Why Nuclear Fusion is Closer Than You Think 

Do you think any of these fusion startups have a shot? Visit brilliant.org/undecided to sign up for free. And also, the first 200 people will get 20% off their annual premium membership. If you liked this video, check out: The Future of Solid State Wind Energy - No More Blades ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nNp21zTeCDc.html Corrections: More of a clarification, but First Light Fusion net gain plans are a ~150 MW pilot facility costing less that $1 billion in the 2030s.

Great video, but there's one small correction I'd like to make. You say deuterium and tritium are primarily sourced from seawater. It's more accurate to say seawater is the most abundant source, but currently, it is not used as a source very often. Instead, we harvest deuterium and tritium from fission reactors as it is generated in the core. This of course could change, but the technology behind extracting those isotopes from seawater is honestly deserving of its own video.

Thanks for including our team in this fusion overview, Matt! No matter the approach, it's clear that all of us are focused on one mission: creating clean, carbon-free energy from fusion.

In 1984 I interviewed at Livermore Labs based on my college work in the physics of laser-induced fusion. At the time, they said they were 3 years away. Happy to see that companies are still 3 years away.

Having been impressed by the molten salt fission systems, I feel sure they are going to fill the energy need for many centuries. If the thorium systems come good, even longer. Problems appear to be mostly with getting the best alloys for the pipework and maintaining a good reducing chemical potential. Much closer than any of the fusion systems. Then there's the LPP fusion project with their focused plasma beam. Looks very interesting.

Thank you Matt. I spent about 3 years studying 34 fusion energy projects around the world. As you point out, most all are variations of the tokamak, which has many inherent problems, which you allude to in the present video. The varying approaches of the three initiatives here are among those that caught my attention while doing my own research. However, the project I found to be most promising wasn't mentioned by you today. I'm referring to HB11 Energy in Australia. While funded so far on a shoestring, all the components of the model have been demonstrated in the lab in published, peer-reviewed scientific papers. Using Nobel Prize-winning (off the shelf) chirped pulse amplified laser technology, HB11 proposes to produce electrical current rather than heat. While this overlaps with Helion, it's fundamentally different. Why? (1) Ponderomotive fusion of hydrogen and boron 11 produces 3 helium nuclei (the positive charge) from instantaneous combination (fusion) of the reactants. The reaction is so rapid that heat is not a byproduct. The positively charged alpha particles can be used to generate an electrical current through closing a circuit with the electrons separated from the atoms in the reaction. (2) Neither the reactants nor the products are radioactive. Contrast this to all the reactions using deuterium and tritium, which emit neutron radiation in the fusion reaction and also interact with carbon in the atmosphere (and the human body). (3) While a magnetic field is required to contain and channel the products, there is no plasma (nor heat) to contain, channel or stabilize. To summarize, you put in simple hydrogen (no deuterium or tritium) and boron 11, and you get out an electrical current (electrons & helium nuclei). No heat is produced. There are no steam turbines or plasma containment required. There is no radioactivity going in or coming out. And, of course, there is no carbon. As an added note, HB11 Energy is almost never mentioned by anyone seeking to educate the public about fusion energy. I'd sure like to see you dig into the HB11 Energy story, particularly as you bring a particular brand of clarity to all of your stories!

While all 3 look interesting, the one I'm hoping works best is the Helion design. It _looks_ like it would be the easiest to scale up or down and also looks like it would be the easiest to make "portable", as in an ocean going vessel or even a space ship.

I just read that a fusion reactor just made a net gain. Seems like that’s HUGE by way of proving the possibilities.

Oh My God! I've been thinking about "Direct Energy Conversion" for so long! I'm not a scientist or anything. I was thinking how much better it would be for the energy to be converted directly into electricity without having to pass through a heat engine which by definition has low COP. Didn't think it was possible. I'm glad I was wrong.

A very nice overview: Just two comments: 1) Deuterium-Tritium Fusion does produce radioactive waste - its half-life is just way shorter than that of waste from fission. 2) ITER is a research project - the results gained there help to accelerate the fusion projects in the private sector. I think both ways are very important

Engineers are always confident they can crack a problem, and they stay confident even decades into working on it. When it comes to commercial-grade fusion, I'll believe it when I see it.

I hope you do a followup video in a few years. It sounds like we’ll have a better idea of which if any of these projects will be viable in a few years once they’ve managed to build and test their prototypes. There is of course no guarantee that a working fusion reactor will be a commercially viable fusion reactor, but so long as the results of this research are shared if they turn out to be deadends (whether through scientific journals or sold to other fusion projects), then in the worst case it’ll help inform how to build ITER’s successor. Glad to see that at least on initial inspection they aren’t just scams.

