto a pochi centimetri di distanza da potentissimi magneti, che per funzionare hanno bisogno di essere raffreddati fino al oltre 270 gradi sotto zero. Attualmente, vari tokamak (questo il nome dei tipici reattori a fusione a forma di ciambella) sono in costruzione in diverse parti del mondo, grazie a componenti realizzati da industrie altamente specializzate. E’ un settore in cui l’Italia ha oggettivamente un primato. Ce lo racconta Leonardo Biagioni, Responsabile dei Progetti dell’agenzia Europea per la fusione Fusion4Energy.

December 11, 2024 Mechanical engineer Jasmine Mund gives today's Fusion News episode, summarizing the major fusion news headlines from the past two weeks. Links to all of the stories mentioned are included below. 1. General Fusion confirms significant fusion neutron yield and plasma stability during MTF compression experiment series with new peer-reviewed publication https://generalfusion.com/post/general-fusion-confirms-significant-fusion-neutron-yield-and-plasma-stability-during-mtf-compression-experiment-series-with-new-peer-reviewed-publication/ 2. China ships vital ITER modules for assembly of world's largest fusion reactor https://interestingengineering.com/energy/china-made-components-iter-fusion-reactor 3. Researchers reveal the mechanism of runaway electron generation in tokamak fusion reactors https://phys.org/news/2024-12-reveal-mechanism-runaway-electron-generation.html 4. Tokamak Energy partners with U.S. DOE and UK's DESNZ to accelerate fusion development through $52m ST40 upgrade https://tokamakenergy.com/2024/12/05/tokamak-energy-partners-with-u-s-doe-and-uks-desnz-to-accelerate-fusion-development-through-52m-st40-upgrade/ 5. Nuclear Data InterAgency Working Group Funding Opportunity https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDOEOS/bulletins/3c3e19c Bonuses: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-worlds-first-fusion-energy-cafe-opens-to-fuel-hungry-minds https://physicsworld.com/a/optimization-algorithm-gives-laser-fusion-a-boost/ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/iter-organization_fusionenergy-iter-virtualtour-activity-7267601893353250819-GPI3?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android

November 27, 2024 Fusion News Dr. Cyd Cowley, working at the intersection of fusion and AI at FIA affiliate member digiLab, gives today's global fusion news update. Links to all of the stories mentioned are included below. 1. Nuclear Startup Pacific Fusion Nabs $900 Million in Funding https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-25/nuclear-startup-pacific-fusion-raises-900-million-in-funding 2. Japan launches FAST fusion power project https://www.neimagazine.com/news/japan-launches-fast-fusion-power-project/ 3. The Quest to Build a Star on Earth https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/15/climate/fusion-energy.html?smid=url-share 4. Limitless fusion power: Tokamak Energy heats up with $125M from investors including British Patient Capital https://techfundingnews.com/tokamak-energy-8m-investment-fusion-limitless-fusion-power/ 5. Nuclear fusion start-up claims milestone with unconventional reactor https://www.ft.com/content/69ac41e6-36ad-41b7-92f3-25198a338c0f Bonus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq68cV7HAIg You can watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/rFiUiqClflM

October 30, 2024 Mechanical design engineer Jasmine Mund gives this week's global fusion news update, summarizing behind all of the major headlines. Links to all of the stories mentioned are included below. 1. Tokamak Energy gives details of pilot fusion energy plant design https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/tokamak-energy-gives-details-of-pilot-fusion-energy-plant-design 2. Thales and the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics set a world record in the field of nuclear fusion https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/worldwide/group/press_release/thales-and-max-planck-institute-plasma-physics-set-world-record-field 3. For Heating Plasma in Fusion Devices, Researchers Unravel How Electrons Respond to Neutral Beam Injection https://www.energy.gov/science/fes/articles/heating-plasma-fusion-devices-researchers-unravel-how-electrons-respond 4. Nuclear fusion push: General Atomics releases FUSE to speed up reactor development https://interestingengineering.com/energy/general-atomics-fuse-nuclear-fusion-energy 5. U.S. Department of Energy Announces Nearly $30 Million for 13 Projects to Enable Commercial Fusion Energy https://arpa-e.energy.gov/news-and-media/press-releases/us-department-energy-announces-nearly-30-million-13-projects-enable Bonus: https://energynews.pro/en/progress-of-fusion-reactors-in-spain-and-new-zealand/ https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/fusion-as-the-future-of-baseload-energy-powering-a-decarbonised-world/52112/ https://physics.aps.org/articles/v17/s127 https://interestingengineering.com/energy/mast-upgrade-1600-fusion-plasma-pulses https://interestingengineering.com/science/plasma-thrusters-nuclear-fusion-boost

Fusion News: October 16, 2024 Dr. Cyd Cowley, working at the intersection of fusion and AI at FIA affiliate member digiLab, gives today's global fusion news update. Links to all of the stories mentioned are included below. 1. Zap Energy shows off its new fusion power prototype, Century https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/09/zap-energy-shows-off-its-new-fusion-power-prototype-century/ 2. Fusion, the Web and electric planes: how spin-offs from big science are transforming the world https://physicsworld.com/a/fusion-the-web-and-electric-planes-how-spin-offs-from-big-science-are-transforming-the-world/ 3. Stopping off-the-wall behavior in fusion reactors https://phys.org/news/2024-10-wall-behavior-fusion-reactors.html 4. Japan's tokamak sets world record, achieves plasma volume of 160 cubic meters https://interestingengineering.com/energy/world-largest-tokamak-jt-60sa-plasma Bonuses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az4J5H2FXkE&list=PLy5tg85zU5CCWzhG0yrg9NK_0HCtirp_n https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDi4uf25hfo

Fusion Future - The Plan What if I told you there was a plan to eliminate the effects of inflation, maintain King Dollar as the global benchmark in currency, onshore manufacturing back to the United States, and launch the Western hemisphere into a new era of prosperity and peace? And what if I told you all this could be accomplished with one technological program executed by the incoming Trump Administration? All the pieces to our Fusion Future are in place. Lawrence Livermore Labs created fusion ignition in December of 2022. The test produced more energy output than was input. The long theorized fusion technology was proven. However, a national strategy has eluded the current Biden Administration. The Technology Media oxygen for ideas and scientific breakthroughs is tough to come by in a narrative driven world that moves information hour to hour. One large factor in the hidden nature of Lawrence Livermore Labs fusion ignition is a parallel competing fusion technology that has the media power of corporate and foreign interests. There are two types of fusion energy technologies being developed. One is a smaller form factor reactor that uses magnets, coils, and kinetic motion. The other uses lasers to create inertial fusion energy.. Many entities across the globe are racing to develop the first functioning Tokamak reactor - the type of technology that uses magnets and coils. China, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and even the Vatican are developing a Tokamak reactor. Here in Washington State, Microsoft recently invested in a local company, Helion, that is at the forefront of private commercial development of fusion energy using magnets and coils in design. The Fusion Future plan for a national fusion project uses the laser based system developed by the Department of Energy at Lawrence Livermore Labs. It's natural that the numerous commercial and foreign government projects get all the attention, while the laser based system is relegated to internal DOE press releases. To be clear, the Lawrence Livermore Labs fusion ignition is the most significant proof of concept test in energy production history. The Fusion Future plan will develop industrial scale giant lasers to create a thermonuclear fusion reaction. This method has been proven, and can be scaled to industrial size capabilities. Think of one industrial fusion reactor powering the entire Pacific Northwest with clean sustainable energy. The Tokamak design using magnets and coils is being developed for small form factor use, like powering tech data centers. This is a battle of commercial interests versus a big idea for national interests. The Money In 2022 John Podesta was put in charge of $370 billion in clean energy investments as part of the Green New Deal. That program morphed into the Inflation Reduction Act. The act created a jobs program based on debt, to supposedly fight inflation, while tackling the climate crisis. $370 billion is a lot of money already budgeted for green new technology. This year that program morphed into the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act. This act allocated $230 billion to change-over all public housing into zero carbon high efficient homes. Meanwhile, just recently congressional representatives and Lawrence Livermore Labs announced a $16 million boost in funding to achieve the Department of Energy goal of fusion energy commercialization within a decade. Yes, $16 million was touted as a boost in funding to a $630 million fusion budget. And yes, remember the US taxpayers through their representatives budgeted $370 billion in Green New Deal funding that prioritizes windmills, jobs programs based on foreign sourced resources like solar, and high efficiency homes, over advanced laser technology that could change the world. Under current leadership, the United States fusion energy program receives less than two tenths of one percent of the Green New Deal budget. The majority of funding for plasma fusion labs is run through the NNSA: National Nuclear Security Administration. The NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science. 77% of the funding for Lawrence Livermore Labs comes from the NNSA. Lawrence Livermore Labs states they are aiming for commercialization of fusion energy, but they are funded by a “semi-autonomous agency” with “military application” as its directive. The money, paths, and mechanisms are in place, but currently politicians fund pet projects and turn a blind eye to “semi-autonomous” DOE efforts. America First Follow me into a thought experiment. Please think of sovereign nations and regional cultures across the globe as competitors instead of enemies. Partners instead of allies. This concept falls inline with the national identity philosophy Donald J Trump laid out in his UN speech in September 2018. A prosperous globe respects the cultural identity and sovereignty of all nation states. The United States has been a global leader in freedom and self governance in the past. The Fusion Future plan allows the United States, and its citizens, to take that lead once more. For decades the United States has tinkered, repressed, and built foreign nations across the globe. The US economy has been transformed from the quality brand of “Made in America” to a service economy fueled by the underlying activity of foreign nations. These competing economies have risen to a level where cooperation and competition can raise prosperity across the globe like never before, but a strong and prosperous US economy is necessary in this equation. Our Fusion Future will see the United States regain its brand status as a global manufacturer of innovation and quality. This plan is created out of necessity. Reliance on competitors for foundational ingredients has created an insecure supply chain. The virtue of the Green New Deal only survives with the ignorance of environmental effects in foreign lands. The push to build US competitors in the past several decades has created this insecure national security situation; but it also has created an opportunity for decoupling without economic collapse. These economic competitors can survive through new partnerships while the US rises to a new level of economic power. What may seem like a dangerous situation now, will be the building blocks of a thriving multilayered global economic structure in the future. All this is only created with a global leader that ascends to a new level of economic power. With the Fusion Future plan, once again, the United States will tap its DNA as an innovator and builder within a free society. The Results Inflation is eroding the prosperity of the citizens of the United States. The pernicious nature of inflation cannot be destroyed, but instead must be swallowed by an economy. The Fusion Future plan allows the US economy to grow into the current inflationary environment instead of succumbing to it. This current economic mess was created by the global search for lower cost structures. The United States became too expensive to manufacture within, and consumers became drunk on cheap goods. Global partners were built-out raising the prosperity of their citizens to eventually become competitors. Abundant clean energy could transform the landscape of economic activity all while satisfying the environmental concerns of global citizens. Manufacturing will find a home again within the borders of the United States. The cheap abundant clean energy will be the cost savings to not only attract corporate manufacturing, but to also grow the US economy into the current inflationary environment. Leadership Born out of the divisive chaos our country is experiencing are selfless citizen volunteers grabbing the wheel of a runaway autonomous electric vehicle. The Fusion Future plan is part of the New Red Deal, developed by Eric Jon Boerner.  The structure of US governance has become bulbous with too many factions competing for a slice of the tax pie instead of the prosperity of citizens. The bureaucracy splintered into “semi-autonomous” structures lacking guidance and oversight to maintain mission focus and coordination. The Fusion Future plan takes advantage of a strong leader like President Trump. This plan gives the Trump Administration the positive turn necessary to galvanize the citizenry behind national pride and ascension. The New Red Deal is a modern Manhattan Project and Moon Landing wrapped into one clear objective - Industrial Fusion Energy. Eric Jon Boerner ran for US President in 2023 to highlight ideas that can create a prosperous future for the United States outside of special interests. His volunteer spirit leads the way to focus the Federal Government once again on the national interests of its people. With a strong leader like Donald J Trump as President, and citizen volunteers like Eric Jon Boerner leading within the bureaucratic structure, the United States can vault itself from a Super Power to a Hyper Nation. American exceptionalism will return, and the shining city on the hill will be empowered once again for the entire world to see. EP Q&A - Timestamp 15:42 Listen in for the Q&A section in the second half where more details are flushed out. The Fusion Future Plan is comprehensive, technological details and project specifics are reserved for the project team.

This is a recap of the top 10 posts on Hacker News on June 23rd, 2024.This podcast was generated by wondercraft.ai(00:37): I am using AI to drop hats outside my window onto New YorkersOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40767459&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(01:41): After my dad died, I ran and sold his company (2018)Original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40758767&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(03:03): The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway ticketsOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40769001&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(04:25): Llama.ttf: A font which is also an LLMOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40766791&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(05:33): Ruby: A great language for shell scriptsOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40763640&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(06:43): Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)Original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40769362&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(07:45): I've stopped using box plots (2021)Original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40765183&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(08:59): HH70, the first high-temperature superconducting Tokamak achieves first plasmaOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40761713&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(10:17): SSH as a Sudo ReplacementOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40763117&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(11:33): Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mindOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40757775&utm_source=wondercraft_aiThis is a third-party project, independent from HN and YC. Text and audio generated using AI, by wondercraft.ai. Create your own studio quality podcast with text as the only input in seconds at app.wondercraft.ai. Issues or feedback? We'd love to hear from you: team@wondercraft.ai

Pretekli teden so v prostorih Inštituta Jožef Stefan na Brinju blizu Domžal pri Ljubljani, kjer že od leta 1966 deluje eksperimentalni jedrski reaktor Triga, slovesno prerezali trak nove naprave KATANA. Gre za poimenovanje po ikoničnem japonskem meču, ki označuje dejansko in simbolno lastnost te nove "zanke za aktivacijo vode", ki "reže meje med fisijo in fuzijo", torej med zlivanjem težjih jeder v lažja (fisija v jedrski elektrarni npr.) in fuzijo, procesom zlivanja lažjih jeder v težja - kar se že milijarde let dogaja na "našem" Soncu, središču domače galaksije. Gre za dolgoletno sodelovanje IJS v projektu fuzijskega reaktorja ITER, ki ga gradijo v južni Franciji. Takšne reaktorje imenujejo TOKAMAK, in jih hladijo z vodo. Ko ta pride v stik z visokoenergijskimi nevtroni iz plazme reaktorja, se slednji absorbirajo v jedrih atomov kisika, kar ustvari radioaktivno obliko dušika. Slednji je radioaktiven, in v slabi minuti razpade, ob tem pa sprosti žarke gama visokih energij. To kratkotrajno sevanje je velik izziv za vodni hladilni sistem. Zato v okviru konzorcija EUROFUSION razvijajo orodja za simulacijo in izračun ravni sevanja okoli tako aktivirane vode. KATANA je torej zaprta zanka za aktivacijo vode, ki služi kot stabilen vir nevtronov in žarkov gama visokih energij. Takšnih eksperimentalnih naprav doslej še ni bilo, KATANO pa je v celoti v zadnjih treh letih izdelala ekipa, ki jo je koordiniral in vodil prof.dr. Luka Snoj, vodja Odseka za reaktorsko fiziko - F8. Po slovesnem dejanskem zagonu Katane – kjer sta bila navzoča tudi programski direktor EUROFUSION prof.dr. Ambrogio Fasoli in dr. Xavier Litaudon, vodja evropskih raziskav za obratovanje fuzijskega reaktorja ITER – je Luka Snoj opisal vlogo te naprave v razvoju tehnologij za bodoči fuzijski reaktor ITER v južni Franciji. FOTO: Tik pred rezanjem traku ob napravi KATANA stojijo, z leve, v beli halji Luka Snoj, v modrih haljah pa proti desni, A. Fasoli in X. Litaudon VIR: Goran Tenze, Program Ars

