Inside America's largest magnetic fusion facility and the hunt for limitless energy

[@stevechance150]

Scientists could discover how to make completely free energy, energy that costs the power plant nothing, and the local power company will still bill me $185 a month.

[@gerbenkarman3372]

You will always need a grid to transport that energy and someone that maintaince it

[@nick_0]

Nothing is free, power plants still need raw material, labor for oversight and maintenance, even if it’s done by robots there’s an upfront cost that requires payback, transportation, and even more associated costs. Maybe one day it’ll be cheap enough unlimited enough our taxes will essentially pay for it so no electricity bill, but we still technically pay for it regardless

[@dodgygoose3054]

You know that you can go with solar panels & battery storage today, be totally off grid with your own power supply. Yes it may cost you but you wont be paying someone else monthly and you'll be in charge of your own energy infrastructure.

[@Beerbatter1962]

They will also need to recover the billions and billions of dollars going into the research and development. Those investors will expect a return on their investment eventually.

[@mnoun8871]

Energy is a commodity like gold and diamonds regulated to spend more money in order to keep prices up

[@xjohnny1000]

$1.48 billion for fusion $108 billion for infrastructure $800 billion for military $870 billion for debt interest payments Fusion doesn't even register as an error bar in government spending.

[@stevechance150]

I thought Military spending was $850 Billion, with a 2028 target of hitting ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

[@Privacityuser]

Gaslighting FUSION NEED GRAVITY NOT ARTIFICIAL DENSITY

[@akshatdon4439]

Why upload on 1st April

[@chrisstevens2]

Best energy solution in two words: Hamster Power!

[@SisavatManthong-yb1yn]

Adults sites is cartoons? Nice to know

[@user-qr7ee2cp4y]

Best solution is to use less.

[@flotsamike]

I am speaking from ignorance but I still firmly believe that when they shut down the large magnetic lens fusion confinement experiment at Lawrence Livermore in 1989 it was a decision not to have fusion in our lifetime.

[@AudioFileZ]

While researchers have taken the Tokamak to a very refined level it seems so transient that sustaining a continuous reaction seems like a pipe dream. I'd hedge more on Helion's approach for something that may reach a level to actually create viable and scalable net power even though it's pulsed. It's rather elegant in actually creating current instead of heat that must be captured and used to make steam in order to drive conventional power turbines. Sure the fusion output may be lower, yet these are more compact and can be replicated faster for multiple on-site units as well as, simply, multiple sites in many areas. By everything I've been able to read on Helion's approach, it seems, right now, the most viable to actually commercially make power in the most near term. I have fears that chasing the Tokamak approach, like ITER, is either futile, or simply carrying on the old saying that it's 30-years away and will always be. Hope I'm wrong as ITER will be the largest failed experiment of mankind in both monetary loses as well as physical effort. Admittedly I am not a scientist and would be happy to be wrong.

[@Paul-e9x4h]

Maaf dalam riset ini yang ingin dicari energi listrik atau energi fuel dari percobaan di dalam tokamak tersebut?

[@frankcoffey]

Imagine if all the money spent on this had been put into solar, wind, and storage. We would already be getting all the energy from those projects. Power "plants" of all kinds take a lot of capital to build and don't generate any revenue until they are completely done. They are also centralized in a way that creates a single point of failure that is so important to the grid that it can bring down the entire grid. Even the wires connecting the plat to the grid are a point of failure. Distributed generation and storage is the correct way to design a grid.

[@zvorenergy]

Also geothermal using the new plasma spalling drills and ocean platforms combining wave, wind and solar from unused oil platforms

[@williamswiggart9782]

Solar power is weak sauce compared to the alternatives.

[@zvorenergy]

@@williamswiggart9782 on Earth yes. In space it's 24/7 and 1.37kw/m^2. If we were smart we'd stop throwing billions at fusion and generative AI and build NASA's Integrated Symmetrical Concentrator power satellite instead. But we're not.

[@YellowRambler]

Failure point Extreme weather, no sun or wind doesn’t help either. There is more promising forms of energy production in both fission and fusion, but for some strange reason they can only recognise Uranium fuel pressurised water reactors from the Cold War era and Fusion TokaMac reactors?

[@zvorenergy]

@@YellowRambler keep trying the same thing and expect different results.

