WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.880 --> 00:00:04.160 Welcome. This is Marsha for RADIOI, and today I will 2 00:00:04.200 --> 00:00:08.439 be reading National Geographic magazine dated November twenty twenty five, 3 00:00:08.800 --> 00:00:12.439 which is donated by the publisher as a reminder. RADIOI 4 00:00:12.679 --> 00:00:15.160 is a reading service intended for people who are blind 5 00:00:15.679 --> 00:00:18.440 or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read 6 00:00:18.519 --> 00:00:22.559 printed material. Please join me now for the first article 7 00:00:22.679 --> 00:00:28.440 titled Inside the Colossal Quest for limitless Energy by Michael Finkel. 8 00:00:29.359 --> 00:00:31.760 Around the world, the race is on to harness the 9 00:00:31.879 --> 00:00:36.119 near infinite power of nuclear fusion. In a small town 10 00:00:36.159 --> 00:00:39.520 in the south of France, a scientific mega project of 11 00:00:39.679 --> 00:00:43.479 extraordinary dimension is an inching closer to solving our global 12 00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:50.039 energy needs forever by building a star on Earth. Real stars. 13 00:00:50.079 --> 00:00:53.880 The ones in space are simple beats. Our Sun formed 14 00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:56.600 some four point six billion years ago from a cloud 15 00:00:56.960 --> 00:01:00.719 consisting of essentially one ingredient, hydrogen, the most basic an 16 00:01:00.759 --> 00:01:04.799 abundant element in the universe. Gravity kneaded the cloud into 17 00:01:04.840 --> 00:01:08.680 a big, rotating ball and kept squeezing from there, density 18 00:01:08.719 --> 00:01:12.359 and warmth spiking until its core reached about twenty seven 19 00:01:12.439 --> 00:01:17.680 million degrees fahrenheit. Hydrogen crumbles when collisions occur at this 20 00:01:17.760 --> 00:01:22.159 temperature and pressure, creating the soupy jumble of atomic parts 21 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:25.640 known as plasma, the fourth state of matter after solid 22 00:01:25.719 --> 00:01:29.719 liquid and gas. Though rare on Earth outside of lightning 23 00:01:29.760 --> 00:01:33.599 bolts and neon signs, plasma accounts for over ninety nine 24 00:01:33.599 --> 00:01:36.599 percent of the Solar System's mass, most of it stored 25 00:01:37.040 --> 00:01:41.799 highly agitated in the Sun throughout the Sun's soup trillions 26 00:01:41.840 --> 00:01:47.239 of times every instant, four hydrogen atoms locked together in 27 00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:50.640 a series of steps to make helium with a much 28 00:01:50.920 --> 00:01:56.200 higher fusion point. Helium bobs placidly amid the solar havoc, 29 00:01:56.560 --> 00:01:59.560 a sturdy lifeboat, not even breaking a sweat at twenty 30 00:01:59.560 --> 00:02:03.000 seven mills degrees, and there's enough hydrogen in the Sun 31 00:02:03.319 --> 00:02:07.280 to keep forging helium for another five billion years. One 32 00:02:07.319 --> 00:02:11.199 further process takes place in each of these nuclear fusion reactions. 33 00:02:11.599 --> 00:02:14.319 A helium atom is just a speck lighter than four 34 00:02:14.400 --> 00:02:18.159 hydrogen atoms, and the leftover bits of matter, unleashed and 35 00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:22.879 energetic thrash through the plasma, shimmy gradually to the Sun's 36 00:02:22.879 --> 00:02:26.479 surface and stream into space. Those headed in the right 37 00:02:26.520 --> 00:02:30.120 direction deliver morsels of heat and light to Earth. Here's 38 00:02:30.159 --> 00:02:33.439 how mighty our Sun is. The total energy it produces 39 00:02:33.439 --> 00:02:37.560 every second would power the entire Earth gluttonously for hundreds 40 00:02:37.560 --> 00:02:40.080 of thousands of years, and the process by which a 41 00:02:40.120 --> 00:02:43.919 star does this seems tantalizingly easy. What if we could 42 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:47.240 create a smaller sun here on Earth and tap into 43 00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:51.520 its power, Then theoretically we'd have a virtually unlimited source 44 00:02:51.560 --> 00:02:56.400 of clean and cheap energy, emitting no carbon dioxide, potentially 45 00:02:56.479 --> 00:03:01.759 halting global warming and environmental collapse. World would literally be saved. 46 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:05.000 It sounds improbable, but such an endeavor has long been 47 00:03:05.080 --> 00:03:08.039 under way at a vast construction site in the south 48 00:03:08.039 --> 00:03:10.639 of France, where both the heart science and the need 49 00:03:10.680 --> 00:03:16.280 for human collaboration are precedented, unprecedented and unpredictable, and the 50 00:03:16.360 --> 00:03:20.280 dream of a better future can be witnessed coming to life. 51 00:03:20.360 --> 00:03:25.199 The artificial star is called etair Iter pronounced Eeter, the 52 00:03:25.400 --> 00:03:28.680 Latin word for the whey and an acronym for the 53 00:03:28.719 --> 00:03:35.000 International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. The one hundred acre work area 54 00:03:35.240 --> 00:03:39.639 Handcake Flat is an hour's drive inland from the Mediterranean Sea, 55 00:03:40.159 --> 00:03:43.199 tucked amid pine forests and vineyards with craggy hills on 56 00:03:43.240 --> 00:03:47.439 the horizon. Each weekday, more than two thousand people physicists 57 00:03:47.439 --> 00:03:51.360 to welders arrive at the site, smaller crews toil at night. 