Lockheed Martin and Future Outlook

This is an IiHart podcast Guaranteed human. And I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything It's the ragebait. It feels like it's trying to divide people If we got clear facts, maybe we could calm down a little NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there NBC News, repeporting for America Zach, nice vacious spot. But without TMobile five G home interternet, it's scary here Don't open it relax. I ordered TeamMobile five G homeome Internet with same day delivery powered by door dash, Nothing to be afraid of. We're saved TMobile five G homeome Internet delivered the same day, powered by DoorDash just thirty five bucks a month with auto pay and a voice line. Plus taxes and fees. sa day delivery for most interternet eligible customers. seeee if it's an option during checkout. You're locked into a lot of things you can't change. Weather, traffic. Hey, stay in your lane! Your wireless carrier's latest price hike, but you can unlock a better way. Unlock the savings at BoostMobile and save up to six hundred dollars a year Switch to the twenty five dollars a month unlimited wireless plan. No contracts, no price hikes, and you keep your phone. Stop being locked into their games. Unlock the savings at boostmobile d. com slash unlock. Based on average annual singleine of payment of AT andT Verizon and TMbile customers compred to twel months on the BoostMbile Unlimited wireless plan as of january twenty six. For full offer details vis Boostsbobile dot com dot Hey everybody, I'm back. I first heard about IDer, which is the nuclear fusion reactor being built in Europe from a New Yorker article called Star in A Bottle by Raapy Kchadorian And if you find this episode flloats your Boat, I highly recommend reading that article too The whole idea of what they're trying to do, which is to contain plasma, that crazy intense forth state of matter that the sun and lightning are made up of. into a chamber here on earth where it has no business being really, really caught my attention. And if they can do it, extremely cheap, abundant, climate friendly energy will be unlocked for all, and who knows what will follow after that The Iider group was shooting for twenty twenty five to start but recently changed their date to twenty thirty four. pass the time while you wait by enjoying this episode Welcome to Stuck You shouldh Know. from Hastuffworks. com. Hey and welcome to the podcast I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry Bir the lefts. U and this is stuff you should know. She gave us the old quick start Like, I don't wantanna hear anymore I'mressing record. Yeah. She knows that shuts me up. or at least cuts off whatever conversation I'm try in her way. It was great. I'm telling you, if we could release the twenty seconds before each show As its own show. Yeah. It would be terrible. No one would care. No We'd think it was funny everybody else would be like, you edit this out for a reason. Yep. So Chuck how you doing? Great. Have you ever been to Azon Provence France No. Is that a place? Yeah, No, I haven't. It is a rustic little town in Provence And it is Strangely Maybe even ironically in the non hipster use, but in the actual yeah. It's a real word. definition of the word alsoso cite to one of the most futuristic engineering projects humanity's ever undertaken It's the sound it makes. Oh, I thought you were mocking me. No, no, no. We're being thrilled by the thought of this thing. No, it is kind of funny that this thing's in a sleepy little town. It's like a hamlet maybe even. Cern in Switzerland, That's not in the city, is it No, you can't build these things in cities. That's why they're in sleepy towns. Exactly. becausecause no one knows they're being poisoned. Yeah, and you can push the mirror around pretty easy. Exactly. This thing is called Iider, IT ER which is an acronym for the International Thermmonuclear Eimental Reactor Which really gets the point across. D you know the word acronym is an acronym ue Okay. I just want to see how long you would try and sort it out in your head. I would have kept going like it means thirty seconds, maybe. That would have been a great joke. I could have just kept it going like, I'm not gonna to tell you I would have been I would have It was maybe fifteen seconds because you got to that much more S So I wouldn't have looked it up. I would have figured it out myself Anyway, Ider is this colossal engineering project Somebody compared it to the pyramids at Giza Oh wow Yeah That's that's exciting stuff, sure Um The thing is is It's a nuclear fusion reactor. And it's the culmination of dececades of attempts to create a nuclear fusion reactor Yeah. because we got fission down and we'll talk about the difference in a minute. Yeah But fusion has been very elusive and nowhere is it more apparent than in the Eider project. Yeah Because this thing is going to cost approximately fifty billion dollars when it's completed. fififty billion dollars They started in nineteen ninety three. They're hoping turn on the switch in twenty twenty, but it's looking like twenty twenty three or twenty twenty four And it won't be starting to produce anything until the two thousand forties at the earliest So what's the point I'll tell you the point. Yeah. If we can figure out nuclear