Science & Technology
The Secret Force for Limitless Energy? Lasers | Tammy Ma | TED
In 2022, physicist Tammy Ma and the team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved a scientific breakthrough decades in the making: fusion ignition, or the combining of two atoms to generate more energy out of a reaction than was put in — recreating on Earth the same process that powers the Sun. She explains how…
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@nicolasmaldonado1428
August 1, 2024 at 1:08 pm
You were very careful to point out that the energy that comes out was twice the energy put in by the laser. But totally forgot to mention the efficiency of the laser itself, which I think is something around 10%. This is why it doesn’t work right now. It stills needs to produce 10x more energy than the laser to break even the electric input, and this is not even counting the efficiency of the electric grid. We are not even close. It’s a goal worth pursuing but it’s very disingenuous to picture it like this.
We are going to learn a lot during this process which is by itself a worthy goal, but I don’t see fusion as a viable energy source. All this money should be going to geothermal research.
@balasubr2252
August 2, 2024 at 7:44 pm
We already have enough solar energy that is unused for doing vertical farming or desalination. Physicists are not interested in improving the standard of living of the poor or feeding the poor. They are on an ego trip with no purpose whatsoever.
@Ghost-pb4ts
August 2, 2024 at 7:55 pm
Money could go to both. In a free country, you’re allowed to do research with your own money. Solar panels and wind energy will outcompete fusion and fission in my opinion. If someone found a way to store the excess energy generated during peak times, that would be valuable. Also, consider the return on investment. Fusion technology doesn’t exist yet and who knows how expensive it’s going to be. Fission has a poor return on investment, while solar panels have a return on investment of 4-5 years. Many windmills and solar panels are actually stopped during peak power generation because the grid can’t handle that much energy
@balasubr2252
August 2, 2024 at 8:05 pm
@@Ghost-pb4tsPhotonics might eventually eliminate the need for storage if photons can power everything.
@gregolsen7102
August 1, 2024 at 1:35 pm
She is to blame for DEWs burning everything down? 🙁
@RadicalTrivia
August 1, 2024 at 1:37 pm
🎼I don’t want to set the world on fire 🎶
@brahimaithadi
August 1, 2024 at 1:46 pm
So inspiring and so optemistic speach .. thank youuu
@themogget8808
August 1, 2024 at 2:32 pm
Ok, so you do all this fun laser stuff and make a hot bottle and you then use this to…. checks notes…. run a steam turbine like regular nuclear. You will do this by going ever bigger, which means facilities that cost billions and decades to make. We will be done transitioning to solar, wind, and batteries in just the next 15 years. I fail to see the benefits. You all missed the chance – that boat has sailed.
@screendooreffect
August 1, 2024 at 2:35 pm
The number of air quote fingers I did for “laser”. 😅
@Mom-b1r
August 1, 2024 at 2:56 pm
When this is going to happen at industrial scale?
@travisleith1146
August 1, 2024 at 3:39 pm
I missed the part where she explains how to extract heat from a miniature thermonuclear explosion and turn it into work.
@Ghost-pb4ts
August 2, 2024 at 8:02 pm
We cannot harness energy from high-energy neutrons because they will simply pass through everything. Instead, thermal energy can be generated by fusing atoms, using water to evaporate and drive the turbine.
like in fission reactor
Also there will be no explosion
A magnetic field will trap the plasma only neutrons will be able to escape
If anything fails it will cool itself
Watch kurgezat video on fusion
@thecountrychemist2561
August 5, 2024 at 1:53 pm
11:40. I got you. She says that part hasn’t been done yet.
Makes sense. No point in trying to harness the energy if you don’t even have proof of concept nor scalability handled.
@9r4v3s
August 1, 2024 at 5:02 pm
so still just nuclear lol
@justforyou8437
August 1, 2024 at 5:41 pm
Please please talk about Bangladesh current situation. People are being killed here please spread the news and save us 🙏🙏🙏🙏
@linkingtheworld6561
August 1, 2024 at 5:50 pm
Delivering more energy than it was needed to generate it? Really impressive 😮
@bartroberts1514
August 1, 2024 at 9:51 pm
2024 marks the 42nd anniversary of my involvement in a laser-initiated fusion research project, and is also the 90th anniversary of laboratory fusion, by Rutherford and Oliphant. This TED talk is saying exactly what my project team was discussing over four decades ago, with zero actual progress toward practical commercial fusion electricity generation.
Optimum fusion reactions require 1:1 D-T ratio to reduce initiation temperature to 100 million K, and pressures of only 10 atmospheres; this produces 17.6 MeV raw power (~14.1:3.5 neutron:alpha particle), or ~2.8 x 10^-12J.
Each D-T pair requires in excess of 10^-9 J to produce from water and Lithium, including mining and transportation (almost all of that on the Tritium side).
Now, in case you’re not good at engineering math, that means it takes almost three thousand times as much energy to fuel each fusion reaction as you get out of the reaction. The energy created eclipses — if done right — the 100 million K and 10 atmosphere initiation condition, but not by so much that containment is lost. Why does this matter? Because researchers hope somehow to get conditions that sustain H-H fusion or some combination of other fusions that make closer to 100% of available atoms give up their energy in the contained reaction. That would be great. It is also nothing anyone knows how to do, or has the least empirical evidence can be done. All available theory and evidence suggests it’s impossible.
