DIII-D: I WENT INSIDE The Most POWERFUL Machine in America

[@gregorymccoy6797]

This has been promised since I was a child. Hoping it happens in my lifetime. Awesome that you could score that trip!!

[@SpaceMog]

Thanks so much for the gift ❤️

[@AndersWelander]

I'm blown away by how professional this video is and how correct it is. Just wow! 😊

[@SpaceMog]

Yay! Glad you approve and thanks for showing me your work place :-)

[@Muonium1]

There are actually several incorrect points and inaccuracies. For one thing, at 20 megawatts it's nowhere near the most powerful machine in the US. Conventional nuclear plants produce several GIGAwatts of power, and the laser driven fusion experiment I work on achieves multiple PETAwatts of power when it fires.

[@Tech_Planet]

That's really neat, thanks for sharing!

[@SpaceMog]

Thanks for watching!

[@ChrisM-hx9kv]

Commenting to feed the algorithm 🙃. Also, glad the algorithm recommended this channel to me. The older videos are worth going back to watch. Lots of good content 😊

[@georgewaters6424]

Indeed. Replied to feed the algorithm, agreed wholeheartedly anyways sooo win win.

[@SpaceMog]

Awesome, thank you!

[@SpaceMog]

🥰 Im soo lucky

[@zach....]

@@georgewaters6424 :) i'll add my finger to the scale and engage in this engaging conversation. Space Mog, ftw!

[@cjc363636]

So true! Dr. Lieu's passion for science and communication is evident from the start.

[@zach....]

Thanks Dr Lieu, awesome video and great channel. I appreciate you providing a look behind the closed doors of labs and all the context and insight you provide.

[@SpaceMog]

Glad you like them!

[@DxsPro]

thanks for the vid

[@SpaceMog]

Thanks for watching!

[@husk79]

I really enjoy how you get a hard and complex subject and you make simple to understand and fun to watch too. Thank you for all the hard work you put into these videos!

[@SpaceMog]

Wow, thank you! Glad you like them

[@ARWest-bp4yb]

Dr. Maggie gets to go to the coolest places!😍👍👍

[@SpaceMog]

The best!

[@jeffmosesjr]

Great vid as always!

[@SpaceMog]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@Kevin-et5zs]

Thank you for the tour! I'm sure the phrase "not enough room to swing a cat" occurred to you...:)

[@SpaceMog]

Meow 😸

[@AquarianSoulTimeTraveler]

​@@SpaceMogpretty cool to talk about the largest fusion battery in the United States... thats all Fusion will ever be... a glorified battery. The end result of a fusion process in a star is that it becomes super dense by fusing all of its fusible material and eventually collapses. Fusion is the process of making heavier elements from lighter Elements which requires more energy to do then what is released in the fusion process and this is a unavoidable unescapable truth of fusion and thus Fusion will only ever be a glorified battery and all of these people you associate with are total fools... bunch of idiots wasting tons of money on a project that will never pan out... pitiful and pathetic... sorry im just kinda salty because you give other BS so much of your time and when it comes to the most important information like that which I give to you, you won't give me that same time and respect as i did for you.

[@Dostbotera]

New to new! Great to great! Hope to boost further. You're really a excellent teacher Dr.❤

[@SpaceMog]

Thank you!

[@BusstterNutt]

Thank you for all the hard work in making these excellent videos.

[@SpaceMog]

My pleasure!

[@Sumpydumpert]

Great video D-3-D sounds amazing

[@SpaceMog]

Thanks a lot!

[@MrPickles3rd]

Love the endings to your videos! It grounds me and makes me want more .

[@SpaceMog]

Glad you like them!

[@samedwards6683]

Thanks so much for creating and sharing this informative video. Great job. Keep it up.😻

[@SpaceMog]

You are so welcome!

[@atmrtwbike]

Absolutely incredible!

[@SpaceMog]

It was fun to get to see, and all the scientists there :-)

[@HarryNicNicholas]

as always a great explanation, let's hope we can get _something_ for free sooner or later, it's crazy what resources there are in the universe if only we could extract them.

[@SpaceMog]

Thanks for watching!

[@theunknownunknowns256]

Thanks cool Dr Lady! The complexity required to hold the plasma in place is mund blowing. Makes you appreciate all the work gravity does around the place not just fusion but you can collect and clean rain water using gravity too!

[@SpaceMog]

Well said!

