#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy
Lex Fridman Podcast
Lex Fridman
4.7 • 13.6K Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2023
⏱️ 194 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dennis Whyte is a nuclear scientist at MIT and the director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Dennis’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/MIT_Fusion
Dennis’s LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/dennis-whyte-33474a54
Dennis’s Website: https://www.psfc.mit.edu/whyte
SPARC: https://www.psfc.mit.edu/sparc
MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center: https://www.psfc.mit.edu
MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center’s YouTube: https://youtube.com/@mitplasmascienceandfusionc6211
Commonwealth Fusion Systems: https://cfs.energy
Commonwealth Fusion Systems YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CommonwealthFusionSystems
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(05:54) – Nuclear fusion
(23:53) – e=mc^2
(38:20) – Fission vs fusion
(43:32) – Nuclear weapons
(47:19) – Plasma
(54:29) – Nuclear fusion reactor
(1:09:50) – 2022 nuclear fusion breakthrough explained
(1:30:27) – Magnetic confinement
(1:49:36) – ITER
(1:54:23) – SPARC
(2:08:23) – Future of fusion power
(2:16:55) – Engineering challenges
(2:35:36) – Nuclear disasters
(2:40:21) – Cold fusion
(2:54:36) – Kardashev scale
(3:04:00) – Advice for young people
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following is a conversation with Dennis White, |
| 0:02.6 | nuclear physicist at MIT, and the director |
| 0:05.5 | of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. |
| 0:09.8 | And now, a quick few second mention of eSponsor. |
| 0:12.5 | Check them out in the description |
| 0:13.9 | as the best way to support this podcast. |
| 0:16.5 | We got rocket money for helping you cancel |
| 0:19.4 | on one of the subscriptions, masterclass |
| 0:21.7 | for online education and inside tracker |
| 0:25.2 | for bio-monetoring. |
| 0:27.0 | Choose wise and my friends. |
| 0:28.7 | And now, onto the full ad rates, |
| 0:30.4 | as always, no ads in the middle. |
| 0:32.2 | I try to make this interesting, but if you skip them, |
| 0:34.2 | please still check out eSponsors. |
| 0:35.8 | I enjoy their stuff, maybe you will do. |
| 0:38.9 | This show is brought to you by Rocket Money, |
| 0:41.5 | a personal finance app that finds and cancels |
| 0:44.1 | on one of the subscriptions, monitors your spending, |
| 0:47.3 | and helps you lower your bills all in one place. |
| 0:50.9 | I use it especially to monitor my subscriptions. |
| 0:54.0 | It actually, in an indirect way, |
... |
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