Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough; Powering Electric Vehicles; Carbon Capture | 60 Minutes Full Episodes
Scott Pelley's January report on the breakthrough in nuclear fusion made by scientists at the National Ignition Facility; From May, Bill Whitaker's story on how companies are developing lithium extraction for electric car batteries in California’s Imperial Valley. And from April, Whitaker's visit to Iceland, where carbon dioxide is captured from the air and buried underground as part of groundbreaking new technology to slow climate change.
#nuclearfusion #science #technology
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0:00 Introduction
0:11 Star Power
13:17 Lithium Valley
26:27 Out of Thin Air
As a mechanical engineer, I did my small part in the design of this massive project in 1998 (25 years ago now). I designed all of the square-ish louver-like panels (shown in the background) on the inside of the large sphere shown at 2:31. There were about 250 panels. No two panels were alike. It was an interesting project. It is great to see that this project is beginning to fulfill its original purpose. This NIF project has two main objectives. #1) It is used to verify the effectiveness of the US nuclear weapons stockpile (so that we don't have to do actual nuclear testing in the Nevada desert anymore). #2) It is used to do fusion energy research for the (hopefully) eventual construction of nuclear fusion-powered power plants.
That’s pretty cool to be a part of something like this. I’m a mechanical engineering student any tips?
We made some of the piezoelectric parts for focusing the mirrors - in Massachusetts, all the way across the country from CA. It takes a lot of work by lots of people to get something like that going. Those who can, do; those who can not, sit around and complain about those who do - such as, why did we get paid for doing things :-)
Be in the right place at the right time, like Forrest Gump. :-) @@ExclusivelyC4
Your contribution is very much appreciated!
Kudos Sir
When you fully appreciate the effort required to establish ignition, you start to realise how far away Fusion power is...
Yeah but history tells us its right around the corner, maybe not our corner, but soon, in the landscape of world history.
It's soooooo much closer to reality than it was a year ago though.
@@Studio23Media Not really, or at least not thanks to this "breakthrough". The approach the NIF took would be absolutely absurd for putting power on the grid. ITER is much more likely to contribute useful science.
Doing fusion is easy, just take a hydrogen bomb.
Viable hot fusion power stations have always been 20 years in the future - since the mid-1950s. You might want to study and learn the connections between "cold fusion" and the events of 9/11 to understand why we are forced to use either fossil fuels or not-really-renewable energy systems now. It's serious.
The good thing about lithium is that we need finite amount unlike oil. Oil is burned away forever, lithium is only stored in the batteries it does not evaporate or dispensary in any way so at some point it will only be recycled over and over again with almost 0 new sourcing.
60 minutes has been serving incredible interviews without the hype. I love how Scott's witty and sharp questions dissect the topic so flawlessly.
LOL
Sure except they are completely full of sh_t and biased towards Marxism when it comes to reporting any news related to politics. Years ago I liked 60 minutes. Not anymore
It's not a question any more, I made it up this hill. He was Hindu Yea so we made it to our destination...🤔
If it doesn’t look practical, take comfort in the fact that nuclear physicists don’t design things for efficiency and practicality. That’s the job for engineers.
I get most of my comfort from seeing the word "breakthrough" in millions of articles in dozens of scientific journals and realizing none of them have ever led to a commercial product
I get confort by choosing a bicycle over a car or a plane... "unfortunately", I do have to take a train occasionally.
Exactly…
Physicists are first of all engineers.
Like most people with ZERO knowledge of the subject, you falsely assume that engineers haven't been involved from the beginning. This is a tool to probe plasma physics for nuclear weapons. They just used this event as a PR kick to get more funding but it will NEVER be a practical means of power production and it was never intended to do so. The Holhraums alone cost about $100k apiece to make, and store a few pennies' worth of energy. Economics will never favor this approach, ever, even if all of the technical issues disappeared.
In the late 1970s, I asked a Fermilab scientist when to expect commercial fusion power generation. He said it was 25 years away. Watching its progress, I find it is ALWAYS 25 years away. It likely still is and might always be 25 years away. On another note, does anyone really believe that the potential financial windfall for the lithium mining at the Salton Sea willl actually benefit the impoverished community already there? The companies will take the money and suck it to the top of their company management, some of which, it seems, will soon be in Australia.
Coming from a person who's hometown in Arizona started improving after an electric car company came in, I would say yes. The lithium mining at the Salton Sea will most likely benefit the community there. People will be needed to operate this plant, so they'll probably hire specialists to relocate/work there as well as hire locals for everything a specialist wouldn't be needed to do (labor). So, there'll be more people going into the Salton Sea area and more locals with a reason to stay. The benefits of having this plant come into that town specifically won't be on some grand scale, unless more attractions are created, but it will be something. Having a large company roll into a city that's otherwise completely unknown, really boosts moral for those who live there and it will create new jobs for the locals, even if the company is profiting much more than them.
"Money". The only other dirty words I know that come before it is; "Profit" and "Greed", and the effect of these words turns into such words as "Envy" and "Hatred". A good direction for our kids?
very insightful, although fusion power is closer than we imagine and at a commercially scalable level too.. I completely agree about the uneven distribution of economic benefits from any major project etc. The masses will still benefit but not as much as some of the top tier population, especially a sector like mining where corruption is difficult to trace and curb it will be more palpable.
@@luciesuevas9534 Yes, but the more people involved are there the more expensive the lithium ends up and cannot compete with other sources . Besides batteries without lithium, with much higher energy density are in the works now, so this whole effort may fizzle away... Typical worn out 60 minutes story, worth 60 seconds .