Fusion energy week is happening during the first week of May! To get ready, Dr. Diem is talking about a new design that may improve the Stellarator design and a new record for the KSTAR. We're also talking about our experience during the 2024 solar eclipse, and we have a strange new milk that will be sure to haunt your dreams. Your Hosts James Reed (https://twitter.com/James_Reed3) Steffi Diem (https://twitter.com/SteffiDiem) Jason Organ (https://twitter.com/OrganJM) Credits Editing-James Reed Mastering- James Reed Music: - Intro and Outro- Wolf Moon by Unicorn Heads | https://unicornheads.com/ | Standard YouTube License - Additional Sounds- Inside a Computer Chip by Doug Maxwell |https://www.mediarightproductions.com/ | Standard YouTube License www.scinight.com

Hey, this is Alex,Ok let's start with the big news, holy crap this week was a breakthrough week for speed! We had both Groq explode in popularity, and ByteDance release an updated SDXL model called Lightning, able to generate full blown SDXL 1024 images in 300ms. I've been excited about seeing what real time LLM/Diffusion can bring, and with both of these news release the same week, I just had to go and test them out together: Additionally, we had Google step into a big open weights role, and give us Gemma, 2 open weights models 2B and 7B (which is closer to 9B per Junyang) and it was great to see google committing to releasing at least some models in the open. We also had breaking news, Emad from Stability announced SD3, which looks really great, Google to pay Reddit 200M for AI training on their data & a few more things. TL;DR of all topics covered: * Big CO LLMs + APIs* Groq custom LPU inference does 400T/s Llama/Mistral generation (X, Demo)* Google image generation is in Hot Waters and was reportedly paused (refuses to generate white people)* Gemini 1.5 long context is very impressive to folks (Matt Shumer, Ethan Mollick)* Open Weights LLMs * Google releases GEMMA, open weights 2B and 7B models (Announcement, Models)* Teknium releases Nous Hermes DPO (Announcement, HF)* Vision & Video* YoLo V9 - SOTA real time object detector is out (Announcement, Code)* This weeks Buzz (What I learned in WandB this week)* Went to SF to cohost an event with A16Z, Nous, Mistral (Thread, My Report)* AI Art & Diffusion & 3D* ByteDance presents SDXL-Lightning (Try here, Model)* Stability announces Stable Diffusion 3 (Announcement)* Tools* Replit releases a new experimental Figma plugin for UI → Code (Announcement)* Arc browser adds "AI pinch to understand" summarization (Announcement)Big CO LLMs + APIsGroq's new LPU show extreme performance for LLMs - up to 400T/s (example)* Groq created a novel processing unit known as the Tensor Streaming Processor (TSP) which they categorize as a Linear Processor Unit (LPU). Unlike traditional GPUs that are parallel processors with hundreds of cores designed for graphics rendering, LPUs are architected to deliver deterministic performance for AI computations.* Analogy: They know where all the cars are going when everyone wakes up for work (when they compile) and how fast they all drive (compute latency) so they can get rid of traffic lights (routers) and turn lanes (backpressure) by telling everyone when to leave the house.* Why would we need something like this? Some folks are saying that average human reading is only 30T/s, I created an example that uses near instant Groq Mixtral + Lightning SDXL to just create images with Mixtral as my prompt managerOpen Source Weights LLMs Google Gemma - 2B and 7B open weights models (demo)* 4 hours after release, Llama.cpp added support, Ollama and LM Studio added support, Tri dao added Flash attention support* Vocab size is 256K* 8K context window* Tokenizer similar to LLama* Folks are... not that impressed as far as I've seen* Trained on 6 trillion tokens* Google also released Gemma.cpp (local CPU inference) - AnnouncementNous/Teknium re-release Nous Hermes with DPO finetune (Announcement)* DPO RLHF is performing better than previous models* Models are GGUF and can be found here* DPO enables Improvements across the boardThis weeks Buzz (What I learned with WandB this week)* Alex was in SF last week* A16Z + 20 something cohosts including Weights & Biases talked about importance of open source* Huge Shoutout Rajko and Marco from A16Z, and tons of open source folks who joined* Nous, Ollama, LLamaIndex, LMSys folks, Replicate, Perplexity, Mistral, Github, as well as Eric Hartford, Jon Durbin, Haotian Liu, HuggingFace, tons of other great folks from Mozilla, linux foundation and Percy from Together/StanfordAlso had a chance to checkout one of the smol dinners in SF, they go really hard, had a great time showing folks the Vision Pro, chatting about AI, seeing incredible demos and chat about meditation and spirituality all at the same time! AI Art & DiffusionByteDance presents SDXL-Lightning (Try here)* Lightning fast SDXL with 2, 4 or 8 steps* Results much closer to original SDXL than turbo version from a few months agoStability announces Stable Diffusion 3 (waitlist)Uses a Diffusion Transformer architecture (like SORA)Impressive multi subject prompt following: "Prompt: a painting of an astronaut riding a pig wearing a tutu holding a pink umbrella, on the ground next to the pig is a robin bird wearing a top hat, in the corner are the words "stable diffusion"Tools* Replit announces a new Figma design→ code plugin That's it for today, definitely check out the full conversation with Mark Heaps from Groq on the pod, and see you next week!

Saubere Energie ohne Belastung des Klimas durch Kohlendioxid. Meerwasser als Brennstoff. Keine Abhängigkeit von Rohstoffen aus Diktaturen. Reaktoren, die nicht explodieren können, weil sie nach einer Panne einfach stehen bleiben. Fast keine Radioaktivität. Kein Atommüll. Keine Endlager. Kernfusion besitzt all jene Nachteile nicht, die Kernspaltung so unpopulär gemacht hat. Doch über Jahrzehnte kam die Fusionsforschung nicht richtig voran. Nun aber macht sie in kurzer Zeit große Fortschritte. Reaktoren scheinen planbar, die mehr Energie produzieren als verbrauchen. Interessanterweise liegt Deutschland in der Erforschung des Gebiets weltweit mit an der Spitze. Wir schlüsseln auf, was sich hinter den wichtigsten Fachwörtern und Konzepten der Kernfusion verbirgt. Als Gast dazu geladen haben wir, der als Investor viel von dem Thema versteht: Benjamin Erhart von UVC, dem Investment-Arm der Münchner UnternehmerTUM. Eine Folge für alle, die mitreden wollen bei einer möglichen Energieform der Zukunft, die verspricht, viele der heutigen Probleme zu lösen. Und für alle, die wissen möchten, was sich hinter den seltsamen Worten Stellarator und Tokamak verbirgt. Ihnen hat die Folge gefallen oder Sie haben Feedback für uns? Dann schreiben Sie uns gerne an podcast@hy.co. Wir freuen uns über Post von Ihnen.

This week we're attempting to answer the age-old question...if there is a possibility for a sensational story involving aliens, will social media just run with it? We're also checking our DARTs, and hearing about the newly upgraded KSTAR tokamak from our favorite fusioneer. Your Hosts James Reed (https://twitter.com/James_Reed3) Steffi Diem (https://twitter.com/SteffiDiem) Jason Organ (https://twitter.com/OrganJM) Credits Editing-James Reed Mastering- James Reed Music: - Intro and Outro- Wolf Moon by Unicorn Heads | https://unicornheads.com/ | Standard YouTube License - LITE BRITE by Density & Time | Standard YouTube License - Colony by Track Tribe | Standard YouTube License - Additional Sounds- Inside a Computer Chip by Doug Maxwell |https://www.mediarightproductions.com/ | Standard YouTube License www.scinight.com

Wallace Manheimer is a life fellow of both American Physical Society (APS) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).  His career has been at the US Naval Research Laboratory since 1970, and he served in the small group of ST-16 senior scientists for his last 14 years there.   Since retiring in 2004, he has served as a consultant at the lab.  At NRL he has worked on inertial fusion, magnetic fusion, a nuclear disturbed upper atmosphere, electron and ion beams, high power microwave and millimeter wave systems, advanced radar systems, and plasma processing.  He is the author of over 150 refereed scientific papers. 00:00 Introduction  00:15 Guest Introduction: Wally Manheimer 02:13 Energy for the World: Fusion and Fusion Breeding 02:41 The Goal of Energy Production 04:05 The Current State of Energy Consumption 04:40 Understanding Energy Conversion 06:38 The Global Perspective on Energy Use 09:35 Introduction to the Book 'Mass Delusions' 13:36 The Future of Nuclear Power 20:46 The Process of Nuclear Fusion 23:27 The Potential of Fusion Breeding 24:58 The Challenges of Fusion Breeding 25:59 The Role of Fast Neutron Reactors and Thorium Breeders 34:28 The Future of Fusion Reactors 40:01 The ITER Project: A Global Effort 47:58 Introduction to Stellarator and Tokamak 48:44 Size Comparison of Tokamak and Stellarator 49:36 Challenges of Stellarator 49:51 Private Fusion Startups 51:50 Critique of Private Fusion Startups 54:21 Success of Livermore in Laser Fusion 55:39 Challenges of Magnetic Fusion 56:17 Livermore's Scheme for Fusion 56:57 The Concept of Alpha Generated Burn Wave 57:57 The Configuration of Livermore Experiment 01:02:16 The Future of Laser Fusion 01:07:02 The Role of NRL 01:24:23 The Energy Park Concept 01:25:17 The Infrastructure of Energy Park 01:30:03 Q and A 01:31:56 Conclusion and Future Directions Full bio here: https://co2coalition.org/teammember/wallace-manheimer/ Slides for this presentation: https://open.substack.com/pub/tomn/p/fusion-and-fusion-breeding-the-ugly Manheimer's “Mass Delusions” book: https://a.co/d/4r1lZLn ========= AI summaries of all of my podcasts: https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries About Tom Nelson: https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL89cj_OtPeenLkWMmdwcT8Dt0DGMb8RGR Twitter: https://twitter.com/TomANelson Substack: https://tomn.substack.com/ About Tom: https://tomn.substack.com/about

