Is Fusion Really a Good Idea?

4min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

There's an interesting parallel there where a bunch of companies announced a deadline for themselves in 2021, 22. There's Google with Waymo or alphabet rather is, and then there's Tesla with semi autonomous driving in their autopilot, full self driving mode. So I wonder, like just like you said, there would be these kinds of similar kind of really hard pushes. And so it could be that what we'll end up with is several different configurations which have different features which are trade offs basically in the energy market.

Dennis Whyte is a nuclear scientist at MIT and the director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
– Rocket Money: https://rocketmoney.com/lex
– MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/lex to get 15% off
– InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/lex to get 20% off

EPISODE LINKS:
Dennis’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/MIT_Fusion
Dennis’s LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/dennis-whyte-33474a54
Dennis’s Website: https://www.psfc.mit.edu/whyte
SPARC: https://www.psfc.mit.edu/sparc
MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center: https://www.psfc.mit.edu
MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center’s YouTube: https://youtube.com/@mitplasmascienceandfusionc6211
Commonwealth Fusion Systems: https://cfs.energy
Commonwealth Fusion Systems YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CommonwealthFusionSystems

PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman
YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips

SUPPORT & CONNECT:
– Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast
– Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman
– Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman
– Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman
– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman
– Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman
– Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman

OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(05:54) – Nuclear fusion
(23:53) – e=mc^2
(38:20) – Fission vs fusion
(43:32) – Nuclear weapons
(47:19) – Plasma
(54:29) – Nuclear fusion reactor
(1:09:50) – 2022 nuclear fusion breakthrough explained
(1:30:27) – Magnetic confinement
(1:49:36) – ITER
(1:54:23) – SPARC
(2:08:23) – Future of fusion power
(2:16:55) – Engineering challenges
(2:35:36) – Nuclear disasters
(2:40:21) – Cold fusion
(2:54:36) – Kardashev scale
(3:04:00) – Advice for young people