Nuclear (pronounced new-klee-ur) power, like all centralized power systems, requires long-distance transmission lines connected to complex regional utility grids, both of which remain vulnerable to power outage. State of the art power is rooftop solar 'matched' to small battery BEV and PHEV plug-in hybrid vehicles in the garage or carport connected to neighborhood minigrids. Tell 60 minutes about it though their corporate board of directors already know and don't care.
After dozens of breakthroughs we are still decades away.
shooting a f ton of lasers at something with giant capacitors is a breakthrough?? this is shlt they where doing 60 years ago. this is a scam
Us
😊😅
😢
Centuries
The perfection of the target sphere reminded me of the struggle that Los Alamos team worked on back in WWII, in the development of implosion fusion.
You likely missed the fact that NIF has always been primarily funded as a thermonuclear weapon (H-bomb) explosion simulation tool. It serves, in a reverse engineered sense as a thermonuclear explosive that shrinks the explosion center down to a microscopic bit of fusion fuel that has been extremely compressed and heated to plasma temperatures. The challenges of creating the precisely focused compressive forces in NIF are largely derived from and borrowed from the designs of the thermonuclear weapon secondary explosive component. The NIF administrators have become masterful in obscuring the primary function and funding for the NIF at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), whenever they present the lab to the press and the general public. It's been estimated that approximately $11-billion has been spent on NIF so far from federal revenues.
We have been "Twenty years away" from Fusion reaction for the last 40 YEARS.
And yet this is the first time we've actually achieved ignition so
Greatest advancement in humankind: "bro hurry up!"
Now we are 15 years away.
Fusion power is like Mexico, it’s great to talk about, especially on “60 Minutes of BS” and each will always have a bright future.
tomorrow never comes.. its always tomorrow..
Two units of laser energy went in to get the 3 out, but far more energy was used to power the inefficient lasers.
36:00 In order to sequester CO2 like Iceland you have to have huge basalt areas so you can geo-lock it. Not always possible. I think making oil would be a good use of it. As far as fusion is concerned, "it will always be 20 years away" until some new physics is found making it a possibility of actually happening.
Absolutely fantastic, been following this for years so glad actual progress was made
It’s will destroy our environment
powering my whole house with fusion power for 5 years - Solar Panels
Until it accidently explodes, and your whole house is gone.
@@Douglas-MuradThe sun is dying in billions of years buddy. You'd be better off worrying about your own imminent death! That's what I do! It works out great for me.
@@murrmurr765 We are talking about small nuclear powered sources, which you can have in your house, for electricity! Not the sun itself.
@@Douglas-Muradmight be the most head scratching comment ive ever read.
What was your monthly electric bill prior? What was the total cost to get your house off the grid? Have you made your money back in cost savings yet?
The gentleman narrator is excellent, speaking clearly & calmly in his nice warm voice
It's called propaganda.
And every 60 minutes host will be long dead and buried before we see the fruits of what they stupidly call a "breakthrough"
@@rob1248996i think propaganda would be the opposite, like bias statements on news channels… or almost any statement…
She identifies as a woman actually
@@lemmon.pngpablo1450 Designed to keep the money flowing into the already massive useless jobs program.
"It's why they use keys... " leaves keys on the keyhole 😂😂😂
It doesn’t matter what year it is, 60 minutes is still in 1983
I’m not looking for fusion. Just enough energy to stay awake till 10:00pm.
My father worked on the initial efforts to develop fusion energy in a project that was sponsored by the University of Rochester . At that time he was on loan from Kodak after a long career in aerospace. He personally showed me the project which featured about 10 laser tubes the length of a basketball court . As the beams travelled through the tubes they were amplified by water-cooled flash lamps and aimed at a stainless steel sphere wherein the target pellet was supposed to go fusion . My dad estimated that this power source would be viable in about 40 years. It’s been much longer than that to be a reality. Yet technology marches on……
I am impressed with the accuracy and detail of your recollection. I work at the facility you are describing and when you would have seen it in the 80s it was still the 24 beam system which could deliver about 2kilojoules of light to a target. It was upgraded in the 90s to the current 60 beam system which does about 30kJ on target and produces maximum fusion yields of around 10^14 neutrons per shot. In the mid 2000s we added a second laser system to the first which can simultaneously deliver a 2 petawatt pulse of light to the target. If you're feeling nostalgic, you can see the state of the system when you last observed it in a documentary on my page narrated by Neil Armstrong. We're an unclassified facility and still conduct tours for the public if you want to visit. The whole place is probably about 5 times larger than when you saw it last.
I was absolutely fascinated by this story..anytime a life changing or generational changing discovery is made I am intrigued..especially when the scientists claim they can make an explosion that as hot as the center of the sun!! the little 'bullet' they make to power the whole thing is amazing in and of itself! and then glued with an eyelash?? omg!! then polished 100x smoother than a mirror..and its smaller than a BB and filled with hydrogen at some ridiculously low temperature..and then 190 lasers as long as a football field will combine their energy to fire at that 'bullet'..I was honestly surprised the thing that held the BB was still intact somewhat..you would think at temperatures never achieved before in mankind would just evaporate everything it came into contact with..that kind of confused me but I am still in awe at the overall magnitude of what these amazing scientists are trying to achieve..they tried and failed for 13 years..talk about perseverance!!! what also caught my attention was both your response and bigkahuna's..I live in the Finger Lakes area, Geneva specifically, and travel and work in Rochester regularly..it's an amazing city rich in science and research history..the affect Kodak had on Rochester and then the entire world is just mind boggling..I am not surprised they had their hands in scientific experimentation..I attended RIT in the mid 80s as a math major and have always been fascinated with science and the amazing accomplishments that have happened..especially the last 10 years or so..I would LOVE to visit this facility you speak of!! whereabouts in Rochester is it located?