[@JerryOneTwo-m5r]

cool that it's only 35 years away

[@DSAK55]

always will be

[@jagevt]

The people that make these jokes are the ones who haven't followed any of the science, and carry around pessimism and cynicism as a talisman the same way a shaman carries around a bundle of sage. Firstly, this is funny in the way "Take my wife...please" is funny, or "I just flew in from cleveland and boy, are my arms tired". It is bordering echolalia - "Someone who seemed smart made a joke when I was a child about fusion, and instead of learning more about fusion and following the technical evolution of modern labs, I will remember their joke and brandish it as surrogate for actual understanding. Most people are dumb, so they will not dispute that the "joke" and "understanding" are not of equal value. Certain technical people "come of age" and as a self-defense mechanism, they convince themselves that "I know the state of the art. No new technology will exist, because I know everything". It's the classical "End of History" syndrome. The thing is - there will always be more information in the future. And there will always new frameworks to view the universe through. Be creative. Don't hold onto 30 year old ideas. You're not doing yourself any favors.

[@JerryOneTwo-m5r]

@@jagevt well let's talk in 35 years

[@sarthaksahoo8329]

Even after 35 years, then we will wait for another 35 years😅

[@wrexchicane8259]

Also waiting for the flying car for all households.

[@sunroad7228]

“In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most. No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores. No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it. This universal truth applies to all systems. Energy, like time, flows from past to future” (2017).

[@theobserver9131]

Entropy is the rule. We are still small and young, and the universe is large..... there's a lot of energy out there. We still have quite a bit of time, if we get out of our womb, the earth.

[@chevasit]

Good 👍

[@DemPilafian]

Every 2 days the world buys over $1B of oil and gas from Russia. The $20B for ITER seems like a pittance. More funding does not automatically generate better results. However, we should increase funding wherever budget is the bottleneck.

[@guytech7310]

Russia was a leading contributor to Russia. Its NATO that started the war with the US lead 2015 Maidon Coup which replaced a elected gov't with a Fascist gov't.

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

A large number of people and groups are working hard on these problems. An even larger group consists of all those who are chattering on about it, whether they understand any of it or not.

[@ryanwatson3187]

What if you spin the magnetic to create a vortex.

[@Wriggs74]

Limitless energy has already been discovered, but oil generates more money. Once the oil runs out, an amazing discovery will happen. Hmmmm.

[@DjAmerillion]

It won't be ready in time. Plain and simple.

[@KatyYoder-cq1kc]

It has to be

[@Tessa_Wolf_]

Imagine the day nuclear fusion passes the threshold of generating more power than it consumes.

[@FlameofDemocracy]

Hydrogen and energy capture would yield never ending loops, as sunlight is available daily. Think strategically.

[@jakubkusmierczak695]

why they did not do that on small scale?

[@prilep5]

Problem with any energy production processes no matter what kind of fuel we use all suffer of low efficiency and even the final use ends up as heat dissipating in the atmosphere. Nobody is working on how to cool the atmosphere and the oceans that we all use as heat sink(dump)

[@theobserver9131]

This is true. Heat will be our largest "pollution" after we have "clean" energy. But you're wrong that nobody is thinking about that. Check out futurists and science fiction writers. Some brilliant and creative minds are thinking a LOT about that. I'm not sure there are viable solutions yet, but they ARE thinking about it. There has GOT to be a way to move heat from where we don't want it, to where it doesn't matter. Off world I would think. Maybe as simple as large mirrors?

[@theobserver9131]

Maybe also, we could get more work out of some of our waste heat, therefore reducing the need to make more of it.

[@theobserver9131]

Yeah, efficiency is one of our weakest points. Energy always devolves into heat, but we throw heat away like it's nothing. We could get so much work out of it before it dissapates into uselessness.

[@theobserver9131]

I wonder if we could pump heat back into the earths core. That might even be a good thing. As the earth cools, it loses its ability to produce our magnetic shield. Maybe we could make that process last longer. (thinking in absurdly long term).

[@jagevt]

The earth radiates energy as a black body, and the atmosphere is constantly outgassing high energy gas molecules into interplantary space. Moderating albedo is a very effective means of controlling the rate at which this radiation occurs. Ultimately, all energy generation increases entropy, and there is an arrow of time, but this applies to every process that occurs everywhere always. We are billions of years away from that being a concern - we can use the rest of the universe as a landfill until then - at least in an abstract way. But we are literally THAT PROCESS - as we write these comments - we are informational artifacts (noise) that try to "solve" problems by turning structured matter into more noise, that we consider 'knowledge' , and in doing so, we permanently degrade the quality of resources available to us. Its not a problem to be "fixed" - it IS what existence is. The only way to reverse the process is to forget ... but this universe remembers, because causality is a thing here.

[@danielalexander799]

What about thermal pollution?

