@@SubjectZeroScience I am the author of the third method of achieving nuclear fusion, this is the repetition of physical conditions as in the solar corona. In 6 months there will be a small prototype of a commercial fusion reactor. A commercial fusion reactor in 1-2 years! Power 100 kW. For many years (almost 25 years) I have been convincing scientists that thermonuclear fusion in the Sun occurs not in the core of the Sun, but in the solar corona !!! But scientists are very stubborn, and do not want to believe the obvious. Why are scientists not accepting new breakthrough scientific ideas? There is an assumption, accepted by most scientists, that thermonuclear fusion in the Sun occurs in the Sun's core. But no one has ever actually confirmed this. This is just a guess, the fantasy of an authoritative physicist. Scientists are currently using two methods to achieve nuclear fusion: inertial confinement and magnetic confinement. But there is also a third method of achieving nuclear fusion, this is the repetition of physical conditions as in the solar corona. Nobody is using this third method to achieve nuclear fusion? In 6 months there will be a small prototype of a commercial fusion reactor. A commercial fusion reactor in 1-2 years! I propose a technology transfer for a commercial fusion reactor under a contract. Thermonuclear fusion in the Sun - a new version. n-t.ru/tp/ie/ts.htm ua-cam.com/video/izCALj848xU/v-deo.html
I'm a student on second year of a Plasma and fusion masters degree, every teacher works on the side for ITER research, but almost everyone says ITER will not work or that tokamaks will not work (they are not the machine we will use). Some of them (i also think this) think that Stellators are the way due to the reduce number of instabilities, the only difficulty is that stellators coils are hard to make due to the weird shapes, you cant' make a mold (or a process) and then make every coil, no every coil is different. Thanks for this video man, glad this information is going to the public
You need multiple molds for one Stellarator, yes, but you can use those molds when building multiple of the same type Stellarators! X7 just needs to be the "proof of concept" and break even savely and stable. After that production can be streamline just like car parts.
Weird and precise shapes is something we're getting much better at, especially with 3D printers. Just now I noticed that there was a project to print a hollow cylinder using YBCO powder. While 3D printing isn't an ideal process for mass production, I think it's more than good enough to churn out stellarator coils for our current needs.
Didn't the Commonwealth team show that high T fields achieved by rebco magnets eliminate a lot of the really bad turbulence in plain old tokamak plasmas? What would really be interesting is a small high T stellerator built with rebco superconductors.
Hey, serious question... I'm in a Space Resources PhD program and one of the big things we're counting on is additive manufacturing (3D printing) in space. A company, Made In Space, is making fiber cables significantly more efficiently because the crystalline structure of the cable has 0 faults due to the micro-gravity environment (crystals get unavoidable gravity-induced faults during creation). This is mainly being done with sights on the telecom community, but more specifically to medical or investment fields where the added efficiency of the cable really matters. ... Could this, or any other type of micro-gravity 3D printing help with the components necessary for these machines?
It's sad that such a great channel has less than 50k subs. Literally underrated. Makes me wonder how many more hidden gems are there in UA-cam which are not yet become popular
Click on the avatar of people commenting, see what else if offered or they sub to (under Channels) - it's a great way to find new 'unpopular' channels (provided they subscribe - if they don't, you get 0 listings)
Wait, you modelled and animated all of this? After doing all that research and writing a script??? This is some of the highest quality content I've ever seen on the site. You've earned a sub.
@@SubjectZeroScience please could you make a video on Lerner's plasmoid focus fusion (LPPFusion) as i'm finding some mixed views on advancements, if his machine would work like he (Eric Lerner) claims, it would mean fusion without the need for heat transfer to drive turbines.. fingers crossed you read this, great channel btw! cheers
"should be done by 2020" "premiered 9 hours ago." it is currently week 2 of 2020. this video was in production longer than 2 weeks ago... nice work man
As someone with a background in molecular biology, your content is absolutely amazing. Your visuals along with your simple explanations of complex matters always gets the job done. Outstanding job. Keep it up!
Stellarators sounds like a name for a Star Trek space ship generator. - Hey Scotty I need those stellarators at 120% of their capacities now! - But Captain, that's very dangerous, it will blow up the whole Enterprise....but ok, I think if I increase the field force and cool down the magnets... - I don't want the science lesson Scotty.
frank brown The answer is: not far at all. The plasma is so hot that it cannot be dense if you want to contain it. Because of this, if the reactor had a breach, the atmosphere would flood in, cooling and stopping the reaction. If the whole reactor just disappeared, the plasma would shrink in size, not explode, as the atmospheric pressure collapsed it. Fusion power has many problems, like neutron radiation, but it cannot explode.
just found this channel but its the perfect mix of accurate information, REAL data driven analysis, up to date, and easily digestible thank you please keep making vids
Mate, I've got to take my hat off to you. You're clearly dedicated to your work, and try your best to have no bias on a subject, and only provide the facts. You put out gorgeous videos that are simple, yet informative. Have a lovely year, and I hope you get over a 100k subs this year!
Yeah, I was wondering when you'd get round to the 7X. Like you, I tried to look into it as much as possible a few years back to see if it was a better way to go than ITER. There was almost no information around and although the idea of having Supercomputers design and optimise the magnetic confinement seemed like a naturally better idea, it seemed that no one was paying this machine any attention. It seems cheaper and more efficient than ITER but I got the impression it was built more for plasma research than it was to produce a future fusion civil power plant design (due to its relatively small size). Your video seems to tell a different story and I'm glad to hear it. I have no idea why the focus is 100% on ITER when this thing seems to be capable of sustaining a stable plasma at a far smaller cost and scale. While Superconductors and other materials seem to be evolving in timescales that are faster than the 20 to 30-year time frames these machines somehow take to go from planning to reality, the optimised shape of the confinement shouldn't really change that much once simulated with enough computation. This stellarator type shape, therefore, will always be better than a standard toroidal one. Seeing as the 7X planning stage was at about the same time as the ITER design and therefore would have had the same supercomputers to design it with, I can only guess that they "went safe" on ITER by just scaling up instead of going with a design that had only been simulated. I guess it's best to go with both but I can't help thinking trusting the computation and Stelorator design of the 7X will bring better results and will be closer to future designs of actual commercial fusion powerplants. The danger is yet again we will head down the sunk cost fallacy route and develop sub-optimal and uneconomic designs based on the standard toroidal shape just because people are more familiar with it, as happened with Fission plants and LWR's when MSR's seemed far better suited to civil power production.
