About this episode
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: – Rocket Money : https://rocketmoney.com/lex – MasterClass : https://masterclass.com/lex to get 15% off – InsideTracker : https://insidetracker.com/lex to get 20% off 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 PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman 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