This is such and amazing story .this made my day .
@@johnnyaxe2004 it's at the UofR
These are the celebrities the world should admire
There is nothing as ephemeral as a youtube breakthrough.
I guess I'll be the one to say it, fusion energy has been 20 years away for the past 60 years.
Hadn't heard that one myself but we're closer than ever so don't confuse the excitement and enthusiasm of physicists with timelines. The science is also evolving faster than it ever has. In the mean time, I'm taking some solace in the fact that fission power is becoming viable again now that people are seeing some seas warming over 100 F.
AI, once it develops a little more, is going to acccelerate breakthroughs like this at a mind-numbing pace. Once they are self-learning and the singularity is reached, many of the issues that humans have been stuck on will be solved at an uncomfortable speed.
I expect that 20 years from now, fusion energy will be only 20 years away. (I'd love to be wrong.)
@@ncdave4life I'd love you to be wrong too but I doubt it. It's clear they are pretending to have massive breakthroughs but in reality, it's going nowhere
@@SurelyYewJest common joke that it's always a couple decades away.
Really impressive stuff and goose bumps at the same time how the new era of energy is almost here. But mainly and ultra importan a clean one. 😍👏🏼
I have been a big follower of 60 Minutes for over 30 years and am glad to see they still keep a high standard in flushing out contemporary topics that are relevant to all of us. Of the 3 big topics I think the only one that has a high chance of success in the next decade is the Li extraction in the CA. The other two are at least 2 decades or more to be practical impact
We also don't have decades left to turn this 'Titanic' around. The vast majority of the Earth's 8.0+ billion humans have become masterful at excluding the following two warnings from their consciousness. I urge readers to search for the following two article titles. IPCC report: ‘now or never’ if world is to stave off climate disaster (TheGuardian) UN chief: World has less than 2 years to avoid 'runaway climate change' (TheHill) * This statement was made 5 years ago.
Out of the 1,440 minutes of the day this is a really neat and cool sixty. Thank you.
@16:29 Me, when they tell me commercial fusion is 10 years away. 😢
I always thought its 20 years away?
@@wolfgangpreier9160 30? :D
@@wolfgangpreier9160 more like 50.
it always 10 years away...next year it will still be 10 years away >
Its 199 million kilometers away.🎉🎉🎉
At the beginning, 60 Minutes says atomic bombs are uncontrolled fusion. Have we forgotten they are based on fission? Splitting the atom - an entirely different process.
It was hotter than what we believed to be the temperature of the center of the sun. Fixed it
They basically proved that commercial fusion is ages away.
the people who built the great pyramids had it..... wonder what knowledge was lost?
I love the optimism of all who were featured. It's really cute and endearing! I can hear them walking the hallways, quietly whispering.... "I think we can, I think we can, I think we can!"
How is the heat created by fusion controlled for an extended period of time? I would like to see a device that can contain a million degree process. How long can the lab sustain fusion? Is this process practical?
Yeah, 300 units in to get 1 unit out shows how far away the goal is. Better to invest the money inmodular Thorium reactors.
Thorium reactors are too dirty and have not been proven to be a worthwhile alternative.
I love how we have all these "breakthroughs" as we have a ufo hearing on the 26th.
It's gonna get real interesting
@@user-fs7df1xg9v If you could ask a question what would you ask. If you have whistleblower of interest which one?
Why do you need the government to confirm? You can find all the evidence yourself, whatever it is floating around has clearly been here for a long time and is clearly aware of us, yet they don't want to make contact. They might of help us along the way but they definitely don't want permanent contract.
"Eyewitnesses" of Extraterrestrials again ? 😂🤣🙃💀
Fusion power is one of those unicorns we keep looking for. We can't yet sustain a reaction for not even 1 sec. The goal is worth it. Only if I can be lucky enough to see it happening in my lifetime...
The vast majority of Earth's 8.0+ billion humans have become masterful in excluding the following warnings from their consciousness. I urge readers to search for the following article titles. IPCC report: ‘now or never’ if world is to stave off climate disaster (TheGuardian) UN chief: World has less than 2 years to avoid 'runaway climate change' (TheHill) * This statement was made 5 years ago.
“From a machine, a star is born” Does that mean we live in a computer?
If those pellets are super light then I wonder if you can use sonic levitation to suspend them in place. Maybe they would still move around too much but the position would be very predictable and you could sync the laser pulse to the correct time.
That’s a fascinating idea.
There's a fusion breakthrough every 6 months, yet the advent of fusion energy is always 30 years away.
Congrats on learning how progress is made.
But not we have AI too. Let alone quantum computing breakthroughs. Progress should definitely be accelerated.
Not only is it as far away as it was 30 years ago. But. 30 years ago they told us fusion would be so cheap it would be essentially free. No one is talking about how much it will cost anymore. So will probably be unaffordable.
Lets hope AI can do the science before the decade is over
It's interesting how many people lack an understanding of history.