What if there were a way to generate massive amounts of affordable, carbon-free energy with minimal environmental or safety risk? Sounds too good to be true, but nuclear fusion just might be the kind of energy source that America—and the world—has been waiting for.Michl Binderbauer is the CEO of California-based TAE Technologies, a company trying to develop an aneutronic commercial fusion reactor. Michl joins us on this episode of Faster Please! — The Podcast to explain how his team is trying to make fusion power a real thing.In This Episode* Fusion's Moment (1:11)* The Technical Challenge (12:11)* The Economic Challenge (15:33)* The Role of Government (22:20)Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.Pethokoukis: What is sort of the current state of your company's technology, and in describing that, could you tell me how it sort of differs from other approaches in the field, keeping in mind I am not a nuclear physicist?Binderbauer: Understood. Alright, well it's a great introductory question. So TAE has been around, as you probably have read, for a good two decades plus, but the 25 year anniversary was just this past April, actually. We're at the stage now, it's really exciting, where the machine we're under construction on now, which we call Copernicus, which is our generation six, is actually intended to get us to a point to demonstrate that we can harvest more energy than we have to feed it. And this is on a really engineering comparison, how much energy comes into the site and deploys on the machine versus how much can you harvest. To be fair, this is not a full power plant, so we're going to measure the heat output, the collective heat output on it. Now that's where we're going, and that's really enabled by 20 plus years of a journey of, interestingly enough, a lot of scientific nuance discoveries, but mostly technology development.What you learn is that the journey that we were on was mostly one of underestimating the complexity of power supplies, vacuum systems, heating systems in the form of us, this means energetic particle beams, and the technological tool chest around those things and making that work as a symphony, as a nice orchestra to do what we need it to do, and that's really where we spend most of the time, and now we're at the point where there's a confluence in understanding the science, understanding or having full practice capability, mastery of the tools, bringing these two things together in the sixth generation machine to drive net energy output. That's the goal. The other thing you asked me was how do we differ and to kind of contrast that a little bit?Because this is a very interesting moment for fusion, broadly, which are a number of startups, of course some of my listeners might be familiar with the breakthrough from the National Ignition Facility, which isn't really meant to create a nuclear power plant, but it was a great proof of concept that we can do some sort of fusion here. So I guess in a somewhat understandable way, given my own personal limitations, what are you doing that's sort of different than maybe some of the other companies such as, I mean I've written about Commonwealth Fusion and a few others, as well.Of course. Let me start by saying that, for most of that I should give credit to my brilliant PhD mentor who was a technical co-founder and co-founder in general of TAE. Norman Rostoker was his name, and Norman had an illustrious career in the field of fusion science and, in fact, accelerators and a few other areas of physics. He was a sort of polymath and really broad guy, which probably was a critical ingredient to get to where we are today. And so while he was very instrumental in the early days of the field in putting together a lot of the fundamental theory and things that I always joke and say, “You can't get a PhD in this field without suffering through a lot of the stuff he discovered.” But he also was very critical at the later stage in his career and he looked at this and said, “If we want to build something that caters to power production in a civilian way with good economics and the right kind of maintainability and practicality, then maybe what we're doing as a field today on the large sort of federal or national program-funded research was sort of missing the mark a little bit because it was building towards the Tokamaks, which some of your readers may know, those  donut-shaped machines, the biggest of which is under construction in the south of France right now, it's a big international project. And Norman looked at that and said, “That can get us to maybe net energy but not necessarily practical net energy or economic net energy.”In the end it's about an applied end product that we're going after, not textbook knowledge, in a sense, or a proof point for a laboratory experiment. With that in mind, when the company, before it even started—this is in the early '90s when I became a student—he had a very delineated philosophy of end in mind: Let's look what this needs to look like. And that's pretty trivial to define, right? If I ask you, what do you think a good power plant should look like, you could probably tell me. If we can make it non-polluting, great, we want to make sure that it doesn't have maintenance every day. It's up most of the time and it can compete with what the grid needs today in terms of economics, who else makes power with from coal, the gas to whatever else. And that's kind of how we started, we said that would be the ideal reactor, and now how can we cater to that. And what is the gap if you reverse engineer from there to today that you have to fill? And that's really where we started and that led to a remarkably different trajectory.One of those, the first one, frankly, was fuel, right? When you think about tritium, which is the conventional goal set, and that's a fuel that's heavy hydrogen, when you “burn” that, quote-unquote, you get neutrons, which we know from fission, those are what propagates the fission process, and if you have a lot of neutrons, you get radioactivity. And tritium by itself is also used in our warheads. It's not the ideal material you loose in a civilian setting, it's typically classified, et cetera, so there's all these headaches and there's very little tritium, by the way, to go around. There's like 50 kilograms of free tritium in the world, and that's super expensive, something like $30,000 a gram or so is what's usually quoted. So there's a lot of handicap there if you want to turn that into an economic prosperous thing. And so we said, “Alright, well, what else is terrestrially possible?”And so not to be philosophical and say God gave us a very narrow bookshelf, but it kind of is. On one end you've got the neutronic fuel cycle with tritium, and then on the other end of this small bookshelf you have hydrogen and boron which are copiously available, both. There's no radioactivity to go in, and by the way, when they burn you get three helium particles, which is where our initial name came from, Tri Alpha Energy, we call helium particles in nuclear physics alpha particles. And so you look at it and you say, “Oh, that's pretty good!” I don't have radioactivity as a byproduct, I don't have to worry about shielding, I don't have high costs associated with those things. And by the way, if you look where boron is used today, it's dirt-cheap commodity products, it's detergents and soaps and cleaning products and things like that. So, in a way, it fits the bill.Now its big handicap is it needs a higher burn temperature to cook.Very hot.Yeah. You look at tritium on one end, that's about a hundred million degrees, which already sounds insane, but keep in mind, as a physicist, we sort of define that as just the energy state in that material beyond the gas. We call these plasmas. This plasma is at a hundred million degrees for tritium. If you want to burn boron, you need about a billion degrees. Now that sounds absolutely crazy, but it's not the stove plate hot of a solid. It's a very few particles that get to zip around in the container at very high energy, and that gets you to that definition of eventually a billion degrees.By the way, for reference, the big Hadron Collider at CERN, the LHC, that actually makes charged particle clouds with temperatures up to five trillion degrees. So we can actually do this. Amazingly, humans have a technology base to actually do that. So we started with the idea of if we wanted that fuel cycle, we've got to find the container and the process that can hold that together and create those energetic states we need. And that led us ultimately to what is referred to as a “field reversed configuration,” and I won't bore everybody with the detail of that, it's a mouthful to begin with, but it's a very interesting magnetic container.I will say that much, that instead of, in the case of most other confinement systems where you have a lot of magnets on the outset—and by the way the magnets are a big cost component in a reactor, they're superconducting, they're large in scale, complex to manufacture—and in this case, in the FRC, most of the field is actually created by the plasma itself.So plasma is discharge particles, if they flow, they create a current and the current can make a magnetic field, and so the plasma can self-envelope with a magnetic field that it generates from its currents and that can help, believe it or not, hold it in place. It sounds kind of perverse, but it works. And the idea behind that was derived about 50 years ago—almost everything infusion had some origins back many, many decades ago—but it was always considered too finicky to make work because one thing you can appreciate, if there's anything wrong in the flow in the plasma, well then the fields start to deteriorate so it can very quickly get into negative feedback cycle unless you can keep it stable and well controlled.And that's what we developed now. So now we have this perfect incarnation of it where we can run at will for as long as we want. We control this with active feedback today with extremely fast circuits and very smart software that's machine learning based, that self-corrects, recognizes patterns, and stuff. So take it as a supposition. Now we have ability to make these field reversed configurations at scale, meters in size, and can hold them steady as long as we want. And now what's interesting about that container is that has a much easier scalability, from a physics perspective, to those high energy conditions. This is why it's the right container to marry with the hydrogen boron, and most people just didn't go there for two reasons, I would think.One is that when the field works mostly on, say, Tokamaks, then there is so much knowledge base developed there that, in a way, it self-propagates and the incoming young people that get graduate education, they work on what's the most prolific thing, which happen to be Tokamaks. So it sort of self-propagates.And the other thing, of course, is people felt that confinement or the ability to hold this material together is already really stressful, and so if you have to go to a hundred million degrees, let's try to celebrate there before we bother going further. Norman was more maverick and said, “But that's not a good endpoint to be, so why don't we shoot for something a bit more out there that can really bring all that together. As a graduate student, I was game for that. I thought this was a brilliant idea. It appealed to me enormously to say let's connect what we're trying to do to the applied end product, and that's where we started, first in the university and then built the business.neutral beams, the plasma maintains lasting, high-temperature field reverse configurations.The Technical Challenge (12:11)Where you are right now, what is required to get to the endpoint, which is a commercial reactor?  Does that require continuous incremental progress and success, or does it still require something that you might call “leaps” in the technology? Where are we to get to that endpoint?Of course I should also explain that temperature increments like you're walking up a ladder, there's different steps to it. At the step where we are now, we're operating today the machine, the generation five—which we actually call “Norman” by the way, in its honor, we named it Norman. The reason that was fitting is because it established the scientific proof that you can actually create stable, long-lift field reversed configurations with the right attributes, and today we're doing that about 75 million degrees in the current machine that runs every day about 50, 60 experiments. So we know we can scale, we're really sure we can scale this to a hundred million degrees. What gives a hundred million back to the fuels, that doesn't give you boron but that gives you tritium. If you think about an approach of sequences, is you ramp up to a billion degrees, somewhere you have to cross a hundred, so you have something harvestable there from an economic opportunity.And so Copernicus, the next machine generation six that I alluded to earlier is the machine that's going to enable us to get into the tritium-level regime. This machine is going to show net energy capability at the a hundred to 150 million degree mark, which is typically where people operate with tritium. We were slated to do that by about '26, somewhere late-'25 into '26, and that's what we're constructing and fully projected to do. Now assuming success on that—which I believe is very much in our favor, we've been less than a factor of two of those operating conditions already and we have the engineering and the mastery, the operational mastery on this in hand—then the next step after that is to scale that up and build a machine that's about a factor of eight or so up in energy, and that gets you into the regime of the boron operation, and that's the stage when we think we will have net energy demonstrated out of hydrogen boron, and that's probably early 2030s.So again, coming back the next three years, make a machine that gets into the tritium equivalent operational regime. One thing I should point out, perhaps people may question, are we using tritium in the machine directly? We are not. What we're doing, and I can get into why that is, Commonwealth for instance—you mentioned earlier Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS)—they're trying to be a bit more ambitious and build this Tokamak and eventually fuel it with tritium. That has a much larger price tag and operational complexity because tritium is not an end game for us. I just want to enable the energetic state to burn tritium without actually doing it. The field has today sufficient enough confidence and maturity to understand that if you can hold the material together at a hundred, 150 million degrees with the right density and everything, yes, you could make tritium-based net energy if you wanted to, and that'd be for somebody else to do, but TAE wants to march on and build its boron reactor.The Economic Challenge (15:33)So there's a technical challenge that you feel like you're on track and you're sort of hitting some milestones there, and then there's sort of the economic challenge that we just don't want to get this thing to work, you want to get this thing to work so it makes sense that someday this thing can get plugged into an electrical grid. How do you feel about that aspect? How pricey or inexpensive or expensive will this energy be, assuming the not-insignificant technical challenges are met sometime in the next decade or what have you?Yeah, so great question. Obviously, we haven't built one yet. We haven't built the prototypes yet, let alone the full power plant, but there is actually a quite sane projection forward to those cost points from the fact that, after 25 years of working on this, we have a pretty good sense what we need. We have a great supply chain and partnerships established with people who built, not exactly this, but things like this. So you can do some estimates and you also know, as I said earlier, magnets are one of the biggest items, so there's a large amount of cost in there. The other big item that between those two controls more than two thirds is the heating equipment, and that can be radiofrequency heating like a microwave basically, or what we mostly use is injecting highly directional beams of atomic particles, neutral atoms that come in and then they collide with the fuel and then they basically transfer the energy that we directly shoot in and it becomes heat in the machine.So those two things, the heaters and the container system, the magnets, are the big expense items. When you get a sense for where you need to be and what the geometry looks like and so on, you can actually make a reasonable estimate at cost, and so I'm saying this, at the same time I'm asking for forgiveness if we're going to be off because obviously, in the end, there'll be a lot of detail that'll add to that. But I think what we believe, and I have confidence that that's correct, that the first generation of plants coming out of this, let's say it's somewhere in the mid-2030s, we'd have the first commercial plants installing and not plant one, which is a hand-built one-of-a-kind, right? But if you built maybe tens of plants, you will be at a point where you have some learning curves that bring prices down, you kind of know now how to do it. I wouldn't say it's mass produced yet, but it's going into a more efficient production cycle. I think we will slot in somewhere in the midfield today of generation assets.So if you're looking at solar, wind—solar maybe more than wind today—but you also add things like gas in the US, those are on the low end of the economics in terms of what they call LCOE, the Levelized Cost of Electricity, and then if you look at the upper end, you will find nuclear and the things where there's a lot of safety margin built in. We'll be somewhere in the field in between there. That gets you pretty competitive right there because it has two other incredible attributes. One is that there is really no variability in fuel costs because it's literally free because you need so little. Fusion is super high energy dense, so you don't need much.And the other aspect is that it doesn't pollute, really. There's no carbon involved, there's really no radioactivity to speak of. And so you are ending with something that can be baseload power, that's dispatchable, as they call it today. The human controls when it's on and when it's not, not the sun or the wind. And you have essentially green energy. In that sense, even if it's more expensive than some of the cheapest things today, but it's midfield, it'll be very competitive on a global basis and it'll be an important component that the world will need.How big a facility would you need to power Cincinnati or Chicago? My only experience is looking at the rather big nuclear fission reactors which are fairly big, so would this be a lot smaller than that?Well, two things: There's the machine size and then there's the installation size, the site. In nuclear fission today you have exclusion zone around the plant. There's a lot of the plot of land that it's on and then some incremental infrastructure, safety, security shielding and so on adds a lot of additional cost and scale. If on the boron machine, the actual machine is a couple, maybe three double-decker buses back-to-back, something like that, maybe a bit taller, but not that much. So that would be comparable to a large gas turbine, for instance. Or if you are in a hydro plant and you're looking at the generating units, they'd be sort of on that scale. So it's not outsized relative to what conventionally is used in the utility space today.Now if you look in the land footprint, it's pretty minimal. You're looking at a handful of acres at most. In fact, maybe even less over time. Now that's with hydrogen and boron because you then don't have radioactivity to speak of. You don't have the chance during an accident. The worst-case accidents that a plant like that would suffer would be industrial scale things. Things like a bad fire in a factory would just be similar, but it doesn't have nuclear meltdown capability. There is no chain reaction kind of thing, like we know from Chernobyl—and by the way, this isn't just true for TAE, this is true for all of fusion, it makes it really safe. So those attributes will shrink the site down. So if you're asking me how much can we get out of one of these systems at that scale, probably somewhere in the order of half a gigawatt, 400 to 500 megawatts is sort of what we're shooting for.It's a larger gas turbine system and if you wanted to get gigawatt-level power like you would get out of a fission nuclear plant today, you would probably have, say, two, three of these units next to each other. What I really think the world will go to and what we hear from talking to a lot of the utility people, it's a more distributed grid, ideally. You have things on the 300–500 megawatt scale that deploys in a way where you have more redundancy if you needed it, there's more reliability, et cetera. This is the scale that I think you would look at, so feeding a city like Chicago out of one plant, or the whole Chicago metropolitan area, is not going to happen. You would have a distributed set of systems, and you think 400 megawatts or so, you get a few hundred thousand households that run on that, and then you scale from there.The Role of Government (22:20)You've been working on this for some time and obviously I work at a think tank, so I always think, do you want government to do something that it's not doing? Do you want government to stop doing something that it's currently doing? I know I've certainly talked to some startups, newer startups, they're in partnerships with the Department of Energy. So what is your engagement currently and what would you need, or not need, from government going forward to get to where you need to go?That's a great question and one that has evolved. In the past, we've been purely privately funded and we built everything we've done so far on private capital and we're kind of the oldest of that. Now, as you said, there's a lot of younger companies in the space too, and I think this is great. We get more shots on goal and it makes us more valid. We're not the only lone idiots out there. There's actually reason to believe that there's many smart people trying now, so that's a good thing.Now where we're going, though, is a stage where I think public-private partnerships actually start to make sense. When you look at the history of any kind of energy technology that came about, nuclear is sort of—I hate to use it because it seems like we're so similar, we're obviously very different in some ways, we share the taxonomy “nuclear,” but that's about it—but fission, if you look at the evolution, it gets subsidies. There's a risk offtake for the early plants that the government tends to shoulder. That can be a loan guarantee, it can be other kinds of financial arrangements, and then eventually it becomes commercial enough in the sense that people believe in the viability, they have a good sense for its reliability and so on, and then it just propagates into the market in a very capitalist free market sense. That transition out of the lab into that stage of really rolling out at scale I think is where we absolutely need to count on government support.In fact, what's wonderful to see now, over the last couple of years in particular, and you read about this, the White House last year had a summit where we and a few others in the front running in the private sector were there together with the national labs and people from DOE, and we had a very productive conversation about what the White House framed a bold decadal vision for fusion. Important in that is the recognition that it's not always 30 years away and always will be, it's much closer. And what can we do proactively and collectively to accelerate that?I think that's what's really heartening to see, that as we're getting to that proof point, now we're getting net energy and then we want to leap to a prototype and a power plant. We're going to need that help, and there is a public-private partnership around multiple things on the technology or production side, but then also moving into the ultimate: How do you fund and risk underwrite these early plants when utilities typically are more risk averse? That we see on the federal level, and then on the state level, I don't know if you follow that, but recently California and North Carolina had a couple of bills coming out—for instance, California, we've had this nuclear moratorium where everything nuclear in nature is sort of not tolerable, and that's been modified. Fusion now is excluded out of that and in fact is now part of what they would call the benign side of the future of energy. In fact, the California bill made it very clear that it's to be treated as clean energy, essentially. And so in North Carolina, so you have now a blue state and right state looking at and saying, we want this. We need this, and we recognize the chance is high that over the next decade this comes about.The other thing I can add is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, they just this year in a sort of landmark first step, the commission ruled in terms of where do we slop the regulatory framework around fusion. It's not in the old Part 50, which deals with the fission world, but it's going to be in a world that's much closer to where you would regulate medical accelerator that makes pet isotopes for oncology scanning and stuff. So they recognize that this is, while nuclear in taxonomy, it's a very different form of risk to the public, and therefore the level of regulation is lower, and that's equally important.The interaction with the government is super important now, and we're very heartened by the fact that we see there's really a nearing and a mutual excitement about bringing that out as quickly as possible against the backdrops from climate change to whatever else people are worried about with the national security and energy independence.Obviously, from my perspective, what I like is the idea that if fusion can succeed, it becomes eventually a source of abundance because there's so much fuel here that we can harvest and we think we can do this at very economic levels, that you can lift up those parts of the world that today are living on the other side of the gradient in a very sort of depressed, low quality of life. In fact, if you look at all the energy use projections or demand projections forward, you can see that we're going to more than double, and most of the demand comes from the underdeveloped world. Fusion can be a very big contributor to a more equitable world as a whole. It's all these attributes that I think get people really excited, and now it's no longer just this visionary dream. We're really, really close to doing it. I think that's why you see the government and everybody coming together now and beginning these earnest conversations over the next few years: How do we structure programs from regulation to working together to ultimately loan guarantees and other things in a public-private partnership, and bring it to the grid. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fasterplease.substack.com/subscribe