58 00:03:52.039 --> 00:03:56.000 Thirty three nations, represented half the world's population, are official 59 00:03:56.479 --> 00:04:00.719 Eater members, and workers from ninety countries have been involved 60 00:04:00.759 --> 00:04:04.199 in its creation. A web of cultures knitting a singular 61 00:04:04.240 --> 00:04:08.960 machine in the middle of the job site, dominating the view. 62 00:04:09.039 --> 00:04:13.039 A windowless cement edifice rises like a volcano. To enter 63 00:04:13.080 --> 00:04:15.719 this structure, you must visit the attached dressing room and 64 00:04:15.759 --> 00:04:19.720 swap your footwear for white clean room shoes. Then use 65 00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:22.920 the electric shoes scrubber to ensure that any dirt or 66 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:26.079 contaminants are gone, and march in place on a sticky 67 00:04:26.160 --> 00:04:29.839 bat to eliminate gunk on the soles. The machine being 68 00:04:29.879 --> 00:04:33.800 built needs to be kept fastidiously pristine. A dropped pen 69 00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:38.120 cap or stray fingerprint could cause damage. You also have 70 00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:40.959 to wear a white lab coat, a hair nut, a 71 00:04:40.600 --> 00:04:45.360 hard hat, protective eyewear, and white gloves. Once properly dressed, 72 00:04:45.360 --> 00:04:48.319 you pass through a plastic strip curtain and unzip a 73 00:04:48.360 --> 00:04:51.319 canvas flap like a tent door and zip it shut 74 00:04:51.399 --> 00:04:55.480 behind you. Then walk down a narrow corridor fluorescently lit. 75 00:04:55.639 --> 00:04:58.240 The walls, floor, and ceiling all the same bright white 76 00:04:58.319 --> 00:05:01.839 as your shoes. The air is still and stifling. At 77 00:05:01.839 --> 00:05:04.680 the end of the hallway, unzip and re zip another door, 78 00:05:05.079 --> 00:05:08.319 Navigate a second white corridor, Climb up a layer of 79 00:05:08.360 --> 00:05:12.800 scaffolding jungle gym style, and duck through one more zippered portal. 80 00:05:13.519 --> 00:05:16.600 There is a claustrophobic sense of being lost in a labyrinth. 81 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:23.720 Traverse yet another dizzying white hallway, and open a further door, 82 00:05:23.720 --> 00:05:26.680 and there you are inside the Great Machine Room. It's 83 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:30.160 an industrial ecosystem of ducks and pipes and metal slabs 84 00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:33.800 on some wild scale that skews your bearings. Only when 85 00:05:33.839 --> 00:05:36.879 you spot the white clad workers tethered to scaffolding amid 86 00:05:36.920 --> 00:05:41.800 the overwhelming gadgetry ants on a hill does the enormity emerge. 87 00:05:42.240 --> 00:05:44.800 The contraption fills a space the equivalent of a twenty 88 00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:48.920 story building. It will eventually contain ten million parts, hundreds 89 00:05:48.959 --> 00:05:52.720 of thousands of them, uniquely fabricated, and along with its housing, 90 00:05:52.839 --> 00:05:57.040 weigh nearly four hundred fifty thousand tons. Eater is likely 91 00:05:57.079 --> 00:06:01.240 the most complex machine humans have ever attempted build. A 92 00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:03.800 lot of the metal is burnished to a brilliant shine, 93 00:06:04.079 --> 00:06:08.439 many pieces plated in silver, an ideal material for deflecting 94 00:06:08.480 --> 00:06:12.279 heat from sensitive components. Pipes run here and there in 95 00:06:12.319 --> 00:06:17.040 parallel rows, like raked sand in zen gardens, winding through 96 00:06:17.079 --> 00:06:19.319 the works. The heart of the machine is in the 97 00:06:19.360 --> 00:06:22.439 form of a giant's sphere with a doughnut shaped hollow 98 00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:25.959 where plasma may one day whirl. The device is called 99 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:29.879 a tokamak. There are few sharp edges on a tokamak, 100 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:34.959 and massive segments of Eater's machinery are sculpted with graceful 101 00:06:35.279 --> 00:06:39.519 sandstone like curves. Eater is publicly funded billions of dollars 102 00:06:39.600 --> 00:06:43.040 shouldered by dozens of governments, with no profit motive or 103 00:06:43.160 --> 00:06:48.120 military aim. We are contributing to world peace, says Kijung Jung, 104 00:06:49.120 --> 00:06:53.399 head of the project's South Korean unit, expressing an admirable 105 00:06:53.800 --> 00:06:58.839 objective that is somewhat belied by decorated decades of international disputes. 