There are two main approaches to fusion: this one, and the other one that is actually more realistic and further along , plasma confinement using superconductors for producing electromagnetic fields, the TOKAMAK design is basically a donut of super dense magnetic fields compressing the fuel to a ionized plasma, which is conductive, that helps to compress it even further, and they also mess around with injecting microwaves energy into that as well. ITER is going to work, the confidence is high now, so high that they have got the richest countries on the planet to foot the bill for the building of the demonstrator plant, basically it will help iron out the quirks of controlling an ionized fusing plasma, when this is done, humanity will change in ways none of us can imagine, we are talking limitless power, abundance of everything, a whole new level of existence for the entire planet, and of course the key to spreading to other solar systems etc.
it all sounds nice in theory, but theres still so many problems with no solution in sight. im more convinced that our current civilisation wont live long enough to profit of fusion energy.
@@pukcip83 AI is a game changer. If it's aligned, it will take care of all of these hurdles in no time.
@@Adam-nw1vyAI fanatics are a frightening sight.
@@androwaydie4081 KZhead know-it-all's are such an embarrassment.
There are other types as well 😮
I think that a successful fusion device uses masers, sasers to rip protons in some sort of special optical fibers, thus enabling them to fuse or perhaps be tied together! Maybe by encasing protons inside of some types of nano webs they are coerced by masers and sasers in a certain frequency to blend!
Thanks you 60 Minutes for dumming down one of the most complex machines ever built while getting straight forward answers from the geniuses building this monstrosity. I bet if they reduced those diamond spheres to 1/10th their current size and a preloaded chain gun was shooting these at 500 rounds a second, this would evenly perpetuate the fusion process if the timing could be perfected. That's kind of how an ITC engine works. You add a drop of gas to an empty chamber and blow it up so it moves a load above it which of course is a piston to spin a shaft. And when you get up to thousands of rpms, you got some really nice power to play with. One other concern, is how to off load this fantastic amount of power to the rest of the e-grid. That will require a vast amount of infrastructure, too.
😅
It is an incredible achievement, but there is soooo much energy used for the lasers that the energy produced by the fusion is much smaller than what was put in the system.
shooting lasers at things.. real incredible
@@williesreserve7475 You don't know much about the complexity of this task.
@@PromethorYT they where doing this 60 years ago and they literally tell you what they are doing. it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure this out.. they shoot 300 units of energy at the target and only get 3 units back. the 3 units they get back is not even new energy it is just the aftershock of the 300 units shot at. this is nothing more than a scam
You're not wrong, but there is also a ton of energy used to generate our current systems as well. This is why we need to begin discussing scale ability.
It's a very expensive ignition system. There could be other ways to start the fusion process as well...but lasers just kinda work for now :D
Im confused as to why many people keep calling it a breakthrough instead of a milestone. Maybe to get positive feed back from the people and sell the news.
Isn’t this the first time humans ever did this? So I guess it’s a breakthrough, furthermore advancements will be milestones.
@scalemodeltutor9841 If you're referring to the nif, then they have done this before, just not extra energy out from the reaction than the laser input but not the whole system still. Others have also called it a milestone from kyle to thunderfoot and some others who went over. It is impressive, but not a breakthrough the news makes it out to be. From what I and others understand, a breakthrough would be net gain or more energy out than the whole system.
It's pretty meaningless since the energy required to fire the lasers and run all the computers and equipment in the facility was not taken into account in order to make it sound like it's more momentous than it actually is. They put in two units of laser/heat energy and got out 3 units of heat energy. They would've had to get 1000s of units out in order to come close to breaking even on the energy consumption of the experiment. Don't forget, that heat energy has to be turned into electricity and there is a huge loss in the conversion.
@The1stDukeDroklar agree enough. I believe it was 3million out put of the 2million input from lasers but around 400million into the system. So about 133x or 0.0075 percent output, not to efficient and most likely not going to be for some time. I wonder how efficient those flash lamps are that add energy to the lasers?
@@mr.ackermann807 Yes, 2 MJ in and they got 3 MJ out. Keep in mind that it's two different kinds of energy people are getting confused about. The MJ they are talking about is heat energy provided by the lasers and 3 mj of heat energy released by the reaction. Any heat energy released would have to be converted into electricity through the same old process of heating steam to turn turbines that would convert the heat into electricity. So, when everything is said and done they used 100s of MJ of actual electricity to generate 1 lousy mj of heat for a fraction of a second. It simply isn't a viable approach.
Thanks for sharing. Still waiting for a hoverboard.
Old Videos like this should not be in the lineup when I ask Google for today's news updates😅
I live in Los Angeles. I’ve been to the Salton Sea many times not to swim or fish, but to kick back and drink Coors light the weather is hot but nice. The water looks nice from the short distance. Also, I bum around and watch all these projects that are going on, it’s extremely interesting there’s one thing I don’t think these companies are thinking about the San Andreas Fault begins at the Salton Sea. It goes all the way up 850 miles to the border of Oregon all these earthquakes that we get in California is because of the fault line.. there will be 8.0 or greater earthquake in Los Angeles and all the surrounding cities. It will be catastrophic all these new buildings in downtown will come down. I don’t care how good they build them. Lots of bridges will collapse, despite being retrofit . Geologist say the Andreas fault reduces an extreme catastrophic earthquake. Once every 300 years that 300 years has come and gone without one that means we are overdue three 400 years overdue. I don’t know what these companies that are set up and will continue to build up upon at the Salton Sea will do when that happens
So what if you put a solar focusing tower on top of that building up there and then surrounded it with a bunch of bell curve shaped refraction discs. And directed in a bunch of focused solar energy into the center of the reaction with the lasers to help push past that melting point adding an extra 2000 k or better depending on how good your directional Tower is and all it would require would be opening a tiny mirror or door way.
To attain AAcP x KCVkm² the -Jlm would need to be prop temp and tone..sound has always been key
No cats were harmed during the fusion test 😸
I appreciate this whole report and the science behind fusion. Thank you very much.
