This channel absolutely deserves millions of views. I haven’t had a lot of time lately but I’m gonna binge every single video made by this channel, give a little algorithm boost
The problem is that this extremely information dense and interesting (genuinely) video is apparently not nearly as interesting as half the sh*t on UA-cam shorts or Tictoc. Thank goodness the channel exists and the same for the videos.
@@malayrojak All the more important to share it then, so that people with the knowledge and motivation for it can find it when they're searching for it online. That's also why I built my channel to be a sort of encyclopedia of STEM-field (and more) related channels and videos on UA-cam :D
I learned more about magnetic confinement in this video than all the other fusion videos I have ever watched on UA-cam combined. Thank you for creating such high quality content!
Whats your problem with teenagers reading news article headlines out for you and explaining how everything is either a major breakthrough or an hopeless desaster?
I became aware of the possibility of fusion power over 40 years ago when I was Primary School. Over the years I have seen many attempts to explain the developments in this area but after watching you video I can say that majority of these videos have failed to do this. Your video is the first that has help me get an effective understanding on the current state of this technology and to finally understand why there are so many reactors being built and researched. I truly love to see more of your videos on this subject. Thank you.
Was only reason - nobody pay $$$ for creatin energetic fusion reactor. And autor of this video are wrong. See 7:25 - we showed in 2014 in experiment on GDL (ГДЛ) in ИЯФ им Будкера СО РАН, Академгородок, Новосибирск, Сибирь, on magnetic mirror temperature, wich was had claimed in 1980-x like "impossible" (10 kEv). Лучший путь энергетическому реактору на магнитном управляемом термоядерном синтезе - ГДМЛ - Газодинамическая Многопробочная Магнитная Ловушка, от Института Ядерной Физики имени Будкера (ИЯФ им. Будкера) Сибирского Отделения РАН. Речь об осисимметричной линейной открытой ловушки, с двумя новыми (2016, если судить по датам публикаций) идеями, предложенными А Д. Беклемишевым - многопробочным спиральным удержанием в пробках, и "пузырём диамагнитной плазмы" в центральном соленоиде. Они целятся в p+B11, но "план B" у них - дейтериевое монотопливо, D+D. И это радикально инженерно проще и дешевле, чем токамокаки, и имеет в отличие от них шансы стать основой термоядерной энергетики. При этом хочу сказать, что на Земле шансы у термоядерных реакторов есть лишь для специальных применений, типа достаточно безопасных источников нейтронов высокой мощности, или например запасных источников энергии для подземных городов, могущих служить гигантскими бункерами. Все остальные применения скорее всего за орбитой Марса находится. В остальном же у нас царство солнечной энергетики. Солнечная энергетика очевидно уже выиграла на Земле, - этого пока не видно в "мгновенном снимке" структуры энергетики, но видно в её динамике, и в динамике cost curve.
Thanks. All my videos are intended to be paused, rewound and rewatched. The captions (if you choose the ones supplied by me) are also meant to be the definitive transcript even if I ended up chewing my words and it's hard to say.
@@ImprobableMatter Yeah, I definitely paused and rewind a lot. I wished I realized earlier I should keep notes, to keep track of all the new information. I started it now, but will rewatch it all to keep notes. I am just a primary school teacher, but I hope to inspire one of my students to learn and maybe work on these problems :)
Exceptional video series on fusion! 30 years ago I did a middle school report on the national ignition facility and the amazing power of their lasers. I'm guessing I gleefully informed the class we would have unlimited low cost energy in 20 years. Over the decades I've heard the joke that fusion is always 30 years away, but always wondered why. This is the first video series I've ever found that balances giving enough technical info to explain the seemingly insurmountable challenges of fusion energy without just saying, "it's hard, trust me" but while also being more approachable to the lay-person than scientific papers that assume an extremely high degree of physics knowledge.
Best series on youtube to explain fusion technology and limitations that go beyond explaining how you need to smash two H atoms together at high temperature.
Amazing series about fusion! Hope you continue it; it fills the huge gap other videos (which are basically about the hype, and not the engineering challenges) leave. I love how you detail what exactly the problems are, and even tidbits such as the much hyped “AI is being used…” Hopefully the next video will deal with details about the geometry of the stellarator types; intuitively, it seems like they could be a better long-term solution, for they seem to have “less moving parts” in operation (although much more difficult to manufacture, but then it becomes more of a manufacturing problem than a coordination problem). Also, do the simplified calculations for energy input of the first video in the series include that used to create tritium (and the creation of deuterium pellets and other approaches)? Since it has to be synthesized, I wonder how much more extra energy that consumes.
Tritium production from Lithium-6 and the neutron coming off the fusion reaction is exothermic, so no problem there. Separating out the fuel isotopes, freezing them into a fuel pellet and so on is one of the (still somewhat unknown) energy costs of running a fusion power plant. Hence, the fusion energy gain Q must be at least greater than 20 for a commercial plant.