They used to say its 10 years away and always will be. Now it's 5 years away and always will be. You are right. It IS getting closer!

Absolutely love the idea of presenting different way of mastering one technology, even more the interviews from startups in the real world. Made me realize how many ways there are of generating fusion. Love it !

It happened! 80 years since we discovered nuclear fission, today we have discovered net energy positive fusion. No longer will it be 30 years away, the time is now. Congratulations Lawrence Livermore Laboratories and all those involved in this tremendous achievement.

Just announced a 120% net gain. Fascinating time to be alive!

This is truly a first past the post race. The first company to be able to begin supplying net gain fusion energy at scale is likely to win long term - as long as they manage things well. Mismanagement could set everything back dramatically. I like the Helion approach though, very 1701-D Warp Core like.

I think what's most interesting about all of these small scale operations is how bad they make ITER look, ITER will be fascinating for sure but it is simply too big for a research and demonstration reactor as the size so severely restricts iteration and improvements, especially as new discoveries and understandings are made. As Helion showed, smaller scales allow much faster iteration and testing and allows a clear progression from prototypes and demonstrators to (hopefully) real energy positive reactors.

The US government is making a big announcement regarding fusion energy! The announcement will be December 13. Stay tuned!

A cousin of mine is working on an orbitron fusion reactor. You may find this interesting. From their website: High-Level Concept: High speed ions are electrostatically confined in precessing elliptical orbits around a negatively charged cathode. The ion density is increased by the co-confinement of high temperature electrons trapped by an external weak magnetic field perpendicular to the electrostatic field in a “crossed field” configuration similar to a magnetron microwave device. Crossing elliptical paths of ions provide millions of chances of fusion-relevant collisions before the ion loses energy and is moved out of the interaction space as it falls into the cathode and is removed from the chamber. -I'll add the link to their website, if you are curious.

"Was it a waste of money? Well not if you ask the people receiving the money." - Matt Ferrell -

You really need to do a video on just how good Fission is these days. (Well, how good the technology is and how good power plants could be if we actually started building them again.) All the problems you mentioned have been figured out. Plants that have like 0.0001% chance of ever having a meltdown. 3rd and 4th stage reactions to lower the radioactivity half life down to 600 years or less. Storage that is VERY VERY unlikely to ever break. etc etc. And the technology gets better and better all the time. We could easily get to the point where we can point where we put the fuel through so many reactions it becomes non radioactive. But no, people are scared of Fission. Happily though, some places aren't. Canada is investing in it. I think Germany probably will start now that the realized how bad of an idea going "renewable" was.

Just heard the news that we have obtained net fusion return. What private company was this most associated with of the 3 you discussed here?

Someone mentioned the expense of tritium. My understanding is that in the Genral fusion system, the neutrons produced from fusion turn lithium into tritium which can be then removed and used as fuel. I think it produces a tritium atom for every tritium needed for fusion. Hence a working reactor would need extra. And there would be radiation concerns so a plant could not be placed near a city. Matt when you mentioned 3 companies, I thought you would have included TAE which uses the higher ignition temperature fusion reaction involving boron which does not produce neutrons. Its linear accelerator design can produce higher energies, but I can't figure out how they remove energy for electricity generation. It must work because they supposedly have the biggest investment. Great video Matt.

I've also been following the Wendelstein 7-X Stellerator. I'm anxious to hear more about their attempts to hit steady state operation.

I love the bonkers simplicity of the General Fusion approach. I'm glad they're still pursuing it!

I like the one that's working on direct energy capture, rather than boiling water. Even if they're not the first, they have the potential to develop a whole new level of efficiency that others will want to copy. Boiling water for turbines may be already proven technology, but the efficiency of that is pathetically low. We need some kind of electromagnetic means to siphon out the energy directly, without spinning up tons of moving parts to waste what we should be using. As of now, I'd say "fusion is only ten years away," so we'll see if it "always will be." Good luck, guys!

A month later, you called it. I will come back to this channel for all fusion updates 😊

The thrill of the chase really motivates these independent companies. You can just tell when people thrive on figuring out the science and then applying it. Exciting stuff for sure! This is a perfect example of how concentrating on one specific model (tokamak) can almost be counterproductive in the long run... as other concepts and discoveries surface that can be developed much faster and cheaper. Not saying that the tokamak style reactors won't eventually work - just that because of the time involved in developing the science, other fusion concepts might already be up and running by the time tokamak's are viable. Well done Matt and team! 🤠

This is the coolest thing I have seen in weeks. Thank you for helping me learn, Matt!