106 00:06:59.399 --> 00:07:03.160 The project is open source. If Eeter operates as planned, 107 00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:07.079 any nation or private company can access its intellectual property 108 00:07:07.160 --> 00:07:10.079 free of charge. This is not going to happen soon. 109 00:07:10.439 --> 00:07:13.639 The quest for a mechanical star has been unfolding for 110 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:17.399 a century and still has years to go. But in 111 00:07:17.439 --> 00:07:20.480 a world that can feel quick, tempered and fractious, Eater 112 00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:24.399 appears to be a crazily ambitious, long term project rooted 113 00:07:24.480 --> 00:07:28.000 in optimism and a desire for unity. The endeavor has 114 00:07:28.040 --> 00:07:32.000 already extended across careers and lifetimes, with each step forward 115 00:07:32.079 --> 00:07:36.360 seemingly offset by unanticipated setbacks. It will be a savior 116 00:07:36.439 --> 00:07:41.800 for future generations, promises Dutch physicist Acco Mas, a twenty 117 00:07:41.839 --> 00:07:46.000 five year veteran of Eater, speaking from his office overlooking 118 00:07:46.040 --> 00:07:51.560 the teeming constructive area. A few scientists have observed that 119 00:07:51.600 --> 00:07:55.040 Eter may be our era's version of the Egyptian Pyramids 120 00:07:55.160 --> 00:07:58.839 or the Gothic cathedrals of Europe. Some visitors permitted to 121 00:07:58.839 --> 00:08:01.560 see the machine have been moved to tears, for it 122 00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:05.839 can seem a miracle that Eater exists at all. Other observers, 123 00:08:05.839 --> 00:08:08.879 including some of the most powerful voices in science, have 124 00:08:08.920 --> 00:08:12.920 not been swayed by Eater's charms. Three separate Nobel Prize 125 00:08:12.920 --> 00:08:16.839 winners in physics, Pierre Jill de Gene of France, his 126 00:08:16.959 --> 00:08:23.759 countrymen George Sharpak, and Masatoshi Koshiba of Japan, independently declared 127 00:08:23.759 --> 00:08:26.360 that attempts to create a miniature sun to help Earth 128 00:08:26.759 --> 00:08:29.639 help power the Earth are a waste of money and effort, 129 00:08:29.680 --> 00:08:34.720 doomed to fizzle out and possibly dangerous. Despite such criticism, 130 00:08:34.759 --> 00:08:38.039 in eature like facility, if completed and hooked to an 131 00:08:38.159 --> 00:08:42.080 energy grid, would presumably be safer, cleaner, and more productive 132 00:08:42.120 --> 00:08:45.360 than any nuclear power plant now in use. All of 133 00:08:45.399 --> 00:08:49.399 the world's four hundred plus nuclear reactors operating across some 134 00:08:49.480 --> 00:08:54.600 thirty nations rely on fission. Fusion and fission are similar 135 00:08:55.159 --> 00:08:58.240 looking words, based on the same concept of creating energy 136 00:08:58.639 --> 00:09:02.720 from excess matter in in atomic reactions, but otherwise they 137 00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:07.159 are opposites. In a fusion plant, lightweight atoms hydrogen has 138 00:09:07.200 --> 00:09:11.600 just one electron one proton and zero one or two neutrons, 139 00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:16.480 are forced together with fission. Heavier elements such as uranium 140 00:09:16.559 --> 00:09:19.440 or plutonium, each with a total of more than three 141 00:09:19.519 --> 00:09:24.600 hundred electrons. Protons and neutrons are split apart. The great 142 00:09:24.639 --> 00:09:27.759 advantage of fission is that reactions are easy to start 143 00:09:28.279 --> 00:09:31.080 when good jolt and particles drop from the big atoms 144 00:09:31.080 --> 00:09:34.240 like fruit from a tree. But fission is messy. Some 145 00:09:34.279 --> 00:09:37.039 of the radioactive waste will be toxic to humans for 146 00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:41.879 tens of thousands of years. Fusion two produces hazardous radioactive 147 00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:47.720 byproducts but nothing remotely comparable. Also, fissile material like uranium 148 00:09:47.960 --> 00:09:50.919 may be depleted within a century, while the type of 149 00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:55.759 hydrogen best suited for fusion is almost endlessly abundant in 150 00:09:55.799 --> 00:09:59.759 sea water. There is also fission's limited but unavoidable record 151 00:09:59.799 --> 00:10:05.639 of catastrophe three Mile Island, Pennsylvania in nineteen seventy nine, Chernobyl, Ukraine, 152 00:10:05.679 --> 00:10:09.759 then part of the USSR in nineteen eighty six, Fukushima, 153 00:10:09.840 --> 00:10:14.240 