[@kensmith5694]

I can remember about 50 years ago, fusion power was only about 30 years away. It seems to be staying at that distance into the future.

[@SpaceMog]

its a curse

[@deeliciousplum]

Hi Space Cats! 🐈 A wonderful and accessible talk. Thank you Dr Lieu! Wishing to all a peaceful and wonderful Summer (a wonderful Winter for you Southern hemisphere Space Cats)!

[@SpaceMog]

Many thanks!

[@jimcabezola3051]

I'm astounded at the progress we're all making. Back in the 1980s, the people working on this technology humourously described magnetic confinement as trying to contain a quantity of water using rubber bands. The UK seem to be closer to actually making a reactor that can be commercially exploited, but I imagine the fusion technicians of both countries closely collaborate in order to get this revolution going. I agree that is crucial; it's almost as though we're on the cusp of learning how to produce fire...again. We did it once, and it changed us so much. For good or ill, it needs to happen again. It's this or windmills, solar panels and batteries. That's marvelous of all life on Earth, but I don't know if those technologies can take our exploratory spacecraft anywhere.

[@SpaceMog]

Yes Anders is working closely with the UK experiments too. They are different types of reactors so interesting to see how it will turn out. When we make miniature fusion reactors - that would be a game changer in any spacecraft. Small nuclear reactors are already being developed to power individual houses, so the rate we are advancing is insane!

[@jimcabezola3051]

@@SpaceMog Indeed! These are the most exciting times. Plenty of reasons to be optimistic! Listening to you and channels like this gives me reason to hoe a better future for us all. Aloha!

[@BZAKether]

Impressive! I want to avoid the "Fusion in 20 years" joke but it might be the technology that fuels our homes in 100 years, but the costs are going to be massive.

[@stevenyee8967]

Great video on the DIII-D fusion machine. Well, I definitely learn alot and it was also entertaining! 😊 I hope we can have useful fusion power soon. It would help offset the challenges we are facing with global warming and burning fossil fuels to satisfy our power hungry needs.

[@SpaceMog]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@RodrigoPalma700]

Great, very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

[@Bob_C34]

That was cool. Thanks for making me smarter 🙌🏻

[@SpaceMog]

Thank you for the lovely comment :-)

[@Petertronic]

Amazing reactor, loved the tour and your excellent description. This is important research indeed. P.S. I wonder if you can bake potatoes in it 😸

[@SpaceMog]

If you like your potatoes extra black and crispy 🤷‍♀️

[@Flesh_Wizard]

The future of energy production is Star Donuts! Great vid 👍

[@robertpearson8546]

Has the DIII-D reached breakeven, where the power out is greater than the power in? What are they going to do with all the radioactive waste produced by the neutron radiation? Are they looking at aneutronic reactions?

[@johnlewis8664]

Great video! The prospect of almost unlimited clean energy is certainly something to aspire for. Obviously we’re still some way off this but perhaps heading in the right direction.

[@SpaceMog]

ITER in france will begin operations next year! Their goal is a Q value of 10 - so 10 times more output energy than in, so hopefully not too far off! 🤞

[@mrlithium69]

Absolute Banger M8

[@SpaceMog]

Thanks

[@annexcelestial]

Awesome video...thx Dr Maggie!!!

[@SpaceMog]

Thank you so much. Hope you are doing okay

[@annexcelestial]

@@SpaceMog you are welcome and I am doing okay...just doing my routine...I hope you are doing great!!!

[@SpaceMog]

@@annexcelestial stay happy - keep up with the walks :-)

[@annexcelestial]

@@SpaceMog I am and it really is helping me clear my head so I can work on my edits...thank you so much, you are the greatest!!!

[@NobodyOfNote-qv5wh]

Loved this❤

[@Grubbbee]

Awesome tour! More needs to be done to educate people about the science of nuclear fission and fusion. Most people have an irrational fear based on limited knowledge.

[@SpaceMog]

Absolutely! I couldn't agree more

[@legoenginemechanic101]

I love fusion hope we can actually get it working all over the world clean power for everything and everyone

[@SpaceMog]

it would solve so many problems :-) hopefully people don't fear it

[@AndersWelander]

@@SpaceMog I hope they will just think about the sun if they get afraid. And put on sunscreen.

[@Scotto_desu]

Wow, they gave you free electrons?! That’s such a great souvenir! ;)

[@MicrobiusBlue]

Excellent 😎

[@EnglishBob256]

Very cool trip. Didn't realize the Yanks had a big tokamk.