Don't forget that ITER research made lots of other innovations. Some example: - drastic improvements in semiconductors (plasma science - RF waves - RF power delivery systems and controls) - linear inductor motor with inverters for precis controlled acceleration (example: Jet catapult on Aircraft carriers) - new composite materials - thermos size nuclear detection system - huge data processing (computer science and math) etc. etc.

It's nice to see that Otto Octavius hasn't abandoned his fusion dreams 7:40

well, they are 3 breakthroughs for any fusion reactor to achieve 1. scientific breakthrough : proving that more raw energy can be produced than used 2. engineering breakthrough : proving that more USABLE energy can be produced than used and at scale. 3. commercial breakthrough : proving that a lot of energy can be produced AT A REASONABLE price. None of these startup have even managed the scientific breakthrough. So I am incredibly skeptical that they can achieve the time scale that they declared.

Great video! I am always excited to see these novel methods for solving a problem and I wish them the best of luck! I am also a physicist and have to make a few notes, mainly on the introduction 1) Fission reactors are not inherently susceptible to meltdowns and explosions. The pressurized water reactors we currently use are, however designs such as molten salt reactors are literally incapable of exploding. Most Gen IV reactors share this property. 1a) Fission does not need to produce lots of nuclear waste, the problem is more political than physical. If breeder reactors are set up which use mixed oxide fuel (which is uranium and plutonium mostly) their fuel can be reprocessed again and again with relatively little waste. France, a country who is mostly nuclear powered, does this and produces much less waste than the US (who banned reprocessing in the 70s). 2) Fusion does actually create nuclear waste. Very dangerous nuclear waste actually. Fusion leads to the release of neutrons which "activate" other materials. The reactor vessels and components will absorb these neutrons and become radioactive. The atomic structure of them is altered and thus they degrade over time. There are proposed ways to insulate the reactors with lithium blankets which would also produce tritium, but to my knowledge none of these systems have been demonstrated yet. Every few years fusion reactors will have to be refitted to maintain structural integrity. The old components will be *very* radioactive and will need long term storage/disposal. Helium 3 fusion does not create te radiation hazard as Deuterium-Tritium fusion, however has a host of supply issues. 3) Tritium is not really a naturally occurring resource. It has a half life of 10 years which makes it hard to store and use. The only way we have to make tritium currently is from fission reactors and currently this is where most of the worlds supply comes from. There are proposed methods to make tritium from lithium and the excess neutrons released in fission but as it stands there has been no evidence we will be able to produce enough tritium this way. Helium-3 is the same way, however it is even harder to make, only being produced through radioactive decay, cosmic rays, and whatever was here at formation of the solar system. We might be able to get it from the lunar surface (see: Moon, its a good movie and the science is checking out) as He3 has been detected there rather recently by a Chinese rover. I think that with sufficient advances in science and engineering all of these issues can be overcome, however even optimistically to get the amount of energy we need to de carbonize, current technologies haven't been well enough proven for us to go all in on them as our savior.

It is enormously encouraging to me that there are a number of different technological approaches in the works with passionate teams and monetary support behind each. This greatly increases the possibility of success, which in my view is crucial to the survival of our ecosystem.

Thx for posting, quality work, well presented.

Thank you for the high level look at what emerging technology is about as well as clever ways of manipulating existing supply chains for new purposes. Great video as always !

From 30 years away to 29 years away! What a time to be alive

Wow this video was perfectly timed!

These kinds of advances & proper scientific progress gives me massive hope for the future. If you look to politics it’s just disastrous all over the place… but if you look to science and these kinds of amazing things, it’s so much more interesting, positive and amazing!

I worked tangentially in this field a long time ago, and I think these are really creative and clever ways of approaching the problems. I do very much hope they are successful and I'll be following their progress. We'll have to see whether they can really overcome those challenges, though.

Helion for 2 reasons , it's a signal stage conversion (we need the steam thing gone) with a high rate of conversion effiency and it's not looking for a sustained reaction to succeed. Some might say it's not really traditonal fusion but it's in it's own class of rapid pulse fusion. A flux capacitor if you perfer 😁 Logically since they have fewer challenges to success, they should arrive at their end goals sooner.

