Fusion power: how close are we? | FT Film

#energy #fusionpower #cleanenergy #zerocarbonemission #environment #scientists #investors

00:00 - What powers the universe
01:04 - ITER: the biggest experiment in human history
04:28 - What is fusion?
06:38 - Replicating the sun
08:38 - The US breakthrough
13:46 - The investors
20:40 - A new class of magnet
24:30 - Dream or reality?

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[FinancialTimes]

Watch FT Moral Money editor Simon Mundy uncover some of the biggest opportunities and challenges within the global shift to cleaner energy. Click the links below for related videos:

*Can hydrogen help the world reach net zero? | FT Film*

*Inside the global race for lithium batteries | FT Film*

[JaapvanderVelde]

It's hard. It will take a long time. Most of us won't live to see it - but it's worth everything we can throw at it, because it's possible and it will be the greatest revolution for humanity since we mastered fire.

[-wd]

This video/ documentary was perfectly made. We get a lot of different point of views, from the scientists themselves to the investors backing them. And the question in the video title has been answered, with a very reasonable ballpark. I hope that a commercial breakthrough happens in my lifetime as this would catapult the human civilization exponentially in all scientific fields.

[Pureskillzor]

Simon Mundy has be the FT's best presenter for these documentaries. Very good video!

[bogdanpop]

20 years ....since the 1950's ...it's always been 20 years away....!!!! it still stands....!!!

[aviefern]

For me, fusion really illustrates the importance of taking a balanced approach. I do think fusion will eventually pay off, but in the short-term, we really need to go all in on renewable energy and next-gen fission. We need to decarbonize as much as possible using the tech we currently have including solar, wind, tidal, thorium, hydro, and more. Once fusion pays off, we can start transitioning to that and increase our energy usage, but till that happens we need a temporary solution. Hopefully in the far future, we can start building a Dyson sphere and become a type 2 civilization.

[PolywellFan]

This is so much better than the coverage we got on 60 Minutes. This should clip should have many more views.

[Epicfunk]

At the moment it's a dream, because it's exponentially harder to reduce the size. This is why all suns are freaken massive.

[flickapolitan]

Well done, this is by far the most comprehensive and understandable film on the state of the fusion industry

[thecrthguy]

Seems that we’re making huge progress towards fusion power 🕺👌👌👌

[mv]

To me, CFS (the SPARC project), driven in fact by the MIT fusion labs, seems to be the more promising, by which I mean the closest to not only demonstrate the concept, but to build a real power plant.

[critiqueofthegothgf]

it's extremely admirable to hear the heads of these institutions display humility and adopt a realistic approach regarding the actual timeline of nuclear. we are setting the stones for what is a long term endeavor

[benmike]

Wonderful doc! Thanks for producing the high quality film!

[lozoft]

You can't really compare the spaceflight commercialization era with today's rush to invest in fusion. By the year 2000, spaceflight was a proven technology with an entire industry based around it. All that SpaceX and others had to do is plug their companies into the already-existing contracting and talent pool that NASA, DoD, ESA, and others had developed. Fusion on the other hand is still in its blue-skies phase, the sort of technology that usually only nation-states and international alliances take part in researching. Of course I'm grateful for Bill Gates and others who see fusion for what it is putting so much of their resources to bare in this field, but people who think they'll see returns in 10 years shouldn't take part.

[pdxjjb]

Several places in this video use the highly misleading term "net energy" to describe the much more limited concept of scientific breakeven (where the energy on the outputs side of the plasma is greater than the input side of the plasma). This is like abusing the term "net profit" to mean only the difference between the price charged for a product and the cost of the product, while neglecting the cost of sales, the G&A overhead, the taxes, and all the other aspects of running a business. If you watch the part in Boston at 23:30, you'll see the CFS representative be very clear: "more power out from the plasma than went in". The problem is that it can take more than ten times that much power to run the plant, not to mention the roughly 50% loss to generated electric power with steam. And this whole story doesn't even touch the most serious problem, which is the incredibly misleading claims by the fusion industry about "cheap and limitless". In fact, the fuel for the types of reactors shown in this video is desperately constrained and astronomically expensive; and the best concepts we have for "breeding" more of it make unrealistic assumptions to achieve breakeven. Investors will figure this out, as they always do, and the fusion bubble will pop in the mid-2020s.

[peterclyons]

I will have to watch the other two programs in the series before coming to any conclusions but so far so good.

[bargdaffy]

The Fusion Reaction, if it can be maintained beyond "Ignition", which is what this is, can be self perpetuating if Lithium-6 Blankets are involved, maybe. But it is about 10 years down the road at least to even test the theory at ITER in France. That is the purpose of ITER. The reactor was expected to take 10 years to build and ITER had planned to test its first plasma in 2020 and achieve full fusion by 2023, however the schedule is now to test first plasma in 2025 and full fusion in 2035.

[Djfmdotcom]

Remarkable to see how we're progressing. IF we can make it past this present madness in the world, I think we have a remarkable and unique future ahead of us 🫡🥳💯

[sboog]

Fascinating video, well done FT film. Can't wait for the other parts of this series.

[maestrovso]

This FT report on the subject is the best out there that I am aware. No fluff, no nonsense, and well balanced coverage of all the work happening around the globe on this pursuit. Thanks.