[@SpaceMog]

You wouldnt even know its there - its tucked away off the highway ;-)

[@kensmith5694]

Note: Here in the US, "Yankee" often refers to those in the north-east of the nation. The machine is just about in the exact opposite corner. Baseball team "New York Yankees" is a case.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

@SpaceMog >>> Great video...👍

[@DreadDeimos]

The usage of epoxy in the close proximity to this much heat is mind boggling!

[@SpaceMog]

Its not even 30C here in the UK at the moment and i feel like all my plastic is melting

[@kensmith5694]

They make epoxy that is good to over 500C It is more expensive than the stuff in the hardware store.

[@DreadDeimos]

@@kensmith5694 Yeah, I understand that and the fact that there are a lot of going on between the epoxy and the heat, but my mind is already boggled at that moment :)

[@DreadDeimos]

@@SpaceMog We've got those temp in Ukraine as well, but I can bet it wasn't humid as bad as in the UK, so it wouldn't feel as terrible. Also, I choose 3d printing filament for outdoor application with the thought that it's a thin line between human-tolerable temperatures and common plastics transition temperatures!

[@daveseddon5227]

It's been 15 to 20 years away my whole life and I'm 70 now! Somehow I get the feeling I'm never going so see it - so disappointing! 😞

[@648Roland]

Our opposition government is proposing to have built a number of reactors here in Australia which I'm very much against. E2S Power has just completed the conversion of a coal-fired station in India which now runs completely on stored thermal energy using graphene within nitrogen that stores the 700C piped water to drive the generators. Only having the experience of cabling, racking, routing and earthing 2 coal-fired stations designs it seems such a waste to just de-commission them after only 30 years when they could give so much more at little cost, no coal, pollution or waste. The company I worked for then wanted to send me to Brazil to work on the cabling of nuclear stations but needed to be fluent in the german language. My wife decided to end other 20 year marriage instead. Was also self- building our mudbrick/adobe home, so was a rough time for me 32 years ago.

[@SpaceMog]

That's a fascinating story and a unique perspective, it's interesting to hear about your experience with coal-fired power stations and the potential for repurposing them and completely understandable to have reservations about nuclear power, especially given the potential risks and the long-term challenges of waste disposal

[@648Roland]

@@SpaceMog With so many coal-fired stations across India that will probably be converted, it's going to cause a very big drop in Australia's coal exports making it even more difficult to afford to build what's proposed.

[@SpaceMogLuna]

When does Anders/Maggie think a fusion reactor will work to produce commercially profitable electric power? What design does s/he think will work best? Or, is it too experimental to predict or know now?

[@SpaceMog]

What will come first? Colonise the moon or Clean, Sustainable Fusion energy? Both predicted for early 2035s :-)

[@kensmith5694]

@@SpaceMog Personally I expect pigs to fly before there is a colony on the moon. There is nothing on the moon worth going down that gravitational well to get. A base for doing science is a maybe but not a self sustaining colony.

[@MichaelMathews-q2k]

So it takes 1 hour to get 1 minute of plasma observation and study of results will take a whole lot longer.

[@craigtevis1241]

"Not so far away..." just 20 years away 😅 like it's been my whole life

[@kensmith5694]

50 years ago it was about 30 years away so we are getting closer

[@SpaceMog]

Soo young 😊

[@dipi71]

What if I told you that many components close to the fusion reaction will get radioactive because of the intense ionizing radiation? Like with fission reactors, we still have the unsolved problem of nuclear waste.

[@DavidBrant]

Lovely and informative as always!😍🥰🙏🏼🙏🏼 Just about to asteroid mine some tritium & deuterium for my frigate ships in No Man’s Sky 🚀 👨‍🚀

[@SpaceMog]

Take me with you, I'll help you scope it out 😂🙈

[@DavidBrant]

@@SpaceMog hahaha let’s go! 💫 🔭

[@johnjakson444]

Hate to dissapoint you, there is no tritium or deuterium in asteroids, there is plenty of deuterium in the earths oceans, but zero tritium, and lithium/berylium breeding isn't going to work.