The work put into this video is outstanding. Just the visuals alone must take so much time and dedication. Well done. This channel will blow up eventually.
"Stellarator" I love the name, and whoever came up with it. It just fits so well for such a weird and interesting machine. Also, cliché but here we go, I would've guessed you'd be around 200-300k subs, but you're just under 50k which blows my mind, truly high quality content here, well researched and very entertaining and educational indeed. Looking forward to more like this in the future :)
Simple answer: because when you do the huge paperwork for a large international project, you take the status quo, most studied technology. The problem isn't ITER but the lack of fundings. ITER should have been 100% French and there should be a dozen ITER scale projects in the world. If this had happened, we would have seen other designs becoming the norm as projects would seek to differentiate themselves. Instead we waste trillions of euros in solar panels and wind turbines while it is impossible to solve the intermittency issue.
The diference is scale. The reason why ITER keeps going is because by design it is able to handle much stronger fusion reactions with a higher plasma density, even if it for less time than the self aligning stellarator. Both systems have pretty much an equal chance of being viable for energy production of fusion, but their effectiveness scale really changes. A stellarator can be made more compact and require less wiring overall, which makes it the ideal choice when it comes to producing energy in areas where weight and mass limitations are a thing. THe stellarator also does not need the strong supercomputers to tackle the magnetic fields variations to keep the reaction stable, as by design its shape will stabilize the reaction. However this works against the lifespan of the system under high power loads, due to the system's complexity making it far more likely to be degraded by whatever drift still occurs, due to the inherent proximity of the containement walls to the plasma stream. Meanwhile, a tokamak can be scaled up in power without too much risk, as the control over the magnetic field is higher, which would mean the reactor could be pushed to a much higher power output, which would make it inherently more fuel efficient. Obviously, both systems NEED to be tested in live operations to deduce if such high power loads can in fact be handled for sufficient periods of time, but a tokamak seems the more obvious solution to create a wide grid power supply (which is what ITER is designed to test). The high costs of developing fusion aren't that high, they are comparable to the costs invested to create working fission reactors, and with them you can aslo see the trends of politics and opinions getting in the way of scientific progress. Fission really shows every single facet of it, with the first schematics for working reactors being Thorium reactors, that was then canned by governements as thorium could not be used for nuclear bombs, while uranium could. So states instead shifted the reseach to less efficient, more dangerous and far less scalable uranium light water reactors, which then caused all the problems we came to wrongly assosiate with nuclear energy. Fusion is pretty much the same, it is constantly being sabotaged by organisms with diffrent mindsets and objectives. Countries that supply natural gas and oil to europe want the thing to fail due to it inherently putting their buisness at risk, european countries that can rely on wind or solar (however few that may be) also seek to divert european funds to help their own energy problems. the reason why france is really one of the only country that take the thing seriously is because france is the worst position for any of the standard renewable energies. they simply do not have enough renewables on their soil to make up for their needs, and they also do not have fosil fuels on their soil to exploit that instead. So they invest in the only energy that can work regardless of geological features: fission and fusion. At least that was the case before lobbies stormed the governement institutions and medias to halt the research on nuclear energy. The goal being to instead steer the country (and europe in general) towards a catastrophic hard transition to renewables (which includes preemptively demolishing existing power plants, to maje sure that any lackluster production could not be countered by simply switching the old power plants back on) which would play right into the agendas of oil and gas producing countries, which want the west dependant on them while they themselves make their energy transition.
Thank you for bringing this video out. There’s no way we would have found out anything about Wendelstein 7-x, let alone know stuff about it in-depth. Keep up the great work!
Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate how you explain everything so that a average person can understand. Its people like you that are going to see us through to tomorrow. May the force be with you.
Low cost energy production: You have a water tank filled with degassed deionized water, the water then goes through black pipes held in glassed-in insulated boxes so sunlight is captured to heat the water "it can get hot enough to boil at sea level" the piping then goes to a spray nozzle where the hot water instantly vaporizes the steam then goes to a turbine that drives an electrical generator, after the turbine the steam and any water that condensed in it travel at a downward angle through a pipe with a condensation coil around it to a large vacuum chamber that has heat transfer fins inside this preheats water from a large reservoir tank that then feeds to the starting tank. The constant rapid condensation of the steam combined with a volume of the vacuum chamber being 3x or larger than the volume of steam produce at any given time maintains the vacuum level so the process continues.
There is a reason why the tokamak is studied more: It is the more promising approach - same as you first try a simple thing like a steam-engine before going for a scram-jet. it also is better suited for experimentation.
Well I'm not too familiar with the topic but listened to a podcast that interviewed the Wendelstein 7-X physicists. They seemed pretty confident in the project. As is explained in the video constructing a stellarator which controls the magnetic field correctly was a big problem when the idea of the stellarator was first proposed. In fact in the podcast they talked about how the stellarator was not seen as a viable model for a fusion reactor by most physicists for a long time. For now it seems they are on a good way of proving that stellerator is now viable. Every test they have conducted so far has been successful.
@@marcelh7864 The 7-x has at least 80 billion worth of investment before proof of concept, probably closer to 150b. As a contrarian, I usually lean hard against institutional momentum. However, the detailed long-term advantages of the Tokamak configuration when compared against alternative designs overruled my objections. The time frame is no longer infinite and must be integrated with cost imo.