And that’s before the capture efficiency of about 6:1 and the energy it takes to create the 100 million K and 10 atmospheres of pressure.
Sure, a cunning Physicist could then use the reaction for D-D fusion by some kind of bootstrapping, in which case almost 100 times as much energy could theoretically be gotten out per atom as goes into the fuel, but that rapidly reduces to net energy deficit, too. You have to get virtually every atom involved fused. You have to do it without higher containment or sustainment energy costs. You have to convert that heat from fusion into electricity. And if the flame goes out, you have to restart it. We have the solutions to none of these problems.
Commercial electric production by fusion under the conditions we have on Earth will never be feasible. We’ve known this for nine decades.
@TheMoArtis
August 1, 2024 at 11:40 pm
Sadly it’s probably a grift. An interesting scientific grift but still a grift. Too many papers hint at the impossibility to have a net positive energy production with fusion. Too many challenges and hurdles. But maybe in 30 more years… A generational grift.
@andycordy5190
August 2, 2024 at 3:24 am
I love all of this and I’m in awe of the people in this field but this is all old news.
The climate crisis will be over, for good or ill, long before the puzzles still presenting about useful , efficient, surplus energy from fusion are solved.
The promise of near limitless energy from seawater is such a gross oversimplification, which has clouded the public imagination for half a century. Billions are pumped into fusion research while it may never even have a role to play in future energy systems. For the foreseeable future, a stable, sustainable fusion driven power generation system is still science fiction.
@familyzhou341
August 2, 2024 at 3:41 am
This is really cool. I actually had a speaker just a week ago at my summer program who works in the same field, and he was talking about how this team achieved fusion. This is definitely an interesting field for the future.
@martianhaze9750
August 2, 2024 at 5:04 am
“the power of the sun in the palm of my hand” iykyk
@SweetdilysSweetdilys
August 2, 2024 at 7:01 am
Is there any Chinese translation 😂
@AIntel540
August 2, 2024 at 10:54 am
Looks rosy but this mode of fusion doesn’t look continuous. Its like a small H2 bomb everytime and not a reactor producing continuous energy. How will palettes be fed etc? What will be the cost of such energy? Is there sufficient Tritium?
@beckysuenielson6174
August 2, 2024 at 1:54 pm
But maybe the ocean elemental ecosystem needs that D2. What’s the consequences of depleting this element in the ocean?
Also what is the answer to the problems with lithium mining?
@dinarwali386
August 3, 2024 at 9:06 am
Like the lasers at NIF, Tammy Ma is also one of the most energetic Physicist in the world.
@samuelzev4076
August 3, 2024 at 9:42 am
On hearing the first part of the talk about fusion it reminded me of the fusion reactor of Doctor octopus in Spider man 2 where he said harnessing the power of the sun in the palm of his hands but it grew uncontrollably and had to be submerged in water to stop a catastrophic explosion. I hope this doesn’t end up like doctor octopus 😂
@davidw.1734
August 3, 2024 at 4:18 pm
I can not wait until the world has this technology.
@TheSateef
August 3, 2024 at 7:49 pm
good news, fusion is now only 30 years away! actually it’s already here now, its called solar panels.
@TheSateef
August 3, 2024 at 7:53 pm
they didn’t get more energy out than they put in, they are only counting the laser power hitting the target. if you count the energy required to create the laser pulse they got way less than 1% back. also each fuel pellet costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to make and produces enough energy to make a pot of coffee
@jurjenbos228
August 4, 2024 at 4:29 am
I love the idea, already for five decades! But I have some reservations with the claims she makes:
Abundant: OK
Carbon free: only if you don’t use carbon building the device
Safe: we’ll see about that, not convinced due to lack of proof
No high level waste: ready to believe that.
Compatible with grid and flexible: where do these claims come from? I really want to believe, but getting energy out of explosions has never been easy.
@WeylandLabs
August 4, 2024 at 9:29 pm
A Thorium reactor would be if we could fix the corrosion problem.
@robertanderson809
August 5, 2024 at 9:20 am
Cheap energy hasn’t been healthy or in any way good for life, for humans. Far too many people for the natural redources now, lots of free electricity can’t save our cradle.
@RueAlvarez
August 5, 2024 at 10:02 am
Contact south west research institute! Level 5 facility!! Best wishes!
@sarthakjaniPC
August 5, 2024 at 10:58 am
Excellent!!
@horizontal120
August 6, 2024 at 1:55 am
this will not work for a 100+ years .. probably newer …
@tebbi67
August 6, 2024 at 3:15 pm
For decades, hordes of scientists have been busy failing. These scientists have the largest budget ever allocated for projects at their disposal and have, to this day, produced nothing but promises that it will work! This is turning into a Ponzi scheme as more investors are coerced into pouring money into this financial black hole…. butt thx for the vid.