fusion, Chuck, the world's literally, the world's energy problems will be solved. for millennia. Yeah. If we can just figure this out, we will have a Almost no radioactivity, nuclear option I almost Limitless fuel supply. Yeah Totally green. Yeah, clean, no pollution, no greenhouse emissions. Right. Plenty of energy to spare. Yeah. Using already extant infrastructure we have to supply power Like you don't have to completely rebuild everything. You can just too the electrical cables outside Yeah, it'll be the exact same thing Yeah, you can just go to a nuclear fission reactor and press the button that says fusion and it'll all of a sudden join atoms instead of split them. Exactly. It that easy. That's what the difference is. with fusion, you're splitting atoms and you're gaining energy from that. With fusion, you're smmacking them together Yeah and you're gaining even more energy because you're exploiting a different fundamental force. Yeah, and that I was being coi. Clearly there is no button. we would have pushed it a long time ago Yeah. And when I say no pollution and no greenhouse emissions before the pedantic among you wr in, we know that even shipping something from here to there causes pollution in greenhouse emissions. good. But we're talking about the output of the reactor itself is very green. So if you want to know all about IDer, we're going to talk about it here or there because it's just you just can't talk about nuclear fusion reactors and not mention idDer. But if you want to know a lot about IDer There's a really great article called A Star in a bottle And it's by a person named Rai Kachadurin Durian And it was written in the New Yorker not too long ago. Yeah. And man, it is Every detail you want to know about the Aer project written really well And it's long, but it's totally worth the read. Yeah, it's all over the news lately and for good reason, you said a lot of energy I have a stat to throw back to the old days here. per kilogram of fuel if we're talking Fusion and fission Fusion produces four times more energy than fission I saw seven Probably the only s where it's like four five to ten or something.. I've found four times. And ten million times more than coal Yeah, ten million times the energy as coal. Yeah. And that's with equal fuel per kilogram of fuel. R It's just, I mean, it is the future. Yeah. And you can say, well, that's great because we want eighteen million times the amount of power that Cole provides. You can say, well there, buddy, you can also bring it backwards. because You can supply an awful lot of power then with a lot less fuel. L the advantages of nuclear fusion are mind boggling. Sure. And very few downsides, which we'll get to, of course, but Yeah. I mean, like really genuinely, it's not just like some Like here's all the great stuff about it and just don't pay attention to all these like really horrible aspectses U like there really aren't too many downsides. The downside is we are at this moment incapable of successfully creating a commercially viable nuclear fusion reactor. That's right. But we've got an understanding of what the challenges are ahead of us thanks to the last ty or so years of really, really, really smart physicists working on the problem of nuclear fusion And the great inspiration for nuclear fusion is The sun. The sun and all stars like it are enormous immense nuclear fusion reactors So if you are building a nuclear fusion reactor here on Earth, you're essentially creating a star. And that is a very difficult thing to do, it turns out Yeah, the sun creates, I know we talked about the sun in our very famous episode on the Sun Um The suun creates six hundred twenty million metric tons It fuses six hundred twenty million metric tons of hydrogen att its core every second So every second at the Sun's core It produces enough power to light up New York City for a hundred years. New York City every second. and that's the sun and all we want to do is do the same thing on a much smaller scale. I think the guy there's this kid who built one in his garage And he said he wanted to Chress all this Ted talk He wanted to create a star in a box is what he called it Yeah, I've seen it like this New Yorker called it a star in a bottle. Yeah, this kid's name is Taylor Wilson and He's a nuclear physicist and he's like sixteen. Wow And he created a Huser he created a successful one and The key though is not to be able to create the fusion. The key is to be able to harness enough plasma, which we'll get to at a high enough temperature and density for there to be a net power gain. right You can create fusion But in order to get out more than you're putting in, is the only thing that matters because what you want to do is create electricity. Exactly. there's two huge challenges right now to nuclear fusion. We pretty much understand it enough to start it going and get energy from it. The problem is is material science isn't at a point where it can build a containment vessel really house a thermonuclear reactor. Yeah And then the other bigig obstacle is like you said,et energy gain. Like if you're putting in as much or more energy than you're getting out of your nuclear reactor then you're wasting energy and it's the opposite of what you're supposed to be doing. Yeah, they're not just trying to impress people with