@@ImprobableMatter one hypothetical idea of spherical reactor that have two mirror magnetic rings that are placed on the bottom and on the upper part of reactor where magnetic lines goes through the center of reactor bottom up, and switches periodically in opposite direction following the switching direction of the rest of magnetic rings that are placed in a way that goes through equator of reactor and intersect with each other with the line that goes through the center of reactor and is perpendicular to the magnetic lines of mirror bottom up smaller rings but with higher magnetic flux. All this is happening in kind of circular constant switching on and off magnetic rings motion, very fast. In the center of the reactor is placed platinum or paladinum confinement entrenched with tritium and deuterium. It can be suspended by intital magnetic force that goes up and down, and gradually adding te rest and adding the speed of changing magnetic fields, while cental will hold it in a middle, other will also hold it but will also induce electrical currents which will heat up the confinement to plasma and even more to fusion. For confinement should be used nonreactive isotopes of this transitional metals. Later fuel should be added by lasers beams. I really wonder what do you think about this hypothetical configuration because you seemed very versatile in this topic.
I don't usually comment, but I have to say that this is the best video on UA-cam about this topic. It was very clear, and it shows perfectly the complexity and engineering challenges that nuclear fusion faces. Is not easy at all, thank you.
This is on par with the best lecures ive seen, condensing extremly complex subjects like fusion physics into something tbat you can uderstand with a basic physics knowladge. Good work!
I just want you to know how much I love these videos! I have watched the previous videos in this series about a dozen times now and I still enjoy them so much. Keep up the amazing work ❤️
Another awesome fusion video. After every one I watch, I not only feel more knowledgeable, but more eager to learn. You taught the basics of magnetic confinement so well that before you presented the solution to the varying field line distances in a torus, I had already guessed it would involve twisting them. Keep up the awesome work.
You gotta talk about the Helion reactor and if its feasible or not, a good look at it's progress from an analytical content creator like yourself would really be helpful in getting an idea for how close or far Helion actually is to fusion power.
Very nice video. Just discovered your channel, and I'm gonna be supporting it now in the future. Also very nice to have all the references at the end. Really looking forward to new videos on magnetic fusion! Excitement is also due to the fact I am starting a PhD in Fast Ion tomography in a few months :)
I hope you make a video about which reactor design is hopefully possible for fusion to come to reality. But great job for teaching fusion to laymen like myself. I hope you continue making videos regarding fusion.
What a great series of vidoes. I've never seen more easy to undesrstand yet thorough explanations of basic fundamentals of fusion techiniques and current limitations regarding different reactor designs. Well, I was lucky once to get some learning materials from a friend who had a Helmholtz Association lecture regarding fusion at his university, which was more comprehensive and interesting than what I could hope for, though was imaginably very hard to understand for someone who hasn't majored physics. So my big thanks. If I may ask, are you going to make a video covering more about H-Mode and I-Mode in the future? I'm especially having a hard time understanding how ETB and ITB works, which seems to be quite fundamental in making I-Mode actually work and are cornerstones to various I-Modes being developed around the world. ps. I've seen a comment before that you don't have Patreon, though would sending a yt super thanks work?
If I did a deeper dive into something like I-mode, I would probably do a livestream or interview with an expert (something I tried to arrange before, but didn't get very far). Might be something to try again.
love your videos, i'm pretty sure there isn't anything like this on youtube. many try to show to the masses how tokamaks work, and briefly mention the issue with instabilities, but that's it. i really appreciate the explanations, for youtube they seem very detailed, but i'm aware of how much isn't being said, anyway you do a great job at simplifying without making the subject too dumb
"Who are you who is so wise in the ways of science?" B seriously you got a phd in this stuff? I work at a tokamak as a diagnostics developer and you literally know everything somebody would need to know about modern fusion. Incredible content, especially with so many videos blowing up about fusion with terrible information, shilling for private companies and such.
Hi there! Actually min 23:00 doesn't show the actual potential temperature. In 2022, a new ICRH antenna has been installed in W7-X, which is going to be used this year to increase the temperature significantly.
I'm utterly facinated with this line of work & experimentation. I grasp what is being worked on perfecting currently but I'm still really curious about (How or What is the process of extracting power from it once it's figured out how to sustain good plasma fields?) Maybe I just missed it. Im sure the goal is to power a turbine thru thermal radiation but I'm just curious how that will connect with these machines. (I know the current ones are test machines, I'm just having a hard time visualizing how the plan to efficiently extract energy from the reactor will go?) I'm sure I'm just missing a obvious thing but I at least had to ask. *I absolutely love your channel BTW. I don't understand how it doesn't have millions of subscribers Because the quality of the science and the content is so good.
Regarding the individual deficiencies of magnetic mirrors and Z-pinch, have there been any attempts to 'cross the streams' and get a twisted field configuration as in toroidal designs, but without the quirks of toroidal geometry? I'm talking about a long magnetic mirror with added current running down the axis to twist the field. Or is the large size needed for decent confinement time just too much of an engineering / budgetary ask compared to tokamaks and stellarators? Great work on this channel so far; deep dive channels like yours are a sorely underrepresented segment of YT
I'm not aware of it, but just to remind you of the potential drawbacks: driving current is not free (in terms of energy input and hardware) and the mirror would still probably have magnetohydrodynamic instabilities degrading performance.
Great video, but sir I've got a doubt here, how is fusion ever be meant to be commercial viable if the only feasible fuel, is an isotope which we only have 30 kg of it available all around the world?
Once the fusion reactor is surrounded by Beryllium (neutron->2 neutrons) and Lithium6 (neutron -> Tritium), it will breed more Tritium than it consumes.
In the tokamak configuration, couldn't you apply AC power to the coil in the middle? If you generate sufficient DC current in the plasma by other means, like neutral beam injection, the "twisting" should never disappear completely, but significantly increase at the positive peaks.
