Pod Insights Stuff You Should Know The Stuff You Should Know Doin’ Science Playlist: Can Nuclear Fusion Reactors Save The World? About this episode The world's energy consumption is ruining the planet but for decades physicists have been working on what could solve the world's energy and climate change woes for centuries to come - nuclear fusion. Learn about building stars on Earth in this episode.
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1:42 Josh Clark? Hey, everybody, I'm back. I first heard about IDER, which is the nuclear fusion reactor being built in Europe, from a New Yorker article called "Star in a Bottle" by Raffi Kachadurian. If you find this episode floats your boat, I highly recommend reading that article, too. The whole idea of what they're trying to do, which is to contain plasma, that crazy intense fourth state of matter that the sun and lightning are made up of, into a chamber here on Earth where it has no business being, really, really caught my attention. And if they can do it, extremely cheap, abundant, climate-friendly energy will be unlocked for all. And who knows what will follow after that? The Ider Group was shooting for 2025 to start,
2:25 Josh Clark? but recently changed their date to 2034. You can pass the time while you wait by enjoying this episode.
2:35 Speaker 03 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com.
2:45 Josh Clark? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry, who's Barrel of Laughs. And this is Stuff You Should Know.
2:56 Speaker 02 She gave us the old quick start.
2:57 Josh Clark? Yep.
2:58 Speaker 02 Like, I don't want to hear anymore. I'm pressing record.
3:00 Josh Clark? Yep. She knows that shuts me up. Or at least cuts off whatever conversation I'm chiding her with.
3:06 Speaker 02 It was great. I'm telling you, if we could release the 20 seconds before each show as its own show.
3:11 Josh Clark? Yeah.
3:12 Speaker 02 That would be terrible. No one would care.
3:14 Josh Clark? No. We'd think it was funny, but everybody else would be like, you edit this out for a reason.
3:19 Speaker 02 Yep.
3:19 Josh Clark? Uh, so Chuck.
3:21 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
3:22 Josh Clark? How you doing?
3:22 Speaker 02 Great.
3:23 Josh Clark? Have you ever been to Auzon Provence, France?
3:28 Speaker 02 No. Is that a place?
3:30 Josh Clark? Yeah.
3:30 Speaker 02 No, I haven't.
3:31 Josh Clark? It is a rustic little town in Provence. And it is strangely, maybe even ironically, in the non-hipster use, but in the actual.
3:43 Speaker 02 Yeah. It's a real word.
3:45 Josh Clark? Definition of the word.
3:46 Speaker 02 Uh-huh.
3:46 Josh Clark? Um, also site to one of the most futuristic engineering projects humanity's ever undertaken.
3:54 Speaker 02 Meat work meat. That's the sound it makes.
3:56 Josh Clark? Oh, I thought you were mocking me.
3:59 Speaker 02 No, no, no.
3:59 Josh Clark? For being thrilled by the thought of this thing.
4:01 Speaker 02 No, it is kind of funny that this thing's in a sleepy little town.
4:04 Josh Clark? Yeah, a hamlet maybe even.
4:06 Speaker 02 Cern in Switzerland. That's not in the city, is it?
4:09 Josh Clark? No.
4:09 Speaker 02 You can't build these things in cities. That's why they're in sleepy towns.
4:11 Josh Clark? Exactly.
4:12 Speaker 02 Because no one knows they're being poisoned.
4:13 Josh Clark? Yeah, and you can push the mayor around pretty easy.
4:16 Speaker 02 Exactly.
4:16 Josh Clark? This thing is called ITER, I-T-E-R, which is an acronym for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.
4:26 Speaker 02 That's right.
4:26 Josh Clark? Which really gets the point across.
4:28 Speaker 02 Did you know the word acronym is an acronym?
4:32 Speaker 02 That's not true.
4:33 Josh Clark? Okay.
4:34 Speaker 02 I just want to see how long you would try and sort it out in your head.
4:36 Josh Clark? I would have kept going another thirty seconds maybe.
4:39 Speaker 02 That would have been a great joke. I could have just kept it going like, I'm not gonna tell you.
4:43 Josh Clark? I would have been, I would have, it would, maybe fifteen seconds.
4:47 Speaker 02 Because you would have looked it up.
4:48 Josh Clark? You would have gotten that much more.
4:48 Speaker 02 Sure.
4:49 Josh Clark? So, no, I wouldn't have looked it up. I would have figured it out myself. Anyway, ITER is this colossal engineering project. Somebody compared it to the pyramids at Giza.
5:01 Speaker 02 Oh, wow.
5:02 Josh Clark? Yeah, that's, that's exciting stuff.
5:04 Speaker 02 Sure.
5:06 Josh Clark? The thing is, is it's a nuclear fusion reactor, and it's the culmination of decades of attempts to create a nuclear fusion reactor.
5:17 Speaker 02 Yes.
5:18 Josh Clark? Because we got fission down, and we'll talk about the difference in a minute.
5:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
5:22 Josh Clark? But fusion has been very elusive, and nowhere is it more apparent than in the ITER project.
5:29 Speaker 02 Yeah.
5:30 Josh Clark? Because this thing is going to cost approximately fifty billion dollars when it's completed. Fifty billion dollars. They started in nineteen ninety-three. They're hoping to turn on the switch in two thousand twenty, but it's looking like two thousand twenty-three or two thousand twenty-four, and it won't be starting to produce anything until the two thousand forties at the earliest.
5:53 Speaker 02 So what's the point?
5:55 Josh Clark? I'll tell you the point.
5:56 Speaker 02 Yeah.
5:56 Josh Clark? If we can figure out nuclear fusion, Chuck, the world's, literally, the world's energy problems will be solved for millennia.
6:07 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:07 Josh Clark? If we can just figure this out, we will have a Almost no radioactivity, nuclear option.
6:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:16 Josh Clark? Um, almost limitless fuel supply.
6:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:20 Josh Clark? Totally green.
6:21 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:22 Josh Clark? Clean.
6:22 Speaker 02 No pollution, no greenhouse emissions.
6:24 Josh Clark? Right, and with plenty of energy to spare.
6:28 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:28 Josh Clark? Using the already extant infrastructure we have to supply power. Like, you don't have to completely rebuild everything, you can just, to the electrical cables outside.
6:39 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:40 Josh Clark? It'll be the exact same thing.
6:41 Speaker 02 Yeah, you can just go to a nuclear fission reactor and press the button that says fusion, and it'll all of a sudden join atoms instead of split them.
6:48 Josh Clark? Exactly.
6:49 Speaker 02 It's that easy.
6:50 Josh Clark? That's what the difference is. With fission, you're splitting atoms and you're gaining energy from that. With fusion, you're smacking them together.
6:56 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:57 Josh Clark? And you're gaining even more energy because you're exploiting a different fundamental force.
7:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, and that, I was being coy. Clearly, there is no button, because we would've pushed it a long time ago.
7:08 Josh Clark? Yeah.
7:08 Speaker 02 And when I say no pollution and no greenhouse emissions, uh, before the pedantic among you write in, we know that just even shipping something from here to there causes pollution and greenhouse emissions.
7:20 Josh Clark? Good, good.
7:21 Speaker 02 But we're talking about that the output of the reactor itself is very green.
7:24 Josh Clark? So, if you want to know all about Ider, well, we're gonna talk about it here or there because it's just, you just can't talk about nuclear fusion reactors and not mention Ider. But if you want to know a lot about Ider, there is a really great article called "A Star in a Bottle", um, and it's by a person named Raffi Kachadurin, or Durian. Uh, and it was written in The New Yorker, not too long ago.
7:46 Speaker 02 Yeah.
7:46 Josh Clark? And, man, it is, every detail you want to know about the Ider project, written really well. Um, and it's long, but it's totally worth the read.
7:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's all over the news lately, and for good reason. Uh, you said "a lot of energy", I have a stat, gonna throw back to the old days here. Per kilogram of fuel, if we're talking fusion and fission.
8:07 Josh Clark? Lay it on me.
8:09 Speaker 02 Fusion produces four times more energy than fission.
8:13 Josh Clark? I saw seven.
8:15 Speaker 02 It's probably one of those things where it's like four to five to 10 or something.
8:17 Josh Clark? Right.
8:18 Speaker 02 I found four times.
8:19 Josh Clark? Okay.
8:19 Speaker 02 And 10 million times more than coal.
8:22 Josh Clark? Yeah.
8:22 Speaker 02 10 million times.
8:24 Josh Clark? Yeah.
8:24 Speaker 02 The energy as coal.
8:26 Josh Clark? Yep.
8:26 Speaker 02 And that's with equal fuel, per kilogram of fuel.
8:29 Josh Clark? Right.
8:30 Speaker 02 It's just, I mean, it is the future.
8:32 Josh Clark? Yeah, and you can say, well, that's great, because we want 18 million times the amount of power that coal provides. You can say, well, there, buddy, you can also bring it backwards, because you can supply an awful lot of power, then, with a lot less fuel.
8:46 Speaker 02 Yeah.
8:47 Josh Clark? We're, like, the advantages of nuclear fusion are mind-boggling.
8:51 Speaker 02 Sure, and, and very few downsides, which we'll get to, of course.
8:55 Josh Clark? Yeah, I mean, like, really genuinely, it's not just like some, like, here's all the great stuff about it, and just don't pay attention to all these, like, really horrible aspects.
9:04 Speaker 02 Yes.
9:05 Josh Clark? Like, there really aren't too many downsides. The downside is, we are, at this moment, incapable of successfully creating a commercially viable nuclear fusion reactor.
9:17 Speaker 02 That's right.