their science knowledge. No, but up to them trying to create energy. Up to now though, Chuck, like every single thermonuclear reactor that's ever been built has just been impressing people with knowledge. They haven't gotten any net energy out of a single Thrmonuclear fusion reactor. see, I have that they have they're right now they're up to like ten presently there at T megawatts. Oh is that right? Yeah. And that's more than they put into. a net gain of ten megawatts currently. Everything I saw was when we turn this thing on, it should have a net gain. Yeah But I didn't see that they've actually done it. Yeah, ten megawatts now and IDer is going to produce five hundred megawatts. Once it's fully operational The next challenge then is this, if we're already getting a net energy gain out of it then that means that the net energy gain is It's not sustainable. Like you said, you want to keep the thing going, so you don't have to keep starting from scratch to power it up, you want it to basically be self sustaining. So you just have to add a little more fuel to. That's the dream. So let's talk about the history of fusion reactors, Chuck Yeah, it kind of goes back to this guy. named Lyman Spitzer. He's a thirty six year old Princeton astrophysicist and this was in the nineteen fifties. And he was recruited to work on the H bomb And went out and got a copy of u of a paper that was released from Germany I think, right? that noes Argentina. Oh, Argentina? Yeah. they announced that they had get that wrong. They had successfully A fusion reactor. Right. So he gets this paper goes on a ski trip, starts thinking about how he can do this takes a little break from his job building the H bomb and figures out, you know, I think it's possible. if we can harness plasma I guess we should just go ahead and define what plasma is since we keep saying it. Well, there's the normal three energy states that we're familiar with water Solid and gas. Lquid solid and gas, right There's a fourth one, it's plasma. and plasma is basically like an energetic gas where the temperatures are so high that whatever atoms you put into it, the electrons are stripped off and allowed to move around freely. Right. Basically the surface of the sun is plasma. That that's what plasma is. It's a gas. It's a roiling gas that's really hard to control and is really unpredictable. Which is when you see the sun like that rippling wavy looking thing, That's plasma. Right. And the reason the sun manages to stay together is because it is enormously massive and has a ton of gravity at its core. Yeah, we don't have that advantage here on Earth. We don't. So we try to make up for that by increasing the temperature. That's right.. And he was onto it way back then in the nineteen fifties. if we can Just harness this. we can just get hot enough And he created a tabletop device called the Uh stellerator And it was in a figure eight position. It was a pipe in a figure eight. And this would keep things from banging into walls theoretically Yeah. and he was on to something Because well, we'll get to loockheed later, but they're using a similar device now figure eight Oh, yeah. Yeah. I didn't realize that was a figure eight. It is, which is weird because what they eventually found out was that a donoughnut shape was really the key to get that net gain. So the and the reason that they found out that a donoughut shape worked was because in the I think the late fifties the U.S had run up against the wall, they're saying like, okay, we've got this, but we can't control the plasma Because think about it, what you're trying to do is create a star inside something, but it can't touch any of the vessel that it's in. or else it'll just completely erupt it Yeah, they compared it to holding jelly and rubber bands. Right. It was just like you can't they they couldn't figure out how to control the plasma. Yeah. So when when the US ran up against this wall, they said, hey rest of the world. We're going to declassify what Lyman Spitz Lyman Spitzer Yeah has been doing helpp us out. And like we'll share if you guys share. and it turns out that the Russians had already come up against this problem and licked it, they figured out that if you put the thing in a what's called a torooidal shape, a donut shape. Yeah. Um, using electromagnets, you can tame the plasma essentially. and the The donut shape itself pretty ing geniious but the real stroke of genius was by running electromagnets in rings around the doughut. So it's like you have a doughnut and you put a bunch of earrings around it. Right Yeah. And those are electromagnets. So you're creating an electromagnetic force field which contains the plasma But then you also put an electromagnetic force field in the middle of the plasma So not only does it heat it up to the temperatures you want, it also stabilizes it further. So the Russians had invented what they call the Takamac. Um which is this donut shape nuclear fusion reactor that basically became the standard for the next ty years or so. Yeah, you basically could achieve a really dense super hot plasma. And we'll get into temperatures and stuff in a bit. since we can't create that kind of pressure, that they have in the sun Due to their gravity, their gravity. The sun's gravity, right? You know, the sun and all those people. Yeah likeike