If there were AC power alone, the plasma would collapse during the AC cycle where the current goes to zero. If you already have enough DC current through the plasma to maintain stability and want to add some AC on top... maybe. Not sure if anyone's done so!
Biased, but I am in favor of them overall. Certainly has some legs and will help the field along. My statement at 14:55 in one of my previous videos: ua-cam.com/video/JurplDfPi3U/v-deo.html
What about an adaptive magnetic field confinement technique? Instead of running a current through the tokamak plasma, you instead use computer controls to adjust the magnetic field by changing properties of the electro magnet. The computer system continuously adapts to any kind of drifts of magneto hydrodynamic instability. This would be a lot like computer controlled fly by wire in aircraft where the aircraft is inherently unstable in turbulence and therefore the computer must make small adjustments to maintain stable flight.
@ImprobableMatter What do you mean that a Stellarator has a potential Q value of infinity? From the equation this asserts that the energy input is zero, free energy? Please explain
80% of the power comes out in neutrons, which must be captured and stopped by a blanket around the reactor. The blanket heats up and the heat is taken out to turbines as usual.
Great video. Regarding the Z pinch: one team at University of Washington (Shumlak et al) has recently proposed a sheared-flow-stabilized Z pinch to address the problem of instabilities. Experimental results are encouraging. This concept is now being developed in startup. Curious what you think of this approach.
Perhaps I missed it, let's say they manage to produce more energy than it takes, it looks like that energy is in the form of heat from plasma deep inside the magnetic field, doesn't that heat have to be extracted somehow to make steam and turn a turbine or something?
80% of the energy comes out in the form of neutrons, which must be captured by a blanket around the reactor. The blanket heats up and that heat is transferred out where it will indeed power a steam turbine.
It does sound like a minor detail, but as mentioned in the video it took JET the last 15 years converting to a metal wall and then learning to get good performance with it.
if the distance between the confined plasma and the reactor walls is large enough, can the neutrons lose speed before hitting the walls, preventing the wall from becoming radioactive?
They would only be slowed down by something the density of a typical solid or liquid, otherwise there are not enough atoms in their way to stop them. If it's a liquid, like heavy water, it would probably evaporate and quench the plasma. If it's solid, it is basically the first wall. There are some experiments which I will try to mention in the next video, to do things like cover the wall in liquid Lithium, which would stay on the wall, but protect it from the neutrons.
Now that Real Engineering has uploaded the video on Helion's fusion shenanigans i was wondering if you are considering making a video about it? Does it add up?
I think it will age about as well as this (now taken down) article from two months ago that said the following about Sam Bankman-Fried: "After my interview with SBF, I was convinced: I was talking to a future trillionaire" web.archive.org/web/20221027180955/www.sequoiacap.com/article/sam-bankman-fried-spotlight/
So the particles travel along the magnetic field lines. I was under the impression that the particles were somehow repelled away from the sides of the torus. Interesting, makes more sense as it would be very difficult to not leave any gaps.
Is there way to contact you personally? Do you have a patreon? I just have a question. Let say you borrowed God’s superconducting magnets and you induced perfect currents in the plasma, would fusion occur? If the plasma is perfectly organized into helices for containment, will collisions occur? Is our quest for containment killing the reaction rate?
"Don't you see? God's superconducting magnets were with you all along through the power of friendship..." But seriously, in short - better magnets would mean better confinement, better gain, and therefore a feasible power plant. Suppose we have (very rough numbers): ITER - 10 Tesla on coil / about 5T in the plasma MIT/Commonwealth Fusion reckon they can get the same performance from a much smaller machine with SPARC - 20T on coil/10T in plasma Therefore, if you could magic up 100T coils then you would probably solve all confinement problems. This is limited by the materials themselves, so you can't simply make an existing coil bigger etc. You can never get particles into perfect helices, because as soon as you get more than one particle together they will begin to collide and become turbulent. You will always have turbulence like at 04:24 though it will be smaller the larger the magnetic field is.
The only complaint about your videos I have, is that once I watch them I get constantly recommended inferior videos that aren’t nearly as in depth or scientifically accurate.
But he is wrong. See 7:25 - we showed in 2014 in experiment on GDL (ГДЛ) in ИЯФ им Будкера СО РАН, Академгородок, Новосибирск, Сибирь, on magnetic mirror temperature, wich was had claimed in 1980-x like "impossible" (10 kEv). Лучший путь энергетическому реактору на магнитном управляемом термоядерном синтезе - ГДМЛ - Газодинамическая Многопробочная Магнитная Ловушка, от Института Ядерной Физики имени Будкера (ИЯФ им. Будкера) Сибирского Отделения РАН. Речь об осисимметричной линейной открытой ловушки, с двумя новыми (2016, если судить по датам публикаций) идеями, предложенными А Д. Беклемишевым - многопробочным спиральным удержанием в пробках, и "пузырём диамагнитной плазмы" в центральном соленоиде. Они целятся в p+B11, но "план B" у них - дейтериевое монотопливо, D+D. И это радикально инженерно проще и дешевле, чем токамокаки, и имеет в отличие от них шансы стать основой термоядерной энергетики. При этом хочу сказать, что на Земле шансы у термоядерных реакторов есть лишь для специальных применений, типа достаточно безопасных источников нейтронов высокой мощности, или например запасных источников энергии для подземных городов, могущих служить гигантскими бункерами. Все остальные применения скорее всего за орбитой Марса находится. В остальном же у нас царство солнечной энергетики. Солнечная энергетика очевидно уже выиграла на Земле, - этого пока не видно в "мгновенном снимке" структуры энергетики, но видно в её динамике, и в динамике cost curve.