[@ВладимирВласов-х4г]

For more than 73 years, developers have not been able to make a commercial fusion reactor. And many people in the world know that these developers will not make a commercial fusion reactor for many more decades. Many tens of billions of dollars have been spent on fusion energy projects, and the costs will be no less in the future. All this money has been spent in vain, irrationally and without results, and in the future investments in fusion energy will be wasted, will be simply thrown away.

[@theobserver9131]

That is very small thinking. Decades and billions of dollars are nothing in the big picture. We'll figure it out....and then we'll figure out even richer sources of energy. Think centuries. Still almost no time at all.

[@davidgrisez]

I am also one of those people who believe that practical nuclear fusion power will never be achieved.

[@Justanurse357]

If AI never played a part in its development I would of agreed with that. The scary thing is that super smart AGI computers will be developing and managing it😢

[@DemPilafian]

Before the Wright Brothers, humans tried in vein to fly for centuries. They failed over and over and over again. Today, however, you can hop on an airplane a fly non-stop from Paris to Tokyo.

[@theobserver9131]

@@DemPilafian ^that

[@daddouuuu]

I feel like we’ll look back at this video in a few years and say “wow that looks so antiquated”

[@surkewrasoul4711]

So god damn difficult to get it to work, Both the physics and enginnering sounds impossible.

[@BritishAnts]

Kids in Oxford UK been doing this for years! Americas a few years behind (so far) 😅

[@Laminar-Flow]

Did they achieve net positive energy production for the first time in history?

[@jamescole3152]

Resonance. Instead of a circular path of the plasma how about an expansion then contracting plasma? So the plasma collides in the center of the machine? Then find the resonant frequency of the plasma and keep pumping in energy.... Since this is probably how a fusion bomb works , I am guessing they use an explosion around the fusionable material to start the reaction, only here we don't have an explosion, just Resonance.

[@leighedwards]

"energy without harmful carbon emissions without radioactive waste" - no CO2 yes, no radioactive waste is an outright lie. There is much less waste than from nuclear fission but Tokamak fusion reactors do become radioactive due to neutron activation and so this is simply not true! Aneutronic fusion can be largely free of radioactivity but the most widely used approaches - using magnetic confinement - do produce neutron activation and most will use tritium as fuel which is radioactive itself! Fortunately the waste has shorter half lives than fission waste.

[@michaelcorlet2998]

Columbus setting sail around the world in a wooden boat.

[@SamJameson-dk4eo]

They already found free energy and the US government ceased it. Few people tried to make it publuc but were silenced by the government. All died of health complications.

[@donnalambs9578]

Hahahhaha. Ya thy wish they could get out of it thst easy

[@raymondingram2539]

I don't think it's possible, the temperature they might be able to produce but the pressures needed to fuse atoms is enormous.

[@pigeon_the_mighty]

good news, it is possible; the first tokamak was built in 1954

[@raymondingram2539]

@@pigeon_the_mighty So it's been 70 years they have been trying and there not even close, there is no material on this planet that can handle those pressures.

[@pigeon_the_mighty]

@@raymondingram2539 read about how it works. the nuclei are accelerated to high speeds and then collide with each other, which provides enough energy to overcome the natural repulsion between them

[@herbie4160]

You're misunderstanding. They can already achieve fusion. The problem isn't achieving fusion, it's making the fusion process more efficient that is the problem.

[@raymondingram2539]

@@herbie4160 The longest they have achieved fusion is 48 seconds at 180 million degrees, like I said the temperature isn't the problem, they need that extreme pressure to make it more efficient and that is very unlikely.

[@theobserver9131]

Fusion is not limitless. It is vast but not infinite. There is a specific amount of hydrogen and helium available to us on earth, and there's quite a bit more of it in space, but it is not limitless. We used to think, and some people still think, that oil and coal was/is limitless. Look where that got us. We will just figure out more energy hungry activities. Then we're gonna have to deal with all the heat we produce.

[@mnlala]

but if we used the best of the tech we have currently and we can not achieve more than 100% efficiency, what makes them think that its possible

[@Dgc-t5k]

This has already been doneee, it’s all about perfect timing and them making profit off you

[@victorassali4438]

Why? Solar would solve all of our energy problems. Only reason I can think of is to power these new ai computing mega centers. This is skynet

[@VR_Wizard]

Nice pictures but no new information. Also repeating the "Laser fusion making more energy" headline without mentioning the laser energy demands was bad in the past and is still bad today.

[@Mando_Trucker]

What if it malfunctions and creates a black hole is the real question?

[@fine93]

will the tribe allow itl?