Japan in twenty eleven. Fission reactions without careful control can 154 00:10:14.279 --> 00:10:19.759 become explosive, prone to gallop off uncontrollably. With fusion, runaway 155 00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:23.519 reactions and meltdowns aren't possible in a fusion plant, Any 156 00:10:23.559 --> 00:10:27.159 accident or system failure, or even a small instability in 157 00:10:27.159 --> 00:10:30.639 the plasma immediately causes the reaction to lose strength and 158 00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:35.639 extinguish itself. Also, fusion produces four times as much energy 159 00:10:35.679 --> 00:10:39.399 as fission with the same quantity of fuel, and fusion 160 00:10:39.559 --> 00:10:43.080 is about four million times more energetic and vastly cleaner 161 00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:48.360 than chemical reactions that burn oil or coal. Renewable energy sources, 162 00:10:48.399 --> 00:10:52.919 including solar, wind, and geothermal, are, like nuclear power, largely 163 00:10:53.039 --> 00:10:56.840 carbon free, but none of them appear capable of scaling 164 00:10:56.919 --> 00:11:00.399 up to meet global demand. Fusion fills the bill of 165 00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:03.720 energy savior, except that it's difficult to begin the reaction 166 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:07.679 and harder to maintain it. Atoms naturally repel one another, 167 00:11:08.039 --> 00:11:11.000 and enormous forces are required to slam them together and 168 00:11:11.039 --> 00:11:15.240 fuse them. Even then, plasma is skittish and fragile, constantly 169 00:11:15.320 --> 00:11:19.200 seeking to dissipate. The largest detonation of all time, the 170 00:11:19.200 --> 00:11:24.000 Big Bang, con maintained fusion for only three minutes before 171 00:11:24.559 --> 00:11:28.120 it faded away. For the next hundred million years, Fusion 172 00:11:28.200 --> 00:11:32.120 didn't exist in the universe until gravity muscled enough hydrogen 173 00:11:32.159 --> 00:11:36.200 together for the first stars to ignite. Virtually every Layov 174 00:11:36.200 --> 00:11:40.960 experiment involving fusion has consumed more energy than it has produced, 175 00:11:41.240 --> 00:11:45.559 Contrary to the goal of a power plant. Fusion energy 176 00:11:45.600 --> 00:11:50.159 currently sits at the maddening intersection of conceptual simplicity and 177 00:11:50.240 --> 00:11:56.480 technological perplexity. Perplexity some fusion experts have concluded across several 178 00:11:56.519 --> 00:11:59.720 decades now that controlling fusion is beyond the limits of 179 00:11:59.759 --> 00:12:04.600 human in capability. Daniels Jasby, who worked at the Princeton 180 00:12:04.639 --> 00:12:08.080 Plasma Physics LAP for twenty five years, wrote after his 181 00:12:08.200 --> 00:12:12.080 retirement that a fusion plant would be too convoluted, requiring 182 00:12:12.200 --> 00:12:15.679 endless maintenance, and cause more problems than it would solve. 183 00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:19.639 The late Lawrence Lidsky, an associate director of m i 184 00:12:19.679 --> 00:12:23.440 t's Fusion Center and founding editor of the Journal of 185 00:12:23.440 --> 00:12:27.360 Fusion Energy, declared after a long career that fusion power 186 00:12:27.399 --> 00:12:30.799 is a fantasy, noting that it's widely regarded as the 187 00:12:30.840 --> 00:12:36.200 hardest scientific and technical problem ever tackled. Walter Marshall, former 188 00:12:36.360 --> 00:12:40.879 chairman of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, reportedly said 189 00:12:40.879 --> 00:12:44.320 that fusion is an idea with infinite possibility and zero 190 00:12:44.600 --> 00:12:48.799 chance of success. There's no shortage of scientists to support Eater. 191 00:12:49.399 --> 00:12:52.679 Stephen Hawking once said that fusion was the single idea 192 00:12:53.039 --> 00:12:56.840 with the greatest potential to advance humanity, but the project's 193 00:12:57.120 --> 00:13:02.399 detractors mostly articulate the same idea. Eater's complexity can seem absurd. 194 00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:05.200 The more you know about the machine, the less it 195 00:13:05.240 --> 00:13:08.399 may appear to make sense. This is high risk, high reward, 196 00:13:08.759 --> 00:13:13.000 says Catherine McCarthy, director of the United States Eater Bureau. 197 00:13:13.759 --> 00:13:17.440 The idea is undeniably a long shot, possibly a wild 198 00:13:17.480 --> 00:13:21.399 goose chase that might in fact exceed human capacity. But 199 00:13:21.519 --> 00:13:24.720 for many who've dedicated their working lives to Eater, it's 200 00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:29.240 precisely this uncertainty and absurdity that make the effort alluring. 