10:12 A solution to firing ten times a second over long periods is possible with a series of quick charge high capacity capacitors arranged in sequence. The last capacitor discharges ( The first pulse ) into the laser. The output from the laser is then routed to the last capacitor discharged to recharge it as the next capacitor fires, with the excess power routed to the grid. The need would be for very durable and large capacitors for this project.
So far they are getting 1/3 more power than they are putting into it by a mammoth facility. If they are using pure hydrogen that might be nice but is it doable. Since 60 Minutes technical knowhow is rather limited it could be a deuterium-tritium mix which could prove expensive. The use of lithium greatly reduced the size and expense of the hydrogen bomb, even then they still used fissile material to get the fusion to work. I will be more impressed with a sustainable reaction which this is not. The Manhattan Project had a sustainable fission reaction, and in this project they are fusing and object smaller than a BB for one pop. I also wonder when you are producing megawatts or gigawatts of power will the helium and iron production remain insignificant or will it become a problem like carbon dioxide is for hydrocarbons?
@@katrinaanon1038 On the helium, it should reduce the current amount of hydrocarbons used to extract the helium currently being produced. Donno about the iron, how much is being produced?
@@katrinaanon1038 they are generating about 3% of the power they are spending and even that 3% is in a form we can't use and will suffer losses being transformed. They are lying to you.
The laser consumed more energy than the fusion produced. And I think they are lying about it producing fusion, because there is no excess energy. LENR (Cold Fusion) is the only fusion that has produced real, measurable, net excess energy. It has been verified now.
The bad thing is lots of these components are made in China, and eventually will need Overhaulin’ and upgrading to get the desired results. Everything is contracted out to different countries . The city I live in manufactured the first Apollo landing on the moon. Also, they manufactured a challenger all that is gone. Now all that’s left on the huge site is a Kaiser Hospital, a huge mall and a Huge museum actually a unique museum that shows everything about all it’s achievements for space exploration there’s event, the Apollo castle, the original one there along with space suits pictures in and anything related. Nowadays, everything is contracted out to different states, including China what a shame
Lithium is the current battery technology but major progress is being made with room temp liquid salt, solid state batteries and others, of course. A major lithium deposit was found in Maine.
That's some scary stuff. So many positive applications. So many apocalyptic ones.
Oil isn't just used for fuel. And any plastic substitute is as just carbon intense as oil. Oil will always be around, but it will be used more efficiently.
That's why we should stop burning oil for fuel. It's just too precious to burn it.
, at current consumption, we have by some accounts an estimated 47 years of oil left to be extracted. That equates to somewhere in the region of 1.65 trillion barrels of proven oil reserves. Other sources up this estimate a bit, but most agree we have around 50 years left, give or take. For reference, a barrel of crude oil is about 42 gallons or about 159 liters. With regards to other fossil fuels, we have an estimated 53 years of natural gas, and 114 years of coal left to rip out of the ground.
Synthetic Oil???
First lets shrink the cosmetics industry. Go to the market and look how many damn useless pastes and stuff you can count that have no use but massive marketing.
Oil is used to form plastics because it sits at a high energy state (that's why it's such a great fuel). The vast majority of chemical reactions used by industry starts with high-energy ingredients, and go down the energy gradient. That allows the reactions to proceed "for free" in terms of energy cost. (This a general rule, not a hard and fast rule. There are notable exceptions. e.g. Fertilizer manufacturing requires lots of energy to create ammonia. Bauxite requires lots of energy to convert into aluminum.) So we get plastics from oil because that's the cheapest way to create polymers (in terms of energy cost). Plants create natural polymers (wood) by going up the energy gradient, using energy from sunlight. With easy access to cheap energy, our chemists would be freed from the shackles of energy cost, and able to explore ways to create artificial polymers from base materials by going up the energy gradient. Instead of relying on starting with oil and going down the energy gradient. It's also worth mentioning that one of the primary benefits of plastic (resistance against biodegradation) is also the reason it's a problem (it's slow to break down if improperly disposed, because it only breaks down via UV light in sunlight). And this same advantage/problem would apply to other artificial polymers we develop. In fact plants evolved wood (basically very long chains of sugars) to thwart animals which were eating them for sustenance (to get at the energy stored in the sugar). To date, only specialized bacteria are able to break down cellulose into shorter chains like starch and sugar. And herbivorous animals have a symbiotic relationship with these bacteria in their gut. There have been a few instances of bacteria developing the ability to break down plastics. So in a few thousand years I expect the problem of plastic waste in the environment will take care of itself. Plastic still sits at a pretty high energy state (why it burns so readily), so any bacteria which can break it down will tap into a new energy source.
The fact that this video is only 39 minutes long is bugging me.
It's for TV ... and as usual, American TV producers Don't think that the average American can focus more than 39 minutes 😂😅 and that might be the truth.
Budget cuts.
It doesn’t account for commercial breaks if broadcasted on over the air TV.
FACT: Lithium is on it's way out as a battery mineral. New battery developments use salt and or high levels of Magnesium with lower levels of Cobalt and Nickel. These three materials are abundantly available under sea and are about to come on line within two years. Lithium is being phased out due to its excessive cost.
Oh, and the nuclear industry has ALWAYS been honest and transparent!
Yet another breakthrough bringing fusion to within another 20 years.
*You mean in another 100 years?*
Or longer heheheh( depends on how much they can milk the taxpayer for).