[@JibberJabJones]

did i miss the meeting where it was decided that marimba was the sound of tech innovation?

[@bluffem]

🤣🤣🤣🔥

[@JibberJabJones]

@@bluffem appreciate that, thanks mate. no one laughs at my stupid jokes.

[@davidnguyen3363]

Does this mean one day in the future we don’t need oil or gas ?

[@kirankumarsukumar]

fusion energy will be a game changer for AI. AI will be a game changer for fusion energy

[@nhinged]

AI did solve a big issue in fusion recent

[@tireballastserviceofflorid7771]

How many trillions of pounds of co2 were generated doing all these test? How many tons of coal and diesel used? And if it turns out not to work? Was that calculated in on the 12 year dooms day clock?

[@Privacityuser]

no laser or magnets will do, but ATMIC EXPLOSIONS folow by IMPLOSION

[@luisrivera3056]

Consider that all this effort for a breakthrough in nuclear fusion will then be used to use that energy to create the oldest form of energy, "Steam". Yep that nuclear fusion energy will be used to heat water, that will then turn the steam that spins the turbines that then spin generators creating electricity. Crazy aint it? lol

[@mickmccrohon]

Openstar Technologies, New Zealand. Who was the first to split the atom.

[@jb76489]

and other funny lies to tell yourself

[@mickmccrohon]

@@jb76489 I see why you have to hide behind a fake name... good call, now go back to flipping those burgers at McDonalds. If you work harder they might even trust you to handle the coffee machine one day.

[@bsmith4u2]

It won't be for public consumption until they figure out a way to charge us double. Just like renewables bringing down the cost of electricity...Riiight!

[@aldrinspeck2724]

another very complicated method of boiling water. where's my cold antimatter reactor?

[@minwiralshamiri887]

Get it running Jennifer I know you have

[@YoussefKareemBouiahadj-xn3od]

Moses West created the atmospheric water generator which could literally start a flow of water for hydroenergy anywhere on earth.. it also provides more water for children without access to clean water all over the world.. this break through as innovative as it could be is kind of a waste of money in comparison to being able to give access to free energy and water using any atmospheric water generator

[@YellowRambler]

There only one type of fusion? So basically you want to put ridiculously hot plasma in the middle of giant magnets that need to be ridiculously cold to operate. Alternative fusion needs more attention, it’s a safer bet then having everybody doing the same type of fusion.

[@theobserver9131]

🤣😂😅

[@rikkoshop620]

The only place you can build a star is in space. The major hiccup, the power you need to creat a gravity well. Take it to space for the first phase, because space is a natural gravity well, then all your focus can be on the science of the fusion reaction. Once you get that down, then bring it back to earth !!!

[@Eduard.Popa.]

Limitless energy are solar, wind and hydro ;) So renewables

[@dionysus2006]

The energy source of the future

[@user-qr7ee2cp4y]

When will Americans learn to turn off a light?

[@darrenoak7187]

If you create free energy in the uk. The goverment willl put a huge tax on it.

[@gordonepema722]

The One Solution that can provide unlimited energy for millions of years... There are no solutions, only tradeoffs (T Sowell). No one is talking tradeoffs. Such as the opportunity cost of blowing all this cash on fusion and climate change programs instead of on things that work.

[@SuperRip7]

There is radioactivity waste in fusion.

[@kenofken9458]

There is no long term high level waste.

[@effingsix3825]

Let me guess. They’re trying to boil water, right?

[@happykitten5695]

🕊❤‍🔥

[@danniles5256]

Still 10 years away...lol.

[@kenofken9458]

100 years. But still worth it.

[@asimkasir]

AI Unlimited Fuel...

[@zvorenergy]

😒the energy source of the future...and always will be

[@theobserver9131]

No, it won't. We will succeed with fusion, then we'll figure out more ways to use it, and it won't be enough, then something else will be "the energy source of the future".

[@theobserver9131]

....if we survive that long, which is not certain.

[@zvorenergy]

@@theobserver9131 sure. World's best scientists spent billions upon billions decade after decade trying to squeeze a star into a bottle...but this time it's different...😂

[@theobserver9131]

@@zvorenergy sigh. little minds.

[@_Chad_ThunderCock]

@@zvorenergythere is a reason it didn't work back in the 20th century. The technology back then simply wasn't ready, it's different now. We have key breakthrough technology to pull it off.

[@listen2therhythm496]

let's see here... China is working on CREATING and improving an artificial SUN! matter fact their electric cars is cheaper than Tesla.

