CNN's Kate Bolduan speaks with US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm about the scientific breakthrough in nuclear fusion energy and what it could mean for a clean energy future. #CNN #News
Energy secretary shares when nuclear fusion energy might be widely used
IF this ever becomes a commercially viable method to produce energy for the grid, it will take decades. By then we have covered the grid’s needs with renewables and various energy storage solutions.
We will need these reactors even if we replace the current energy grid because humanity’s demand for energy will still be going up.
This break through must not be allowed to fall into the hands of private capital. If it was discovered using public funds and at facilities that are in the public sector then this breakthrough ought to be used for the benefit of the public broadly … and not be handed over to a private firm to exploit for profit.
Thank You for Your main lead comment samy! -> EXACTELY it IS totally true what You are saying! Why is everyone so histerically positive?!! We have to focus priorly on actions that transform our systems NOW! As for example solar and wind does partially. But even with IMMEDIATE ACTIONS we will only make it IF we as a people as well as we as individuals are willing and ready to do the necessary investments AND the transformative and hard WORK in our societies, democraties/republics and other forms of state, in our agricultural and economical systems as well as in our DAILY ROUTINE AND EVERYDAY HABITS AND CULTURE that will lead to true integral sustainability. This interviewer is very strong by asking such an important critical question! I am VERY shocked by the blind positive reactions of so many viewers here in the comments as well as by so many medias, assuming or unscientifically and unreasonably promoting that this is now our REDEMPTION and we as a community as well as as individuals in the Western Nations (that caused and still cause the overwhelming majority of the Co2 by person globally), can now sit back and just wait for some technical transformation to save us WITHOUT being involved by our own Life and responsibility very much! 🤦🏼♂️
@Juraj Chobot but unfortunately we have absolutely NO TIME anymore for any may-bes.
@Matthias van Rhijn In short, because if they can impress people who don’t know any better then their funding will be higher next year. It’s a technology that needs to be developed but is going to take decades and trillions more short of a real breakthrough (today’s announcement was minor milestone). In short, we either need massive investment in fission power, and storage technology to make up for how unpredictable renewables are or western civilization will revert to agrarianism while the east remains industrialized and powerful. They don’t really care if a bunch of poor coastal people drown, or if Obama’s estate gets submerged – it will unlock use of vast territories of theirs that are currently snow bound, so it’s a double benefit.
This is a bigger deal than sending a man to the moon. Once this is scalable, it will completely change the world. That’s not an exaggeration. It’s not just powering our electric grid. This could revolutionize space travel and get people to Mars in 2 weeks at 1G of thrust. In the next several decades we will see things that we never could have imagined.
Mars? The moon? Lol those are desolate places. Why would anyone want to go there…
That trip to the moon was stated in some american desert…. 😂
@Mike LastName fusion needs energy to work guess where the energy comes from it’s called fosil fuel… 😂
Wasn’t this the plot to Spiderman 2: Electric Boogaloo? Who’s heading the project? Doc Oc?
Don’t forget AI improving at an exponential rate as well. I believe you are absolutely correct. The next several decades will be the stuff of fantasies.
People say this technology (when viable) needs to be nationalized, but that’s not far enough. It needs to be *globalized* . Humanity could do so much better if we stopped hoarding.