so. not a physicist. and im asking not because i think i have some novel idea, but to understand why it wouldnt work. with the issue of the coils, why not generate very high voltage with ac and rectify it to hv dc pulses, then smooth the living crap outta it so you end up with high voltage fluctuations, that continue to induce current in the plasma. im guessing the issue is either, we cant smooth it enough, it simply way too much power to try and deliver in this way, or things happen at such short time scales that the fluctuations on the falling side of the ac waveform that translate to small (relatively) dc fluctuations on the output cause more losses than gains on the rising side so its a net loss. im not sure, just a thought and am wondering why we dont try some sort of system like that, it seams otherwise you need infinite current coils so the current can continue to rise indefinitely. i suppose there has to be some sort of value akin to hysteresis, how 'quickly' does a magnetic field 'collapse'? how long do you have (obv very short) once polarity inverts and potential starts to fall, before the magnetic field is sufficiently weakened that confinement is mostly lost? would it be possible to drive the coils directly with very high frequency ac? again im guessing all of these things have been thought of. just trying to grasp some of the engineering issues. id guess with some of the weird ways ac starts to act at very high frequencies would cause complications too, even if it were 'fast enough" if you will, to prevent significant weakening of the field. but i could have this all wrong, maybe the continuous increase in field strength is a key part and a 'continuous' strength simply does not work. alotta spit balling here and im sure ive gone down a few wrong rabbit holes. just interested in the responses.
You hit the nail on the head: the plasma fluctuations are on the order of milliseconds and any current oscillation on this scale or slower would cause the loss of particles or even a complete disruption.
65 years ago, when I started University Physics the primitive state of knowledge allowed us to plan nuclear fission power generation and dream of plausible terrestrial power generation utilising nuclear fusion. Now, at 80 and retired I am convinced that some time ago we had sufficient experience with numerous immensely expensive research results available to know that safe fusion power on a small scale has been demonstrated to be unrealistic but money keeps being wasted by researchers spinning stories to keep the dream alive.
I think I just realized what the name of this channel, improbable matter, is referring to It's the idea that radioactive elements are literally improbable forms of matter and that over time eventually they stop existing. Is this the idea?
This channel absolutely deserves millions of views. I haven’t had a lot of time lately but I’m gonna binge every single video made by this channel, give a little algorithm boost
The problem is that this extremely information dense and interesting (genuinely) video is apparently not nearly as interesting as half the sh*t on UA-cam shorts or Tictoc.
Thank goodness the channel exists and the same for the videos.
@@malayrojak All the more important to share it then, so that people with the knowledge and motivation for it can find it when they're searching for it online.
That's also why I built my channel to be a sort of encyclopedia of STEM-field (and more) related channels and videos on UA-cam :D
Your boost might have resulted in my arrival here. So thanks ;)
It doesn't have that views because most people don't care about this.
It's a great video though.
Commenting for the algorithm hopefully this channel gets more recognition.
Agree, this man is a champ
This is by far the best fusion series I've seen on UA-cam, it's clear you are an actual expert.
you don't understand how long I have been looking for information on fusion technology. Your channel is amazing
I learned more about magnetic confinement in this video than all the other fusion videos I have ever watched on UA-cam combined. Thank you for creating such high quality content!
Whats your problem with teenagers reading news article headlines out for you and explaining how everything is either a major breakthrough or an hopeless desaster?
I became aware of the possibility of fusion power over 40 years ago when I was Primary School. Over the years I have seen many attempts to explain the developments in this area but after watching you video I can say that majority of these videos have failed to do this. Your video is the first that has help me get an effective understanding on the current state of this technology and to finally understand why there are so many reactors being built and researched. I truly love to see more of your videos on this subject. Thank you.
Was only reason - nobody pay $$$ for creatin energetic fusion reactor.
And autor of this video are wrong.
See 7:25 - we showed in 2014 in experiment on GDL (ГДЛ) in ИЯФ им Будкера СО РАН, Академгородок, Новосибирск, Сибирь, on magnetic mirror temperature, wich was had claimed in 1980-x like "impossible" (10 kEv).
Лучший путь энергетическому реактору на магнитном управляемом термоядерном синтезе - ГДМЛ - Газодинамическая Многопробочная Магнитная Ловушка, от Института Ядерной Физики имени Будкера (ИЯФ им. Будкера) Сибирского Отделения РАН.
Речь об осисимметричной линейной открытой ловушки, с двумя новыми (2016, если судить по датам публикаций) идеями, предложенными А Д. Беклемишевым - многопробочным спиральным удержанием в пробках, и "пузырём диамагнитной плазмы" в центральном соленоиде.
Они целятся в p+B11, но "план B" у них - дейтериевое монотопливо, D+D.
И это радикально инженерно проще и дешевле, чем токамокаки, и имеет в отличие от них шансы стать основой термоядерной энергетики.
При этом хочу сказать, что на Земле шансы у термоядерных реакторов есть лишь для специальных применений, типа достаточно безопасных источников нейтронов высокой мощности, или например запасных источников энергии для подземных городов, могущих служить гигантскими бункерами.