We need the update video !

Super shiny Animation check, Computer Simulation and AI Check, a lot of nice abbreviations check, super optimistic timeline check. A reactor powerful enough to power a lightbulb UNCHECK

There's a good reason to continue building ITER: It's probably our best shot to eventually get fusion working as a power source according to experts like Prof. Hartmut Zohm from the Max Planck Institute for Physics. Magnetic confinement via tokamaks (and stellarators) such as ITER are closest to practical power generation according to the actual numbers. The proposed timelines of other privately funded companies are often far too ambitious. Stronger magnets are certainly a promising way to decrease the size and cost of these experiments, but there are problems. For example the main problem with those very strong super-conducting magnets for the SPARC/ARC reactor planned by MIT are actually structural loads. I don't like that to get investors, they are also casting doubt over probably the most important fusion experiment (ITER).

Even though fusion rectors are considered safer, fission rectors are still the safest thing we have available to us now. We should be building fission reactors like crazy.

Very good Matt! Thanks for creating this video.

Thank you so much for what you do! I actually have my second interview on March 9th with Helion trying to be one of their technicians.

So happy you posted this - I saw an interview years ago about Direct Energy Conversion in fusion systems and I could never find it again; I love the elegance of the Helion system. I wish all these startups the best of luck though - anyone who achieves viable fusion power will be doing a huge service for humanity.

Tritium is a very rare element, often produced from fission reactions. There is something like 20kg available now, which shows the need of breeding tritium inside the fusion reactors with lithium.

Thanks for covering this. I had watched a youtube video on Helion and wanted to get excited, but Im also a layman and a pleb so oftentimes when I get excited about stuff i find out that its just sensationalism on something that had been debunked years ago. Its really good to know that i can actually feel a bit of excitement over this and other fusion tech.

Fascinating piece of work thank you it seems that they're moving along very logical lines of advancement towards fusion. I like the fact that like in

It always surprised me how Tokamaks usally seemed to get all the spotlight, like this was the only way to achieve stable fusion power

As a physics student in the early seventies: yup, fusion was 30 years away. I never understood why it took so much money and time to develop either fission or fusion reactors. Physicists eh! Since then, I've got post-grad degrees in mechanical engineering and worked my whole career as an engineer. Ah, now I understand! What does everyone reckon now? Ten years? My God, we need this!

Matt, Fusion Energy as a practical resource is the Energy of the Future and always will be.

This video aged so well in such a short time !

Small correction Matt…tritium does not come from seawater. It comes from…fission reactors!

I haven't been this excited about fusion in years. I had thought of a similar approach to fusion that utilized pulses instead of continuous ignition. To see that these companies were already doing that, amazed me and it really resonated with me. Frankly I feel that we should divert government and private funding toward these companies. One is bound to hit any day now. Thanks for this insightful video, I'm now super amped about fusion again after many year of " its 30yrs away".

Who's here after the news just dropped?

Any word on if/ how often the lithium coolant would need to be replaced? We're already doing quite a bit of environmental damage mining enough lithium to make batteries for EVs and portable electronics.

I expect all these companies to spend a lot of time and a lot of money to produce some interesting science and a lot of excuses for why they still need more time and money to finally reach economic viability. I remember getting excited about General Fusion 15 years ago, but nothing much has happened since then except bigger fundraising rounds and bigger promises that they are getting closer.

Even before seeing the 2nd one, I was thinking Helion's version is like a magnetic version of an internal combustion engine with a compression and power stroke. I wonder if it could be adapted as a form of fusion thruster.

All of these startups are interesting but I do think there is a disconnect over what the general public sees as a reactor. I think the common idea is that the reaction happens and is sustained, like fission (and yes, that would be the Holy Grail) but these are promising workarounds.

A working reactor is all nice and good, but what we really need is an economically competitive reactor. A thermal fusion power plant would share most of its components with other thermal power plants. While this has obvious advantages, it also means that its construction price will be significantly higher than for existing thermal power plants (due to the additional parts needed for fusion). Even for existing power plants, it takes several years of gross profit to pay back that initial cost...

It sure seems like this topic has become very, very active this last year and growing momentum each week.

One of the reason the Fusion has been 30 years away is because a lot of this assumes that their is just a single breakthrough to make it work. The reality is Fusion has not been a sprint but a marathon, we’ve made a lot of progress but the race is still far from over. A more realistic time line is if we keep current pace it will be more of the energy of the 22nd century, along with some other energy sources where they are most effective. Also unless we can completely break past the tritium deuterium cycle we will still need fission reactors for their precision neutrons.