@tylerdurden3722 Bruh it took 17 (SEVENTEEN) years from Enrico Fermi ACCIDENTALLY splitting the uranium atom in 1934 to the construction of the first nuclear power plant in 1951. What happened here with fusion is the exact stage of breakthrough that Fermi had in 1934, except this was intentional, not accidental, and its preceding 100 years of knowledge on nuclear physics. In what world do you see it taking longer on the cusp of 2023 to accomplish what was done in 17 years 90 years ago? Biden is putting us on a path to commercializing fusion power by 2032, which is exactly when i imagined would be the earliest as soon as i saw this mews. Now there is a caveat, the ONLY way it’ll take longer than 10 years is if a certain Party that hates anything with progress in the name, and only likes regress, takes power and cuts funding to the DOE sufficiently to cripple the research and development of usable fusion power. Which, of course, in addition to being in line with their opposition to anytbing clean and independent from war criminals, mass murderers and human rights abusers also ensures their corporate donors in the fossil fuel industry maintains their profits and shareholder dividends, so I’m not gonna say its not gonna happen, but until that becomes a threat, I’ll remain optimistic
@Todd R yea, the poor pay for everything. That’s why the rich is rich. The poor stay sleep and buy the convinces the rich provide (toys, cars, grocery’s, electronics.) all provided by the rich and controlled by the rich. Explain to me how a society this large is supposed to function? Becouse communism is worse and becoming one with nature is improbable and stupid, either break the system or don’t. It’s not that deep, America is a capitalist country. That’s how it’s ran like it or get out, in fact live in communist Russia and see how much money you can make
@Todd R and people are poor becouse they mostly choose to be, yes people have situations they can’t control. I grown up with a dope mother and a out the picture father and I’m on my way to getting my ppl and making 200-400k a year. There’s legit over 100,000 millionaires in America, more than any country. Get good
@Todd R sorry there’s 21 million millionaires, my bad
No it shouldnt. The west funded all the research. We should reap the benefits, other countries need to pay.
Thanks to all the scientists and supporters
that have made this leap forward possible.
@Michael Hill And you clearly have no understanding of the physics and are simply parroting things. This is important. It is another step on a long road, but an important step.
@Michael Hill — And where is your PhD?
@Michael Hill you’re a cretin, they LITERALLY produced more energy than the lasers needed to drive the process. /facepalm. 2.05 Mj to target, 3.15 Mj output. can you math at ALL kid? or just regurgitate BS you got from some ‘science’ pundit?
@Michael Hill “The lasers used to deliver that energy to the target used about 100-150 times more energy than the reaction produced. Lol! ”
OK. How much energy was used to power the lasers?
How much energy was produced by the reaction?
I mean, these are objective measurements so give them?
Let’s get SBF to head this operation and call it “Cold Fusion 2: Electric Boogaloo.”
We Americans have our faults, but we have true scientific and engineering genius! Kudos to the brilliant men who made this happen.
You didn’t have to bring up politics!seriously, we have so much potential.
@David Guelette You’re right. If we ignore our horrific politics, the old US is a fine country.
Decades of brilliant, determined and most obviously very curious minds.
This is awesome. Gives me hope that one day we’ll be able to stop destroying our planet but still achieve our power needs 🙏🇺🇲
Don’t worry, huge conglomerates will band together to protect their interest in legacy energy production and use their propaganda machines to scare us away from this new source of power. Then they’ll buy this technology up and keep it in a closet until they can figure out how to monopolize it’s deployment. Murika
@Todd R Yep. The Corporations will not reduce their profit projections. We would have to fundamentally change the entire wealth system and that is never going to happen, not while rich people exist. Yes we have the tech, but humanity will never be responsible enough to use it.
Imagine that other administrations wanted to keep coal… these are very good news and I’m very happy to be alive to hear it
Trump was very much in favor of keeping coal , because of the jobs.
This looks really good. If things go well, this could be wonderful.
Oh damn, I thought this would never be possible. We can use literally just salt water for energy now.
We’ll have the means to harvest hydrogen from other planets in the solar system within a century or so as well.
Getting more energy from the fusion than you put in is a _major_ milestone, but an economically viable fusion energy generator will require quite a bit more scaling and engineering refinement.
I remember, as a kid in the 70’s, reading a Spiderman Comic where Doc Oct was talking about this very process of focusing lasers onto a piece of Tridium. Pretty freaking awesome to be alive when this breakthrough occurred
Doc Oct would be proud lol
My first thought was of Spider-Man 2 (the movie).