Le plus grand réacteur nucléaire à fusion du monde vient de prendre vie au Japon ! Dans le détail, ce monstre mesure 15 mètres de haut et de 13 mètres de diamètre, et a été installé dans la ville de Naka, sur la côte Est du pays, au Nord de Tokyo. Le réacteur de type Tokamak produit depuis fin octobre je cite « sa première campagne révisée de plasmas chauds à très haute énergie ». Car c'est en produisant du plasma que le réacteur génère plus d'électricité qu'il n'en consomme, le tout sans rejeter le moindre grâce de CO2. Un succès bien entendu japonais, mais aussi un peu européen !En réalité, le JT-60 de son nom de code est un réacteur dédié à la recherche. Son processus de fabrication d'énergie un petit peu particulier, puisqu'il n'utilise pas les isotopes les plus propices de l'hydrogène, à savoir : le deutérium et le tritium, mais seulement de l'hydrogène et très peu de deutérium, ce qui permet d'avoir des installations beaucoup moins exposées à de la radioactivité, et donc de pouvoir les modifier plus vite d'après les experts qui en assure la maintenance. Le JT-60 a donc été modifié et amélioré plusieurs fois en presque 40 ans, et en attendant ITER, il est le plus grand réacteur Tokamak au monde.Sa dernière amélioration a un lien direct avec le réacteur ITER, dont la construction a lieu en France. D'abord, le réacteur est partiellement financé par des organismes européens et implique les travaux de nombreux chercheurs du Vieux Continent. Ensuite, l'essence même de cette modification vise à former des plasmas à haute énergie qui auront la même forme que ceux d'ITER, avec qui il partage ses aimants conducteurs, la façon de refroidir le réacteur, la gestion des flux, le système de contrôle, et même les logiciels de conception et à la gestion de la documentation. De quoi mesurer, préparer et optimiser à plus petite échelle les réactions de fusion qui auront lieu sur ITER d'ici la fin de la décennie. Mais ce petit bijou de technologie a connu de nombreux écueils, notamment en mars 2021 quand lors d'un test avec son puissant champ magnétique, un court-circuit avait provoqué des dégâts, une enquête et 25 mois de travaux. Si la recherche sur la fusion nucléaire avance à grand pas, sa maîtrise est encore loin d'être actée, ce qui pose un vrai souci niveau préservation de l'environnement, étant donné que les années sont désormais comptée pour décarboner nos société, avant d'atteindre un éventuel point de non-retour. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Le plus grand réacteur nucléaire à fusion du monde vient de prendre vie au Japon ! Dans le détail, ce monstre mesure 15 mètres de haut et de 13 mètres de diamètre, et a été installé dans la ville de Naka, sur la côte Est du pays, au Nord de Tokyo. Le réacteur de type Tokamak produit depuis fin octobre je cite « sa première campagne révisée de plasmas chauds à très haute énergie ». Car c'est en produisant du plasma que le réacteur génère plus d'électricité qu'il n'en consomme, le tout sans rejeter le moindre grâce de CO2. Un succès bien entendu japonais, mais aussi un peu européen ! En réalité, le JT-60 de son nom de code est un réacteur dédié à la recherche. Son processus de fabrication d'énergie un petit peu particulier, puisqu'il n'utilise pas les isotopes les plus propices de l'hydrogène, à savoir : le deutérium et le tritium, mais seulement de l'hydrogène et très peu de deutérium, ce qui permet d'avoir des installations beaucoup moins exposées à de la radioactivité, et donc de pouvoir les modifier plus vite d'après les experts qui en assure la maintenance. Le JT-60 a donc été modifié et amélioré plusieurs fois en presque 40 ans, et en attendant ITER, il est le plus grand réacteur Tokamak au monde. Sa dernière amélioration a un lien direct avec le réacteur ITER, dont la construction a lieu en France. D'abord, le réacteur est partiellement financé par des organismes européens et implique les travaux de nombreux chercheurs du Vieux Continent. Ensuite, l'essence même de cette modification vise à former des plasmas à haute énergie qui auront la même forme que ceux d'ITER, avec qui il partage ses aimants conducteurs, la façon de refroidir le réacteur, la gestion des flux, le système de contrôle, et même les logiciels de conception et à la gestion de la documentation. De quoi mesurer, préparer et optimiser à plus petite échelle les réactions de fusion qui auront lieu sur ITER d'ici la fin de la décennie. Mais ce petit bijou de technologie a connu de nombreux écueils, notamment en mars 2021 quand lors d'un test avec son puissant champ magnétique, un court-circuit avait provoqué des dégâts, une enquête et 25 mois de travaux. Si la recherche sur la fusion nucléaire avance à grand pas, sa maîtrise est encore loin d'être actée, ce qui pose un vrai souci niveau préservation de l'environnement, étant donné que les années sont désormais comptée pour décarboner nos société, avant d'atteindre un éventuel point de non-retour. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fusion News: November 15, 2023 Dr. Leigh Ann Kesler, a nuclear engineer and fusion consultant specializing in science communication, gives an update on the global development of fusion energy. Links to all the stories mentioned are given below. 1. First plasma fired up at world's largest fusion reactor: https://www.science.org/content/article/first-plasma-fired-world-s-largest-fusion-reactor 2. Fusion Diary: the spherical tokamak story: https://asiatimes.com/2023/11/fusion-diary-the-spherical-tokamak-story/ 3. Focused Energy Partners with LLNL on a Target Design for Inertial Fusion Energy: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231107594701/en/Focused-Energy-Partners-with-LLNL-on-a-Target-Design-for-Inertial-Fusion-Energy 4. Petition calls on UK to save JET fusion experiment from closure: https://physicsworld.com/a/petition-calls-on-uk-to-save-jet-fusion-experiment-from-closure/#:~:text=More%20than%20750%20people%20have,fusion%20reactor%20in%20early%202024. 5. Joint Statement Between DOE and the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero Concerning a Strategic Partnership to Accelerate Fusion: https://www.energy.gov/articles/joint-statement-between-doe-and-uk-department-energy-security-and-net-zero-concerning#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Department%20of%20Energy,and%20commercialization%20of%20fusion%20energy. Bonuses: 1. Nuclear fusion, new drugs, better batteries: how AI will transform science: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/audio/2023/nov/02/nuclear-fusion-new-drugs-better-batteries-how-ai-will-transform-science-podcast 2. Pursuing fusion power: https://knowablemagazine.org/article/physical-world/2023/the-challenge-of-fusion-power 3. China completes ITER magnet support components: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/China-completes-ITER-magnet-support-components

Finally! After a failed attempt in 2022, I managed to visit Simon Pinches and Olivier Hoenen at ITER this time. ITER is the international thermonuclear energy reactor - and its aim is to build a nuclear fusion reactor that produces a surplus of energy in a sustainable manner. And can be used as a blueprint for future power stations.Simon and Olivier gave me the grand tour before we sat down and discussed their work. It was a truly impressive tour - in every way. No less impressive is the work that Simon and Olivier are doing on the software side to help put it all together.Linkshttps://www.iter.org the main portal for ITER.https://www.iter.org/mach more details about the ITER tokamakhttps://www.iter.org/jobs/IPA ITER project associates scheme - as mentioned in the interviewhttps://ccfe.ukaea.uk/fusion-energy-record-demonstrates-powerplant-future/ the record breaking JET tokamak in Oxford, UKhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokamak a good Wikipedia summary of tokamaksSupport the Show.Thank you for listening and your ongoing support. It means the world to us! Support the show on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/codeforthought Get in touch: Email mailto:code4thought@proton.me UK RSE Slack (ukrse.slack.com): @code4thought or @piddie US RSE Slack (usrse.slack.com): @Peter Schmidt Mastadon: https://fosstodon.org/@code4thought or @code4thought@fosstodon.org LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pweschmidt/ (personal Profile)LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codeforthought/ (Code for Thought Profile) This podcast is licensed under the Creative Commons Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Fusion News: September 20, 2023 Cyd Cowley, a PhD student studying at the University of York and working at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, gives today's global fusion news update. Links to all the stories mentioned are included below. 1. Government announces up to £650 million for UK alternatives to Euratom R&T: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-up-to-650-million-for-uk-alternatives-to-euratom-rt 2. Germany plans to spend more than €1 bln on nuclear fusion research by 2028: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-plans-spend-more-eu1-bln-nuclear-fusion-research-2028 3. Machine learning hunts for the right mix of hydrogen isotopes for future nuclear fusion power plants: https://phys.org/news/2023-09-machine-hydrogen-isotopes-future-nuclear.html 4. Tokamak Energy's Demo4 powers ahead with cryogenic success: https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/fusion-energy-tokamak-energy-demo4-cryogenic Bonuses: https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/world-first-fusion-device-be-built-unsw-sydney#:~:text=Tokamak%20technology,point%20nuclear%20fusion%20is%20possible. https://shows.acast.com/heritage-events/episodes/the-power-hour-fusion-the-other-solar-energy

SUSCRÍBETE A NUESTRO CANAL https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSmna6Kzqq9hTg8oRd1xSPg?sub_confirmation=1 Imaginad: una fuente de energía barata, limpia, segura y virtualmente inagotable. Prácticamente sin residuos y con cero emisiones de carbono a la atmósfera. ¿Ciencia ficción? ¿Demasiado bueno para ser cierto? Sin duda el discurso suena al timador que en la serie animada de Los Simpson le vendía el monorraíl a la ciudad de Springfield. Pero lo cierto es que la Humanidad lleva persiguiendo este Santo Grial de la energía desde hace 70 años y, aunque los avances son lentos, la quimera parece cada vez más al alcance de la mano. Todas las grandes potencias mundiales invierten hoy día cifras exorbitadas en la investigación de esta energía. La necesidad de encontrar alternativas a los combustibles fósiles, junto con la urgencia impuesta en los últimos tiempos por el cambio climático, y las crecientes demandas de energía del planeta1 hacen que la fusión resulte cada vez más atractiva, y concite aún mayores esfuerzos entorno a su consecución efectiva y rentable. En este episodio nos gustaría explicar en qué consiste la fusión, aún poco conocida y nacida con el estigma negativo de “nuclear”, pero que puede convertirse en una herramienta fundamental para el futuro de la Humanidad. Repasaremos brevemente su historia, en qué punto se encuentra en la actualidad, cuáles han sido los últimos avances y cuáles son los planes de futuro. En el episodio de hoy participan: Tio Gamyi Valkam (Miguel Ángel) Episodio editado por: Valkam (Miguel Ángel) *Si te gusta el programa dale al "Me gusta", ya que con esto ayudarás a darnos más visibilidad. También puedes dejar tu comentario, o ponerte en contacto con nosotros a través del correo electrónico info@fankingdom.es No olvides visitar la web, allí podréis escuchar todos los episodios y encontrar más información relacionada con los temas que tratamos. Nos podéis encontrar también en: WEB: https://fankingdom.es/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/FanKingdom_ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/fankingdom_podcast/ IVOOX: https://go.ivoox.com/sq/856671 SPOTIFY: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/miguel-angel30 APPLE PODCAST: https://podcasts.apple.com/es/podcast/fan-kingdom/id1498977322 YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@fankingdom/ Gracias por seguirnos. #iter #breakeven #breakevenpoint #TOKAMAK #solchino #stellarator #divulgacion #ciencia --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/miguel-angel30/message

Coming up to bat, we have four scicomm stories from the news. First, we talk about psychedelic substance use in the Bronze Age. Next, we're re-examining the origin of horses in indigenous communities in North America. To round out the first half, we have our favorite new segment where Dr. Diem clears up the fusion confusion. In the second half, we're looking at sports in the climate era, where Jason laments the death of baseball, James relives a Red October to remember, and Steffi thinks about life in the white tent. Your Hosts: Steffie Diem (https://twitter.com/SteffiDiem) Jason Organ (https://twitter.com/OrganJM) James Reed (https://twitter.com/James_Reed3) Credits Editing-James Reed Mastering- James Reed Music: Intro and Outro- Wolf Moon by Unicorn Heads | https://unicornheads.com/ | Standard YouTube License Centerfield by John Fogerty | ℗ 2010, 2017 BMG Rights Management (US) LLC Additional Sounds- Inside a Computer Chip by Doug Maxwell |https://www.mediarightproductions.com/ | Standard YouTube License The Science Night Podcast is a member of the Riverpower Podcast Mill (https://riverpower.xyz/) family www.scinight.com

This week we're talking about two of our favorite things, science advocacy, and fusion energy. First, James, Jason, and Steffi talk about their recent trip to D.C. Next, we talk about science advocacy across the pond. In the second half, we talk about the recent news about carbon capture, and a hot new fusion energy company is building a stellarator. Your Hosts: Steffie Diem (https://twitter.com/SteffiDiem) Jason Organ (https://twitter.com/OrganJM) James Reed (https://twitter.com/James_Reed3) Credits Editing-James Reed Mastering- James Reed Music: Intro and Outro- Wolf Moon by Unicorn Heads | https://unicornheads.com/ | Standard YouTube License Additional Sounds- Inside a Computer Chip by Doug Maxwell |https://www.mediarightproductions.com/ | Standard YouTube License The Science Night Podcast is a member of the Riverpower Podcast Mill (https://riverpower.xyz/) family www.scinight.com

Today, we're asking whether UK science minister George Freeman's ambition of an operational fusion energy plant by 2040 is realistic. Scientists have their say as to whether or not this possible and, if not, when we can expect to see fusion on grid... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

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We're back with another look back at the year in fusion energy. Join us as our friendly fusioneer Steffi Diem and special guest Arturo Dominguez talk about the highlights and high temps from an exciting year. Your Hosts] James Reed (https://twitter.com/James_Reed3) Steffi Diem (https://twitter.com/SteffiDiem) Our Guest Dr. Arturo Dominguez (https://twitter.com/artdomi)is the head of Science Education at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. He is an excellent physicist and amazing science educator that looks at innovative ways to engage the public with fusion. Credits Editing-James Reed Mastering- James Reed Music: Intro and Outro- Wolf Moon by Unicorn Heads | https://unicornheads.com/ | Standard YouTube License Additional Sounds- Inside a Computer Chip by Doug Maxwell |https://www.mediarightproductions.com/ | Standard YouTube License The Science Night Podcast is a member of the Riverpower Podcast Mill (https://riverpower.xyz/) family www.scinight.com

Joelle Elbez-Uzan, is the Head, Nuclear Safety Office, overseeing the development of the DEMO Fusion Reactor ( https://euro-fusion.org/programme/demo/ ), at EUROfusion. DEMO (DEMOnstration Power Plant) refers to a proposed class of nuclear fusion experimental reactors that are intended to demonstrate the net production of electric power from nuclear fusion. EUROfusion is a consortium of national fusion research institutes located in the European Union, the UK, Switzerland and Ukraine. It was established in 2014 to succeed the European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA) as the umbrella organization of Europe's fusion research laboratories. Prior to this role, Ms. Elbez-Uzan spent over a decade at the ITER Organization as Head of the Division of Nuclear Safety. ITER (the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is being built in southern France where upon completion of construction of the main reactor and first plasma, planned for late 2028, it will be the world's largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment and the largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor. Prior to this role, Ms. Elbez-Uzan spent several years as Deputy Head of the Nuclear Safety Department, at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), a key player in research, development and innovation in four main areas: defense and security, low carbon energies (nuclear and renewable energies), technological research for industry, and fundamental research in the physical sciences and life sciences.​ Ms. Elbez-Uzan studied engineering in Lille where she specialized in instrumentation and measurement, doing comparative studies between all forms of energy, resulted in her career path into nuclear energy. Support the show

Clean, safe power from nuclear fusion is the Holy Grail of energy research – but how close is it to reality? A breakthrough in December, when a fusion reaction produced more energy than went into the experiment, suggests it could be. Dr. Sharon Ann Holgate, author of Nuclear Fusion: The Race to Build a Mini-Sun on Earth, joins Andrew Harrison to unpack the science and ask whether this science fiction staple could become fact.  “A Tokamak reactor? Imagine you've gone to the bakers, bought yourself a doughnut, and for reasons best known for yourself you've decided to have it gold plated.” “Some of us call the fusion reaction ‘inherently safe' because it doesn't have the ability to run away with itself in the way a fission reactor can.” Written and presented by Andrew Harrison. Producer Jet Gerbertson. Assistant producer Kasia Tomasiewicz. Lead producer Jacob Jarvis. Bunker music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As part of his LBC show, Tom Swarbrick speaks to The People Who Will Change The World, those who are revolutionising the way we live and creating a better future for the human race. In the third of this series, Tom speaks to Senior Magnet Engineer at Tokamak Energy, Greg Brittles, about their work in developing fusion energy for all.