Great video Matt!

Matt, one omission from the discussion was the about the fusion reaction in each system. You only described Helion which is using the Deuterium - Helium 3 reaction; however Helium 3 supply is the like Tritium supply problem only worse. While I support fusion research with a realistic long term view, I don't yet see any route to a commercial price for fusion electriciy. As solar and wind costs decline, 'over-building' these renewables could still be lowest cost total energy system possible [with storage at the margins].

Here's hoping! These kinds of projects feel like the primative fusion technology we will have to master before we can have artificial stars powering our society. I'm cautiously optimistic

Fusion is really great, my house is fusion powered. I collect fusion energy all day long and use it while I can and store some of it for the evening in a battery. It is the oldest form of energy that I know of and plants seem to be excellent fusion collectors as well. I release fusion power in my wood stove to heat my home all winter here in Canada. Fusion collectors are really great in extreme events too since their power can be made close to home anywhere. Lead acid batteries are the best way that I know of to store fusion power at home, the cost can not be beat by a long shot, as long as you take good care of your batteries and you clean the snow off of your fusion collectors in winter, you are laughing. It really is amazing technology!

Hi, I would just like to say a few things about this video. I think there are many interesting ideas presented my personal favorite is the idea of using the reactors coolant as a means of shielding the reactor components but there is one thing that this video neglects to mention that I feel needs to be noted when it comes to the progression of fusion-based power. There are more issues with the concept but this is what I am most familiar with. Fusion reactors have existed for many decades and have been applied in everything from scientific research to their use as neutron initiators in modern nuclear devices. For the most part fusion reactors are used for one main purpose. That purpose is to produce a lot of neutrons. While nuclear reactors produce vast amounts of neutrons they lack the ability of modulation that a fusion-based neutron generator possesses. The most commonly used design for a tritium deuterium fusion-based neutron generator is the linear ion accelerator model. In this model, an ion gun is used to shoot tritium ions at a target of lithium-deuteride a form of lithium hydride where the specific isotope of hydrogen is deuterium. When the tritium slams into the lithium-deuteride at extremely high speeds inducing a fusion reaction and produces lots and lots of neutrons. One of the most common applications for such a device is in the field of radiochemistry and chemical engineering, specifically, this technology is applied in studies of neutron transmutation of materials. It is also frequently used in neutron imagery. Neutron transmutation is largely the topic of my research, specifically my research centers around the study of what happens when materials are exposed to high amounts of neutron radiation. Neutrons are probably the most well-known nucleon. Neutrons are slightly heavier than protons and for the purposes of this next part, you will need to imagine a neutron as a proton with an electron slapped on the outside. This is not really how neutrons work but it's the easiest way to explain this process. A neutron can shed its electron and become a proton, free neutrons will do this after about 15 min however a nuclear neutron is typically stable however sometimes a nuclear neutron will become a proton and throw away its electron to maintain a sustainable nuclear charge (beta - emission). In addition to this atoms can "capture" neutrons and become heavier this process is known as neutron capture. When an atom captures a neutron the atom can become a new isotope of that atom, that atom can then have one of its neutrons turn into a proton, transmuting the atom into an entirely new element with distinct chemical properties. These processes are both known as neutron transmutation, where the capture of a neutron by an atom results in a change to the atom either isotopic or elemental. Modern polymers, alloys, and electronics can all become damaged by this process so any shielding in a fusion reactor will need to be replaced regularly. The damages that strong neutron radiation can do to modern materials can not be underestimated and must be considered when talking about the challenges behind constructing a fusion reactor.

This vid does an excellent job of making this coherent.

Thanks for the video Matt. It would be good to see a follow up about some of the underdogs in Fusion, such as LPPFusion in the USA - lead by Doctor Eric Lerner.

It is great to see this level of research and engineering being done over multiple platforms. Not putting all your eggs in one basket is the best approach to this problem I feel. I do have concerns about what the Kwh price might be if Fusion is cracked and developed as that scale of precision engineering and science will not come cheap. that is why we must keep pushing ahead with renewable energy that is cheaper to produce.

What a great presentation! Exciting news, too.

wow this is so interesting thanks for the update

I am intrigued by Helion's design. I specifically like how no heat exchanger or steam turbine would be necessary or that a fusion reaction wouldn't need sustained. That seems like the most efficient route to go.