37:00 ships 🚢 have been running on nuclear for like 50 years . Another fun fact is The amount of fuel actually be used on a sailing depends primarily on the ship’s speed. Most ship engines have been designed for top speeds ranging between 20 and 25 knots per hour, which is between 23 and 28 miles per hour. A Panamax container ship can consume 63,000 gallons of marine fuel per day at that speed. Average 1 way trip 15 to 18 days
Just knots, not knots per hour.
Yup its running on nuclear fission which breaks atoms and creates radioactive waste. Fusion fuses atoms together,creates way more power energy and doesn't have radioactive waste. It would be nice if giant cargo ships could run on nuclear power but it'd be very dangerous due to accident risk and hijacking risk. It's possible fusion powered cargo ships could be safer since no risk of radioactive ☢ meltdown or crash poisoning the waters.
@@michaelbrinks8089 Sadly, that ain't the case. Fusion will produce prodigious amounts of energetic neutrons which will happily make other materials radioactive or toxic in one way or another. Fusion reactors will have to be very well shielded. High energy neutrons will happily convert phosphorus atoms in your DNA to silicon, the first step to becoming a borg :)
@@michaelbrinks8089 Nuclear submarines typically store their spent nuclear fuel on board until the submarine reaches a port where the fuel can be offloaded and transported to a nuclear waste storage facility. The process of handling and disposing of nuclear waste is highly regulated and requires strict safety protocols to ensure that the waste is handled in a way that minimizes the risk of harm to people and the environment. There is a common misconception that nuclear waste is just pumped out of the system as it runs, like exhaust from an engine. This is simply not the case. The nuclear waste is just the collection of radioactive isotopes (think of individual atoms of rare metals) that are trapped within the fuel. Once the core has served its useful life, currently around 30-40 years, then it is cut out of the ship and replaced with a new one.
@@nickg1895 Yeah, I dunno all the specific details but knew the dangerous radioactive ☢ waste obviously remained in the sub until it could be safely offloaded and knew it's not released like some sort of engine exhaust. I'm not sure if or how my previous comment made you think I had a misconception that the waste somehow gets expelled out of the sub.
So just a amature question I'm sure, but instead of requiring such intense laser power, why not a domino/=cumulative effect? Such as igniting a catalyst that in turn could ramp up/cascade the temperature to the required level for fusion to take place like you start with kindling which ignites succeeding larger wood? If there were no alternative fuels that could reach such a level, wouldn't a small fission reaction be usable? Like say some form of a particle accelerator style trigger or simply a tiny tiny tiny bomb? As I understood it, you only really needed to start the fission process and there after, other than the magnetic containment and a steady supply of fissionable material, there was no additional huge initial power requirements since from that starting point, it would be self sustaining (qReaction: >1) yes? Please correct my ignorance on any of these points. I work in mental health not physics but paid attention as much as I could in my undergrad classes.Wack away at my ignorance. It will help me.
Sorry, in point of fact, Not "Carbon Free" as it requires millions of tons of CO2 release to make the infrastructure and energy required for the ignition facility.
For the love of science! Thank you to each member of your teams and your families! We are blessed to have you working on our behalf! God bless you!
they just disproved God
there are some smart people in this world which brings back hope for our species in my mind. She is definitely one. What an interesting thing to study.
It's nice to see both a pro-Science and spiritual remark in the same remark. That is a rarity these days. As a science-accepting spiritual theist we need more of this on the internet.
@@0397rb we can’t make scientific breakthrough simply because it’s a sin? I feel like not religion, but religious people are trying to hold humanity back
@@EperogiLimousine they definitely are.
PLEASE tell me that someone out there is going to name their system: “Mr. Fusion”. That would really make my day 😉
Question how many watts of energy does it take to collect x amount of carbon ? are we just adding to the problem trying to do this process?
How do you power the fans?
It has taken decades to get fusion to this point and it will take maybe decades to get it to the point that it can be used to produce commercial electricity. Meanwhile, we've got about eleven companies ready to construct Molten Salt Thorium Reactors that can't melt down and solve ALL of the problems and then some.
People don't bother to inform themselves about anything, so they lap this Buck Rogers stuff up like Pavlovian dogs. Indeed, the Gen IV SMCs that are about to come online here (already online in China and Russia) can solve energy issues for millennia, but they're too simple, too "boring", and too practical and therefore they are not a part of the Bread and Circuses narrative.
When she said, “fizzy water,” I thought here we go, another carbon sequestration plant. A holding cell, if you will. Swear to God, at that very moment, I literally thought to myself that, the only way to make real difference, as far as the earth is concerned, is to turn carbon into rock, and then she said it. ‘Carbon into rock!” Astounding! Now, you got my attention.
A better move would be to stop turning rock into atmosphere. Seems obvious, I know.
@@Miata822ejje6jd66d6j6d6. Irrr
That is a very impressive milestone!!!!!!
Dude in the thumbnail 😅 looked like he was floating at first had to look twice 😂😂
Great episode.
Wow. This entire episode made me realize just how stupid I really am. Humans are capable of amazing things.
shooting a fk ton of lasers at something with giant capacitors.. real amazing, not like they where doing this 60 years ago
How do you ship it there?
It was actually 302 units of power in and 3 out.
I'd like to know how they managed to convince any cat to give up one of it's whiskers to science! 8O
When it takes more energy to produce the energy you're using we're going backwards not forward...
Would the target cylinder be the kinetic frame for the atomic structure to make a quatum polarity occulation or color😮
The oil lady saying oil will emit less co2 because of the deposits put back in the earth is like the cigarette companies saying its good for you. Which they most certainly did say back in the 50’s.
Yeah, efficiency is measured as Power Output over Power Input.