you said, we had to make up for it here on Earth with temperatures. Right. because apparently if you are in a in the middle of a nuclear reactor, a nuclear fusion reactor you're going to find that the temperatures inside are about six times hotter than the core of the sun, notot even the surface of the sun, the core of the sun And the reason why it has to be so much hotter is because like you said, we can't we can't replicate that density. Yeah. We can get to those temperatures that we need, but we can't get to that density. so we have to make up for it U So we'll talk about kind of the physics of what's going on here and why you have to have high temperatures and what we're making up forward density and everything right after this Is it just me or is it getting really hard to figure out the best way to save for retirement? Well, fidelity can help you define clarity. So you can save the best way for you. With a free personalized plan, goal tracking, and timely insights, he'll be set to take on retirement your way. Get started at fidelity. com slash future Expenses charged by your investments and other costs and fees associated with trading or transacting in your account apply Fidelity Brokerred Services member NYSE, SIPC Hey everybody, I'm Bobby Bones. Today we're talking about Thomas Rhedt and the soundtrack to Life Tour. For over a decade, Thomas Redt has delivered more than twenty number one hits and sold out tours. Inspired by his family and his Nashville roots, he's created songs that have become the soundtrack to our lives Fr Dia Hay Man to Life Changes. You've heard his songs playing at life' special moments. Now it's time to hear them live Round up your friends to catch Thomas Rhett on the soundtrack to Life Tour. Get your tickets now at live nation. com. Your pet is your bestie. Your therapist, your perfect match. It's easy to love them. It's easy to protect them too. with pet insurance coverage from Pets bestest. because it's all fun in games until they chew on something they shouldn't. And you get a vet bill to match. With perfect timing, Pets' Best helps protect your furry friend and your budget from this imperfect world Get up to ninety percent cash back on eligible vet bills from less than a dollar a day. Petsets Best has plans to cover accidents, injuries, and more. From puppies and kittens to seniors. Find your perfect match plan. And get a quote at petsbest dot com dot Pet inssurance products offered and administered by PetsSest Insuranceervices LLC arewitten by American Pet inssurance Comany or Independence American insurance Company For terms and conditions, visit wWW d. petsbest dot com backslash policy Products arewritten by American Pet inssurance Comany, Independents American insurance compomany or MSransverse insurance compomany and administered by Pets Best Insur Services LLC. one dollar day premium based on twenty four average new policyholder data for accident and illness plans pets age zero to ten So Chuck, we're talking about nuclear fusion and there's It's actually surprisingly understandable at its most basic You're fusing atoms. It's not the hardest thing in the world to wrap your head around. Yeah. So with fission, We're splitting atoms. You're taking an atom and you're splitting its nuclei apart. You're splitting the neutrons and the protons apart from one another. And when you do that O of the four fundamental forces, electromagnetic force, pushes them away And you get this Burst of energy. Yeah. withith fusion You're taking nuclei from different atoms, you're taking protons and neutrons. you're smashing them together And when you do that you're unleashing what's called the strong force, which appropriately enough, is stronger than electromagnetic force, which is why nuclear fusion yields more energy than nuclear fission Yeah, Einstein himself said, you know, each time you smash these things together, you're going to lose a little bit of mass. and that little bit of mass is a ton of energy as it turns out. That's right, the famous E equals MC squared. Yeah, and I don't think he realized in nineteen oh five or maybe Einstein did Einstein probably did. Yeah, Einstein probably did. I would guess he did. Yeah. So the problem is even though it is Very easy just smash some protons together. U There is a tremendous amount of resistance to that smashing together. They don't want to smash together. No, because it's just like if you take a magnet, two magnets. Yeah. and you put the positive poles toward one another, they repel one another, right Same thing. That's the same principle on an atomic level too. If you take protons, which are positively charged particles and try to put them together, they repel one another. And the closer you get them together, the stronger the repellent force is, the electromagnetic force, right? If you can get them close enough The electromagnetic force is overcome by that strong force, the strong nuclear force, and they become bound together Because the strong force is that one of those four fundamental forces of the universe, and that is the force that keeps atoms together And that is that force is stronger than the force that repels like charged particles. Yeah. And when you talk about close, they need to be within one times ten to the negative fifteen meters of one another. Right. So that is