Charles Seife: Laser Fusion Hype | Brian Keating’s INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast (283)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) recently announced the achievement of fusion ignition at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) — a major scientific breakthrough decades in the making that will pave the way for advancements in national defense and the future of clean power. On Dec. 5, a team at LLNL’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) conducted the first controlled fusion experiment in history to reach this milestone, also known as scientific energy breakeven, meaning it produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it. This first-of-its-kind feat will provide unprecedented capability to support NNSA’s Stockpile Stewardship Program and will provide invaluable insights into the prospects of clean fusion energy, which would be a game-changer for efforts to achieve President Biden’s goal of a net-zero carbon economy.

“This is a landmark achievement for the researchers and staff at the National Ignition Facility who have dedicated their careers to seeing fusion ignition become a reality, and this milestone will undoubtedly spark even more discovery,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to supporting our world-class scientists — like the team at NIF — whose work will help us solve humanity’s most complex and pressing problems, like providing clean power to combat climate change and maintaining a nuclear deterrent without nuclear testing.”

Charles Seife, a professor of journalism at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, has been writing about physics and mathematics for two decades. He is a critic of the hype surrounding fusion. He is the author of nine books books, SUN IN A BOTTLE AND including Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea (2000), which won the 2000 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction; Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception (2010); and a forthcoming biography of physicist Stephen Hawking (2021).
Before arriving at NYU, Seife was a writer for Science magazine and had been a U.S. correspondent for New Scientist. His writing has also appeared in The Economist, Scientific American, ProPublica, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Discover, Slate, Smithsonian, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and numerous other publications. He has also been a scientific consultant and writer for television documentaries about science and mathematics.
Seife holds an A.B. in mathematics from Princeton University, an M.S. in mathematics from Yale University, and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University

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[DrBrianKeating]

*Will fusion power our electrical needs in the next 25 years? Please join my mailing list; for your chance to win space dust- click here 👉 **briankeating.com/list*

[turbo]

More on the recent LLNL laser fusion "breakthrough":
1) The 3 MJ of fusion energy created in this experiment could be used to make only about 10 cents worth of electrical energy.
2) The laser energy needed to produce this 3 MJ of fusion energy was at least 300 MJ, so there was no net energy gain.
3) Such experiments can be repeated at most once per day, but a fusion reactor would need make much bigger explosions about 10 times per second continuously.
4) The DT fuel pellet target is very complex, costs at least several thousand dollars, and is destroyed in each such experiment.
5) The laser used for this experiment cost at least $4B to build and over $300M a year to run for fusion energy research.
6) The likelihood of making a practical energy source from laser fusion is comparable to that of making money from a lemonade stand on the moon, in my opinion.

[redred]

Just watched Sabines take on this breakthrough, she said the actual energy in vs out is really less than 1%.

[sirnukesalot]

RealEngineering just went over the state of development over at Helion. Any chance you could drop in on them and give us your take on their progress?

[deletefacebook]

The background to this topic is the ultimate crusher of all dreams😂.

[talkingmudcrab]

I believe the time dilation involved with bringing nuclear fusion to the masses is far more fascinating than nuclear fusion itself. It has remained "twenty years away" for well over 50 years now.

[Well_Earned_Siesta]

12:30 Dr Keating I really wish you wouldn’t let certain declaratiory statements go unchecked. For example, “solar is just not gonna cut it”, and, “we can’t rely entirely on renewables, that’s just a fact.” Those are unsupported statements that are way outside of your guest’s field of study. As someone who did my PhD in this space, it is really frustrating to hear scientists from other fields just casually make statements like this and not even try to provide supporting evidence. Similarly, I don’t make wild, declaratory statements about cosmology and claim “it’s just a fact”, and if I did I would expect you and others to call me out on it. It’s amazing how that basic respect for other scientific disciplines doesn’t flow in the other direction.

[jamesruscheinski]

is there any possibility of reversing very small black holes or very small neutron stars back to fusion of hydrogen; or are practically irreversible?

[tsmspace]

what about using fusion to manufacture elements for other use

[voltaaire]

What about Magneto-Inertial Fusion (MIF)?

[naturix]

Ork - Fernsehen ?
Was ist der Unterschied zwischen mutwillig heißer Luft und Konzentration
Was ist der Unterschied zwischen mutwilligem Verdampfen, Löcher rausbrennen und Fondensieren und dann Fusionieren
von intakten Reaktionen ?

[alexwilsonpottery]

For those of us who never had a bb gun, just how big, in millimetres please, is a bb?

[GrimJerr]

wake me when they are Over Unity. I get the feeling that Over Unity is much like achieving the speed of light, the closer you come to the goal the harder, if not more impossible it becomes.

[kurteibell]

I don't want to seem to discredit Professor Seife. However, how can someone be an "expert" on laser fusion when it is still only experimental? Is "expert" the correct description?

[GrimJerr]

I always wondered ever since reading about the Tokamak, what happens to the Fusion Load if or when the Toroidal Magnetic Field fails 🤯🤯🤯

[deadghosts]

When discussing magnetic confinement, I am always sad that everyone always forgets that stellarators do also exist, not only Tokamaks. Despite Stellarators making almost boringly expected and steady progress.

[deletefacebook]

Fusion is a good way to keep science alive.

[freda]

Great interview, great guest. Accessible to the layperson, and entertaining. The quadfecta podcast.

[ersauce]

You did not bring on a nuclear physics expert, you brought on a professor of journalism who is not here for conversation, but to sell ideas he's firmly rooted to? He must not be a very good journalist either if he's saying the NIF is used primarily for weapons development.

I am very saddened at the direction this channel has taken recently. It's fine to be objective about "hype" but that's not what this is. This is a conversation centered around energy solutions to our current crisis, where fusion has no place in the discussion. Your interviewee even says this, yet you force it into this context for clicks.

[charlesdaugherty]

Did they count the energy used to make the bb core?
Not even close.