Prof. Dr. Tony Donne, Ph.D. is Program Manager (CEO) of the EUROfusion ( https://www.euro-fusion.org/ ) research consortium, a European consortium of 30 national fusion research institutes, in 26 EU countries, plus Switzerland and Ukraine, where he coordinates the work of over 4,000 scientists and engineers. Dr. Donne trained as a physicist, obtaining his Masters in Experimental Physics at Utrecht University, his Ph.D. degree at the Free University of Amsterdam for work in the field of nuclear physics, and moved into fusion research right afterwards and has devoted a substantial part of his scientific career to the design and use of plasma diagnostics in a large range of fusion devices. Prior to EUROfusion, Dr. Donne was head of the Fusion Physics Division at the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER) and responsible for the coordination of the nuclear fusion research in the Netherlands, where he coordinated Dutch fusion research as Director of fusion science and Acting Director. Dr. Donne has also served as Professor in Diagnostics and Heating of Fusion Plasmas at Eindhoven University of Technology, Director of the Dutch-Russian Centre of Excellence on Fusion Physics and Technology, as well as Program Director of the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) -Netherlands consortium, and chair of the Coordination Committee of the International Tokamak Physics Activity under the auspices of the ITER project. Dr. Donne has published about 185 papers in peer-reviewed journals and more than 350 conference proceedings.Dev InterruptedWhat the smartest minds in engineering are thinking about, working on and investing in.Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Manufacturing MattersInsights and interviews discussing trends, innovations, and advanced automation technologyListen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify

I've had several good interviews on the topics of hot and cold fusion. Omar Hurricane and Alex Zylstra from NIF in the US, Fulvio Millitelo of MAST-U in the UK, Edmund Storms LANL and Lutz Jaitner on cold fusion & LENR. What have we learned? Cold Fusion has not yet been reliably harnessed despite decades of study, but I don't think we should shame them for this—hot fusion has been working for much longer and they haven't commercialized yet either. Fusion is not coming to our rescue in the next decade, and maybe not the one after that. The largest government fusion progams in the world are the US NIF facility based on over one hundred high power lasers, and the planned International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) based on confining ionized plasma in a toroidal Tokamak with huge electromagnets. But this isn't the whole story, because there are also billions of dollars being invested in commercial ventures. If you are interested, and want to look into these companies, some of the largest are Helion, General Fusion, and TAE technologies.  Each of the fusion companies out there has a unique idea that they believe gives them an edge.  The coolest thing I read was about Helion technology harnessing the back reaction of the high pressure fusing plasma on the magnetic coils to directly generate electricity. Follow me at therationaview.podbean.com Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #fusion #cleanenergy #greenenergy 

Dr. Hazel Lowe, Head of Laser Diagnostics at Tokamak Energy, gives updates on the latest in fusion news from around the world. Links to the articles mentioned are included below. 1. Tokamak Energy ST80-HTS hailed as next step to grid fusion https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content... 2. How do neutrons interact with reactor materials? https://phys.org/news/2022-10-neutron... 3. Gigantic, 70-Foot Nuclear Fusion Gun Could Change the World https://www.newsweek.com/first-light-... 4. General Atomics announces concept for Fusion Pilot Plant https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Ar... Bonuses: Chinese researchers say they have made a huge breakthrough in their extraordinary pursuit of creating an artificial sun https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/2019945... China's new-generation 'artificial sun' makes a breakthrough https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-10-21... World's First Nuclear Fusion Power Plant Wants to Equal Fossil Fuel Output https://www.newsweek.com/nuclear-fusi... What is nuclear fusion? Harnessing the power of the sun in the quest for clean energy https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-...

In this episode I am continuing my exploration of the state of nuclear fusion research. I will be interviewing a leader in the MAST fusion experiment.  MAST is an acronym for Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak.  A Tokamak is a device that typically uses extremely strong magnetic fields to confine an energetic plasma and ram hydrogen nuclei together at high energies, essentially trying to replicate the processes occurring at the core of the sun, to create fusion energy.  This process takes tremendous energy inputs and has been explored in the lab for decades without successfully transitioning to commercial power.  Experiments are getting larger and larger, and researchers have been making incremental progress towards the goal of break-even.  Join me as I explore the high pressure science of fusion energy. Fulvio Militello is a fusion scientist with twenty years of experience. Following a career as a theoretical plasma physicist and science manager, he is currently the Director of Tokamak Science and MAST-U at United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). Before joining UKAEA, he worked in Italy, France, and United States, in National Laboratories and Universities, authoring 100 scientific papers. Fulvio is also Adjunct Professor of Physics at Chalmers University (Sweden) and Visiting Reader at the Imperial College London. While his heart is still in Italy, he lives in Didcot, UK, with his Swedish wife (met in France) and two daughters (born in the UK). In his free time, he likes to cook, practice martial arts, read philosophy books, play games, look at the stars and learn as much as he can about everything that stimulates his curiosity Follow me at therationalview.podbean.com Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #fusion #greenenergy #MAST #ITER #tokamak 

For decades, many have called nuclear fusion the “holy grail” of energy sources. The undying hope is that fusion will someday provide very cheap, abundant, zero-carbon electricity to all – thereby both decisively addressing the climate crisis and powering economic growth across the globe. But despite decades of well-funded research and even recent technological breakthroughs, we still seem to be years away from a commercially viable fusion reactor. In this episode, Chad Reed speaks with Jim McNiel, Chief Marketing Officer of TAE Technologies, which just raised $250 million in venture financing to support the development of Copernicus – its next-generation hydrogen-boron fusion research reactor. Chad and Jim get into the weeds on the tradeoffs of competing fusion fuels, the longstanding challenge fusion must overcome to reach commercial viability, the role of fusion in our energy future, Star Trek versus Star Wars, and much more.Links:Article: TAE Technologies Exceeds Fusion Reactor Performance Goals By 250% As Company Closes $250 Million Financing Round, Totaling $1.2 Billion To Date (July 2022)Article: Nuclear-fusion reactor smashes energy record (Nature, February 2, 2022)Article: ITER fusion project preparing to outline revised timetable (World Nuclear News, July 11, 2022)Episode recorded:  July 28, 2022Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at climatepositive@hannonarmstrong.com or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod.

In this week's episode of Fusion News, Dr. Erica Salazar, Magnet Systems Lead at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, discusses several key fusion news stories. Links to the articles mentioned are included below. 1. Fusion start-up Tokamak Energy calls for investment into nascent sector https://www.ft.com/content/df82003b-d831-4147-865b-5c4d636d2b9d 2. Realizing the STEP fusion dream will require cryogenic innovation at scale and at pace https://physicsworld.com/a/realizing-the-step-fusion-dream-will-require-cryogenic-innovation-at-scale-and-at-pace/ 3. MIT expands research collaboration with Commonwealth Fusion Systems to build net energy fusion machine, SPARC https://news.mit.edu/2022/mit-expands-research-collaboration-commonwealth-fusion-systems-sparc-0510 4. Energy lifeline: Future fusion fuel may be ten times more abundant on Earth than thought https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1610530/energy-lifeline-future-fusion-fuel-helium-3-ten-time-more-abundant-than-previously-thought Second published article: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GC009985 Bonuses: https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/gloucester-news/nuclear-fusion-plant-plan-gloucestershire-7017141 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/princess-astrid-of-belgium-talks-fusion-energy-at-ukaea--2

What if we could generate the power of our sun here on earth? Sounds like science fiction, but actually the application of complex maths and physics principles in understanding how we might generate fusion energy like that powering our sun, have been well understood since the 1950s and was made a reality in the 1990s, right here in the UK.   The heart of the Oxfordshire countryside resides tokamak energy. Founded in 2009 as a spin-off, the company has long and distinguished roots in the UK Atomic energy authority's early fusion research at Culham. Today they are leading the way in developing a truly commercial fusion energy supply, which has the potential of radically changing how we not only generate energy, but how we use it in the future. The tokamak team is over 160 strong, and is both a global and multidisciplinary community of scientists, engineers, technologists and commercial experts. The IMechE recognised the value of the work Tokamak energy were undertaking in 2015 when it became one of the first organisations to be supported by the Institution's Stephenson Fund.   In this month's episode Helen spoke to Tokamak Energy's CEO Chris Kelsall and Senior HTS Magnet Development Engineer Greg Brittles about why fusion is considered such a viable energy source, the impact it might have on the green energy agenda and about some of the innovative breakthroughs being made as a result of the tokamak's development.   Useful Links: Tokamak Energy IMechE Video on Fusion Development at Tokamak Energy  Understanding the basics of Fusion Energy     We would love to hear your thoughts and comments on this episode. If you would like to get in touch, email us at podcast@imeche.org You can find more information about the work of the IMechE at www.imeche.org 

Un nouveau pas vers la fusion contrôlée, de nouveaux records battus...

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However, controlling nuclear fusion on Earth is difficult. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/02/16/1045470/deepminds-ai-can-control-superheated-plasma-inside-a-fusion-reactor/ Metaverse Virtual Beings developer Soul Machines has raised $70 million in a Series B funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. https://voicebot.ai/2022/02/15/virtual-beings-startup-soul-machines-raises-70m/ And the company wants to go beyond face scanning for police, saying in the presentation it could monitor workers in the "gig economy" and is exploring a range of new technologies that could identify someone by their gait and pinpoint their location from a photo or scan their fingerprints remotely. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/16/clearview-expansion-facial-recognition/ Checkers & Rally's will scale Valyant AI's conversational artificial intelligence system called "Holly" to drive at franchised restaurants across the United States, the companies announced on Tuesday. https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/checkers-rallys-to-deploy-valyant-ai-at-franchisee-drive-thrus/619276/ Kraft-Heinz and NotCo, the food tech company behind the NotCo brand of plant-based foods, today announced they are forming a joint venture to develop a line of plant-based foods. https://thespoon.tech/kraft-heinz-and-notco-form-joint-venture-for-ai-powered-food-products/ Visit www.integratedaisolutions.com

Die Kontrolle der Kernfusion auf der Erde ist jedoch schwierig. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/02/16/1045470/deepminds-ai-can-control-superheated-plasma-inside-a-fusion-reactor/ Der Entwickler von Metaverse Virtual Beings, Soul Machines, hat in einer Finanzierungsrunde der Serie B unter der Leitung von SoftBank Vision Fund 2 70 Millionen US-Dollar aufgebracht. https://voicebot.ai/2022/02/15/virtual-beings-startup-soul-machines-raises-70m/ Und das Unternehmen will über das Scannen von Gesichtern für die Polizei hinausgehen und sagt in der Präsentation, dass es Arbeiter der „Gig Economy“ überwachen könnte und eine Reihe neuer Technologien erforscht, die jemanden anhand seines Gangs identifizieren und seinen Standort anhand eines Fotos ermitteln könnten oder ihre Fingerabdrücke aus der Ferne scannen. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/16/clearview-expansion-facial-recognition/ Checkers & Rally's wird Valyant AIs konversationelles künstliches Intelligenzsystem namens "Holly" skalieren, um in von Franchisenehmern betriebenen Restaurants in den USA zu fahren, gaben die Unternehmen am Dienstag bekannt. https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/checkers-rallys-to-deploy-valyant-ai-at-franchisee-drive-thrus/619276/ Kraft-Heinz und NotCo, das Food-Tech-Unternehmen hinter der Marke NotCo für pflanzliche Lebensmittel, gaben heute bekannt, dass sie ein Joint Venture gründen, um eine Reihe von pflanzlichen Lebensmitteln zu entwickeln. https://thespoon.tech/kraft-heinz-and-notco-form-joint-venture-for-ai-powered-food-products/ Visit www.integratedaisolutions.com

Podcast jest dostępny także w formie newslettera: https://ainewsletter.integratedaisolutions.com/ Jednak kontrolowanie syntezy jądrowej na Ziemi jest trudne. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/02/16/1045470/deepminds-ai-can-control-superheated-plasma-inside-a-fusion-reactor/ Twórca wirtualnych istot Metaverse Soul Machines zebrał 70 milionów dolarów w rundzie finansowania serii B prowadzonej przez SoftBank Vision Fund 2. https://voicebot.ai/2022/02/15/virtual-beings-startup-soul-machines-raises-70m/ Firma chce wyjść poza skanowanie twarzy policji, mówiąc w prezentacji, że może monitorować pracowników „ekonomii koncertów” https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/16/clearview-expansion-facial-recognition/ Chequers & Rally's przeskaluje konwersacyjny system sztucznej inteligencji Valyant AI, zwany „Holly” https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/checkers-rallys-to-deploy-valyant-ai-at-franchisee-drive-thrus/619276/ Dzisiaj Kraft-Heinz i NotCo, firma zajmująca się technologiami spożywczymi, odpowiedzialna za markę żywności pochodzenia roślinnego NotCo, ogłosiły, że tworzą spółkę joint venture w celu opracowania linii produktów spożywczych pochodzenia roślinnego. https://thespoon.tech/kraft-heinz-and-notco-form-joint-venture-for-ai-powered-food-products/ Odwiedź www.integratedaisolutions.com