I think I may have read that same issue! I was just remembering other Sci-Fi authors that spoke of the same method, going back decades.
CONGRATULATIONS! Utterly awesome. I’m guessing every value and all the sensor data from that prior ‘lucky shot’ was intensely scrutinized to make the lucky shot every shot now? I read an article somwhere regarding using a hybridized approach to inertial confinement fusion, applying a magnetic field to the hohlraum somehow… Seems VERY interesting. How about applying a nanoparticle lattice system that levitates into position right before the shot to the hohlraum as well? At least all of this doesn’t seem ‘always 30 years away’ now! Thank you all for your decades of hard work and perseverance. You are one of the most important bastions of humanity’s future!
It’s a great step and all. And I hope it’s closer to showing us a deployable technology and all. But the ignition facility was set up to be a totally stacked deck to prove that fusion could yield more energy output than input. I’m not sure that was ever really in doubt as a matter of science, though I suppose it’s something to have accomplished it as a matter of technology. I’m just not seeing how this technology scales to something that works in a civilian power station.
The “more out than you put in” is the critical piece. If the process continues to pan out, it can be an unbelievable change, like the difference between horse-and buggy vs. motor vehicles.
Congratulations to the scientists who were able to make this incremental step possible. May there be many more breakthroughs in Fusion energy production to come. Every step brings us closer to that ultimate goal of clean, safe, energy production without fossil fuels.
It already exists, it is called nuclear fission.
A truly incremental improvement. The lasers use about 100-150 times more energy than the reaction produces. They are defining “net positive” here as the energy produced vs the “energy on target”. In other words, we have a long way to go before we are actually producing more energy than is consumed in the process.
@Michael Hill The lasers are the used to start a process which I am assuming will be self maintaining afterwards as long as it keeps getting fuel. So I think it is a step in the right direction.
BS: It’s Cold Fusion 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Blessing to all the scientists that achieved this milestone, their is hope for our children. I now imagine faster flying vessels to explore the galaxies and even possibly visit other earth like planets ,cleaner cars , airplanes and transportation overall . I think of the possibilities which are endless with this achievement.
If I could bottle my coworker’s mouth we would have unlimited energy. She couldn’t stop talking if she were gagged.
Minimum 3 decades. There are two potential fusions chains at present. One of them results in heavy neutron bombardment, which leaves containment material issues unsolved. The other one involves lots of something that we just don’t happen to have lots of right now, helium 3.
The end result leaves us with large monopolistic utility providers, at least in the US, with big, expensive and centralized power generation… Same as it always was.
We have a perfectly good fusion reactor located conveniently in the center of our solar system. We need to utilize that more effectively and work towards more distributed power generation.
The hardest thing to do with net-positive energy fusion was to prove that it could be done in a controlled fashion in a man-made facility at all. The fact that we now know it’s possible means that all that’s left is to keep doing it better over time. Welcome to the future, people. 2022 has been redeemed.
You’re a fool. This is all just Cold Fusion 2: Electric Boogaloo using the Flux Capacitor all over again. Hey Doc Oc, where’s Einstein?
WOW! This is probably the most amazing science news I’ve ever been witness to. There’s virtually no downside to fusion besides the expensive tech needed to acheive it. From what I read, this test only used 4% of the ‘fuel’ in the pellet so there’s huge gains to be realized.
I always hoped the world would change in my lifetime. And granted, we have seen some amazing things but if this bears fruit… world changing. Mind changing. Everything will change so much and so quick. Congrats and thank you to all the people who have come and gone and those still here who have helped to make this discovery!
I won’t be around when this becomes universally usable but I’m insanely happy to be alive to hear the announcement. This is amazing.
You might be, don’t underestimate the need of many.
Also, don’t underestimate the greed of oil companies that buy up discoveries to keep us hooked on their products.
Yep, it will take many decades. BTW. Fusion reaction in the lab has been done before. This was just another small step.