Energy and power are not the same thing.
Growing up in the 90s I've waited my whole life for this. I was so excited to see it happen. People think electricity everything is pointless. Not if this works. Welcome to star trek
When you consider the yield on the tiny spheres essential to get this thing working and yet it is not sustainable...remember the Manhattan Project was a sustainable fission reaction...and this one is one shot before they have to recharge the whole system to generate that billionth of a second pulse, you may have to wait until the 24th Century before they can get this thing to be practical..
Free energy! It's been around for a long time.
Everything is energy. Energy creates life.
Zero point energy has been around for decades- and suppressed. Check it out. There are many extremely wealthy individuals that will do anything to stop this from occurring.
@@kamakaziozzie3038 They've killed many people to keep free energy technology suppressed. It's right around the corner though, they can't stop the truth.
With AI being appropriately used as a tool they might be able to get closer to the answer
They seem to be moving backward. Other reactors can sustain fusion for multiple seconds. I think the record is a minute or two. Fusion is the easy part (that's been done for decades). Containing it without losing energy, while efficiently extracting energy is the challenge. The brake though that alludes everyone is not fusion, but efficient containment. This one is only a fraction of a second...back to where it all started. Hydrogen bombs. Basically this is a tiny hydrogen bomb that isn't putting any focus on containment whatsoever, just like a big hydrogen bomb. All they're learning from this, is how to make better hydrogen bombs (in a way that circumvents international bans for testing hydrogen bombs).
This sounds like ICF(Inertial Confinement Fusion). I worked on this at KMS Fusion in the '80's. A great achievement but orders of magnitude from the solution. Congratulations to the team and good luck in the future.
"60 Minutes" is the most successful television broadcast in history. Offering hard-hitting investigative reports, interviews, feature segments, and profiles of people in the news, the broadcast began in 1968 and is still a hit, over 50 seasons later, regularly making Nielsen's Top 10. You know you're going to have a bad day when you get to your office and a 60 Minutes crew is sitting in your lobby.
Part of the money that is being spent by Stellantis is going into constructing two battery plants. One of those is located in Kokomo Indiana. It is certainly being built on a very fast pace. They are currently installing two underground gas pipelines to support the plant and those lines are already more than 30 miles long.
Too bad all of Stellantis' vehicles are junk.
Stellantis Vehicles are built like crap. So I am neither impressed nor excited.
@@benluciano4980 Junk in what sense? We hardly get any of them here in America except RAM and stuff. RAM trucks aren't super popular but I've liked the newer ones work mates drove. Hardly any vehicles aren't junk tbh
@@off6848quit driving RAMs and you'll change your opinion a bit
@@off6848 you think a ram is a nice truck. Tells us all we need to know.
Another “breakthrough” in fusion…..oh boy let me know when its real. We have had fusion in progress forever. I hope it happens so we can do even more.
I think it already is real. Fission to Fusion or Fusion to Fission hybrid reactors are very probable. But they continue to keep the public mystified about fusion by show casing Tokamak and K-Sun reactors but those types of sustained fusion reactors are just like a challenge game for nerds they aren't even being used in the way they should be to generate power. Again because nuclear energy is mystified to the public most people do not know that Nuclear Reactors are essentially mega huge steam turbine generators. The actual energy is not coming from the fission directly to the grid, so why do we need to keep presenting the bar for fusion to be long sustained reactions? We don't need to sustain hour long fusion reactions to simply create jump start power for fission which then super heats rods that dunk into water and create steam so what gives?
@@break1722Way hotter than that and no you really don't want to tap into the rotational energy of Earth
@@break1722 Yes, using heat from below ground is a thing. It's called geothermal energy. No, tapping into the rotation of the earth is not feasible, or a good idea. When you tap into the rotational energy of a spinning object you deplete that energy. It would take a very long time, but trying to draw energy directly from the rotation of the earth would slow the earth down. The more energy you try to capture, the greater the effect. And you can't spin the Earth back up to speed without putting that energy back.
@@off6848 "Jump start power for fission" Just say you don't know what you're talking about and move on. We don't need fusion to jump start fission. Fission reactors already work, and can be started up at will. Energy from fusion will likely also be steam turbine generators energized by fusion reaction.
@@break1722can't be done, Earth 🌎 is flat, sadly 😢.
How is that mechanism for fusion different from a tiny H-bomb? How to scale it?
Would the spectrum thermal frane from you holding the material be the photo reisitor atomic polarity start for thr kinetic shell 🥺
0:28: ⚡ Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have achieved successful fusion of hydrogen atoms using the world's largest lasers, marking a major breakthrough in the pursuit of commercial fusion power. 5:21: 💥 Scientists have successfully conducted a laser fusion experiment, achieving temperatures hotter than the sun, which could revolutionize electric power generation. 11:03: 🔬 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieves a major milestone in fusion power with successful ignition, but experts believe commercial fusion power within a decade is unlikely. 15:30: 🚗 The Salton Sea area in the US is set to become a major supplier of lithium for electric car batteries, with plans for a new plant to produce 20,000 tons per year. 19:47: 🔋 The Salton Sea in California has the potential to become a major source of lithium, attracting companies like Energy Source and Warren Buffett's bhe Renewables. 24:22: 🌍 The US is investing in domestic lithium production to reduce costs and carbon emissions in the electric vehicle industry. 29:08: 🌍 Scientists in Iceland are using a process called Orca to capture and store CO2 in volcanic rock, but scaling up fast enough to slow climate change is a challenge. 34:20: 🌍 Carbon capture technology must be used in conjunction with reducing emissions and transitioning away from fossil fuels. 38:17: 🌍 Occidental plans to build 130 more direct air capture plants by 2035 in order to avoid a climate catastrophe. Recap by Tammy AI
People like you make the world go round❤
China already did this months ago 😂 the U.S. is behind bad lol I wouldn’t be surprised if this was fake just like the United States faked the moon landing smh 🤦♂️
Legend
Goatest goat of all time
Inno who you are, but I want you making important decisions for the world.
