WE DID NUCLEAR FUSION

We did nuclear fusion. In Simone’s workshop.

Disclaimer: This build was supervised by experts at Helion. Do not try this at home.

I still can’t believe this video really happened. Back in May, I interviewed Helion CEO David Kirtley. I was trying to understand nuclear fusion: Is nuclear fusion possible now? How does fusion actually work? And most importantly, is nuclear fusion the future? Then, at the end of the interview, I asked David about headlines I’d seen about people building nuclear fusion devices in their backyards - what were they doing? “Oh,” David replied, “you can build one.”

What followed is the biggest adventure yet on Huge If True. Together with the team at Helion and my friend fellow YouTuber Simone Giertz, we BUILT A NUCLEAR FUSION DEVICE to show how nuclear fusion works, what the big remaining challenges are, and how it might help us all in the future.

Then, the last step was to try to turn it on…

HUGE (no asterisk) thank you to David, Jessie, Ron, Joben, and the entire team at Helion for helping make our nuclear fusion dreams possible. It's truly a life moment I'll never forget and I'm so grateful.

Chapters:
00:00 We’re trying to do nuclear fusion
01:01 Thank you Uber Reserve!
01:48 What is nuclear fusion?
02:48 How do you build a fusion device?
03:37 How is nuclear fusion possible?
04:36 What is the big challenge with fusion?
05:36 What does nuclear fusion look like?
06:12 We’re great at this
07:08 UH OH
08:02 Here comes the fusion fuel!
08:32 The “Do Not Die” section
09:07 DID WE DO IT??
12:38 Is fusion possible at scale?
13:32 THANK YOU HELION

Sources and further reading:

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked. She now makes her own independent show, Huge If True. Each episode takes on one big technology innovation or idea, explains what it is, and helps people imagine the ways it could improve the world we live in by answering one simple question: If this works, what could go right?

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed

—
Welcome to the joke down low:

What is a lightbulb’s favorite kind of news?
Current events.

Find a way to use the word “current” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one ;)

[LeRoiJojo]

I like how David's completely unfazed by it all, like an electrical engineer who just showed a kid how to power a lightbulb with lemons or something.

[rudycandu]

It is disappointing that Cleo was mislead into thinking they created fusion. They did not. It was only plasma. And it is more disappointing that over 3 million people were mislead watching this video, thinking fusion was created. I don't know why they were being lied to.

[christiangodin]

Good day. Lovely video, but please do not pretend that you have realized a "fusion" nuclear reaction. It was a beautiful regular plasma creation.

[thethoughtemporium]

Great video, but ya'll didn't make any fusion. If you had you'd all be suffering acute rad poisoning being that close to an unshielded fusor. That big glass window would be spewing xrays. Fusion doesn't happen until at least 30Kv, and the amount of current required is directly proportional to the size of the chamber. That massive chamber would be quite difficult to get up to actual fusion range. You'd probably need 50kv and a fair bit of current and it would be wildly unstable, fusing sporadically while spewing x rays.
There's a whole community who've been building fusors for years and the standards for claiming fusion are really well defined. It's a "pics or it didn't happen" kinda thing. Basically, you need to detect actual neutron output or you can't claim fusion. This means you either need a bubble detector, a neutron detecting tube, or to activate some other element with the neutrons and detect the gamma decay of the resulting unstable element.
It's a lovely build and I commend you on getting as far as you did, but David should know better and it's really disingenuous to make the claim of fusion in this context. I've literally built the same device out of microwave parts and jam jars and while it glows nicely, there's 0 detectable fusion at the voltages demo units like this run at.

[HelionEnergy]

Cleo, when you suggested building a fusor to help people better understand fusion, we were all in! Thanks for coming up with such an awesome idea. And Simone, thanks for letting us send parts of a fusion machine to your workshop (twice 😅). This was so fun to build and really helps explain some fusion fundamentals.

[angusmatheson]

No you did not achieve fusion. The voltages were 10% of what they needed to be, and if you were doing fusion, you would have gotten massive hits of xrays and neutrons.

Im sorry david played you like this but I would love to see a correction and response.

What you did was achieve deuterium plasma, NOT fusion. 2

[nateeames]

Simone is such a natural fit for this channel. I hope we see her again!

[NorthernChev]

You definitely did NOT "make fusion" with that device, right there that day. You made plasma, that's it. Nothing more; and he knows this. You've been intentionally mislead. Period.

[terramater]

Just today, Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California celebrated a breakthrough in their fusion experiments. For the first time, they were able to generate more energy than they invested in the process. The researchers used 2.1 megajoules of energy, with the help of laser beams, to initiate the fusion of two hydrogen isotopes. The fusion reaction in the facility generated 2.5 megajoules of energy. This is an important step towards the commercial use of fusion technology and a potential alternative to fossil fuels.

[revmatchtv]

This video absolutely did not show fusion. It showed plasma.

[darwinawardrecipient]

Alternate title: Over Engineered Plasma Globe demonstration

[greaser]

I love how all the comments pointing out that this isn’t fusion are completely overlooked. I find it funny how the people who really understand whats going on get ignored. There is no fusion. Still cool though

[flightsimdev]

No, Sorry if that guy is saying you made fusion he is lying to you, you might have made the steps toward it, but you didn't actually do it, and if you did, you had no radiation protection, gamma rays are lethal, and you being that close would be an extreme heath hazard.

[hitmani]

After watching this I questioned the rest of the science on this channel 😢. I saw the reaction from T. Folse Nuclear

[teresashinkansen]

Where are the neutrons? this is just an overly expensive and complicated discharge light, this is not a reactor until there is proof of a neutron flux.

[earnbrand]

When you asked how you'd know that fusion had occurred, I'm surprised that David didn't pull out a portable neutron detector.

[besmart]

This was so fun! And Simone is just the person to get this strapped onto a Delorean

[Bigfoot_With_Internet_Access]

"The color you see is not pink, it's actually..."
_Proceeds to define the color pink exactly_

[mannyalejo]

A neutron detector would have confirmed the fusion reaction.

[TheAverageDutchman]

I'm maybe being "that guy" but I just want to note, running a Turbo-Molecular Pump completely unconstrained and unsecured like that is a terrible idea if things go very wrong. There's a LOT of energy in that pump rotor (since it's running at a "mere" 20k to 40k RPM). If it catastrophically fails for whatever reason, it's going to go flying if it's not bolted down. It's really intended to be bolted down on every single bolthole on that front flange and in the case of a full lock-up (bearing failure) it will just about not shear off every single one of those bolts.