The reason why the Taco is studied as much as it is comes from the fact that you get research grants for familiar things and skepticism from unfamiliar things. The people in charge of cutting the checks are not smart people, and are actually kind of dumb. They believe that incremental improvements can be made to the taco in order to make it a practical fusion reactor - at best. More generally, they are doing a favor for the guy they met at the swingers party who let them bang their wife. The reality is that the taco is not physically capable of sustaining fusion under even ideal material properties. Superconductors that can withstand the temperatures of fusion, itself, wouldn't make the taco work, because the energy needed to contain the reaction grows proportionally to the energy produced through fusion. The stellarator at least is aware of this fact and uses the EMF of the fusion reaction to self-pinch the reaction. This is rather basic particle physics we've known for a long time - verified by research done for the SDI. Interestingly, we've had the stellarator concept in fiction for some time - Battletech fusion reactors are described precisely as being the Stellarator. Of course... The people who wrote some of the supplementary lore and technical readouts would not, in any way, have ever worked on a real, functioning nuclear fusion reactor anywhere.
It is well known how wildly off could be cost estimates for complex projects. The estimate says about nothing. You can tell the actual price only after it's completed. Moreover, in contrast to ITER, 7-X is not intended to demonstrate power production (correct me if I am wrong).
Yes and no. Yes, since unlike ITER, W7-X isn't even equipped with Tritium handling facilities (that thing is expensive especially with all the bureaucracy attached) so it can't possibly show breaking breakeven, only theoretical calculations that are based on "if instead of pure deuterium we used mix of D+T we most likely got this result" But no not really, since ITER isn't designed to show production of electrical power as well i.e. work as a power plant only (well not only but that is one of the major ideas) that it can produce much more thermal power than is being put in. That job is for Even Bigger power plant DEMO.
Hey! I just found your channel today, but you already have all my respect. As someone who also works in 3D modelling and animation, I know just how long it can take to make quality content like this. You definitely have my sub, and probably patreon too once I get around to not being broke, haha I'll definitely spread the good word about you!
Been watching your content for a while now, your visuals and development are excellent. The bit about the sponsor has me hooked, I've been looking for quality guided scientific information. Seriously thank you for your work.
Best Ad insert for The Great Courses Plus I've ever seen on a UA-cam video! More effective at convincing me to give it a try, than any other, including TGCP itself! ;)
Very nice video! I'd just like to add/clarify a few things: In a lot of current machines carbon walls are used, there is another reason this is undesirable: The carbon can bind with deuterium(D) or tritium(T) can for hydrocarbons in the gaps between the wall tiles. This is basically a sponge for your fuel, for D it does not matter much as you have a lot of it, but T has to be made! Also, in case of a major accident. Let's say the device is sabotaged and explodes, these hydrocarbons with T in it are radioactive, and will be scattered across the country by the wind, not to great. This is why new machines have switched to using Tungsten divertor tiles. Classical stellarators are great, but the coils are not modular, that is one of the advantages of a helias device such as Wendelstein. Stellarators do not suffer from disruptions, because they do not have the plasma current induced by the central solenoid. Stellarators are very cool, but they are still one 'generation' behind. ITER will try to demonstrate a burning plasma, one that can be self sustaining (in terms of energy). Wendelstein is not even trying to do that yet. Also to close the fuel cycle one must breed tritium using a lithium blanket, this will be tested in a section of ITER. This has never been done before. So even if w7x will be very succesfull, there is still a lot of value in running ITER (and other tokamaks). Who knows what we might learn about magnetic confinement fusion on this unprecidented scale. Exciting times for sure!
This channel deserves more fame than it has now. The contents are great and the way of explanation with beautiful animations are simply superb and easy to understand. **Subscribed**
Really great summary and expaination of the 7-X. I agree it is very difficult to find data on this amazing machine, especially when you dont speak German. Thanks for all your hard work and research for putting this together! People really do appreciate it. Keep it up. I'm staying tuned for you're next video.
I'm impressed with the content, quality and with the animation of the video. I wonder if you have any tips on learning blender? ( trying to learn for animation ). One more subscriber.
Excellent video. You've almost convinced me to use a stellarator in my sci-fi WIP. Two questions. First, how does the Stellarator stack up against the NIF's laser intertial fusion energy approach. Second, what's the neutron leak like versus that of other fusion generator types?
I completely agree about trying to find anything worthwhile on the Internet anymore. Last 10-15 years, it’s suddenly completely useless to find any actual info. You use to be able to find reliable information about any topic. You can’t anymore. It’s all been removed or copyrighted (even when it’s free to distribute to the public - some company will claim its ownership and block it from transmission). It’s crazy. All this ability to share information and we’re going to have to go back to books.
I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, I'm just trying to learn about this as a layman. How do you gain energy from this process if it takes 20mev to get 3.5mev in return. Surely the heat needed to cause fusion takes up so much energy that little is gained?
You said you had a hard time collecting information on the Wendelstein 7-X. But if Stellarators really are as efficient and problem-solving as you say, why is that? Should there not be more excitement about them than about ITER in the scientific circles? How much discourse is there about which one is better?
Stellarators have historically been a bit behind when it comes to energy confinement due to drifting particle orbits (google "neoclassical confinement stellarators", you will find some overview papers on that). W7-X is the result of optimization based on particle orbit simulations in order to get the Stellarator closer to the Tokamak in this regard. It improves the situation, but the strong symmetry of the Tokamak gives it an intrinsic advantage here. Since Tokamaks have had a head-start, they are one / two size-levels ahead (W7-X has an average minor radius - meaning the radius of the tube, not the distance from the center - of ~0.5m, while ITER has ~2m). Therefore, they are much closer to power-plant-like scales. To get to reactor-relevant sizes, you need a bigger Stellarator than W7-X. The size difference is probably the major reason why ITER is so expensive.
I'm a huge fan of the stellarator design for fusion because 1. it offers the potential of uninterrupted power production, unlike other concepts that must reset themself regularly or work more like a ICE. 2. I took a tour of the wendelstein-7x a few years ago, when it was in a redesign phase.
I'm glad UA-cam recommended you. I'd never heard of the Wendelstein 7-X before. I know the topology of the fusion containment is important but this is the first time I've thought that knot theory (or possibly braids) could also be relevant to this sort of real world problem.