201 00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:31.799 How can we know our limits unless we try our 202 00:13:31.840 --> 00:13:36.080 hardest to exceed them. A chief absurdity is the heat. 203 00:13:36.639 --> 00:13:41.879 Of the three fusion requirements plasma, confinement, pressure, and heat. 204 00:13:42.279 --> 00:13:46.159 Humans are most limited by pressure. A million earths could 205 00:13:46.159 --> 00:13:49.480 fit inside the Sun, and this size difference is insurmountable. 206 00:13:49.799 --> 00:13:52.879 The center of the sun is thirteen times denser than lead. 207 00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:56.440 There's no known way we can create a squeeze like 208 00:13:56.480 --> 00:13:59.240 that on our planet. To make up for this, a 209 00:13:59.240 --> 00:14:02.159 lot of heat is the main source of Eater's heat 210 00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:05.600 comes from a pair of giant laser like particle guns 211 00:14:05.679 --> 00:14:10.679 called neutral beam injectors. Each gun is the size of 212 00:14:10.720 --> 00:14:14.399 two city buses part and to end their barrels point 213 00:14:14.600 --> 00:14:18.960 into the tokamak, they will fire one million bold particle 214 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:22.240 beams continuously for an hour. To power the guns and 215 00:14:22.279 --> 00:14:26.360 other components, Eater has built a ten acre electrical switch 216 00:14:26.440 --> 00:14:30.080 guard capable of drawing as much energy from the French 217 00:14:30.200 --> 00:14:33.720 national grid as a city of one million people. Though 218 00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:37.240 the machine, whence operational, should prove that this debt can 219 00:14:37.320 --> 00:14:42.200 be repaid at least tenfold. When the guns open fire, 220 00:14:42.559 --> 00:14:45.960 hydrogen gas in the tucamac will swirl through the doughnut, 221 00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:50.159 increasing in velocity as the temperature rises one million degrees 222 00:14:50.200 --> 00:14:54.200 fahrenheit two million, ten million. The atoms will move faster 223 00:14:54.320 --> 00:14:57.120 than the speed of sound, then swifter still. As the 224 00:14:57.159 --> 00:15:00.720 heat exceeds the twenty seven million degrees at the center 225 00:15:00.759 --> 00:15:04.159 of the sun. That passes fifty million, one hundred million, 226 00:15:04.200 --> 00:15:07.919 two hundred million, the force of accelerating particles in the 227 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:13.120 toucamac will equal that of two space shuttles launching at once. 228 00:15:13.679 --> 00:15:16.519 Only at two hundred seventy million degrees ten times the 229 00:15:16.519 --> 00:15:19.960 temperature of the Sun's core will hydrogen atoms in eater 230 00:15:20.120 --> 00:15:24.279 collide in shed electrons, then fuse together as helium. How 231 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:27.559 do you contain something so hot? No known material could 232 00:15:27.559 --> 00:15:31.360 do it. A toucamac made of pure diamonds would vaporize instantly, 233 00:15:31.799 --> 00:15:34.639 But here the nature of plasma is healthful. The stew 234 00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:38.039 of atomic parts includes a large number of positively charged 235 00:15:38.080 --> 00:15:43.039 protons and negatively charged electrons. Since these particles are affected 236 00:15:43.039 --> 00:15:47.399 by magnetic forces, the jar confining eater's plasma will be 237 00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:52.559 formed of electromagnetic fields. Like many ideas being implemented at Eater, 238 00:15:53.159 --> 00:15:57.200 the development of the electromagnetic system draws on the most 239 00:15:57.240 --> 00:16:02.120 promising discoveries from years of research laboratories worldwide that have 240 00:16:02.200 --> 00:16:05.440 nothing to do with nuclear fusion. The magnets at Eater 241 00:16:05.960 --> 00:16:11.279 also absurd. Start with the central solenoid, which will fill 242 00:16:11.320 --> 00:16:14.039 the whole of the donut. It's like a grain silo 243 00:16:14.159 --> 00:16:16.840 six stories high and will become the backbone of the 244 00:16:16.840 --> 00:16:20.879 world's most powerful magnetic system, generating forces that could lift 245 00:16:20.919 --> 00:16:24.480 an aircraft carrier out of the water. Circling the machine 246 00:16:24.679 --> 00:16:29.480 like hula hoops, will be six immense poloidal magnets, and 247 00:16:29.600 --> 00:16:34.480 hanging vertically will be eighteen D shaped pteroidal magnets, each 248 00:16:34.559 --> 00:16:38.200 over fifty feet tall, enclosing the plasma's loop. Together, the 249 00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:41.480 magnets will weigh more than eleven thousand tons, and they 250 00:16:41.519 --> 00:16:45.480 will be machined with extraordinary fiship precision, the margin for 251 00:16:45.559 --> 00:16:48.080 air less than the thickness of a sheet of paper. 