use If you'll indulge me. Sure. Are you gonna to read a bunch of zeros? Yeah. It's point zero zero zero zero zero, zero zero zero zero zero, zero zero zero zero one meters apart. Right. That's how close they have to be. That's right. to get them to accept one another and diffuse I have a theory that if they're not fusing because they think they're going to be made into a bomb And if we told them that we' been creating energy They might be more willing to fuse together Yeah, because protons are peacens, everybody knows that. Sure. So when they do fuse together, right? when you do cross that threshold and the strong force takes over and overcomes the electromagnetic force U Like we said A tremendous amount of energy is released And it's released partart. in the form of neutrinos, neutrons which are right, neutral particles, which suddenly start carrying a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. So let's say you have one atom, you've got another atom and they're both like, I'm not getting close to you. We're not going to get o, we got together. Yes. That force, that mass that's displaced is transferred through the neutron that gets kicked off of the atom and is's carried out. Now a neutron doesn't have any kind of positive or negative charts. It's neutral. It's a neutron. Yeah which means that it can pass through the very electromagnetic fields that are keeping this plasma where this reaction is taking place together. Once that happens, Chuck, It can go out to what's called a blanket wall in a thermonuclear reactor. Warm it And then that heat is transferred into a water cooling system The waterers warmed up turned to sp Dean. generates a which I guess moves the turbine Yeah. and then all of a sudden the turbine' producing electricity. Yeah, it's funny how just It gets so complex, but all you're still trying to do is create steam. Yeah. It's like to turn a turbine. It's like hooking the ISS up to a horse. rightight? You know? Move it over there So there are a few types of fusion reactions The ultimate goal, right now what we can do on a small scale is what's called a Duterium. tritium reaction Yeah. That's the one that we can currently achieve. That's one atom of deuterium and one atom of Ridium combining to form a helium four atom and a neutron. Yeah. The ultimate goal I mean, that's good, and that'll create a lot of energy, but there are a few downsides Tam is radioactive for one Um Do you have to mine it from lithium? Yeah. And lithium's fairly rare? Sure. The ultimate goal is to reach deuterium deuterium reactions, which is two deuterium atoms combining to form that helium three in a neutron and You can get that from the seawater. It's abundant, almost limitless U and I couldn't find this, but I think Clean water can be a residual effect of this. Am I wrong? I don't know it Well, you're probably not injecting water, but to get the deuterium. I mean, desalination plants are the key to the future as far as supplying the world with fresh water. Yeah, I thought I saw somewhere where it was an actual byproduct, but Is that right? Yeah, but then I couldn't find it, so I'm not sure if that's right or not. You know what, you just jogg my memory. I feel like in a hydrogen powered car, water is one of the byproducts. So maybe so. Yeah. All right, donon't quote me on that though. At the very least, it's a great way to create energy. Right. You also can get tritium from helium, I believe So even now with the that aterium, tritium reactions that we're working on, there's there's already a there's a workaround, you know, like you can create a thermonuclear reactor that's a breeding reactor to where the byproduct, helium, can be used to harvest more of the fuel you're using tritium Yeah aren't we runningow on helium? We are, which is like remember when we were talking about the Durigible, the Zeppelin, whichich one was it? How blimps work? Yeah, and then a long time ago we did one on the Mars turbine. Yeah, Mars turbine,ine. But yes, there is very clearly a helium shortage and the idea that we're just using it for party balloons rather than this. Yeah is scary Yeah, and don't be confused. if we say things like deuterium and it sounds super complex. All that is hydrogen with an extra neutron. Yeah, it's an isotope. Yeah So there's three isotopes of hydrogen And they're all still the same element. They're all still hydrogen But they have different configurations as far as their neutrons go prrotium is a hydrogen isotope with one proton and no neutrons. Duterium is a hydrogen isotope with one proton and one neutron, and tritium is a hydrogen isotope with one proton and two neutrons And like you said, tritium is radioactive, but the beauty of it is you need very, very, very little of it to fuel a nuclear fion reactor becomes a stable helium, a non radioactive helium in the reactor So you don't have this leftover radioactive fuel Is that awes I think they said there's it would be equivalent of the radiation we just see every day and walking around on the street, right? Yes, the background radiation, I believe. I saw that too. The thing is is the parts to the nuclear reactor themselves will become irradiated over time Apparently though, compared to the kind of radio activity that's generated from nuclear fission, This stuff you could just disassemble and bury