Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough Rewrites Laws of Physics

This video explains a new limit for nuclear fusion, replacing one from 1988 that was thought to be set by fundamental laws of physics.

Martin Greenwald's original paper:
New limit:
Press release:

#Ziroth #Fusion #Energy

[GRANSETA]

When raising the density, you lose the High confinement regime (H-mode) before the mentioned density limit (which happens ultimately in L-mode). If you lose the H-mode, fusion performance degrades considerably (the confinement time drops), so reactors like ITER do not gain anything with this "new discovery". Actually the power dependence on the L-mode density limit was previously known as the paper indicates, but again what is important is the H-L transition density threshold. One of the big problems in fusion is that we keep re-descovering things that were known....

Thanks for the work and enthusiasm though! Next time try to email some experts in the field ;)

[fundamental]

This gives me hope we can bring more energy to more people and avoid brown outs. You are so clear and understandable for me. Thank you.

[CrzyMan_Personal]

First time I've seen your channel. Thank you so much for not being a TTS spam account. Liked. Subscribed. Commented. You deserve more attention than they do

[Critguards]

Thank you for your video, not leading or sensational. I absolutely love the citations, and your ability to be topical upon the subject matter. You definitely have the abilities of a scientist "science-guy" if you will. Just saw you, and you deserve more attention and support from the community! Cheers.

[michaelkaliski]

The laws of physics do not need to be rewritten. Our capabilities of building a better plasma confinement field have improved slightly. As far a fusion reactors are concerned, bigger is always better from an efficiency standpoint. The Sun is spectacularly inefficient at generating fusion energy but it is overwhelmingly huge in size and that is what counts. What we are trying to build on Earth is a machine that will duplicate conditions at the core of the Sun but with even greater heat and pressure to compensate for inefficiency losses due to the relatively small scale. Since heat to boil water to run generating turbines is the ultimate goal, efficiency losses due to heat leakage can be counted on the positive side of the power output equation. The trick is confining enough energy to allow a continuous fusion process to be maintained.

Finally, fusion reactors are best suited to maintaining base load levels of power, running at a constant output. Nuclear fission reactors will still be needed to provide the power to start up and maintain fusion reactors and the fluctuating demands will need to be dealt with by hydroelectric, solar, wind, and coal fired power plants.

[mrmoneybagz]

I've always wondered..If the reaction has the potential to get 5X hotter than the core of the sun, wouldn't the entire reactor simply melt?

[BarrieHughes]

I like the presentation style and from someone so young. It’s good to see fusion becoming feasible.

[LordOfNihil]

thanks for not dumbing down the science too much. too many videos on fusion seem to be more concerned with selling the idea of fusion rather than get into the gritty details of how fusion reactors actually work.

[kingnarothept]

I can't wait till we hear that we got 10% extra power from what we put in a fusion engine!

Obviously that's not much but it's a huge step regardless, but when it happens it'll be big.

[FlyxPat]

Thanks for being normal, informative, concise and non-clickbait. Unlike 90% on this topic. Subbed.

[johnh]

There are several reasons why a DT fusion reactor will never be built. The tritium dilemma highlighted in one comment is one, and here one should realise that the lithium needs to be isotopically enriched to raise the Li-6 percentage appreciably up from its natural level of 7.5%, while in any case the tritium in a hot environment cannot be prevented from diffusing into the structure and being lost.
My main comment is that there is no way a reactor can be built without testing components in a 14Mev neutron environment, and this cannot be done without access to a fusion reactor - a lovely example of Catch-22.

[matsv]

The greenwall limit was broken nearly a decade ago with HTS... Well sort of. The Green wall limit is also based on the maximum magnetic flux, and it was believed until 2011 to be fixed, but then a new type of HTS was developed that increased it quite a bit.

[sideshowben]

Nice vid dude. Looks like that first class degree at Exeter really set you up for success!

[MagnumInnominandum]

Qtotal > Qplasma Qtotal is what matters, we are not even close.

[human_isomer]

Thanks for the update! I really like that you keep the level of sensation in your titles at a reasonable and defensible level, and how you explain the scientific background. Keep it like that please!
However, one question: 3:49 isn't it rather that, with a temperature gradient, the density is higher on the cooler (low-pressure) side? I'm thinking about the ideal gas law. Or are there other relations for plasma?

[winstonsmith]

Practical commercial fusion power production has always seemed to be 30 years away. LFTRs and walk away safe 4th gen fission reactors could be here in short order.

[robertoskeetrech]

There was no "rewritting" of any physics laws. Complete sensationalism. Nothing noteworthy shown.

[ihdvfjf]

The well-known and reputable developers of a commercial fusion reactor do not know or understand how to make a commercial fusion reactor. The proof? 70 years of no result! If they knew, they would have done it in three years.

[micahh]

also they cant explode like a fission reactor. the plasma inside cools instantly the moment the reactor's hull is punctured.

[michaelbrininstool]

We have plenty of nuclear reactors working for decades. You need to use the term FUSION reactor, which has NOT been working anywhere yet at positive efficiencies.