252 00:16:48.519 --> 00:16:51.039 To create this, says one Eater worker, you have to 253 00:16:51.080 --> 00:16:55.159 be a little crazy. These are all superconducting magnets, which 254 00:16:55.159 --> 00:16:58.720 means that they can carry strong electrical currents without resistance, 255 00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:03.360 allowing the intent fields required to corral Eater's plasma. For 256 00:17:03.519 --> 00:17:07.880 superconductivity to work, these magnets must be kept extremely cold. 257 00:17:08.240 --> 00:17:11.960 Eater has also built a cryo plant big enough to 258 00:17:12.039 --> 00:17:16.200 house a soccer field, the most complicated refrigerator in the world, 259 00:17:16.319 --> 00:17:20.759 as an Eater cryogenic engineer put it, that will circulate 260 00:17:20.799 --> 00:17:24.920 liquid helium through the magnets. Eater's magnets need to be 261 00:17:24.960 --> 00:17:28.839 cooled to negative fourgnd fifty degrees fahrenheit. This is just 262 00:17:28.880 --> 00:17:32.119 a few ticks above absolute zero, the point at which 263 00:17:32.119 --> 00:17:37.279 atomic energy has reached its minimum nearly motionless state. Perhaps 264 00:17:37.279 --> 00:17:40.559 the ultimate absurdity of Eater is that it will contain 265 00:17:40.680 --> 00:17:43.319 one of the hottest known places in the universe and 266 00:17:43.359 --> 00:17:46.279 one of the coldest, little more than a body's length apart. 267 00:17:46.880 --> 00:17:50.880 We are playing with Mother Nature's forces, says Alberto Luarte, 268 00:17:51.440 --> 00:17:55.000 director of Eater's science division, jotting down a page of 269 00:17:55.039 --> 00:17:59.240 mathematical calculations showing just how great these forces are. I 270 00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:02.240 can't predict the difficulties we will face. We may learn 271 00:18:02.279 --> 00:18:05.960 that we understand nothing. Here's how it's supposed to work. 272 00:18:06.319 --> 00:18:09.480 The doughnut shaped area in the Tucamac will be pumped clear, 273 00:18:09.880 --> 00:18:13.640 forming a vacuum. Any stray molecules can pollute the plasma. 274 00:18:14.279 --> 00:18:17.640 The magnets will be super cold and activated. Then hydrogen 275 00:18:17.720 --> 00:18:20.960 gas will be injected into the vacuum chamber at about 276 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:24.079 half a gram per second. This gas will be heavier 277 00:18:24.119 --> 00:18:29.400 than common hydrogen. Eater's recipe calls for a combination of deutium, 278 00:18:29.599 --> 00:18:34.880 which adds one neutron to the normally neutronless atom, and tritium, 279 00:18:35.039 --> 00:18:39.519 which adds two. Without these isotopes, the tucamac would have 280 00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:43.079 to be heated hundreds of millions of degrees higher. Yet 281 00:18:43.079 --> 00:18:48.319 this efficiency also brings complications. Deutyium, though rear, can be 282 00:18:48.319 --> 00:18:51.440 plecked out of sea water our oceans contain a many 283 00:18:51.440 --> 00:18:56.319 million year global supply, but tritium doesn't naturally occur and 284 00:18:56.440 --> 00:19:00.319 is slightly radioactive. So Eater will also be testing first 285 00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:03.880 of a kind components that its hopes will permit machine 286 00:19:03.880 --> 00:19:08.119 to safely breed its own tritium. Once the neutral beam 287 00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:11.240 injectors have zapped the gas to the necessary two hundred 288 00:19:11.279 --> 00:19:15.519 seven million, two hundred seventy million degrees, the resulting plasma 289 00:19:15.559 --> 00:19:19.200 will glow faintly red like an aurora. The northern and 290 00:19:19.279 --> 00:19:23.319 southern lights are also plasmas, and says an eater physicist, 291 00:19:23.599 --> 00:19:26.200 emit a sound like the screech of an alley cat. 292 00:19:26.680 --> 00:19:29.799 Newly fused helium atoms will drop out of the plasma 293 00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:32.640 a sort of ash and collect in a huge dish 294 00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:35.920 known as the diverter at the bottom of the toocomac. 295 00:19:36.440 --> 00:19:40.000 Heavy hydrogen will continually be added, keeping the plasma fed. 296 00:19:40.519 --> 00:19:45.039 Another benefit of using neuterium and trite tritium is that 297 00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:49.200 about half of the fusion reactions by products are neutrons. 