in the desert for a hundred years, go back and dig back up and it'll be totally inactivated So it's the stuff that is radioactive is extraordinarily manageable Yeah, it is. and u Like I said, we don't want to make it sound like this is perfect. There is they do predict the short to medium term radioactive waste problem. They say that's due to activation of the structural materials. R. The actual thermonuclear device itself. Yeah. And while you don't need much tritium, even a few grams of tritium is problematic Hopefully, you know There's no accident Although they say accidents with these if you just turn the power off, it stops everything. Yeah. It's not like a chain reaction can occur like a fission reactor. There's not's out of your control. There's not a meltdown. There which also if you want to know more about that, go listen to how nuclear meltdowns work episode. That was pretty good. We released it right after Fukushima. Oh yeah. But it applies to all vision reactors. That's right. So the goal is ultimately deuterium deuterium reactions where you're p parent clean together It does. And the reason why is again, it's abundant fuel. You can get it from desalinating seawater And then secondly, it's not radioactive at any point. So it wouldn't make the thermononuclear reactor itself radioactive. That's right. The reason why we're not doing that already is because we can't achieve the temperatures necessary That's right, which leads us to the two big stumbling blocks Everyone knows this is a great idea. There's no one out there saying, o, I don't know about this fusion thing. Creating a star in a box sounds kind of weird. The problem is the barriers that we have here on planet Earth which is one temperature and two pressure We have achieved the temperature which is The requirements is one hundred million Kelvin. Andike you said, that's about six times hotter than the sun's core, which is pretty intense And the other is pressure. Like we said, we need to get them within I'm not going to make you read all those zeroos again. But smash smash them that close in order to fuse. And since we don't have that kind of mass and gravity that the sun does There are a few pretty genius ways that we're working around that Uh yeah, there's basically two as it stands. And then the Lockheb Martin one whichich a lot of people are skeptical about, we should say is kind of a variation on one theme. But there's basically there's two ways that we've figured out to create nuclear fusion reactors so far.ne is using magnetic confinement. and the other is using inertial confinement So magnetic confinement uses that Takamac technology Yeah, it's sort of like Cern, you know, it's using magnets to create pressure. I guess in Sern's case we're using it to create speed. But in this case, it's to create pressure. Right. So what you're doing is is you have a you have this donut shaped chamber and that's your reaction chamber And then again, rings around the dut that go around the inside and outside of the dut I know I'm kind of imagining wonderful dononuts. We're doing Homer Simpson here. They create electromagnetic fields. Now remember, this plasma hydrogen gas that's been heated up to a temperature so hot that the electrons just float off and move around freely.. And because of this higher temperature, these particles have become really, really energized. So they're moving and bouncing all over the place and the pressure's building up But because electrons are negatively charged and because protons are positively charged, if you use alternating electromagnetic fields, you can contain this plasma so that this incredibly hot gas that's six times hotter than the core of the sun can be contained within the electromagnetic fields. That's right And we talked about power in power out. It you'd need about seventy megawatts power to create this, to start this fusion reaction But you're going to yield about five hundred megawatts. That's the Iider project, I believe. Yeah, that's the Iider. And that's that's only a three hundred to five hundred second reaction But like we said earlier, the eventual goal is that it's sustaining itself. R which is just a beautiful concept. Yeah So basically what they do is they have the the gas is injected into the chamber, the hydrogen gas. And then there's the electromagnetic fields that are holding the plasma in place but then remember we said the Russians figured out that if you put an electromagnetic field in the middle of the whole thing It will stabilize that plasma, but it also heats it up. So it serves this double purpose. And then just to add a little extra temperature, they shoot it with microwaves and some other stuff Yeah and then heat it up. And then as the plasma goes crazy and all the fusion energy is released, the neutrons move their way outside of the electromagnetic field into the blanket, which they heat up And the heat energy is transferred to power that turbine. That's move the horse down the lane. And it's just creating steam. Yeah. and there's, I mean, that's like that's what Ider is doing right now. That's what they're trying to prove And then also As Iers spending billions and billions and billions of dollars and running into tons of delays. Yeah It is an amazing project Lockheed Martin basically just came out and said, Ohh, by the