[@DavidBrant]

@@johnjakson444 oh well. 😏

[@BIGGGY305]

very cool

[@imikokodama3054]

You’re awesome

[@allanmoger1838]

Sooooo…. When can we be expecting that safe, clean fusion power in reality? These are interesting experiments but how is anything like that ever going to be practical? Fission reactors are comparatively REALLY simple and we struggle with them…

[@SpaceMog]

You're absolutely right that fission reactors are comparatively simpler than fusion reactors, and yet we still face challenges with them. Both China's Honghuang-70 and France's ITER hoping to get 10 times energy output by early 2030s

[@allanmoger1838]

@@SpaceMog ok, it’s a lovely idea, but I’m filing it with 200KVA battery that weighs 300kg and charges in 10 minutes. I honestly don’t expect either to happen in my lifetime. Not to be totally negative, OTOH I guess it’s cool that someone keeps paying for the research so the research can actually happen, it is cool stuff, even though it’s so very, very hot. 😜

[@arkatub]

@@allanmoger1838 I concur, it will not happen for another 100 maybe 200 years, to be totally negative, scientists are misleading people about how close we are to fraudulently obtain funding.

[@darkflip]

So freaking meowtastic!

[@SpaceMog]

😇

[@jeffcrites8184]

Only 25 years away!

[@SpaceMog]

For ITER, yes - but China's tokamak HH170 aims to get Q 10 by 2027 !!! 🤯

[@jeffrey5961]

Hopefully the collaboration was productive.🙂

[@SpaceMog]

Anders just gave me a free tour really - he didn't get much out of it :-)

[@jeffrey5961]

@@SpaceMog To be able to spend a day with you was likely the highlight of Anders year Maggie. 😉

[@hk8450]

If the scientific effort and financial resources spent for this purpose are spent on producing and storing more durable and efficient wind and solar energy, energy will become much cheaper. and not only that. Since more research on magnetism and plasma physics will be produced over time, we will not lose any time. Therefore, the value of the resources to be used for this technology will become very cheap and very fast and sharp results can be obtained with a small budget. wind energy also limitless

[@targetmann100ify]

Cool ..🥰 You are lucky ...And cute

[@SpaceMog]

😊 thank you

[@EnkiWesley]

❤

[@SumNumber]

Very cool. I predict that AI will come up with a way constructing material to withstand the needs and that will probably be a rebuild. Remember that AI is only a means to totality of everything....so...I don't know......Be careful ? :O)

[@SpaceMog]

Thats probably true

[@ionut716]

This machinery proves that we are close to obtain very cheap unlimited energy?

[@johnjakson444]

Completely wrong, MSRs could do the job easily but they use fission. Ironically fission and fusion are far more closely related than most people could ever realize, they both have Beta decay as part of the process, in uranium238 breeding to plutonium it is by normal Beta decay, a neutron decays into proton and electron. In the stars, the -ve Beta decay turns protons into neutrons releasing positrons. Wikipedia, fusion.

[@SpaceMog]

Fusion energy holds immense potential as a clean and abundant energy source, but there are still significant scientific and engineering challenges to overcome before it becomes a practical reality. We need to achieve a sustained fusion reaction that produces more energy than it consumes, and then find efficient ways to scale up and commercialize the technology. But the race sure is on to become the first with China's Tokamak HH170 on the horizon too

[@jbone877]

❤❤❤❤

[@SpaceMog]

😊

[@Northern-Winds]

Without a doubt the sexiest scientist on youtube. Thank you for both educating us and letting us see you in that white top.

[@SpaceMog]

😅

[@Flesh_Wizard]

Down horrendous 💀

[@johna1811]

all of these tech natural elements trying to replicate and understand what was simply spoken into existence using none of these manmade contraptions -no physics to know

[@MyKharli]

Fusion is the easy bit , commercially extracting enough steam next to 100s tons supercooled magnets is the stupidest way ever to make a steam engine . This is poor for Mog , no mention of neutron embrittlement or the problems of the different fuels .

[@SpaceMog]

Maintaining stable fusion is hard - cooling can be easy, and usually the coolant is recycled :-) You're absolutely correct about neutron embrittlement being a concern. It's a huge problem that researchers are actively working to address with new materials and designs, and exactly one of the reasons DIII-D exists.

[@johnjakson444]

You right, Dr Mog utterly wrong, but what does an engineer know.

[@NullHand]

The neutrons are key to getting the heat out. They pass more or less through the vacuum vessel wall, with little reaction, and are planned to be trapped in a liquid Lithium layer that fissions to produce Tritium. Liquid metal is an excellent medium for moving large quantities of heat from the high tech, extreme temp gradient fusor, into the low tech, low temp gradient Rankine cycle turbines in a separate building.