298 00:19:49.839 --> 00:19:55.000 Neutrons well named are neutral, unaffected by magnetism. Loose neutrons 299 00:19:55.039 --> 00:19:57.960 will fly through the plasma in all directions and crash 300 00:19:57.960 --> 00:20:00.880 against the walls of the toocomac struke, picking what's called 301 00:20:00.880 --> 00:20:05.119 the blanket. Eater's blanket not soft, as formed from hunks 302 00:20:05.119 --> 00:20:09.400 of tungsten, steel, aluminium, and bronze designed to absorb this 303 00:20:09.599 --> 00:20:15.039 hailstorm of neutrons hundreds of trillions per second and transfer 304 00:20:15.079 --> 00:20:18.119 the heat of the particle's kinetic energy from inside the 305 00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:22.039 tochomac to outside. In an actual fusion power plant, this 306 00:20:22.119 --> 00:20:25.319 heat could be used to boil water, creating steam which 307 00:20:25.359 --> 00:20:30.799 can spin turbines and generate electricity. The strange truth of Eater, however, 308 00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:33.799 is that it will never produce power. The machine is 309 00:20:33.799 --> 00:20:37.160 strictly an experiment to prove that all the steps are achievable. 310 00:20:37.599 --> 00:20:42.640 Steam turbines, old technology well understood, will presumably be installed 311 00:20:42.640 --> 00:20:46.160 in later generations of fusion plants that will be built 312 00:20:46.200 --> 00:20:50.079 all over the world. This step could easily be more 313 00:20:50.119 --> 00:20:53.519 than fifty years away. The time scale is not compatible 314 00:20:53.559 --> 00:20:58.599 with our immediacy culture, says former Eater chief scientist Tim Lose, 315 00:20:59.160 --> 00:21:01.839 but he implies this fusion energy may still arrive in 316 00:21:01.880 --> 00:21:05.640 time to save us. All. Though Eater won't have energy 317 00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:09.200 producing equipment, it will be outfitted with a wide array 318 00:21:09.319 --> 00:21:13.640 of diagnostic tools to judge the effectiveness of every test run, 319 00:21:14.279 --> 00:21:17.519 and while future plants may have to run almost continuously, 320 00:21:17.960 --> 00:21:20.680 the stated goal of Eater is to maintain a burning, 321 00:21:21.079 --> 00:21:24.680 energy rich plasma for four hundred seconds or a bit 322 00:21:24.799 --> 00:21:28.119 less than seven minutes. More than a hundred years of 323 00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:32.000 effort and money have already been devoted to achieving these minutes. 324 00:21:32.319 --> 00:21:36.000 Painted across the lobby of the five story Eater headquarters building, 325 00:21:36.359 --> 00:21:40.400 home to administrative offices and scientific think tanks, is a 326 00:21:40.440 --> 00:21:45.000 timeline of fusion milestones. It begins in nineteen nineteen, when 327 00:21:45.039 --> 00:21:50.880 French physicist Jean Perien hypothesized that stars produced energy through fusion. 328 00:21:51.279 --> 00:21:54.039 This was definitely proved in the nineteen thirties, and soon 329 00:21:54.079 --> 00:21:57.480 after the power of fusion was grasped, scientists set about 330 00:21:57.519 --> 00:22:00.319 trying to kill people with it. The bombs drop on 331 00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:06.440 Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August nineteen forty five only used fission. 332 00:22:06.880 --> 00:22:10.319 After World War II, the global arms race escalated, and 333 00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:15.240 the US initiated a project to weaponize fusion. On November one, 334 00:22:15.640 --> 00:22:19.599 nineteen fifty two, the first hydrogen bob IV MIKE, a 335 00:22:19.680 --> 00:22:25.079 two stage explosive using fission and fusion, completely eliminated one 336 00:22:25.119 --> 00:22:27.680 of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, a blast equal 337 00:22:27.759 --> 00:22:31.119 to seven hundred Hiroshimas. This was just the start. A 338 00:22:31.240 --> 00:22:35.519 scientist swiftly realized that fission fusion hybrid bombs could be 339 00:22:35.559 --> 00:22:39.359 boosted exponentially. The threat of destroying the planet with a 340 00:22:39.400 --> 00:22:44.000 single weapon was real. Global powers attempted to change that trajectory. 341 00:22:44.359 --> 00:22:47.960 In nineteen fifty three, US President Dwight Eisenhower delivered what 342 00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:50.640 is known as the Atoms for Peace Address at the 343 00:22:50.720 --> 00:22:53.519 United Nations in New York City, in which he called 344 00:22:53.599 --> 00:22:56.920 on the entire body of the world scientists and engineers 345 00:22:56.960 --> 00:23:00.680 to abandon the military use of atomic reactions and instead 346 00:23:01.039 --> 00:23:04.960 adapt their studies to the arts of peace. Most scientists 347 00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:08.720 focused on fission, but a handful of researchers, regarded by 348 00:23:08.720 --> 00:23:12.759 some mainstream academics at the time as mavericks or dreamers 349 00:23:12.839 --> 00:23:16.160 or con artists, realized that fusion was the ultimate world 350 00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:19.119 change in prize and set about trying to utilize it. 351 00:23:19.519 --> 00:23:23.559 The first generation of fusion machines, incorporating mirrors or lasers 352 00:23:23.640 --> 00:23:28.240 or electric currents, all ended in miserable failure. Some simply 353 00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:31.759 didn't work or were exposed as frauds, while others formed 354 00:23:31.799 --> 00:23:35.039 plasma that lasted a fraction of a second before collapsing. 