To my knowledge (and please correct me if im wrong), the super computers of the early 80´s were the first ones with enough computing power to calculate the optimal shape for the magnetic field for the stellarator. previous computers simply didnt had enough power for it. as an additional information the stellarator at the Max Planck institute in Greifswald is part of a german university with much more lower funding than the ITER project with a multinational funding structure. also the stellerator is a non power net gain experiment to prove that the technology is possible, in comparison the iter is the first experimental reactor wich will achive a net gain of power. @@UCRXRbi80k0_vcIfgpOSerTg +1 abo for you
Very interesting video, knowing now that the shape of the confinement field is actually a key foundational requirement makes a great deal of sense and it's exciting to consider what additional improvements can be made to address the energy efficiency of such a machine.
Please don't do premieres, they are widely disliked and most educational channels that tried them stop using this feature. On the subscription feed premieres look like videos, misleading subscribers into clicking on the video and then realizing they've been tricked. Moreover, I have an extension that hides watched videos from my subscription feed and after clicking on premiere by mistake, the actual video will be hidden for me later too.
When I see that I see the time and effort that went into designing such a complex shape... then the time and effort into manufacturing of those parts. It's an aesthetically pleasing shape and design but wow the engineering!
Brother you are amazing please keep making more videos! I know doing the research is hard but in time more and more people like us will find you and they must subscribe to you because you make such amazing videos. And that will happen all this hard work will become worth it. Best of luck!
Amazing video as usually. The supplier of vacuum-chambers was MAN DWE, now MAN Energy Solution in Germany. This company is specialized to manufacture special vessels, reactors.
Awesome video man, I felt like I better understood Stallarator reactors from this video and it was just really well presented. Keep up the good work man, you just got a subscriber more in me.
I was about to ask for the sources of your information but then looked at the video description, thanks a tonne for this vid mate I literally couldnt have enjoyed it anymore as a couple of days ago I tried looking into the wendelstein and found little to easily accessible information on it. Hope to see more content on the channel :)
This is one of the best videos on nuclear fusion reactors on the internet. Great animations and script. Congrats! I wonder if you could make a future video regarding the HB11 Energy design that is based on laser fusion of hydrogen and boron.
The patreon link doesn't work? 404 error... :(
Fixed. Thank you for pointing that out.
@@SubjectZeroScience shalom 😇
Vaku
Takmark gas desktop fusion rector gas to the sun
Staetor hydrogen collider deturum
@@SubjectZeroScience I am the author of the third method of achieving nuclear fusion, this is the repetition of physical conditions as in the solar corona. In 6 months there will be a small prototype of a commercial fusion reactor. A commercial fusion reactor in 1-2 years! Power 100 kW.
For many years (almost 25 years) I have been convincing scientists that thermonuclear fusion in the Sun occurs not in the core of the Sun, but in the solar corona !!! But scientists are very stubborn, and do not want to believe the obvious. Why are scientists not accepting new breakthrough scientific ideas? There is an assumption, accepted by most scientists, that thermonuclear fusion in the Sun occurs in the Sun's core. But no one has ever actually confirmed this. This is just a guess, the fantasy of an authoritative physicist. Scientists are currently using two methods to achieve nuclear fusion: inertial confinement and magnetic confinement. But there is also a third method of achieving nuclear fusion, this is the repetition of physical conditions as in the solar corona. Nobody is using this third method to achieve nuclear fusion? In 6 months there will be a small prototype of a commercial fusion reactor. A commercial fusion reactor in 1-2 years! I propose a technology transfer for a commercial fusion reactor under a contract. Thermonuclear fusion in the Sun - a new version. n-t.ru/tp/ie/ts.htm ua-cam.com/video/izCALj848xU/v-deo.html
I'm a student on second year of a Plasma and fusion masters degree, every teacher works on the side for ITER research, but almost everyone says ITER will not work or that tokamaks will not work (they are not the machine we will use). Some of them (i also think this) think that Stellators are the way due to the reduce number of instabilities, the only difficulty is that stellators coils are hard to make due to the weird shapes, you cant' make a mold (or a process) and then make every coil, no every coil is different.
Thanks for this video man, glad this information is going to the public
Every technical component was unique at some point! :-)
You need multiple molds for one Stellarator, yes,
but you can use those molds when building multiple of the same type Stellarators!
X7 just needs to be the "proof of concept" and break even savely and stable. After that production can be streamline just like car parts.
Weird and precise shapes is something we're getting much better at, especially with 3D printers. Just now I noticed that there was a project to print a hollow cylinder using YBCO powder. While 3D printing isn't an ideal process for mass production, I think it's more than good enough to churn out stellarator coils for our current needs.
Didn't the Commonwealth team show that high T fields achieved by rebco magnets eliminate a lot of the really bad turbulence in plain old tokamak plasmas? What would really be interesting is a small high T stellerator built with rebco superconductors.
Hey, serious question... I'm in a Space Resources PhD program and one of the big things we're counting on is additive manufacturing (3D printing) in space. A company, Made In Space, is making fiber cables significantly more efficiently because the crystalline structure of the cable has 0 faults due to the micro-gravity environment (crystals get unavoidable gravity-induced faults during creation). This is mainly being done with sights on the telecom community, but more specifically to medical or investment fields where the added efficiency of the cable really matters.
... Could this, or any other type of micro-gravity 3D printing help with the components necessary for these machines?
It's sad that such a great channel has less than 50k subs. Literally underrated.
Makes me wonder how many more hidden gems are there in UA-cam which are not yet become popular
I just noticed he has 47k, what the fuck? I thought he had 300k before.
Click on the avatar of people commenting, see what else if offered or they sub to (under Channels) - it's a great way to find new 'unpopular' channels (provided they subscribe - if they don't, you get 0 listings)
You gotta have a Skinny Trendy Geeky fast talking host with jump cuts every 3.3 seconds ...
Give it some time. I subscribed to Ozzyman Reviews when he had 4000 subscribers in 2014. He has almost 4 million now. Great content will find its way
@Swooz determination is key 🎉
We all love you man. All that research and time you put in to bring us the highest of quality videos will not go unchecked.
Wait, you modelled and animated all of this? After doing all that research and writing a script???
This is some of the highest quality content I've ever seen on the site. You've earned a sub.
Everything is beautifully presented, I really appreciate your drive to mitigate misinformation too. Great video!