Vous le savez sûrement, la fusion nucléaire pourrait bien être la clé à tous nos problèmes d'énergie. Seulement, cette technologie n'est pas sans écueils, notamment au niveau du maintien du plasma et de l'énergie nécessaire pour le créer. C'est donc pour régler tous ses problèmes que les chercheurs du réacteur Tokamak en Suisse ont fait appel à la société DeepMind, succursale de Google spécialisée dans l'intelligence artificielle. Comment une IA peut-elle être utile dans la fusion nucléaire ? C'est ce que je vous propose de voir dans cet épisode. Concrètement, comment fait-on pour obtenir une fusion nucléaire ? Pour résumer, des atomes d'hydrogène sont chauffés à des températures extrêmement élevées pour créer ce qu'on appelle un plasma, libérant ainsi beaucoup d'énergie. Seulement, ce plasma est très instable et nécessite une grande quantité d'électricité pour être maintenu. L'équation sur laquelle les chercheurs butent est donc de générer plus d'électricité qu'ils n'en consomment pour créer ce plasma. Et bien c'est là que DeepMind entre en jeu. Un article publié dans la prestigieuse revue Nature explique que Deepmind et le Swiss Plasma Center se sont associés pour créer une intelligence artificielle spécialisée dans la fusion nucléaire. Avant de poursuivre, il faut savoir que pour contenir le plasma, les scientifiques utilisent des bobines génératrices de champs magnétiques. Elles doivent être parfaitement calibrées pour obtenir la forme voulue et s'assurer que le plasma ne touche pas les parois du réacteur. Dès lors, si l'on veut changer de configuration, il est nécessaire de tout recalibrer, ce qui est très complexe pour un humain, mais pas pour une IA. Celle de Deepmind en l'occurrence a été conçue pour recalibrer automatiquement les 19 bobines magnétiques à l'intérieur du Tokamak. L'IA a d'abord été entraînée dans une simulation en observant comment chacune des bobines affecte la forme du plasma puis a ensuite tenté de calibrer les bobines pour recréer des formes spécifiques, ce qu'elle a parfaitement réussie. Au final, l'IA a permis aux chercheurs de tester de nouvelles formes de plasma, dont des « gouttelettes », où deux plasmas distincts existent au sein du Tokamak simultanément. Les résultats de cette collaboration pourraient accélérer le développement d'un réacteur à fusion nucléaire grand public... Reste à savoir si l'IA sera suffisamment puissante pour y parvenir. Voir Acast.com/privacy pour les informations sur la vie privée et l'opt-out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2021 was a year with loads of advancement in the field of fusion energy. To mark the achievements from this incredible year, Dr. Arturo Dominguez from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is joining Steffi and James for a special episode of the podcast. We cover the major landmarks and talk about what this could mean for the future of fusion energy. Also, Steffi talks to Arturo about his work and how he engages the public to teach them more about fusion. Your Hosts] James Reed (https://twitter.com/James_Reed3) Steffi Diem (https://twitter.com/SteffiDiem) Our Guest Dr. Arturo Dominguez (https://twitter.com/artdomi)is the head of Science Education at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. He is an excellent physicist and amazing science educator that looks at innovative ways to engage the public with fusion. Credits Editing-James Reed Mastering- Chris Goulet Music: Intro and Outro- Wolf Moon by Unicorn Heads | https://unicornheads.com/ | Standard YouTube License Additional Sounds- Inside a Computer Chip by Doug Maxwell |https://www.mediarightproductions.com/ | Standard YouTube License The Science Night Podcast is a member of the Riverpower Podcast Mill (https://riverpower.xyz/) family www.scinight.com