[@KolaOgunmuko]

just ask tony stark

[@richardcampbell7255]

Unlimited energy will be a total environment disaster. It will dramatically increase the amount of resources extracted and wasted on things people don’t need.

[@gillyrcgilmore3742]

They will not succeed unless they use sacred geometry.

[@Privacityuser]

Gaslighting FUSION NEED GRAVITY NOT ARTIFICIAL DENSITY

[@bluemoon8498]

If you cant maybe youve been doing it wrong.

[@dibbolistening]

There is a sun for that

[@donnalambs9578]

Lol. Yes many of them now

[@mnoun8871]

There are so many trying to get the next best thing in energy generation when there's so much wasted energy never even harness by the energy generators of today It's like they want to waste energy easily captured by the established facilities Just look at a dam and the water run off that sprays out at enormous volume and speed Harness that energy instead of just letting it go to waste Oh look we spent another billion on something that might work, when there's plenty places that work innoficiantly and waste energy instead of harness it

[@mnoun8871]

Energy is a commodity like gold and diamonds regulated to spend more money in order to keep prices up

[@thelittleguy-ih8nv]

With those people backing you, I hope it fails!

[@lucansanchez5129]

Energy should be produced from building made from concrete structures with exterior solar city tiles on all sides of all buildings commercial, residential and industrial as standard building practice. Power plant should be intergrated into builds of air ports, train and bus stations and ship port. Energy creation should be intergrated into the engineering of city's architecture. In the old days every home had a chimney and Arial. in the 21 century city apartments could have wind turbines and external solar wall and internet should be intergrated into electric cables as a added core directly connected to fuse board and all external and internal lights should have internet antenna intergrated. Citys should be self sufficient for energy in the 21 century and grided from transportation systems country wideand beyond. Wind farm could be intergrated to motorways and Trainlines architecture to. There's no reason to disturb the natural world for integration of energy systems. preservation of the natural world by protection from farmers and national park caretakers. and industry to commit to engineer architecture of 21 century city's appropriately with modern technology advancements for self sustainability city from genuine Grid systems and that is transportation.

[@garyives1218]

It's another rich man's racket. It will never gain useful efficiency. See: deuterium and tritium.

[@LoveFactorySweatShop]

Ok. I saw it. And...?

[@Unpack]

why do we need this energy ??

[@LuciFeric137]

Hahahahaha. The hunt for scientist employment guarantees. What a colossal waste of tax dollars.

[@LoveFactorySweatShop]

Yeah, send that money instead to the Saudis, like we always do.

[@yvanlaprise3373]

Free energy is not real . THIS is only an investment . E what what . INVESTMENT IN FREE ENERGY . ahhh 🤣🤣🥰🥰🤪🤪🤪

[@royalsniper11]

Ha ha ha .. fusion .. will 1st break through by the chinese ......

[@dodgygoose3054]

Umm, we currently have hydro, wind & solar energy production no carbon output & constantly renewable doesn't cost billions, its already invented and it works.... but its so cheap & easy to install & run that corporations hate it as there's hardly any profit & basically no up keep.

[@DSAK55]

LOL a joke

[@HonchHeado]

Totally unneeded waste of time and money.

[@steven89155]

whats the point of a hair net when you have a beard not covered ??? so dumb

[@PD55_]

Yes, AI requires limitless energy. Humanity is not a priority.

[@PD55_]

exactly why you have become an indentured servant for life, trapped by personal and tax debts that can never be repaid@@servethesongs

[@jizzer6969]

Fusion will never work here on earth. It only works in stars...

[@eujebenqo6159]

It is very funny to see this dreamers work for 70 years for a machine flawed by concept. NOT SELF SUSTAINED.

[@LoveFactorySweatShop]

The field of AI research was invented in 1956. Imagine if all AI/ML researchers just gave up at Year 70.

[@eujebenqo6159]

@@LoveFactorySweatShop it takes about 98.86 per cent the mass of the SOLAR SYSTEM to sustain fusion. IT CANNOT BE SUSTAINED.

[@eujebenqo6159]

Inteligence doesn't require extraordinary physical condittions , it's in every living beeings head, fusion requires 98.86 the mass of the solar system , it is NOT SUSTAINABLE.

[@LoveFactorySweatShop]

so regular ol' nuclear fission is inside human beings all along?

[@WALID-Al-Katah]

We need a fusion core

[@jameswilkerson8873]

Limitless energy that THEY can charge every American a thousand dollars per month for.

[@efrenpichardo8643]

Buy a magnifying glass! Duh!

[@andremota247]

So if touches de wall… happens what happened in Spider-man’s movie? 🫠😅