[@MyKharli]

@@johnjakson444 Lol `Engineers ` know fusion research is a job for life ...hint hint, also no mention of military research crossover ..naughty that .

[@AndersWelander]

Neutron embrittlement was always Freeman Dyson's biggest concern and he was a very clever guy that I had the pleasure to meet. We have yet to gain experience with the full scope of the problem and then we will see how far we get with new technologies and clever ideas. The challenges (our synonym for problems 🙂) will eventually come to an end and then hopefully new tech and clever ideas will keep coming and defeat challenges.

[@corychristensen5917]

I forwarded your video to Elon. We love your videos. More young girls could use you as a role model

[@SpaceMog]

Thank you 🥰

[@Privacityuser]

you are so cute

[@SpaceMog]

🌟

[@arnokosterman231]

Sun is not realey hot🥰🖤🥰 otherwise mercury was hotter than Venus 😍 And inside the sun we see a planet with a cristal rhealm (ice behavieure)

[@drab2000]

Looks like a toy in comparison with ITER.

[@SpaceMog]

Yes absolutely - it can't compare - but it's crucial for ITERs success :-)

[@johnjakson444]

The graphics shows a deuteron fusing with a tritium nuclei, that does not happen in any known star, instead stars use the PP or the CNO reaction because they have huge gravity to make that work, while on earth we cheat by using fuel that was either created by the big bang ie deuterium and the tritium which comes from Candu fission reactors. An astrophysicist should know how fusion works, both in the stars and on earth. Only an idiot would state that fusion does not produce radioactive waste, when the DT reaction occurs it releases a He nucleus and a high energy neutron which will absolutely irradiate what ever it hits turning that radioactive. And while lithium can breed tritium, it requires a fast neutron to do so, and the tritium nuclei might just fuse with a deuteron, whose neutron release might release the required tritium to continue the chain reaction. As for fission reactors they also do not generally run away either, this drivel about runaway reactors is just uninformed nonsense. So in fission the chain reaction has +ve gain, every neutron in the chain will cause 2 or 3 more neutrons to be released causing the chain to move on. In fission reactors the designs limit the chain so that the neutrons are produced at a constant rate as conditions allow, it does not run away. If anything, the MSR designs follow the work load, the more heat that is pulled out, the more heat is produced as the reaction rate increases and vice versa, its simple physics. But in fusion, the neutron gain is way less than 1, possibly only 0.01 given that most of the tritium that is injected into the chamber will not fuse but will be lost in the chamber and also irradiate the wall. And if the tritium does fuse the released neutron will not likely create its replacement tritium. Look for Daniel Jassby to learn about neutron economy. Fission makes loads of sense esp at 1000k in no pressure MSRs, fusion makes no sense at all at several 100,000,000k and is 1000s of times harder to achieve. The only possible fusion reaction that could work would be DD but that requires far higher temps than DT and is also unpredictable with various fusion results. There is also DHe3 which also has no fuel source. As per ITER, the energy gain of tokamaks is very low, more energy in than out, in ITER case it will take several more generations before there might be energy gain that could be useful.

[@kensmith5694]

The Alpha out of the reaction is not a big problem. The neutron is serious trouble. People are using a bigger and bigger hammer trying to make this work.

[@AndersWelander]

I think this was an excellent summary from a bird's eye view. Diving down onto a detail will just leave the audience with the wrong impression. This was actually a lot of details and very accurately presented from this view. In a fusion reactor the neutron will just go out and get multiplied by lead probably and react with lithium to produce at least one new tritium per DT reaction. The last I heard was that they thought they could get to 0.98 new tritons per DT so it needs to go up a bit. The neutron carries most of the heat but it is the alpha that will sustain the fusion burn. The reactor needs to be big enough and the field strong enough so that it bends the trajectory of the fast charged alpha particle enough to keep it inside the machine. Then it gradually cools off by heating the rest of the plasma and keeping it warm or hot is a better word. I agree fission is easier and awesome and can be made very safe. The point is merely that fusion is inherently safe. And like you point out the neutrons will activate the machine and modify this simple picture. Fusion is still research where we are learning about all the things one would need to do to build a useful reactor. We don't know yet what it will look like because then we would just build it. We can just speculate about the details.

[@AndersWelander]

I like to point out that we shorten the burn time from billions of years to a few seconds by using DT and higher temperature. It's a fun fact but perhaps too much information for an overview.

[@barrywilson4480]

Same copied stuff