Thank you.
@@SubjectZeroScience please could you make a video on Lerner's plasmoid focus fusion (LPPFusion) as i'm finding some mixed views on advancements, if his machine would work like he (Eric Lerner) claims, it would mean fusion without the need for heat transfer to drive turbines.. fingers crossed you read this, great channel btw! cheers
@@SubjectZeroScience if stellarators are better, who don't people use them instead of tokamaks. What are the problems with it if any?
Boris moment
@@GalaxyAeterna much more complicated shape, very hard to make correctly
He: it is super difficult to find information about the 7-x online
Me: I didn't even searched, the information came to me
Almost like he's promoting it... IMHO
you know when something is important, because you cant find information
And they say UA-cam is unproductive!
courtesy of a smart subscription move made months ago
There a actually is quite a bit, if you can read german.
"should be done by 2020" "premiered 9 hours ago." it is currently week 2 of 2020. this video was in production longer than 2 weeks ago... nice work man
"By the end of 2020" would be a more accruate way to say it. That's usually how it goes when a date is dropped. ^^"
and now we have covid
@@ripmorld9909 ....and we still have covid and it's December.
Can confirm, is still Covid
Well, it's mid 2021 already. As they say, nuclear fusion is always 30 years away, till it isn't
As someone with a background in molecular biology, your content is absolutely amazing. Your visuals along with your simple explanations of complex matters always gets the job done. Outstanding job. Keep it up!
The animations on this video are one of the highest quality I've seen in educational content. Amazing.
Major props for putting together this channel. Takes a special kind of person to do all is work, right after working a day job. Mad respect!
Stellarators sounds like a name for a Star Trek space ship generator.
- Hey Scotty I need those stellarators at 120% of their capacities now!
- But Captain, that's very dangerous, it will blow up the whole Enterprise....but ok, I think if I increase the field force and cool down the magnets...
- I don't want the science lesson Scotty.
The funny part is that’s exactly what they are doing now by installing a water jacket to help cool it.
@@saccharin- Blame the Captain, he always wants everything at 120% of its capacity.
@@saccharin- And not, I'm not an engineer from the future....👀
I absolutely love the name
i mean STELLARATORS is really cool
i like the mobius strip shape.
cooler ng Iter ...
frank brown
The answer is: not far at all. The plasma is so hot that it cannot be dense if you want to contain it. Because of this, if the reactor had a breach, the atmosphere would flood in, cooling and stopping the reaction.
If the whole reactor just disappeared, the plasma would shrink in size, not explode, as the atmospheric pressure collapsed it.
Fusion power has many problems, like neutron radiation, but it cannot explode.
@frank brown sounds like your trying to compare firecrackers to dynamite.
@frank brown remember: there is nothing in space for heat to go too, and the solar flares can be a few dozen times larger than Earth
This is the highest quality editing and content I've seen on UA-cam. I'm so impressed.
just found this channel but its the perfect mix of accurate information, REAL data driven analysis, up to date, and easily digestible thank you please keep making vids
We're done here
- Cave Johnson
[Puts combustible lemons into stellarator]
Mcgravier I came to the comments just to see if anyone else got that.
In the Shed, same here ... I also looked in the comments for this one ...
No don’t
Who wants to test this? $50. Cash. No questions asked
*Fun fact:* Some of the older (~1 year) videos channel even more *Cave Johnson.*
Mate, I've got to take my hat off to you. You're clearly dedicated to your work, and try your best to have no bias on a subject, and only provide the facts. You put out gorgeous videos that are simple, yet informative. Have a lovely year, and I hope you get over a 100k subs this year!
Yeah, I was wondering when you'd get round to the 7X. Like you, I tried to look into it as much as possible a few years back to see if it was a better way to go than ITER. There was almost no information around and although the idea of having Supercomputers design and optimise the magnetic confinement seemed like a naturally better idea, it seemed that no one was paying this machine any attention.
It seems cheaper and more efficient than ITER but I got the impression it was built more for plasma research than it was to produce a future fusion civil power plant design (due to its relatively small size). Your video seems to tell a different story and I'm glad to hear it. I have no idea why the focus is 100% on ITER when this thing seems to be capable of sustaining a stable plasma at a far smaller cost and scale.
While Superconductors and other materials seem to be evolving in timescales that are faster than the 20 to 30-year time frames these machines somehow take to go from planning to reality, the optimised shape of the confinement shouldn't really change that much once simulated with enough computation. This stellarator type shape, therefore, will always be better than a standard toroidal one. Seeing as the 7X planning stage was at about the same time as the ITER design and therefore would have had the same supercomputers to design it with, I can only guess that they "went safe" on ITER by just scaling up instead of going with a design that had only been simulated.
I guess it's best to go with both but I can't help thinking trusting the computation and Stelorator design of the 7X will bring better results and will be closer to future designs of actual commercial fusion powerplants.
The danger is yet again we will head down the sunk cost fallacy route and develop sub-optimal and uneconomic designs based on the standard toroidal shape just because people are more familiar with it, as happened with Fission plants and LWR's when MSR's seemed far better suited to civil power production.
The work put into this video is outstanding. Just the visuals alone must take so much time and dedication. Well done. This channel will blow up eventually.
"Stellarator"
I love the name, and whoever came up with it. It just fits so well for such a weird and interesting machine. Also, cliché but here we go, I would've guessed you'd be around 200-300k subs, but you're just under 50k which blows my mind, truly high quality content here, well researched and very entertaining and educational indeed. Looking forward to more like this in the future :)
Avana agreed and subbed
When watching the ITER video, I wondered why they were going with a traditional torus rather than the 7-X. I'm glad it was addressed in this video.
Simple answer: because when you do the huge paperwork for a large international project, you take the status quo, most studied technology.
The problem isn't ITER but the lack of fundings. ITER should have been 100% French and there should be a dozen ITER scale projects in the world. If this had happened, we would have seen other designs becoming the norm as projects would seek to differentiate themselves.
Instead we waste trillions of euros in solar panels and wind turbines while it is impossible to solve the intermittency issue.