In this conversation, Dr. Stephen Dean talks about how he created the 1976 US fusion program plan, how it played out and the history of fusion power in the US, technology program planning and management more broadly, and more. Stephen has been working on making fusion energy a reality for more than five decades. He did research on controlled fusion reactions in the 60s and in the 70s became a director at the Atomic energy commission which then became the Energy Research and Development Administration which *then* became the department of energy. In 1979 he left government to form the consultancy Fusion Power associates, where he still works. In 1976, he led the preparation of a report called “Fusion power by magnetic confinement” that laid out a roadmap of the work that would need to be done to turn fusion from a science experiment into a functional energy source. References Fusion Power by Magnetic Confinement Executive Summary Volume 1 Volume 2 Volume 3 Volume 4 Fusion Power Associates The notorious fusion never plot Adam Marblestone on technological roadmapping My hypotheses on program design (which were challenged by this conversation!) Fusion Energy Base (a good website on fusion broadly) ITER Transcript  (Machine generated, so please excuse errors) [00:00:00]  In this conversation, Dr. Steven Dean, and I talk about how he created the 1976 S fusion program plan, how it played out in the history of fusion power in the U S technology program, planning and management more broadly, and even more things. Steven has been working on making fusion energy a reality for more than five decades. He did research on control, fusion reactions in the 1960s and seventies, he became a director [00:01:00] at the atomic energy commission, which then became the energy research and development of administration, which then became the department of energy in 1979. He left government to form the consultancy fusion, power associates, where you still want. In 1976, he led the preparation of a report called fusion power by magnetic confinement that laid out a roadmap of the work that needed would need to be done to turn fusion from a science experiment, into a functional energy source. And if I can sort of riff about this for a minute, the thing is. Unlike what I sort of see as modern roadmaps, it lays out not just the sort of like plan of record to getting fusion, to be a real energy source, but lays out all the different possible scenarios in terms of funding, in terms of new technology that we can't even think of being created and lays everything. Yeah. In a way that you can actually sort of make decisions off of it. [00:02:00] And I think one of the most impressive things is that it has several different what it calls logics of funding, which is like different, different funding levels and different funding curves. And it actually, unfortunately, accurately predicts that if you fund fusion below a certain level, even if you're funding it continually you'll never get to. An actual useful fusion source because you'll never have enough money to build these, these demonstrator missions. And so in a way it's sort of predicts the future. This, this document is super impressive. If you haven't seen it you should absolutely check it out there. There are links in the show notes and it's sort of, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to Dr. Dean is because this, this document. Is one of the pieces of evidence behind my hypothesis. That to some extent, program design and program management for advanced technologies is a bit of a lost art. And so I wanted to learn more about how he thought about it and built [00:03:00] it. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Steven Dean. To start off, what was the context of creating the fusion plan? Well, I guess I would have to say that it started a few years earlier in a sense that in 1972 the I was in the fusion office and in the atomic energy commission and the office of men and mission management and budget at the white house put out instructions to, I guess, all the agencies that they should prepare an analysis of their programs under a system, they called management by objectives. And this was some, this was a formalism that was, had a certain amount of popularity at that time. And I was asked to prepare something on the fusion program as a part of the agency, doing this for all of its programs. And [00:04:00] in doing that I looked at our program and I Laid out a map basically that showed the different parts of the program on a map like a roadmap and what the timelines might be and what the functions of those of facilities would be. And when the decisions might be and what decisions would work into into, into what, and that was never published in, in a report, but it w except internally, but the map itself was published and widely distributed. And I have it on my wall and it's in my book. So that was the first, my first venture into. Into doing something that resembled plan, it was not a detailed plan, but it was an outline of decision points and flow this sort of a flow diagram, but it did connect all the different parts of the [00:05:00] program and the identified sub elements, you know, not in great detail and, and budgets were not asked for at that time. So that's how I got into this idea and a little experience in, in the planning area. And then a few years later, we had the gasoline crisis in the U S where there were long lines and we couldn't get gas and people were sitting in their cars over overnight. And the, the white house at that time said that you know, we had to become energy, independent oil you know, the OPEC. And, and so Bob Hirsch, who was at that time about to transition from the director of the fusion program to an assistant minister traitor of Urdu in, I think it was 74, late 74, 75. The, the government decided to Congress decided, or the [00:06:00] administration decided to abolish the atomic energy commission and transition it into something called the energy research and development administration or arena. And the reason for that was to. It create an agency whose function was clearly for all of energy and not just for atomic energy in order to respond to the energy crisis and to get us off of the dependence on foreign oil imports for, for vehicles and things. And so when, when, when that happened, my boss, who was Bob Hirsch at the time he became, he was actually appointed in assistant administrator of errata for basically all the long range energy programs, which included fusion. And as he was at transition, he, he came up with the idea that we should create a detailed long range plan for the, [00:07:00] for the program. And he, he was obviously becoming sort of a senior manager for the many things and he wasn't certainly going to try and do this himself. And so he and I were very close. I was at that point he had three divisions in the fusion program and I was the director of the largest division, which had all of the main experimental programs. And so he asked me to prepare this plan. And if you look at the plan at the very beginning, there's this there's a chart that shows Bob's basically guidance, which was to note that that there needed to be a multiplicity of pathways because no one organization or, or group or division or program was in response could be in full control. And that in order to have a plan that might have some hope of [00:08:00] Last thing that you had to take into account a number of policy variables he said, and technical variables, which meant that he said, because need for the, for the, for fusion and the intent of the government and the funding is all in control by other people in the government. We had to have a number of plans by which the program could be conducted. So he came up with the idea that, well, let's have five plans, which he called logic. So he basically created that framework and turned it over to me at the beginning, I guess, of 1975, I think it was. And to, to create this. This plant. So that's how it all got started. And I had been doing a number of things with the program in terms of the major [00:09:00] experiments that were under my control as a director of the confinement systems, division magnetic confinement systems. I was forcing all, all the people that were that whose budget I had to control over to, to tell me what they were doing and what they needed to do. And so on. It's all right though, I had already been and working on a lot of these things in, within my area, but at that point I took over the responsibility of creating the, in the entire plant. And so I, I, I took it over and I started I created a, a small working group within our office. And we added people that we thought were responsible that could do this for us, or give us the details out in the various parts of the program, all elements of the program. And we created a team and we, we launched this and and this was the result. We were determined to look to these five [00:10:00] logics. They ranged from both, you know, basically a steady level of effort to a maximum level of effort. And and we just started creating these things. During that six months, first six months of 1976, And this was the result. Nice. And did you, so, so each of the logics is kind of a, a wiggly curve. Did, did you go in knowing what the shape of the funding curve for each logic would be, or did you just go in with the framework that there would be five logics and over the course of designing the program, you figured out what the actual shape of those curves would be? Well, we created a definition, a rough definition of what each of the logics was supposed to look like, not in detail, but for example, a [00:11:00] logic to what says moderately. Expanding. But the tech progress would be limited by the availability of funds. But new projects were not started unless we knew that funds would be available. And so we knew that we could not address a lot of problems in parallel. And so we had a general idea that this was a program that was not running at a maximum maximum feasible. Pace. And then the logic three, we said, well, let's look at one, that's a little more aggressive. And we would lay out in that one that as soon as these projects were scientifically justified, they would be in the plan. We would not wait till we knew that there were probably people that wanted them were when he was available. But, and we also said in this scenario, we would address a number of things concurrently rather than in [00:12:00] series. So we assume that the funding was ample. We didn't have a number in mind. At that point, we started laying these things out and asking people. If you had all the money you needed, what could you do if you didn't have quite enough money, what would you do? And people started responding to us that we're working on all of these subtopics. We were mostly working at the beginning laying out what the topics were and what had to be worked on eventually to get to the end point and that these topics could proceed at different rates and with different amounts of risks, depending upon the budget. So this was a sort of an iterative thing that went back and forth with the community and the areas, and our team kept putting these together until they made some sense. Got it. And just to, to sort of step back a second so before [00:13:00] you created this plan sort of all the activities were happening already. Is that, is that right? There were activities in all these areas that were going ongoing. Yes, that's right. They were at, at relatively low level at that stage at the early seventies, the total fusion budget was $30 million. And by the mid seventies, because of the energy crisis, we were told, you know, tell us what you want. And we had raised that budget from 30 million to 300 million. So the program had been undergoing the first five years between 72 and 75, a very rapid expansion. And we had started a lot of new programs. And so the program had been built up quite a bit, although with all of these programs, of course, because they were new. They were at a, still a fairly early stage of their. Their development. The other thing that drove the, the the curves was the [00:14:00] ignition that getting to a fusion power plant required a couple of identifiable major facility steps. And these actually came from that map. I mentioned from 72, which said that from the experiments that we want to do in the near term, which were to build like a physics proof of principle experiment that had to be followed by an engineering step, that was an engineering test reactor. And that had to be then followed by a demonstration power plant. And that those steps were big facilities. Each one, much more expensive than the previous one and making a much more definitive demonstration of fusion that was on a. And, and the wiggly curves that you see, not the, the, the the smooth ones have these bumps on them.[00:15:00]  And those bumps reflect the fact that these major experiments were going to cost a lot of money. And depending on how fast you build them would, would also reflect a different path pace to an end point you know, the faster you build them, the faster you get there, because these major steps really drove the progress and drove the budget. And do you think that sort of, I guess it's hard to think about, but like do you think that the plan helped anything in the sense of. If, if instead you just sort of had continued with the, the program as it started, where I imagined it was like much more sort of bottom up. Do you, do you think that the, the outcome, how do you think the outcome would have been different? I think without the [00:16:00] plan, I don't know what would have happened. I don't think we would've gotten the support that we got in the next few years during the seventies that we got, because the outcome of this cut was that. The plan, the plan was published with all of its detail and all of its budget. It was published publicly. The office of management and budget tried to stop us from publishing this plan because they didn't want budgets out there that said, well, if the Congress would give you so much money, then, then you'd get the job done because that would tie their hands because, you know, they like to be in control of how much money they're going to give to every program. And so they don't want the agencies to put out plans with budgets. And so we had to fight that. And luckily for us, the energy research and development administration, which was fairly new and I [00:17:00] actually only lasted a couple of years before it transitioned to the department of energy, had a a head of it. Bob Siemens, who came from NASA. He overruled the office of management and budget. He said, I'm in charge of this and I'm putting whole plan out. So we probably pushed it. And it got picked up over in the Congress by Congressman Mike McCormick and his staff. And they became champions for this plan and they came. What's the a legislative agenda and they got the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senate to get on board. And and by 1980, I think it was in October, 1980. Congress had passed the magnetic fusion engineering act of 1980, which basically adopted our plan for getting to the end point by the year 2000. [00:18:00] And so the result of our plan was that Congress picked it up. It passed a legislation, making it national policy. And it was signed by president Carter in October 7th, 1980. And we thought at that point we were in that we had a commitment of the United States government at the presidential level to implement this the, the plan for getting there by the year 2000. And so the, the problem, the only problem was that he president Carter signed it in October and lost the election for reelection in November. And as you probably know, whenever there's a change of administration to, especially if it's a change of party in here, Almost everything that the previous administration has decided to do. The other, the new people want to either not do, or they [00:19:00] want to completely reevaluate and start over. And so that's what, that's what happened to this plan in 1981. Got it. And so, because as far as I can tell we've, we've sort of like the, the, the way that it's panned out is that we've, we've sort of followed below logic one, right? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It was less and less than a, less than ever Guinea. It's the never get their logic. There's one, but there's one caveat to that is that in the 1980s Ronald Reagan was a post to all of this energy stuff until 1985. When he met with Gorbachev. And they decided to work together on fusion and build our first major step that was in our plan. We were going to build this engineering device in the 1980s and he and Grover Jeff decided let's get together and build it together with Europe.[00:20:00]  And this became the eater project, which is under construction in France. So what the program really did to work around this problem of the budget being so low was to say, okay, we're not on our own track, but we're on a wall track and we're all working together. And so they're building this multi tens of billions of dollars engineering test reactor and it's taken them a long time to get it going, but it's hopefully going to be finished in a few years. It's going to turn on by hopefully 20, 25 is plasma, so we're way behind, but, but that was a response to being on this. Their thing was to say, we're all in this together. And we don't have our own plan to get there, but the world has a plan and we'll get there together that that's how this all evolved. Got it. And so I guess the, if, if I'm understanding this correctly, the, the sort of the, [00:21:00] the purpose and the value of this plan was less as a coordination mechanism for the people doing the work and more as a sort of communication mechanism with people sort of outside the organization in terms of. What the work would entail is that, is that accurate? I, I can tell you that when I was doing this plan and I was in a senior management position there, I had responsibility for the bulk of the program. I didn't have the basic pilot, the physics program and universities, and I didn't have the technology part, but I had all the major experiments in my ballywick. And when Bob Hirsch was, I was still reporting to Bob Hirsch and he had all the energy programs in Herta, it was our intent to manage his program, to implement this plan internally. It did turn out that part of the plan, part of our implementation required us getting the money and that all went through this energy building in [00:22:00] Congress. We thought we had the whole thing put together that not only we did, we eventually have the Congress on board, but we also had a management and we had 80 staff in the office then. And And we were prepared to manage the program to, to implement this if we got, get the money in detail. So it was both the management plan for implementation within the within an arena. But of course the other thing that happened in all of this was that Erna was abolished and became the department of energy. So I think Jane and I left, I left in 1979 because I thought we were about to implement this plan. And I formed fusion power associates, and I got a dozen electric utilities. I mean, a dozen major industries like Westinghouse and companies like that to, to form this organization, to bring industry in, to actually bring industry into the, into the implementation phase of this program plan, we were all set to [00:23:00] go. And even in the early eighties, before the whole thing sort of fell apart, I had a dozen electric utilities in fusion, power associates. And so we had both industry that wanted to do this and the electric utilities that were on board and all we needed really was for the new department of energy to to follow through with the management of this thing and try to get, get the money, but. The money never, never came through. And the industries and fusion power associates in the early eighties realized that there wasn't going to be any money for industry because there wasn't any money coming through. And the electric utilities were deregulated by Ronald Reagan and they abandon all their R and D departments, which were the ones that were in, you know, in our organization that were interested in developing fusion. And they became taken over by [00:24:00] business people in the utilities whose main purpose was to make money. And they were not interested in getting involved in brand new technologies. They are only comfortable with the technologies that they had. Yeah. But that makes a lot of sense. And I guess to sort of go, go back to you. You mentioned earlier that this plan was sort of part of a bigger trend of management by objectives. Do you think that that was effective management by objectives? And just because I feel like sort of the, the modern idea, very much like projects, plans like this that like, you know, multi-decade technical plans are at, at best foolish and at worst detrimental. And so, so what do you, what do you think about sort of like big plans for technology projects? More generally, [00:25:00] just sort of say that management objectives was an OMB guidance in the early seventies. And it's soon disappeared from the the roof work, if you will, as the the OMB. One of the things that happens in Washington every two years is that people change in administrations changed. Whatever one group is wanting to do it just a lot, go by the wayside. So by the mid seventies, when the came about there was there was no management by objectives, formalism still going on in the government. Basically they start all over again with how they're going to try. Do these things. And as this thing all evolved, you know, up to the present at the OMB I don't know, probably more than 10 years ago, 10 or 15 years ago, the OMB said to fusion, you are guys are not an energy [00:26:00] program anymore. You are a science program and we are going to evaluate you and have you managed like a science program. And so they stopped even asking us for both aimed towards an energy program. They said that we should go to the scientific community, take unsolicited proposals from the community to do good science, evaluate them under peer review by other scientists. And if it was good science, we should fund. And we should not be trying to make them into seeing we should not evaluate these proposals as to whether or not they are getting us to an energy source. So for over a decade now, the fusion program has not had an energy source as it's, as its goal, and it hasn't been funded or evaluated within the government as an energy program. Now, this has all changed in the [00:27:00] last year, but up until just very recently they're trying to put now the energy mission back into the, into the mission, but it hasn't actually formally happened at OMB yet. Got it. And just, just to sort of pull us back to well mentioned by objectives and just more broadly having very concrete plans W w w do you think it was useful or do you think it was just sort of like a a fad almost. Well, it's been disappointing from him personally. I think that it's been disappointing that like, we haven't actually done the plan. Right? Well, it's just a point. You spent so much effort laying out how you, how you would do it and how you would make decisions and you get everybody that's under your purview out in the in the community of people that you're funding, you get them all set up to try to achieve these things and you try to get them the [00:28:00] money and then it all falls apart. And then somebody tells you that, well, we don't care because we don't really think we really don't care if you ever get there. It's been the attitude until very recently. So it's very demoralizing, you know, to everybody, except the scientific community itself is kind of immune from this to some degree, as long as they get funded for research. As long as the universities getting money for basic research in this area, and they're training students in these trainings and these students can get jobs either in the private sector or they start their own companies, or they go to work at government laboratories, as long as that is moving along at some reasonable degree of success for people getting trained and getting in doing work and publishing papers. There's a certain degree of apathy if you will, or there even a certain degree [00:29:00] of satisfaction in the scientific community since nobody seems to care, if you should never goes on the grid. Yeah. Yeah. And so I guess like counterfactually, if the money had been there, so actually one thing that I, I still do find really impressive about the plan, although it is disappointing is that you basically predicted that. Right. Like you, you said, you said here's logic one. If you're below this line fusion won't happen and indeed you were right. So that's, let's just say like, that is one of the reasons why I'm I'm so impressed by it. Because it, it really did, it made a very precise prediction and that prediction came true, although it is disappointing. If you, if you could imagine that, like the say the money came through, do you think that this plan would have been useful in the sense of like, like how much confidence do you have that you sort of [00:30:00] accounted for all the things that you would need to do over the course of several decades? In order to, to get to fusion as an energy. Well, as it says in sort of early part of the plan, these plans are not bent to be followed blindly in their detail. They are guidance to management and management has to keep updating them and looking to see how they're doing and keeping an eye out for new discoveries and revising the plans in detail to see if new things are emerging or some things are failing. Or the money is coming in in such a way that that the plan schedule has to be changed. That's why you need management structure that's in place and following it, but not blindly following it. Yeah. So I personally believe if the management structure that we had in the [00:31:00] mid seventies had been maintained and, you know, right now I think we had 80 people in the office and they were all management oriented. And right now I think they probably have about, I don't know, maybe, maybe 15 people in the office because they're running it like a research program. So they just taking proposals and getting them evaluating and sending out money. So they're not managing in the way that we would have managed if we had had 80 people and we'd had the divisions that we had divided up and we revise the management structure from time to time. Along the way. And I know if I hadn't been there and what we had in mind, we were going to transition the money starting out into industry to get these things built and to bring engineering oriented people in more into the program, because even in the mid seventies, the pro was dominated by plasma physicists. And we were only in the process at that point of starting to bring in engineering [00:32:00] people, but still the money. The government's laboratories in their technology. People like Oak Ridge has a big technology laboratory. And so there was technology programs being developed in these laboratories. And other a little bit of it was going out into industries as on a job basis for the labs, but we didn't have a big industry program. And you know, one of the things I did just before I left was I brought in McDonald Douglas, which a big aerospace company to build an engineering center at Oak Ridge for fusion. That was sort of the last. Done and you know, and when this whole thing folded in the eight earlier eighties McDonald Douglas basically was told to shut down and they went away. They were, they were eventually bought out by Boeing. So we had started a transition where part of the implementation of this plan was to implement it by bringing industry in to bring [00:33:00] that talent from, we had a bunch of people, for example, in fusion power associates at the beginning, who were the architect engineers that were building nuclear power plants. So, you know, those were the people that we needed to implement the plan, but they were not quite in the program by now, 1980. And when the money didn't come through them, they just all disappeared from any plan that the government had because the government in the eighties and was only interested in trying to make their scientists survive. Yeah. And I guess you don't really see plans like this today. It feels like. And so I get the sense that creating plans like this, and more generally like technology management, like competence, technology management is a bit of a lost art. Do you, do you think that's true or, or am I, or is it like, am I missing something?