355 00:23:35.839 --> 00:23:41.440 Plasma physicists learned was a fiendish subject substance containing it 356 00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:45.640 has been compared to wrapping jelly and rubber bands. Volatilities 357 00:23:45.680 --> 00:23:49.559 in plasma events that snuff the reaction were given descriptive 358 00:23:49.640 --> 00:23:56.440 names kink, instability, sausage instability, bump entail. The list totals 359 00:23:56.480 --> 00:23:59.119 more than fifty by the time of the second United 360 00:23:59.200 --> 00:24:03.200 Nations International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of atomic energy. 361 00:24:03.240 --> 00:24:07.599 Held in Geneva, Switzerland, in nineteen fifty eight, world leaders 362 00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:11.559 generally agreed that all nations nuclear energy research should be 363 00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:16.839 declassified and shared. Soviet Union concurring disclosed a breakthrough that 364 00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:21.759 was later given the name tokemac, shortening of the Russian 365 00:24:21.839 --> 00:24:27.519 phrase to roidal chamber with magnetic coil. The tokmac was 366 00:24:27.559 --> 00:24:31.079 an elegant design that could achieve hotter plasmas and longer 367 00:24:31.119 --> 00:24:35.400 confinement times than anything before. No fusion device had ever 368 00:24:35.440 --> 00:24:39.960 been more promising, and scientists calculated that bigger tokemacs would 369 00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:43.359 provide the volume needed to maintain plasma in a stamp 370 00:24:43.440 --> 00:24:47.119 stable and energetic state. By the late nineteen seventies, three 371 00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:53.440 separate giant tokomacs were in development in Princeton, New Jersey, Oxfordshire, England, 372 00:24:53.559 --> 00:24:57.799 and Naka, Japan. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent 373 00:24:57.880 --> 00:25:01.400 on each one an optimism search, but years passed in 374 00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:04.640 which none of these new machines came close to proving 375 00:25:05.039 --> 00:25:09.160 that fusion was economically feasible. Fusion observers like to say 376 00:25:09.240 --> 00:25:12.920 is twenty years away and always will be. At a 377 00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:16.359 juncture when fusion could have easily been abandoned, it was 378 00:25:16.480 --> 00:25:21.519 unexpectedly revived. In nineteen eighty five. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev 379 00:25:21.799 --> 00:25:24.880 and U S President Ronald Reagan held a summit in Geneva, 380 00:25:25.200 --> 00:25:28.880 their first ever meeting. The agreement they reached included a 381 00:25:28.960 --> 00:25:32.640 declaration that the two nations and any other countries willing 382 00:25:32.680 --> 00:25:35.599 to join them would work together to build a fusion 383 00:25:35.640 --> 00:25:39.720 reactor for the benefit of all mankind, and thus from 384 00:25:39.720 --> 00:25:42.319 the end game of the Cold War was born Eater. 385 00:25:43.240 --> 00:25:48.839 Bickering and infighting commenced immediately. Eater is in human in scope, hot, cold, immense, 386 00:25:48.880 --> 00:25:51.920 sub atomic, yet can also seem like the most human 387 00:25:52.279 --> 00:25:56.880 thing ever bloated by geopolitics, red tape and hubris. Two 388 00:25:56.920 --> 00:26:00.759 dozen European countries in Japan promptly joined the alliance, and 389 00:26:00.839 --> 00:26:05.000 with no nation holding majority control, haggling began over Eater's 390 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:08.880 technical design and cost. The squabbling dragged on for years 391 00:26:09.200 --> 00:26:11.400 through the break up of the Soviet Union in nineteen 392 00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:15.960 ninety one. Russia remained with Eater and bureaucratically onward into 393 00:26:16.039 --> 00:26:19.480 nineteen ninety eight, when the US, having spent three hundred 394 00:26:19.519 --> 00:26:22.640 forty five million dollars on what some officials felt was 395 00:26:22.680 --> 00:26:27.440 basically nothing quit the project. The remaining members soldiered on 396 00:26:27.599 --> 00:26:30.880 and finished the design specs. Ter's machine will have five 397 00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:34.319 times the volume of the next largest tokamak. Around the 398 00:26:34.359 --> 00:26:38.279 time that the US government, urged by American academics, rejoined 399 00:26:38.279 --> 00:26:41.359 the program in two thousand three. That same year, China 400 00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:45.960 and South Korea also signed up, followed soon after by India. 401 00:26:46.559 --> 00:26:49.759