Все остальные применения скорее всего за орбитой Марса находится.
В остальном же у нас царство солнечной энергетики. Солнечная энергетика очевидно уже выиграла на Земле, - этого пока не видно в "мгновенном снимке" структуры энергетики, но видно в её динамике, и в динамике cost curve.
I need to watch this multiple times to understand it. This is quality content.
Thanks. All my videos are intended to be paused, rewound and rewatched. The captions (if you choose the ones supplied by me) are also meant to be the definitive transcript even if I ended up chewing my words and it's hard to say.
@@ImprobableMatter Yeah, I definitely paused and rewind a lot. I wished I realized earlier I should keep notes, to keep track of all the new information. I started it now, but will rewatch it all to keep notes. I am just a primary school teacher, but I hope to inspire one of my students to learn and maybe work on these problems :)
Exceptional video series on fusion! 30 years ago I did a middle school report on the national ignition facility and the amazing power of their lasers. I'm guessing I gleefully informed the class we would have unlimited low cost energy in 20 years. Over the decades I've heard the joke that fusion is always 30 years away, but always wondered why. This is the first video series I've ever found that balances giving enough technical info to explain the seemingly insurmountable challenges of fusion energy without just saying, "it's hard, trust me" but while also being more approachable to the lay-person than scientific papers that assume an extremely high degree of physics knowledge.
can't wait for the next video on swiss cheese
Please, please, continue this video series. Abolutely love it. Very hard to find reliable, clear, and not too dumbed-down information on fusion.
Best series on youtube to explain fusion technology and limitations that go beyond explaining how you need to smash two H atoms together at high temperature.
Amazing series about fusion! Hope you continue it; it fills the huge gap other videos (which are basically about the hype, and not the engineering challenges) leave. I love how you detail what exactly the problems are, and even tidbits such as the much hyped “AI is being used…” Hopefully the next video will deal with details about the geometry of the stellarator types; intuitively, it seems like they could be a better long-term solution, for they seem to have “less moving parts” in operation (although much more difficult to manufacture, but then it becomes more of a manufacturing problem than a coordination problem). Also, do the simplified calculations for energy input of the first video in the series include that used to create tritium (and the creation of deuterium pellets and other approaches)? Since it has to be synthesized, I wonder how much more extra energy that consumes.
Tritium production from Lithium-6 and the neutron coming off the fusion reaction is exothermic, so no problem there. Separating out the fuel isotopes, freezing them into a fuel pellet and so on is one of the (still somewhat unknown) energy costs of running a fusion power plant. Hence, the fusion energy gain Q must be at least greater than 20 for a commercial plant.
@@ImprobableMatter one hypothetical idea of spherical reactor that have two mirror magnetic rings that are placed on the bottom and on the upper part of reactor where magnetic lines goes through the center of reactor bottom up, and switches periodically in opposite direction following the switching direction of the rest of magnetic rings that are placed in a way that goes through equator of reactor and intersect with each other with the line that goes through the center of reactor and is perpendicular to the magnetic lines of mirror bottom up smaller rings but with higher magnetic flux. All this is happening in kind of circular constant switching on and off magnetic rings motion, very fast. In the center of the reactor is placed platinum or paladinum confinement entrenched with tritium and deuterium. It can be suspended by intital magnetic force that goes up and down, and gradually adding te rest and adding the speed of changing magnetic fields, while cental will hold it in a middle, other will also hold it but will also induce electrical currents which will heat up the confinement to plasma and even more to fusion. For confinement should be used nonreactive isotopes of this transitional metals. Later fuel should be added by lasers beams. I really wonder what do you think about this hypothetical configuration because you seemed very versatile in this topic.
I don't usually comment, but I have to say that this is the best video on UA-cam about this topic. It was very clear, and it shows perfectly the complexity and engineering challenges that nuclear fusion faces. Is not easy at all, thank you.
This is on par with the best lecures ive seen, condensing extremly complex subjects like fusion physics into something tbat you can uderstand with a basic physics knowladge. Good work!
Third time watching this in a few months and I'm amazed it only has 50k views
these videos are great, you always go into far more depth than every other channel that discusses fusion, thanks.
Amazing work with the 4:48 intermezzo
Yes yes yes. I been waiting for this part for months. I must have watched part one and two over twenty times. Fantastic. Thank you sir.
I just want you to know how much I love these videos! I have watched the previous videos in this series about a dozen times now and I still enjoy them so much. Keep up the amazing work ❤️
Bravo! That's a nice round-up of the mainstream MCF stuff. Thanks
Another awesome fusion video. After every one I watch, I not only feel more knowledgeable, but more eager to learn. You taught the basics of magnetic confinement so well that before you presented the solution to the varying field line distances in a torus, I had already guessed it would involve twisting them. Keep up the awesome work.
Your casual dry almost deadpan random humor in these videos is hilarious.
These are really educational and well explained, and the humor is great.
videos like these help me realize how little i actually understand our nuclear fusion efforts…
Thank you for this wonderfully informative video and praise the algorithm for recommending it to me.
Thank you for continuing to make these videos. Your channel absolutely deserves way more recognition
Fascinating, right round baby !
Amazing video thank you for making it
I cant believe I learned all this information for free. I learned so much, wow, thanks for making the video
your videos are excellent. Please do the world a favour and up the production rate padre!