[00:34:00]  Well, I don't know if it's true or not across the board that they must be out there somewhere. I think when you look at big construction projects and the people that do those projects know how to manage and they know how to cost things out and they know how to, they know the importance of, of keeping things on the schedule and they know how important it is to have pieces of the schedule coming in on the right time timing so that the whole project comes together. And, and we tried to do lay that out so that, that could be done for fusion, but I don't see it being done in the department of energy. And I don't know about any other agencies. I I can I have the feeling that maybe the defense department does it a little better on weapons systems and aircraft systems and fighter systems with some of the big aerospace companies? I mean, I think my observation from a fire department of defense is that [00:35:00] they, they do it the right way, but they're not on top of the cost and schedule and they do get taken to the cleaners by these companies, but somehow or another, they do get the job done, even if it's costing more than it should and taking longer. Yeah. That's, that's the thing that there's sort of been this like wider observation that since the 1970s things just take like sort of complex projects like this take longer and cost, like have, have dramatic like cost and time overruns. And it's sort of like this, there's like this trend of that happening more and more. And so, so I wonder if it's like w what it is about the world. That's changed. Do you have any hypotheses there? Well, you know, I'm not sure if it was ever that good first place ever, because when we, when I was there [00:36:00] in the seventies and we were laying out our plans, we thought we knew how, how to do it and do it right. But at the same time, within the atomic energy commission, there was a a nuclear fission program called the breeder reactor program. And it was a mess. And, and yet the industries out there like Westinghouse and general electric, they were actually building nuclear power plants in those days. And they were building nuclear reactors for submarines in those days. And so those programs were actually working, but at the department, they were working on advanced reactors and they weren't getting them done. And they eventually had to shut down the breeder reactor program because it just wasn't just wasn't seemed to be working. So I'm not sure the government, at least the part that I knew ever did that. Well, you know, when Admiral Rick over wanted to put a. I nuclear reactor in the submarine. The Navy wanted to fire [00:37:00] him as a department of energy, wanted him to put this program into the Lac, their national laboratories. And he had a fight them tooth and nail through his friends in Congress to get put in charge of the program and be allowed to put this out to general electric and Westinghouse. He had to fight them, and this was back in the sixties. So I'm not, I'm not sure that the government itself ever was very efficient at any of these things. Now, I have to say that NASA seems to have a good reputation and I, if it's true, it's I attributed to the fact that Kennedy went public and made it a national priority to get there by the end of the decade. And he demanded that they do it in a way to make it. And he, he had the backing of the Congress and he completely set up a whole new agency focused on [00:38:00] just that. And they got there. So I have to say that that was a success story and it remains a success story today with the evolution of a commercial industry. That's coming out of all of that. All this is quite a few decades later, but nevertheless they seem to have done a good job. I've never, I've, I've never been in NASA. So I only can see it from a farm. I'm sure there's some problems within it, but you know, somehow or another, it proved that we could get it done. And going back further to the Manhattan project for the atomic bomb was clear that when there was a commitment from president Truman, I guess it was, or or maybe it was, maybe it was Roosevelt. To do it and the army set up to take charge of it. They put a general in charge of it and they went to Los Alamos and they forced to deploy the part, the atomic energy commission laboratories to, to work on the problem that was at hand to get it done in a short amount of time. And when you had that kind [00:39:00] of leadership and management, it seems like it can be done, but it all depends on management and it's rare in government. And I would say it's rare even outside of government as well. And, and so, so I guess the upshot of this for me is that and correct me if this is wrong, but that you feel like it's much more about sort of the, the individuals in charge. And then it is about sort of like the, the process of, of planning and roadmapping out the techniques. Yeah, absolutely. I can't tell you how many plans have made since the one that you were looking at that I, that I've gathered dust on shelves. They almost every other year, the program launches a new plan. It finishes the plan. Everybody says whether they like it or they don't, and it's not implemented in a couple weeks [00:40:00] later, they'll turn it over to the national academies to evaluate or proposal new a plan. And I can't tell you, it's countless number of plans in fusion that are gathering dust on shelves over the past 40 years. You mean, it's the managers and the people that are want to implement the plans that, that supervise the plan. And as long as they're there we'll implement the plan, but as soon as they're gone, they, somebody else comes in, maybe makes a new plan or makes no plans at all. You know, just try to keep things alive. And w what do you, what would you think about so I feel like the sort of modern ethos is that planning plenty. Is it that useful? That you should just go and just start doing stuff? So I guess if we, if we think of like a counterfactual world where you just [00:41:00] have a very, like, you, you have consistent management, but they don't have a plan. How do you think that would be. I'm not quite sure what you said, but let me, let me give you an example of this big international project. Either in France, it was, it was, it was started by Ronald Reagan in 1985, but it didn't really get launched as a serious construction project for 2006. And it very rapidly became something that was getting behind schedule and over budget. And it was completely out of control until about 10 years ago. They, they had a management review and they said, we've got to get control of this project. They brought in this guy, that's now the director, Bernard big go. And he, and he took charge of this. And now he's got the thing organized, reorganized. Countries [00:42:00] from all over the world on a schedule to deliver this piece of equipment or that piece of equipment on a certain time schedule, he's got them all being delivered in a sequence and he's having them put together in a sequence. And he's got a great management plan and he's been keeping the thing on schedule now for the last five years. And I have great confidence. He's going to get the job done, but it all started with putting somebody like him in charge that knew he had. Have a plan that was in detail for everybody working together because, and totally took charge every country that had part of the job wasn't controlled with the wrong piece. And there was no, there was no control if they got behind. Sometimes the director in, in France didn't even know until it was too late to get it back on schedule and, and he didn't control the money anyway, each country controlled its own money. So, you know, I think it all comes down to management and then the management [00:43:00] makes the plan. Yeah. And w we'll see, so that's that I do think is worth noting in the sense that there's, there's also sort of a philosophy of management that says management shouldn't actually be imposing a plan on people. They should just like. Let it be very bottom up. Right. And just like, instead of planning, like, you don't know what's going to happen, so you should just sort of like let ideas bubble up from, from the bottom and let people work on what they think is the best thing to work on. Right? Well, you know, managers are managers of people and they oversee people. And so in a company, there's somebody at the top when there's somebody under him, but underneath them, It companies, there are thousands of people they're doing their bit. So a managers is not just say, Hey, we're going to get this done by tomorrow or next week he, he supervises all these people and these [00:44:00] people feed him up the information and help create this plan. And they all have to be on board and supervised properly all the way down the line through it, through a management chain. So it's not like one person does the whole plan by himself or with a couple of people in his office. He supervised the preparation of a plan with the community. So I had, you know, dozens of people around the country who helped prepare this plan. I helped them piece it together. And, you know, I helped organize the structure of the whole thing, but it was, it was an ongoing interaction that went from. And then guidance from top down, it was back and forth through the whole process. Got it. So you could almost think of the plant as a coordination mechanism in a way. Absolutely. Because the managers can actually do the work. Yeah. [00:45:00] Yeah. And they probably like don't, the managers can't know enough to be able to say accurate. They don't know the level of detail. If there's a problem. For example, if there is a problem they can say, okay, let's fix that problem. And they go back to the people that know about it and they tell them, okay, you guys go out and find out how you're going to fix this problem and come back and tell me how you're going to do it. But then the manager has to approve it. You know, if he doesn't, if he thinks it doesn't been done, right. He will go back to them and until they get her. Right. So, and I guess another interesting thing about Th the, the plan is that at some point someone was willing to make a prediction but a decade or more out. And that's sort of an attitude. I, I see people as being very hesitant to make that predictions on that timescale now do you feel like there's, or at least with that amount of w with like that [00:46:00] amount of precision, right? Like people make very, like hand-waving predictions now. Do you think, like there's been some kind of attitude shift around making predictions like that? Well, it's changing in the last year or so. There's been a lot of planning activities going on here and you'll see some time schedules and all of these, like right now there's a whole bunch of the companies that are all saying. But by 2030 or 2040 or 2050 and so on and so forth. And there's sort of a goal that's been proposed to have fusion on the grid by 2050 and in order to participate in the climate change solutions. So there's a lot of thinking about this and there's a lot of people putting out what they think is a reasonable timeframe that is achievable. And it's interesting that these, these timetables are all. One two or three decades out, which is sort of like almost the timescale [00:47:00] with the timescale that we had. So it's not uncommon to think that almost anything that's technically thought to be feasible can be done in 10, 20 or 30 years, depending on how difficult it is. So it's pretty easy for people to think that something can be done in those kinds of timescales and then start backfilling the details to see how it can be done and what it costs. Yeah. I think, I think the thing that strikes me is different between the predictions that I see now. And what you worked on is that. I, I feel like the, the fusion plan was a, the producers were very precise. Like it wasn't like, oh, we'll get this thing working by this time. It was like, okay, we need to show this experiment, this experiment and this experiment. And then there are also like very clear sort of intermediate results and, and like different pathways. All of which I, I don't [00:48:00] see in, in modern modern predictions where there, who are, who it feels like it's like, step one, start project. Step two, question mark. Question mark. Question mark. Step three 30 years later, have this amazing result. And I feel like that well, and you see our times scale to look to around the year 2000. Come out of whole cloth, it was set by the fact that we were in a physics phase and we had just authorized the construction of a physics demonstration called Tokamak fusion test reactor at Princeton. In 1975, we had already launched construction of that, and we knew that to get to a power plant. We had to make two major steps. One was an engineering facility and next was a demonstration power plant. And the time to construct those things is, is kind of known that it takes [00:49:00] five years to build them and five years to run them. So that kind of for each step was a 10 year step. And that gets you to a 20 year timetable. And so that really the time to build those two facilities and operate them, set the timescale. Of 20 years, more or less, depending upon how, you know, give or take a few years how fast the money came in and so on. So you know, we had a, we had a reason that that 20 year time frame was sort of set that we couldn't get there any faster because we couldn't go direct to a power plant. Right. And, and I guess like, so, so two questions one is, how do you think about the difference between a engineering project and a physics project and then two, like how did you know that you couldn't go direct to a. Well, if you [00:50:00] look at all the pieces of a power plant, you'll know that there's an awful lot of stuff in there that is not needed for a physics experiment, you know, a physics experiment, you know, what makes up a fusion plasma, and it has a whole bunch of diagnostics on it, and you're not sure what it's going to do. And so you're, you have to allow for surprises and then you'll have to do theory and computation to see if you understand what's going on. And all of that requires people who, who understand the physics for a power plant. You have to actually have confidence that the plasma that you're making is actually going to sustain fusion for a long period of time and produce heat. That can then be converted into electricity. And that means that these power plant has to be doesn't have room for a lot of diagnostics to be doing experiments, to try to figure out [00:51:00] what's happening. You have to have high confidence that when it turns on it's going to run and not have to be shut down every day or every week to be fixed. Right? So all those things require technology and engineering development, where components, you know, there may be a thousand major components or hundreds if you combine them in the right way into a power plant that has certain functions. And each of these has to be developed by engineers as a company. It has to be run and tested for long periods of time to see you with your breaks, to see how to fix it. How long does it take all of these things have to be demonstrated before you put it all together. Otherwise when you put it all together in Nepal plant it's too late because you can't just hate the far plan a party again, and start over. So the engineering and technology has a whole separate track of development that requires [00:52:00] testing and and development of codes of, of of a manufacture materials have to have codes. How long they'll last in this environment? Yeah. When will they fail? There's a whole skill set called Time to failure and time to repair the engineers, work with that physicists don't work with, if it breaks, it breaks, they just, you know, you know, they, they, they fix it because it's a small piece and they put pieces in, it takes them maybe a few weeks, but it a major piece of a power plant. It might take you a year to take that piece out and repair it and put a new piece in. Yeah. So, so like, meanwhile, you're not making any money selling electricity, electric utility will not buy a power plant like that until someone's shown that every piece works and worked all, all together can be sex if it breaks, you know, in a week. [00:53:00] Yeah. Interesting. So, so in a sense engineering work has a lot more to do with robustness than, than physics. Once, you know, the physics, it's an engineering problem to power commercial aviation. Okay. Yeah. I think that, I guess in my mind that that's still, like, there's still a lot of like research work to be done in engineering problems, even if it is just an engineering problem. There's a, there's a melding of physics in it. That's what they call applied physics and there's basic physics. And so, and there's technology and then there's engineering and all of things. I have slightly different slants and slightly different communities, but they all have, and that's one of the functions of management is to work on a timeframe and with money to meld these things in the proper sequence to get to where you need to. Yeah. That's why a program has to, that's why a program like fusion has to evolve from [00:54:00] totally physicists to mix of physicists and technology, people to a mixtures of engineers, to commercial companies that do costs and schedules and all of this stuff. This all has to be supervised by management. Got it. And so sort of a nitty gritty that I'm interested in is like, how did you think about budgets and like how much things would cost? Cause I feel like there's, there's no good canonical resources about like, how to think about how much research programs cost. Well, the way we did it was we divided it into systems and subsystems. And we went to the people that were working in each area and we asked them to go into more depth and that's, what's in our other volumes. So we had teams of people in all these areas, and [00:55:00] then we use you know, people that from industry and from utilities. Had done similar things. He found, we looked at the cost of nuclear power plants. That was a big part of our, our thinking as to what we knew that the fusion plant had to compete. So, you know, the, the, the skillset was all out there. Technologic technology wise for the power plants because of fusion plant is almost like a nuclear power plant, except a fuel is different in the center. I mean, it doesn't look the same, but it has all the same pieces to get the power. So there, there was a lot of skills out there that we, we were able to draw from. And, and we did the best we could. We know we can't claim that. And we put some contingencies in there, you know, we didn't let them low ball or high ball us, you know, because we had, they had to fit into the different logics as to how much money might be available and stuff like that. So, and we didn't say that this number is where we're, you know, in [00:56:00] stone that they were, they were absolutely. Yes. Yeah. And how did you think about like, places where there's just like, sort of deep uncertainty like where you would need to actually, in terms of a physics problem where you would actually need like some kind of discovery in order to get the thing work? Because it seems like there, there could be a situation where like, you know, it's like you can make that discovery next year, or you could, it could take you 10 years to figure it out. Well, if you look at the say the logic three reference option to page 12 of the blue colored volume you will see. That there are a variety of paths the Tokamak with the lead path and freed, laid out a reference a lot for that to get there by a certain date. But underneath that, there's a path for authentic concepts. And there were decision points, which said that well, if these [00:57:00] things come along and there's even one.at the bottom that says other things that were in very early stages of proof of principle, but we weren't knew that these things might come to fruition. We laid out a timeframe for hoping that we would fund those so that they could be evaluated. And so if those things came to fruition, then they would transition to a next step. And so that would all, that was all sort of taken into account as to the decision point as to when some of these things might, might happen. And, and of course, if, if something really radical were to come along a long, one of these other paths it's listed, I'll say can see one if you'll, I don't know if you have it in front. But under other, you'll see a decision point in 1985 that we're going to try to bring some of those things to a decision.[00:58:00]  If it looked like a positive one, we would proceed to what we call a prototype engineering, power reactor. And so it would take the place of that one up above that was called the Tokamak EPR that would have already been under construction if we kept following the back path. But, but it might still be. But if this other one came along, we would start its own track to compete. 1985 and then it would pick up at its own track and then it would come in later and we'd have to, at that point, if that became the favorite path, or maybe even there'd be three paths, you know, we didn't say that there could only be one winner. So you had a, you could eventually wind up with several of the earliest ones might come on around the year two thousands, but some of these other ones like abandoned 2005 or 2006, if they were better and they'd be a options for the [00:59:00] utilities, if they were better. Got it. Yeah, this is so cool. One of the really big takeaways that like, just like keeps coming through is almost just like consistency of, of management and not so much like the plan, but like of, of a plan. And, and I think like that's what you see. Not happening. And I guess sort of pulling us to today. Do you have a sense of which things that are happening in fusion now that you think are most. Well, you know, I don't want to get out on a limb to pick winners and losers because fusion power associates really is a home for all of these people. And I encourage the ball and there are people that we will not let into fusion, power associates as they're out there because they're so re almost crazy. And their claims are almost crazy that I wouldn't want to be associated with them. There are few and far between [01:00:00] fortunately, most of the alternates that are out there and these little companies they've been formed by good fusion. People who have, who have fallen on bad times because the government started funding all their money into tokamaks and stopped funding their off and net ideas. And so these people branched out and got support on their own. And I know some of these people and they're good people and their ideas need deserve to be pursued. But the truth is that most all of these are at what we used to call the proof of principle stage on their physics. They are not fully thought through power plants and their physics is not fully developed or at least not even far enough along to develop to know how probable their success is. They should be pursued. What was the room in the program for these, because improvements all those come along, any tech technology. So the first thing that comes out is it not going to be the best [01:01:00] thing 20 years after it? So I encourage all these things if they're credible people and you know, right now there are a couple of. Things in the Tokamak area, you know, the Tokamak mainline is the conventional Tokamak that is represented by either, but there are variations. There's one Commonwealth fuse and the systems at spying out of MIT. That's almost the exact same concept as the mainline Tokamak, except they're using high field new superconductors, which make the machine smaller. And which allows them also to be able to disassemble and repair it faster than the conventional tokamaks because the Magnus come apart in a different way. And the exhaust system that they've designed is more efficient. So that may help with some of the materials problems as the conventional talking back. So it does look like a much improved Tokamak and they're getting money and they're trying. You know, [01:02:00] they've got a facility that they're, that they've committed to in Massachusetts, and they're trying to build one step, a physics demonstration followed by a electricity generator. And so I, I have great hopes for them. If they can get money, they're privately funded. Now they're not getting hardly any government money at all. I think the government's helping them a little bit with some support work in the labs, but basically it's a private sector venture. And I think that one of the most promising, and there's another variation of the Tokamak called the spherical story. Or physical Toca Mac the British are going gangbusters on that. They've got one in operation. They've got a company that's also built one and they've got a site for building as a next step one, which they a site where they hope though will the actual power electricity generator. So that variation of the Tokamak is also looking very seeing. And it's the British are way out in front on that. Although [01:03:00] that idea first came. Ascend Princeton is actually had built one of those. And as another one coming in operation in a couple of years, that would support that line. So there's a couple of variations along the token back line that are looking, looking very good. All the other things that you hear about there are at a somewhat earlier stage of develop. They're all doing good work. T a E a tri alpha energy. Your TA in California is probably the most radical of the mall. But they are the farthest along of these alternates. And they've all, they've had success along the way. They built two or three generations. So machine, and they're all trying to get money for a really major step that would really demonstrate most everything they want to demonstrate before going on to a real power producing machine. So, you know, I think I have for them too, there's another company in Canada called general fusion that perhaps is a little bit farther behind, but they're working with the British and a [01:04:00] two. And so that's a promising area. And you know, I hope I have hope that that will evolve. This actually made me think of a question, which is Was sort of now all as, as you alluded to all the fusion development is being done by these sort of separate private companies which sort of stands in contrast to the, the fusion plan, which sort of implicitly is that everything is being at least managed from a central like a central management team. Do you think that w w what do you think about those two, two sort of different approaches towards getting to a technology of like, sort of the, the let a thousand flowers bloom in, in private companies versus a much broader program. Well, I think in the last maybe five years or so times have changed in that regard, you know, in the seventies and up until very recently, it was [01:05:00] only the governments that seem to be able to afford to do this. Those are the timescale and the cost. And so if was to come to pass, the government had to step up or the international governments had to step up and work together. And it was, seemed like the only way to get there was for the government to do it because of the cost. Now it seems that things have come along far enough, especially in the Tokamak area that some private companies are coming up with what they think are. Ways to fund what they want to do to demonstrate what they need to demonstrate because their ideas are at the moment, at least on relatively inexpensive facilities. Now they, they are going to run up against funding problem. If they're successful in the near term, you know, they're getting hundreds of millions of [01:06:00] dollars, some of them from private investors and they're building some things and hopefully they'll be successful, but these will not be powerful. And so they will have to be so successful that they will be able to get much, much larger amounts of money. They may have to be, be bought out by a Westinghouse or something in order to, to become real power plant manufacturers. These are not industries yet, even though they have an industry, what they call an industry association, there are small companies, and if there may be big by some companies standards, but they are not really money-making companies and they don't have their own money. So they have to continue to, to get money from investors and, and even maybe getting a hundred million dollars or $200 million from some billionaire venture capital company is doable. These days, getting a billion for the next step is a much different [01:07:00] problem because there isn't going to be a real fusion demonstration plant built for less than a couple of billion dollars. And private money doesn't come that easily at that Atlanta, unless the thing that's being built is going to make money back fast.  Steven Dean. Thanks for being part of idea machines.'  

Discussion topics in this episode: The original too-big-to-fail: our dearly beloved hydrocarbon industry. Hopefully soon, we can be saying: "our dearly departed." Our heirs deserve to inherit a livable world with air to breathe, water to drink, and food to eat. After all, it was never ours to greedily squander. The tools we use to save our biosphere will also build a new way of life. We need to embrace a new vision and rise to the challenge of adaptation that is upon us all. Your hosts: Michael Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We will need to act big, in a systematic way, to save the best of our way of life and create an opportunity to transform it into something sustainable and cutting-edge. The Equitable and Just National Climate Platform presents one of the most comprehensive and bold visions for a healthy new way forward for our nation. Energy is everything. On the horizon of emerging technology are some exciting developments: A Tokamak fusion reactor in South Korea passed an unprecedented milestone. Yeah baby, it's star stuff! This ain't your grandmothers' nuclear fission. More magical properties found in graphene: it's a fantastically strong atomic material and a superconductor (no impedance or loss of energy in transmission) and now we see it can create topological quantum states. It also looks like a possible alternative to today's batteries too. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.