The diference is scale. The reason why ITER keeps going is because by design it is able to handle much stronger fusion reactions with a higher plasma density, even if it for less time than the self aligning stellarator. Both systems have pretty much an equal chance of being viable for energy production of fusion, but their effectiveness scale really changes. A stellarator can be made more compact and require less wiring overall, which makes it the ideal choice when it comes to producing energy in areas where weight and mass limitations are a thing. THe stellarator also does not need the strong supercomputers to tackle the magnetic fields variations to keep the reaction stable, as by design its shape will stabilize the reaction. However this works against the lifespan of the system under high power loads, due to the system's complexity making it far more likely to be degraded by whatever drift still occurs, due to the inherent proximity of the containement walls to the plasma stream.
Meanwhile, a tokamak can be scaled up in power without too much risk, as the control over the magnetic field is higher, which would mean the reactor could be pushed to a much higher power output, which would make it inherently more fuel efficient. Obviously, both systems NEED to be tested in live operations to deduce if such high power loads can in fact be handled for sufficient periods of time, but a tokamak seems the more obvious solution to create a wide grid power supply (which is what ITER is designed to test).
The high costs of developing fusion aren't that high, they are comparable to the costs invested to create working fission reactors, and with them you can aslo see the trends of politics and opinions getting in the way of scientific progress. Fission really shows every single facet of it, with the first schematics for working reactors being Thorium reactors, that was then canned by governements as thorium could not be used for nuclear bombs, while uranium could. So states instead shifted the reseach to less efficient, more dangerous and far less scalable uranium light water reactors, which then caused all the problems we came to wrongly assosiate with nuclear energy.
Fusion is pretty much the same, it is constantly being sabotaged by organisms with diffrent mindsets and objectives. Countries that supply natural gas and oil to europe want the thing to fail due to it inherently putting their buisness at risk, european countries that can rely on wind or solar (however few that may be) also seek to divert european funds to help their own energy problems. the reason why france is really one of the only country that take the thing seriously is because france is the worst position for any of the standard renewable energies. they simply do not have enough renewables on their soil to make up for their needs, and they also do not have fosil fuels on their soil to exploit that instead. So they invest in the only energy that can work regardless of geological features: fission and fusion. At least that was the case before lobbies stormed the governement institutions and medias to halt the research on nuclear energy. The goal being to instead steer the country (and europe in general) towards a catastrophic hard transition to renewables (which includes preemptively demolishing existing power plants, to maje sure that any lackluster production could not be countered by simply switching the old power plants back on) which would play right into the agendas of oil and gas producing countries, which want the west dependant on them while they themselves make their energy transition.
@@mobiuscoreindustries thank you very much for the detailed explanation!
Thank you for bringing this video out. There’s no way we would have found out anything about Wendelstein 7-x, let alone know stuff about it in-depth. Keep up the great work!
I knew most of it before because i am a cool guy
@@gueldenerlarry8270 obvious bait 🌝
@@gueldenerlarry8270 Jaja, Güldener Larry :D
Gueldener Larry
I bet you can cool the million kelvin temperature of the reactor
Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate how you explain everything so that a average person can understand. Its people like you that are going to see us through to tomorrow. May the force be with you.
00:40 - Animated with Blender, Styled by Tony Stark.
Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!
Tonny
Whos tonny stark
Low cost energy production: You have a water tank filled with degassed deionized water, the water then goes through black pipes held in glassed-in insulated boxes so sunlight is captured to heat the water "it can get hot enough to boil at sea level" the piping then goes to a spray nozzle where the hot water instantly vaporizes the steam then goes to a turbine that drives an electrical generator, after the turbine the steam and any water that condensed in it travel at a downward angle through a pipe with a condensation coil around it to a large vacuum chamber that has heat transfer fins inside this preheats water from a large reservoir tank that then feeds to the starting tank.
The constant rapid condensation of the steam combined with a volume of the vacuum chamber being 3x or larger than the volume of steam produce at any given time maintains the vacuum level so the process continues.
There is a reason why the tokamak is studied more:
It is the more promising approach - same as you first try a simple thing like a steam-engine before going for a scram-jet. it also is better suited for experimentation.
Well I'm not too familiar with the topic but listened to a podcast that interviewed the Wendelstein 7-X physicists. They seemed pretty confident in the project.
As is explained in the video constructing a stellarator which controls the magnetic field correctly was a big problem when the idea of the stellarator was first proposed.
In fact in the podcast they talked about how the stellarator was not seen as a viable model for a fusion reactor by most physicists for a long time. For now it seems they are on a good way of proving that stellerator is now viable. Every test they have conducted so far has been successful.
@@marcelh7864 The 7-x has at least 80 billion worth of investment before proof of concept, probably closer to 150b. As a contrarian, I usually lean hard against institutional momentum. However, the detailed long-term advantages of the Tokamak configuration when compared against alternative designs overruled my objections. The time frame is no longer infinite and must be integrated with cost imo.
@@markromine5103 imagine self identifying as a contrarian without a hint of irony.
@@auscaliber1 It's not lost on me. In fact, it's a rather painful cognitive dissonance that I frequently expose online. Feel free to point and laugh.
The reason why the Taco is studied as much as it is comes from the fact that you get research grants for familiar things and skepticism from unfamiliar things.
The people in charge of cutting the checks are not smart people, and are actually kind of dumb. They believe that incremental improvements can be made to the taco in order to make it a practical fusion reactor - at best. More generally, they are doing a favor for the guy they met at the swingers party who let them bang their wife.
The reality is that the taco is not physically capable of sustaining fusion under even ideal material properties. Superconductors that can withstand the temperatures of fusion, itself, wouldn't make the taco work, because the energy needed to contain the reaction grows proportionally to the energy produced through fusion.
The stellarator at least is aware of this fact and uses the EMF of the fusion reaction to self-pinch the reaction. This is rather basic particle physics we've known for a long time - verified by research done for the SDI.
Interestingly, we've had the stellarator concept in fiction for some time - Battletech fusion reactors are described precisely as being the Stellarator. Of course... The people who wrote some of the supplementary lore and technical readouts would not, in any way, have ever worked on a real, functioning nuclear fusion reactor anywhere.