way, this thing that you're trying to do that's going to be a hundred feet tall, and require staggering amounts of energy and money. We're doing one that puts out the same amount energy is yours, but it's a tenth of the size, which means it's almost out of the gate commercially viable. Yeah, that is their skunkworks division of loockheed. They announced this like three days ago. here in mid October and They've gotten a lot of blowback from the scientific community because they wouldn't release data. They don't have data. They said it's a high beta device right now kind of shut out the scientific community as far as questions go. Every scientist that I saw interviewed for this said Yeah, they're trying to get some attention to get some partners to join in. Well, yeah, plus it makes you want to run out and buy Lockheed Martin stock because if one company can figure out how to create a thermonuclear fusion reactor here on Earth that's scalable that fits in a truck. Yeah, that person would be very wealthy. Yeah, so it's a dubious claim, but they are You know They're working toward a good thing I'm not like pooing the whole thing. Right. But until they have hard data and like some proof then I think the scientific community's got their arms folded right now. Yeah. and I mean, they have released some details. It's just not detailed enough for a scientist. It's detailed enough for aviation week I bought it Yeah. they wrote an article on it. And basically what they what the guy they interviewed was saying was Over at Ider, they have a low beta ratio, which is The amount of electromagnetism that you need compared to the amount of plasma you can put into the chamber. Yeah. So there's like five percent plasma to ninety five percent electromagnetivity. or electromagnetism keep this plasma thing from just blowing up, right? because that can happen. Sure. They might not melt down, but if everything went wrong The whole thing could blow up. Well, and you know, you know what an atomic bomb is it's a fusion reaction. Right And this is a lot of those all put together in one hundred. tower U this guy was saying that the beta ratio for their machine is like one hundred percent. So What he was saying is they figured out a way and again, it's not very detailed. but they figured out a way to contain the plasma but in a way that also allows it to expand. Yeah. Because if you think about it, the more plasma there is, the more hydrogen atoms there are the more hydrogen atoms, more isotopes there are, the more nuclear fusion reactions or events You can have the more energy you can yield, right? Yeah So they're saying they figured out how to contain the plasma. But again, like you said, the scientific community is Really skeptical because They think it's just a PR st. Well, I think they made the mistake by saying they invented a magicometer to make it all happen and don't ask about it. Yeah, right. I did see though that where Lockheed was using the figure eight stellerator configuration. Yeah Uh And I think that's true. I tried I found a couple of more sources that were kind of vague about it. and I think the details on it are just vague period. but I don't know why they would abandoned the donut shaped if the figure eight was u, you know, nineteen fifties technology that's sort of been disproven. Well, supposedly their whole jam was that the even in the donoughut in the Takamac. Yeah, this donoughut shaped reactor Plasma has a tendency to just move around and make its way out. Sure. Like it it's still not fully contained. Yeah. And they're using something basically mirrors catch the plasma that's getting out and moving it to Parts of the electromagnetic field that are less dense. there's a bunch of protons in this part of the field. That field is being strained, but then maybe there's not that many protons over here. So they use mirrors to direct the protons to the low density area. keep it all even of the field. Yeah, to even the whole thing out. Which makes sense, but again, if you're not releasing data, don't expect the scientific community to buy it that right. So there's another way to build a thermonuclear reactor that's currently being worked on too. and we'll talk about that right after this The fishing Is it just me or is it getting really hard to figure out the best way to save for retirement? Well, Fidelity can help you define clarity. So you can save the best way for you. With a free personalized plan, goal tracking, and timely insights, you'll be set to take on retirement your way. Get started at fidelity d. com slash future. expxpenses charged by your investments and other costs and fees associated with trading or transacting in your account apply Fidelity Brokerred Services member NYSE SIPC. Hey everybody, I'm Bobby Bones. Today we're talking about Thomas Red and the soundtrack to Life Tour. For over a decade, Thomas Red has delivered more than twenty number one hits and sold out tours. Inspired by his family and his Nashville roots, he's created songs that have become the soundtrack to our lives. From Diia happappy Man to lifeife Changes, You've heard his songs playing at life special moments. Now it's time to hear them live Round up your friends to catch Thomas Rretett on the soundtrack to Life Tour Get your tickets now at live nation. com Protect yourour pet withith