Amazing video! Clear for people outside of the field
Thank you for these fantastically informative and honest videos - really appreciated.
You gotta talk about the Helion reactor and if its feasible or not, a good look at it's progress from an analytical content creator like yourself would really be helpful in getting an idea for how close or far Helion actually is to fusion power.
Very nice video. Just discovered your channel, and I'm gonna be supporting it now in the future. Also very nice to have all the references at the end.
Really looking forward to new videos on magnetic fusion! Excitement is also due to the fact I am starting a PhD in Fast Ion tomography in a few months :)
Nice! Which machine/research center?
@@ImprobableMatter We’ll mainly work on JET data, but not exclusively, within the plasma physics section of the DTU institute in Denmark
wow your explanation of plasma physics was. so simple and intuitive
These videos are great! I really enjoy the amount of good detail and good visual aid they include.
I hope you make a video about which reactor design is hopefully possible for fusion to come to reality. But great job for teaching fusion to laymen like myself. I hope you continue making videos regarding fusion.
What a great series of vidoes. I've never seen more easy to undesrstand yet thorough explanations of basic fundamentals of fusion techiniques and current limitations regarding different reactor designs. Well, I was lucky once to get some learning materials from a friend who had a Helmholtz Association lecture regarding fusion at his university, which was more comprehensive and interesting than what I could hope for, though was imaginably very hard to understand for someone who hasn't majored physics. So my big thanks.
If I may ask, are you going to make a video covering more about H-Mode and I-Mode in the future? I'm especially having a hard time understanding how ETB and ITB works, which seems to be quite fundamental in making I-Mode actually work and are cornerstones to various I-Modes being developed around the world.
ps. I've seen a comment before that you don't have Patreon, though would sending a yt super thanks work?
If I did a deeper dive into something like I-mode, I would probably do a livestream or interview with an expert (something I tried to arrange before, but didn't get very far). Might be something to try again.
@@ImprobableMatter That's exciting, should it happen! Really hope that you could find someone, looking forward for it.
love your videos, i'm pretty sure there isn't anything like this on youtube. many try to show to the masses how tokamaks work, and briefly mention the issue with instabilities, but that's it. i really appreciate the explanations, for youtube they seem very detailed, but i'm aware of how much isn't being said, anyway you do a great job at simplifying without making the subject too dumb
"Who are you who is so wise in the ways of science?"
B seriously you got a phd in this stuff? I work at a tokamak as a diagnostics developer and you literally know everything somebody would need to know about modern fusion. Incredible content, especially with so many videos blowing up about fusion with terrible information, shilling for private companies and such.
I have a Masters in physics, PhD in Plasma Science and Fusion Energy and spent 2 years at JET as a postdoc. Now I study MHD in space.
Solid lectures, thank you.
yes! i was hoping you’d post another one soon!
Really useful and easy to understand. Thanks for sharing
Thanks for the in-depth Explanation. The ELM video is Amazing.
Working on the HBT-EP reactor this summer for an internship. Love your videos 🤙
Would be interested in your thoughts about Helion Energy and their approach.
This content is amazing. Truly.
I love your videos thank you so much you have tahout me to be exstted jet realistic about fusion. Thank you so much
Hi there! Actually min 23:00 doesn't show the actual potential temperature. In 2022, a new ICRH antenna has been installed in W7-X, which is going to be used this year to increase the temperature significantly.
Thank you for creating this
20:20 is this the so called dreaded "vertical displacement event"?
Yes, it is usually the main culprit with disruptions.
I'm utterly facinated with this line of work & experimentation. I grasp what is being worked on perfecting currently but I'm still really curious about (How or What is the process of extracting power from it once it's figured out how to sustain good plasma fields?) Maybe I just missed it. Im sure the goal is to power a turbine thru thermal radiation but I'm just curious how that will connect with these machines. (I know the current ones are test machines, I'm just having a hard time visualizing how the plan to efficiently extract energy from the reactor will go?) I'm sure I'm just missing a obvious thing but I at least had to ask. *I absolutely love your channel BTW. I don't understand how it doesn't have millions of subscribers Because the quality of the science and the content is so good.
very nice in depth explanation
Regarding the individual deficiencies of magnetic mirrors and Z-pinch, have there been any attempts to 'cross the streams' and get a twisted field configuration as in toroidal designs, but without the quirks of toroidal geometry? I'm talking about a long magnetic mirror with added current running down the axis to twist the field. Or is the large size needed for decent confinement time just too much of an engineering / budgetary ask compared to tokamaks and stellarators?
Great work on this channel so far; deep dive channels like yours are a sorely underrepresented segment of YT
I'm not aware of it, but just to remind you of the potential drawbacks: driving current is not free (in terms of energy input and hardware) and the mirror would still probably have magnetohydrodynamic instabilities degrading performance.
@@ImprobableMatter That's fair enough, thank you!
Could you make a video on stellarators alone? I would really like your insight on the matter as there are not that many videos on the matter.
Thanks for making htese videos and clearing up the mess, I am a fan off the swiss cheese column :)
Great video, but sir I've got a doubt here, how is fusion ever be meant to be commercial viable if the only feasible fuel, is an isotope which we only have 30 kg of it available all around the world?
Once the fusion reactor is surrounded by Beryllium (neutron->2 neutrons) and Lithium6 (neutron -> Tritium), it will breed more Tritium than it consumes.