Wow, This is the youtube channel Ive been looking for all my life. Keep being detailed and going deep on topics.
It is well known how wildly off could be cost estimates for complex projects. The estimate says about nothing. You can tell the actual price only after it's completed. Moreover, in contrast to ITER, 7-X is not intended to demonstrate power production (correct me if I am wrong).
Yes and no.
Yes, since unlike ITER, W7-X isn't even equipped with Tritium handling facilities (that thing is expensive especially with all the bureaucracy attached) so it can't possibly show breaking breakeven, only theoretical calculations that are based on "if instead of pure deuterium we used mix of D+T we most likely got this result"
But no not really, since ITER isn't designed to show production of electrical power as well i.e. work as a power plant only (well not only but that is one of the major ideas) that it can produce much more thermal power than is being put in. That job is for Even Bigger power plant DEMO.
I respect your honesty of where you pull info and research! Makes me feel like I can trust what you are telling me unlike a lot of youtube.
How long does it take you to animate (including meking the model) and render in Blender ? @Subject Zero Science
About 80 hours.
@@SubjectZeroScience And the render specifically ?
@@SubjectZeroScience Or do you use a blender online render farm?
@@SubjectZeroScience Where did you get the models? Did you recreate them manually, were they published online, or did you contact someone for them?
@@SubjectZeroScience Jeez...You could achieve Fusion in that time
This was the first video about fusion in a looong while that really taught me some new things. Great work man!
"No, not tokyo drift." 😂
DEJAVU
I caught that one too 😂😂
??
@@aldairpadilladaza8865 7:37
Magnetic fields be like: "...NANI"
Hey! I just found your channel today, but you already have all my respect. As someone who also works in 3D modelling and animation, I know just how long it can take to make quality content like this. You definitely have my sub, and probably patreon too once I get around to not being broke, haha
I'll definitely spread the good word about you!
Quality content, a detailed list of sources, clear distinction between scientific facts and hypothesis.
Subscribed!
Been watching your content for a while now, your visuals and development are excellent.
The bit about the sponsor has me hooked, I've been looking for quality guided scientific information.
Seriously thank you for your work.
Best Ad insert for The Great Courses Plus I've ever seen on a UA-cam video! More effective at convincing me to give it a try, than any other, including TGCP itself! ;)
Very nice video! I'd just like to add/clarify a few things:
In a lot of current machines carbon walls are used, there is another reason this is undesirable:
The carbon can bind with deuterium(D) or tritium(T) can for hydrocarbons in the gaps between the wall tiles.
This is basically a sponge for your fuel, for D it does not matter much as you have a lot of it, but T has to be made!
Also, in case of a major accident. Let's say the device is sabotaged and explodes, these hydrocarbons with T in it are radioactive, and will be scattered across the country by the wind, not to great.
This is why new machines have switched to using Tungsten divertor tiles.
Classical stellarators are great, but the coils are not modular, that is one of the advantages of a helias device such as Wendelstein.
Stellarators do not suffer from disruptions, because they do not have the plasma current induced by the central solenoid.
Stellarators are very cool, but they are still one 'generation' behind. ITER will try to demonstrate a burning plasma, one that can be self sustaining (in terms of energy).
Wendelstein is not even trying to do that yet. Also to close the fuel cycle one must breed tritium using a lithium blanket, this will be tested in a section of ITER.
This has never been done before. So even if w7x will be very succesfull, there is still a lot of value in running ITER (and other tokamaks).
Who knows what we might learn about magnetic confinement fusion on this unprecidented scale.
Exciting times for sure!
Amazing animation skills.. I wish I had half the skill and knowledge to create such videos. Great work. A lot of interesting info.
This channel deserves more fame than it has now. The contents are great and the way of explanation with beautiful animations are simply superb and easy to understand.
**Subscribed**
I always thought Wendelstein 7x Stellarator sounds like the name of some doomsday device part of some secret weapons project.
Like an Illudium Q36 Explosive Space Modulator?
Well, it's a german machine, so... 🤔
😅
Really great summary and expaination of the 7-X. I agree it is very difficult to find data on this amazing machine, especially when you dont speak German. Thanks for all your hard work and research for putting this together! People really do appreciate it. Keep it up. I'm staying tuned for you're next video.
I'm impressed with the content, quality and with the animation of the video.
I wonder if you have any tips on learning blender? ( trying to learn for animation ).
One more subscriber.
Roye Avidor he straight up skipped your question man.
Excellent content. I appreciate the detailed animations, and the dedication to thorough research you put forth. Keep up the good work!
Sub-Zero never lose your personality when presenting. You're amazing!!
This guy needs great editing award 👌👌👌👌
Excellent video. You've almost convinced me to use a stellarator in my sci-fi WIP. Two questions. First, how does the Stellarator stack up against the NIF's laser intertial fusion energy approach. Second, what's the neutron leak like versus that of other fusion generator types?
I completely agree about trying to find anything worthwhile on the Internet anymore. Last 10-15 years, it’s suddenly completely useless to find any actual info. You use to be able to find reliable information about any topic. You can’t anymore. It’s all been removed or copyrighted (even when it’s free to distribute to the public - some company will claim its ownership and block it from transmission). It’s crazy. All this ability to share information and we’re going to have to go back to books.
I am currently writing a review article on exactly this topic. This vid was loads of help. Thnx
This is a great, high quality, informative channel. Keep it up, seriously. You are doing the Universe's work lol
Dont understand why this channel doesnt have more subscribers! Keep up the quality vids, thank you
This is incredible and has me so excited about this field of science.
I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, I'm just trying to learn about this as a layman. How do you gain energy from this process if it takes 20mev to get 3.5mev in return. Surely the heat needed to cause fusion takes up so much energy that little is gained?
You said you had a hard time collecting information on the Wendelstein 7-X. But if Stellarators really are as efficient and problem-solving as you say, why is that? Should there not be more excitement about them than about ITER in the scientific circles? How much discourse is there about which one is better?