insurance from Petsvest. Plantans start from less than a dollar a day. Visit petsvest dot com Pet inssurance products offered and administered by Petsest Insuranceervices LLC or underwitten by Aican Pet inssurance Comany or independence Americ insurance Company. For terms and conditions, visit wWW. petspest dot com backslash policy Products are underwritten by American Pet insurance Company, independence American insurance company or MS transverse insurance compomany, and administered by Pets Best Insur Services LLC. one dollar day premium based on twenty four average new policyholder data for accident and illness plans, pEets age zero to ten fishing. So buddy, magnetic confinement is pretty neat. And we talked about that and that's understandable and I love it. I want to date it. But internal confinement I want to marry because it has lasers at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory They are actually using laser beams. They have a device called the NIF device where they focus one hundred and ninety two laser beams on a single point in a ten meter diameter target chamber called a ha rm That's got to be German. And basically inside that target chamber they have a little tiny pe sizeed pellet of Deterium Titium in a little plastic cylinder It's funny that it can be plastic somehow. Yeah, youd think it would introduce like impurities or something into it. Yeah, Or it would need to be like iron or something. I don't know. It just seems unstable. But that is one point eight million jouelles of power from these lasers. It's going to heat the cylinder up, generate some x rays And then that radiation will convert that pellet into plasma and compress it. So again, they're creating plasma, but instead of smashing it together with magnets, super heating it with lasers. So that's that's your money's on that one. You like I just think it's neat because I like lasers But that's your preference of the two Yes, Well actually whichever one works is gonna be my preference. Okay U And that one'll yield fifty to one hundred times more energy more energy out than energy put in. I got to. So's that's a good goal. So yeah, I guess basically the whole point of magnetic confinement is that if you can do without electromagnets you You you have a more simple and elegant you mean internal confinement or inertial. Inertial? Yeah, that's what I mean. Inertial confinement. Basically the whole thing just happens so fast You don't even need these magnets to confine plasma because you're not creating the sustained ignition, right? Yeah, I might have said internal confinement before, by the way. It's inertial. Yeah. So what about cold fusion, buddy? That was all the rage I remember back in the eighties Yeah, because in nineteen eighty nine, some researchers said that they successfully created nuclear fusion using Just room temperature stuff. like palladium. they took palladium And u banana peels and beer cans, pretty much U Heavy water, which had a deuterium in it And they put the whole thing together and created nuclear fusion without the high temperatures hence to the name cold fusion And if you can get around these high temperatures then you work out the whole material science problem, right And if you work out the whole material science problem then this is it's a desirable thing to have cold fusion. The problem is is a lot of scientists tried to replicate these guys' findings and weren't able to. So basically they were kicked to the curb So does that mean has cold fusion been abandoned or people still trying to get on that train? No, in two thousand five, some UCLA researchers basically said U We think we might have this thing down And they did. it's something called Pyro electric rystal. Fusion Hyroelectric fusion these a crystal Yeah, where basically it's the same result. They they do what would be called cold fusion. The problem is it has a negative net energy yield. You have to put in a lot more energy than you get out of it. Right Well, that's no good. No Um, Eder seems like they are making headway more than Lockkeed, despite their claim U They are being, like we said, it's in Europe And it's being financed by a bunch of different countries The U. S is in, but they're kicking in I think the least amount Only about seventeen million euros last year contributed dollars, but they're giving it to us in Euros. Right. I think the EU spends the most about eighty million South Korea and China kicked in about twenty and nineteen million respectively each And I saw earlier where Russia was involved, but then I didn't see what they had contributed financially Yeah they're not sure Are they still. All right, Well maybe they're just We're writing a chit for them for later. They'll pay us back. right Uh But it is a very expensive prospect And you need, you know, countries getting together for something like this. is not the kind of thing that like the US. can take on their own, I guess unless you're luckyed Martin. Right. And you don't have to prove your data So thiss nuclear fusion, we'll see what happens. Yeah, you got anything else Man. no, I just say everybody should go read a star in a bottle on the New Yorker. It's really, really good. Yeah, it's pretty neat. There you can also go to instructables if you want to build a nuclear fusion reactor in your garage can do so