Thank you for this series.
thanks a lot Sir highly educative contents !
In the tokamak configuration, couldn't you apply AC power to the coil in the middle? If you generate sufficient DC current in the plasma by other means, like neutral beam injection, the "twisting" should never disappear completely, but significantly increase at the positive peaks.
If there were AC power alone, the plasma would collapse during the AC cycle where the current goes to zero.
If you already have enough DC current through the plasma to maintain stability and want to add some AC on top... maybe. Not sure if anyone's done so!
What's your thoughts on SPARC? Do you think they will deliver on their promises and have commercial fusion sometime in the 2030s or later?
Biased, but I am in favor of them overall. Certainly has some legs and will help the field along. My statement at 14:55 in one of my previous videos: ua-cam.com/video/JurplDfPi3U/v-deo.html
Excellent vids straight forward and understandable.
Any thoughts on SAFIRE?
Excellent video!
Could you please cover General Fusions compression liquid metal fusion reactor? Or even a short synopsis of your opinion?
I think I mention it in part (2) since it is more of a cyclic inertial idea.
What about an adaptive magnetic field confinement technique? Instead of running a current through the tokamak plasma, you instead use computer controls to adjust the magnetic field by changing properties of the electro magnet. The computer system continuously adapts to any kind of drifts of magneto hydrodynamic instability. This would be a lot like computer controlled fly by wire in aircraft where the aircraft is inherently unstable in turbulence and therefore the computer must make small adjustments to maintain stable flight.
Wondering if you could do a video on Zap energy's shear flow stabilized Z-pinch idea. Not many people talk about it.
Well-Done
What do you think about not neutralizing the ion beam so that the additional charge can be used as ohmic heating?
The magnetic field will deflect it; you'll never hit the plasma.
@ImprobableMatter What do you mean that a Stellarator has a potential Q value of infinity? From the equation this asserts that the energy input is zero, free energy? Please explain
Put in fusion fuel, get energy out; Q is infinity. What's the problem with that?
How do we actually turn fusion plasma into electricity?
Wonder if we can tape power from the plasma through the diverters?
80% of the power comes out in neutrons, which must be captured and stopped by a blanket around the reactor. The blanket heats up and the heat is taken out to turbines as usual.
Great video. Regarding the Z pinch: one team at University of Washington (Shumlak et al) has recently proposed a sheared-flow-stabilized Z pinch to address the problem of instabilities. Experimental results are encouraging. This concept is now being developed in startup. Curious what you think of this approach.
Good luck to them, but I'm willing to bet that things will not be as rosy as the salespeople at the startup will paint them.
Have you seen Renaissance Fusion's stellarator concept?
Do they use closed loop control of the magnets
Perhaps I missed it, let's say they manage to produce more energy than it takes, it looks like that energy is in the form of heat from plasma deep inside the magnetic field, doesn't that heat have to be extracted somehow to make steam and turn a turbine or something?
80% of the energy comes out in the form of neutrons, which must be captured by a blanket around the reactor. The blanket heats up and that heat is transferred out where it will indeed power a steam turbine.
Any views on salt reactors? Or thorium?
Apenas a energia do nêutron pode ser aproveitada ou a energia do núcleo de hélio também pode ser aproveitada para produzir eletricidade?
Yes, but most of that power would come out through the divertor.
The instabilities mentioned remind me a lot of positive feedback. Have we still not figure out where this comes from in the MHD equation?
Maybe somehow we can find negative feedback mathematically to try to stabilize the plasma
That comet of the carbon facings is very od and interesting point thanks how know.
It does sound like a minor detail, but as mentioned in the video it took JET the last 15 years converting to a metal wall and then learning to get good performance with it.
@@ImprobableMatter Good things take practice.
if the distance between the confined plasma and the reactor walls is large enough, can the neutrons lose speed before hitting the walls, preventing the wall from becoming radioactive?
They would only be slowed down by something the density of a typical solid or liquid, otherwise there are not enough atoms in their way to stop them. If it's a liquid, like heavy water, it would probably evaporate and quench the plasma. If it's solid, it is basically the first wall. There are some experiments which I will try to mention in the next video, to do things like cover the wall in liquid Lithium, which would stay on the wall, but protect it from the neutrons.
Ther is a reasion the door of the Rotating neutron source was 2 meters thick and made out of renforsed concreat.
Holy shit everyone interested in fusion should watch these.
This is amazing thank you so much
Really cool videos
Yes but what if you had a radial electric field within the basic magnetic mirror if would stabalize and help heat the plasma
Excellent!
This video clearly explained why Tokamak is unstable.
Now that Real Engineering has uploaded the video on Helion's fusion shenanigans i was wondering if you are considering making a video about it? Does it add up?
I think it will age about as well as this (now taken down) article from two months ago that said the following about Sam Bankman-Fried: "After my interview with SBF, I was convinced: I was talking to a future trillionaire"
web.archive.org/web/20221027180955/www.sequoiacap.com/article/sam-bankman-fried-spotlight/
@@ImprobableMatter Oh that's sad to hear. :(
So the particles travel along the magnetic field lines. I was under the impression that the particles were somehow repelled away from the sides of the torus. Interesting, makes more sense as it would be very difficult to not leave any gaps.
What are your thoughts on project Pacer? Haha its a lot less complicated than magnetic confinement I suppose.
brilliant
Hit us with some muon-catalyzed fusion theory!