Stellarators have historically been a bit behind when it comes to energy confinement due to drifting particle orbits (google "neoclassical confinement stellarators", you will find some overview papers on that). W7-X is the result of optimization based on particle orbit simulations in order to get the Stellarator closer to the Tokamak in this regard. It improves the situation, but the strong symmetry of the Tokamak gives it an intrinsic advantage here.
Since Tokamaks have had a head-start, they are one / two size-levels ahead (W7-X has an average minor radius - meaning the radius of the tube, not the distance from the center - of ~0.5m, while ITER has ~2m). Therefore, they are much closer to power-plant-like scales. To get to reactor-relevant sizes, you need a bigger Stellarator than W7-X. The size difference is probably the major reason why ITER is so expensive.
I'm a huge fan of the stellarator design for fusion because
1. it offers the potential of uninterrupted power production, unlike other concepts that must reset themself regularly or work more like a ICE.
2. I took a tour of the wendelstein-7x a few years ago, when it was in a redesign phase.
you had me at the thumbnail.
subscribed
I'm glad UA-cam recommended you. I'd never heard of the Wendelstein 7-X before. I know the topology of the fusion containment is important but this is the first time I've thought that knot theory (or possibly braids) could also be relevant to this sort of real world problem.
>80s - countries start to explore magnetic confinement
Oh come on. That's just... wrong.
To my knowledge (and please correct me if im wrong), the super computers of the early 80´s were the first ones with enough computing power to calculate the optimal shape for the magnetic field for the stellarator. previous computers simply didnt had enough power for it. as an additional information the stellarator at the Max Planck institute in Greifswald is part of a german university with much more lower funding than the ITER project with a multinational funding structure. also the stellerator is a non power net gain experiment to prove that the technology is possible, in comparison the iter is the first experimental reactor wich will achive a net gain of power. @@UCRXRbi80k0_vcIfgpOSerTg +1 abo for you
Very interesting video, knowing now that the shape of the confinement field is actually a key foundational requirement makes a great deal of sense and it's exciting to consider what additional improvements can be made to address the energy efficiency of such a machine.
Amazing video... I wish more videos like this could be more famous.
found a great channel, just learning through advanced physics and i think your videos will help a lot
Why premier?
Hello people, did anyone realize how cool is the graphic? From 3D to font whoever does the graphic design deserves a Nobel Prize!
You should show us how you make your videos I think it would be very interesting
Will do.
These CGI are top tier. Beautiful presentation all around, too. Subbed!
0:46 to skip intro if you already read the description.
Thank you sir for taking the time to enlighten us with beautiful knowledge and beautiful animation,
This is perfect
Please don't do premieres, they are widely disliked and most educational channels that tried them stop using this feature. On the subscription feed premieres look like videos, misleading subscribers into clicking on the video and then realizing they've been tricked. Moreover, I have an extension that hides watched videos from my subscription feed and after clicking on premiere by mistake, the actual video will be hidden for me later too.
Or just turn on Notifications?
Will do. I thought about using it to show that I am done with a project since I cannot promise videos on a scheduled basis.
When I see that I see the time and effort that went into designing such a complex shape... then the time and effort into manufacturing of those parts. It's an aesthetically pleasing shape and design but wow the engineering!
Little typo at 3 min 5 seconds :) " Welndestein" instead of Wendelstein, greetings from germany.
3:05
@@NoNameAtAll2 thx
Okay, now this is stuff I have no understanding of, but do appreciate people making it simple... subbed.
We're in for another high quality video ~
Your Chanel covers basically everything I’m interested in (for Graphene and nanotech to fusion energy), keep it up man!
@2:53 my favorite part
One of the highest quality and informative videos on fusion i've ever watched thank you!
yes, yes, Yes, YES, YES, YES!!
is this the choice of steins gate?
Finally a well done production on fusion. Thank you for the hard work and effort.
Why tease when the video will take so long to release, not cool
Eh this wasn't so bad, I've seen people put up the premiere notice over two weeks in advance.
Brother you are amazing please keep making more videos! I know doing the research is hard but in time more and more people like us will find you and they must subscribe to you because you make such amazing videos. And that will happen all this hard work will become worth it. Best of luck!
The add at the begining is too long.
Your video's are made so good! Thanks for doing this research and making it understandable.
Wow, that's really interesting. :D
The image at 11:17 is just one of the many satisfying images in this great video.
Took me a while to get out the snare off my ankle. Hope no one else got baited
Really informative and beautifully animated. Great job!
Video starts at 2:50
That was one of the longest in video ads I've seen.
Why would anybody dislike these videos?! They're amazing and i hope you keep making them.
Real-life arc reactor, anyone?
Patience, we need the big one first
@@vyliad Oh yeah, I'm talking the OG, Howard Stark era big one!
I appreciate how much you research your subject
The problem with fusion is that with the resources spent on fusion, we'd already have thorium reactors throughout the world.
Wendelstein 7x costs only 1.06 billion € over all (18 years), compared to appr. 18 billion € for ITER only to start it.
Amazing video as usually. The supplier of vacuum-chambers was MAN DWE, now MAN Energy Solution in Germany. This company is specialized to manufacture special vessels, reactors.
The add was soooo long! I gave up watching the video.
Awesome video man, I felt like I better understood Stallarator reactors from this video and it was just really well presented. Keep up the good work man, you just got a subscriber more in me.
I was about to ask for the sources of your information but then looked at the video description, thanks a tonne for this vid mate I literally couldnt have enjoyed it anymore as a couple of days ago I tried looking into the wendelstein and found little to easily accessible information on it. Hope to see more content on the channel :)
Your visuals & editing is so beautiful so concise
Suscribed. Beautiful presentation, wonderful renders, informed research and soothing voice.
Started free trial of the great courses. Thanks. Been meaning to check it out. Needed a little nudge. ❤️
Man you made this so easy and simple to follow.
This is one of the best videos on nuclear fusion reactors on the internet. Great animations and script. Congrats!
I wonder if you could make a future video regarding the HB11 Energy design that is based on laser fusion of hydrogen and boron.
Can't wait the next video on this subject !
There are so few videos about fusion, and even fewer updates about current projects.
I'm happy you do so much research and also come back to past topics you made before