These are very interesting. I am very excited about the ones that use steam turbines for the power generation especially, since they could be retro-fitted into existing power infrastructure. Something to keep our eye on for sure.

Don't forget that ITER's demand for superconductor materials has led to an increase in the size of the global supply. This directly reduced the cost of superconductor based equipment and development making these fusion startups possible.

3 weeks later today a new fusion energy breakthrough

I think helion could really work if they combined multiple units of those reactors and offset their time increments, so for instance if they all pulse every 10 seconds (still much faster than now obv), then if they had 100 of them they could collectively be pulsing every 0.1 of a second, if offset by that amount which I think would be possible with programming. And that would probably be enough for most scenarios and could be combined with renewables. That’s just one idea of it though

Now only 29 years away? :D

I worked at Harwell in the 1970's and a friend of mine worked at Culham Lab. Nuclear fusion was 'Just around the corner'. I'm amazed they've continued to get funding for all this time. It's still 'Just around the corner'....Given the global climate, environment and energy crisis, we need solutions now....

"triggers an unstable chain reaction and lead to reactor explosion or meltdown... just look at Fukushima". There was NO unstable chain reaction at Fukushima - the reactors were shut down beforehand. There was indeed a partial meltdown because the back-up generators for the cooling system were knocked out.

Another great video Matt. Well written, edited, and structured. Whooever you have working that side of things for you deserves recognition, and/or an end of year bonus. Nice the way you interspersed it with the experts from industry talking. Funny you mentioned Sabine in the end. All the way through this video I was thinking, okay, that all sounds great, but what would Sabine say?

Today it is a fact. This video aged well. 👍

0:45 damn man You're good I was only here to type that 😂😂

Fantastic information, thank you

The first one, nope. What happens when you throw a ball at a wall? You get a bounce. Sometimes 90, to 95% of the energy is returned in the form of a bounce. That seems like all we are seeing here. An atomic scale bounce. The second one, nope. That one looks like a perpetual motion machine to me. The third one, yeah. That might work.

Helion uses He3, which is hard to find. It is present in He4 supplies but at extremely low levels. There are only tens of kg available in current He4 supplies. People talk of mining it on the moon, but that's ridiculous compared to, say, thorium. The other two use tritium, which is also rare and radioactive with a short half-life. They'll have to breed it from lithium and be careful about accidental releases.

This just got a lot closer with the LLNL net gain experiment

Great report. Helion approach looks really revolutionary

ITER will work. JET got pretty close, so I'm fairly confident about ITER because making physically larger TOKAMAKs increases the energy output more than the energy input. CFS looks promising--the power of the magnets is one of the variables we can tweak. I'm skeptical about all the other systems. I'm glad people are pursuing other techniques because there is a chance one of them will work, but I don't see a clear path forward like we have with JET, ITER and DEMO.

After following fusion for many years I grew rather sceptical that this is something we can expect in the next 50 years. The new developments are interesting but at closer look just a trade off of issues rather than a short track. Don't get me wrong. I still think this is a path worth further persueing. But if you really dig into the subject you start to realize how much at the beginning we still are. Still many miles away from even getting close to any real net energy gains (i.e. not theoretical ones as so often is referred to). And, on top of this, to then make it a system that also works from an economic perspective. I have no doubt that this will be possible at some point, but not in the near future. So sorry, fusion is farther away than you think.

I like this video... something seems changed in the way of presentation, but I can't say what... It's still an optimistic video about this tech, but also more realistic than previous ones on this subject... I love this style of presenting information...

Great video. I think they have a shot because the need is so great and the upside is there for their investors. Also, advancements over the past several decades in electronics, computer modeling make this dream more feasible than in the past.

A new story just came out today Reporting that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility has reported a net energy production above breakeven. We shall see how things go from here.

I don’t see fusion ever making commercial power. The cost will be a major factor but by no means the key. I’m glad we have explored it so enthusiastically, no matter what. We all know the benefits, but I feel that proponents are conveniently skirting the technical issues.

It's very good to see the private sector is pushing things forward in the fusion sector. Makes me wonder if fission is also getting a similar treatment, like with Thorium reactors. Of all the energy sources, nuclear fusion is the top dream, but there's nothing stopping us from using multiple sources, especially if those are close to zero carbon emissions and highly efficient

How about a chain of offset timed reactions linked to together in the capacity by using multiple small reactors to subsidize the slow reactions of each reactor since a single reactor is to slow? Like a big motor with many cylinders on one drive line. Then you would have multiple phases that you combine to get the desired output