Nice
Is there way to contact you personally? Do you have a patreon? I just have a question.
Let say you borrowed God’s superconducting magnets and you induced perfect currents in the plasma, would fusion occur? If the plasma is perfectly organized into helices for containment, will collisions occur? Is our quest for containment killing the reaction rate?
"Don't you see? God's superconducting magnets were with you all along through the power of friendship..."
But seriously, in short - better magnets would mean better confinement, better gain, and therefore a feasible power plant. Suppose we have (very rough numbers):
ITER - 10 Tesla on coil / about 5T in the plasma
MIT/Commonwealth Fusion reckon they can get the same performance from a much smaller machine with
SPARC - 20T on coil/10T in plasma
Therefore, if you could magic up 100T coils then you would probably solve all confinement problems. This is limited by the materials themselves, so you can't simply make an existing coil bigger etc.
You can never get particles into perfect helices, because as soon as you get more than one particle together they will begin to collide and become turbulent. You will always have turbulence like at 04:24 though it will be smaller the larger the magnetic field is.
The diverter also seems like a logical place to have some kind of heat exchanger to extract thermal power from the reactor.
The only complaint about your videos I have, is that once I watch them I get constantly recommended inferior videos that aren’t nearly as in depth or scientifically accurate.
But he is wrong.
See 7:25 - we showed in 2014 in experiment on GDL (ГДЛ) in ИЯФ им Будкера СО РАН, Академгородок, Новосибирск, Сибирь, on magnetic mirror temperature, wich was had claimed in 1980-x like "impossible" (10 kEv).
Лучший путь энергетическому реактору на магнитном управляемом термоядерном синтезе - ГДМЛ - Газодинамическая Многопробочная Магнитная Ловушка, от Института Ядерной Физики имени Будкера (ИЯФ им. Будкера) Сибирского Отделения РАН.
Речь об осисимметричной линейной открытой ловушки, с двумя новыми (2016, если судить по датам публикаций) идеями, предложенными А Д. Беклемишевым - многопробочным спиральным удержанием в пробках, и "пузырём диамагнитной плазмы" в центральном соленоиде.
Они целятся в p+B11, но "план B" у них - дейтериевое монотопливо, D+D.
И это радикально инженерно проще и дешевле, чем токамокаки, и имеет в отличие от них шансы стать основой термоядерной энергетики.
При этом хочу сказать, что на Земле шансы у термоядерных реакторов есть лишь для специальных применений, типа достаточно безопасных источников нейтронов высокой мощности, или например запасных источников энергии для подземных городов, могущих служить гигантскими бункерами.
Все остальные применения скорее всего за орбитой Марса находится.
В остальном же у нас царство солнечной энергетики. Солнечная энергетика очевидно уже выиграла на Земле, - этого пока не видно в "мгновенном снимке" структуры энергетики, но видно в её динамике, и в динамике cost curve.
so. not a physicist. and im asking not because i think i have some novel idea, but to understand why it wouldnt work. with the issue of the coils, why not generate very high voltage with ac and rectify it to hv dc pulses, then smooth the living crap outta it so you end up with high voltage fluctuations, that continue to induce current in the plasma. im guessing the issue is either, we cant smooth it enough, it simply way too much power to try and deliver in this way, or things happen at such short time scales that the fluctuations on the falling side of the ac waveform that translate to small (relatively) dc fluctuations on the output cause more losses than gains on the rising side so its a net loss. im not sure, just a thought and am wondering why we dont try some sort of system like that, it seams otherwise you need infinite current coils so the current can continue to rise indefinitely. i suppose there has to be some sort of value akin to hysteresis, how 'quickly' does a magnetic field 'collapse'? how long do you have (obv very short) once polarity inverts and potential starts to fall, before the magnetic field is sufficiently weakened that confinement is mostly lost? would it be possible to drive the coils directly with very high frequency ac? again im guessing all of these things have been thought of. just trying to grasp some of the engineering issues. id guess with some of the weird ways ac starts to act at very high frequencies would cause complications too, even if it were 'fast enough" if you will, to prevent significant weakening of the field. but i could have this all wrong, maybe the continuous increase in field strength is a key part and a 'continuous' strength simply does not work. alotta spit balling here and im sure ive gone down a few wrong rabbit holes. just interested in the responses.
You hit the nail on the head: the plasma fluctuations are on the order of milliseconds and any current oscillation on this scale or slower would cause the loss of particles or even a complete disruption.
For a chaotic problem you need a way to approximate its expected movements with better options of constraint
65 years ago, when I started University Physics the primitive state of knowledge allowed us to plan nuclear fission power generation and dream of plausible terrestrial power generation utilising nuclear fusion.
Now, at 80 and retired I am convinced that some time ago we had sufficient experience with numerous immensely expensive research results available to know that safe fusion power on a small scale has been demonstrated to be unrealistic but money keeps being wasted by researchers spinning stories to keep the dream alive.
Epic
18:30 ahhhh so that’s how Swiss is made seems a little complicated but whatever it takes I guess.
I think I just realized what the name of this channel, improbable matter, is referring to
It's the idea that radioactive elements are literally improbable forms of matter and that over time eventually they stop existing.
Is this the idea?
Yes: nuclei that don't occur naturally like Plutonium, certain plasmas like 150M°C a few meters away from room temperature, laser light and so on.
And most people don't even know we have any fusion reactors