I have huge hopes for sustainable fusion reactors. The comparison to flight technology just made me more frustrated. Flight evolved very quickly and with a small fraction of the investments already made on fusion tech. I keep thinking if we are approaching the goal by a wrong angle. Of course, I have no better suggestions to place. I hope our best minds will figure this out in my lifetime.
39:28 Remember Michal Faraday. What is the use of a newborn baby? Thanks to relentless efforts by our scientists that has brought us comforts.. ans some discomforts
the biggest problem with fusion is containment having the gravity or magnetic field to force the atoms to stay where they are and continue fusing
@@claybair4904 The biggest challenge is to create more energy than it costs in input and confinement pressure. The Sun gets this for free from gravity.
Not in the next 20 to 30yrs
Government did not build the planes. The most successful aircraft were built to satisfy private demand.
Today, fusion power within a decade. In 50 years, fusion power within just a decade.
Why does Scott Pelley speak to us as if we're in 4th grade
i really appreciate how funny this guys commentary is
We should be doing more to work with existing nuclear technology. Fission power has become much safer then it used to be. There are designs for molten salt reactors that are scheduled to begin operations within the next two years. Small, modular nuclear reactors are far cheaper and safer than old water cooled reactors.
The Soviets did it right. Everyone needs radioisotope thermoelectric generators in their house.
Theyre neat but they have a couple of problems.They produce a lot of plutonium that could be used in bombs and the only molten salt reactor they tested had quite a few of problems. Watt for Watt renewable energies are juat way cheaper than any other form of energy generation.
@@cheafchecker72 (was a joke)
@@DanniDuck didn’t even saw your comment lol was supposed to be under the first one lol
@@cheafchecker72 Seems unrealistic considering one could make a hydrogen bomb without plutonium just need uranium and tritium.
They put in 2 units of energy and got 3 units out. That's not very impressive considering they were burning fuel. You can put 1 unit of energy into a standard open air campfire and get thousands of units of energy back out of it as it burns the wood.
how could the wires and copper assemblies of the target sustained such a high tempratures?
If fusion is ever mastered , the powers that be will never let it come to fruition.
@@S1nster The people profiting on the rest of us is not interested in the progress of others, they're interested in money and power.
@@S1nster Thats why we use billions of tons of fossile fuels in both vehicles and power generation while there are truly fossile free alternatives just waiting to be used, right? Thats why hundreds of thousands each year get lung cancer from burning coal while nuclear could have been used and recycled right? Nope, it's because there are entities that profits from human suffering and those entities comes first, always.
You don't understand how technology spreads. The powers that be never wanted Russia to get nukes. Almost as if their agency isn't what you'd think!
They ain't gonna stop nothing.
The powers didn't stop electric cars the first time. Poor vehicles and lack of market did. You won't see anyone stop fusion either because for commercial level production, the tech will always be 20 years away. Fusion is relatively easy, mass production of it isn't ..
So, nearly all previous Fusion tests had a qReaction: < 1. That's the ratio of the energy given off from the reaction vs. what you used to maintain it. (Not to ignite it, just to maintain it). This recent test had a qReaction: 1.5. This was incredible. We've rarely ever had a net positive of energy come from the reaction test itself. (Although, that is not always what the tests were trying to achieve.) The best qTotal Energy in/out has moved from: ~1/5000 in the year 1984, to 1/156 in 2023. Much better! Technically that's 32x better! Still a long way to go. Especially that last 4-12% to break even.... That's statistically the hardest part in efficiency science... Let's see what these brilliant people can come up with. 👍💥
Well said, the video makes it seem that they actually got more energy out then they put in, wich isn't nearly the case, as you explained very well.
🌎: "🧐 😶 🤗 🤔"
Hardly a comparison to the first flight. The scaling difference between the two is astronomical.
Oh. That Fizzy Water Stone can become a Building Material.
18:17 Even if Sodium becomes the new Lithium, they can also extract it from the Salton Sea.
Lithium will always be handy to have, to the plants building for it will find plenty of customers regardless.
What do you do with all of that Iodine-131?
@@timogul Yep, I don't deny that.
For all us folks that follow super science knew fusion was coming to reality. I used to roll my eyes at all those scientist that used to say that it wouldn't happen in our life times. Like really, we live in a scientific world. I am 45 and my entire life from reading science fiction, reading science books and scientific journals have seen the future literally unfold in front of my eyes. My good I wish I could live to 2100. Completely change my lifestyle to only eating healthy, doing whatever it takes to live as long as I can. My Grand father made it to 94 and the dementia did him in. Looking forward to the future. God bless humanity.
You will make t to 2100. They will perfect growing replaceable organs/ cloning by the time you need them. In addition, many other advancements will be available to extend your life considerably.
@@georgeanddaddecker7563 Do you really think that "they" would let "you" or "I" live forever? Think about it
Fusion is still far from reality
@@georgeanddaddecker7563 yes, say 10 or twenty years.
Tequila salad, that is reserved for the owners of this planet.
All of these ideas sound great but like the last lady said. "Walk the talk" should be the theme of this video
it's like being a fry cook at mickey d's for 75 years and never making 1 burger