9:18 Josh Clark? But, we've got an understanding of what the challenges are ahead of us, thanks to the last 50 or so years of really, really, really smart physicists working on the problem of nuclear fusion. And the great inspiration for nuclear fusion is the sun. The sun, and all stars like it, are enormous, immense, nuclear fusion reactors. So, if you are building a nuclear fusion reactor here on Earth, you're essentially creating a star. And that is a very difficult thing to do, it turns out.
9:53 Speaker 02 Yeah, the sun creates, I know we talked about the sun in our very famous episode on the sun. The sun creates 620 million metric tons, it fuses 620 million metric tons of hydrogen at its core every second. So every second at the sun's core, it produces enough power to light up New York City for 100 years.
10:16 Josh Clark? New York City?
10:17 Speaker 02 Every second. And that's the sun. And all we want to do is do the same thing on a much smaller scale.
10:24 Josh Clark? That's all?
10:25 Speaker 02 I think the guy, there's this kid who built one in his garage, and he said he wanted to, Chris, I saw this TED Talk, he wanted to create a star in a box, is what he called it.
10:34 Josh Clark? Yeah, I've seen it, like, this New Yorker called it a star in a bottle.
10:37 Speaker 02 Yeah, this kid's name is Taylor Wilson, and he's a nuclear physicist, and he's like 16.
10:43 Josh Clark? Wow.
10:44 Speaker 02 And he created-
10:45 Josh Clark? He's like Doogie Howser.
10:46 Speaker 02 Yeah. He created a successful one, and the key, though, is not to be able to create the fusion. The key is to be able to harness enough plasma, which we'll get to, at a high enough temperature and density for there to be a net power gain.
11:01 Josh Clark? Right.
11:01 Speaker 02 Like, you can create fusion, but in order to get out more than you're putting in is the only thing that matters, because what you want to do is create electricity.
11:09 Josh Clark? Exactly. There's two huge challenges right now to nuclear fusion. We pretty much understand it enough to start it going and get energy from it. The problem is, is material science isn't at a point where it can build a containment vessel to really house a thermonuclear reactor.
11:30 Speaker 02 Yeah.
11:30 Josh Clark? And then the other big obstacle is, like you said, net energy gain. Like, if you're putting in as much or more energy than you're getting out of your nuclear reactor, then you're wasting energy, and it's the opposite of what you're supposed to be doing.
11:45 Speaker 02 Yeah, they're not just trying to impress people with their science knowledge.
11:48 Josh Clark? No, but up to the-
11:49 Speaker 02 They're trying to create energy.
11:50 Josh Clark? Up to now, though, Chuck, like, every single thermonuclear reactor that's ever been built has just been impressing people with knowledge.
11:58 Speaker 02 Sure.
11:58 Josh Clark? Like, they haven't gotten any net energy out of a single thermonuclear fusion reactor.
12:05 Speaker 02 Oh, see, I have, they have, right now, they're up to like 10-
12:10 Speaker 02 Presently, they're at 10 megawatts.
12:13 Josh Clark? Oh, is that right?
12:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:14 Josh Clark? And that's more than they put into it.
12:16 Speaker 02 A net gain of 10 megawatts currently.
12:18 Josh Clark? Everything I saw was, when we turn this thing on, it should have a net gain.
12:23 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:23 Josh Clark? But I didn't see that they've actually done it.
12:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, 10 megawatts now, and IDER is going to produce 500 megawatts.
12:29 Josh Clark? Right.
12:30 Speaker 02 Once it's fully operational.
12:32 Josh Clark? Right. So, the next challenge then is this: if we're already getting a net energy gain out of it, then that means that the net energy gain is, it's not sustainable. Like you said, you want to keep the thing going, so you don't have to keep starting from scratch to power it up. You want it to basically be self-sustaining.
12:52 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:52 Josh Clark? So you just have to add a little more fuel to it.
12:54 Speaker 02 That's the dream.
12:55 Josh Clark? So let's talk about the history of fusion reactors, Chuck.
12:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, it kind of goes back to this guy named Lyman Spitzer.
13:04 Josh Clark? Mm-hmm.
13:05 Speaker 02 He's a 36-year-old Princeton astrophysicist, and this was in the 1950s. And he was recruited to work on the H-bomb, and went out and got a copy of a paper that was released from Germany, I think, right?
13:21 Josh Clark? No, in Argentina.
13:23 Speaker 02 Oh, Argentina?
13:24 Josh Clark? Yeah, they announced that they had...
13:25 Speaker 02 Man, how'd you get that wrong?
13:26 Josh Clark? They had successfully built a fusion reactor.
13:30 Speaker 02 Right. So he gets this paper, goes on a ski trip, starts thinking about how he can do this, takes a little break from his job building the H-bomb, and figures out, you know, I think it's possible, if we can harness this plasma... I guess we should just go ahead and define what plasma is, since we keep saying it.
13:49 Josh Clark? Well, there's the normal three energy states that we're familiar with: water, solid, and gas. Liquid, solid, and gas, right?
13:58 Speaker 02 Right.
13:59 Josh Clark? There's a fourth one, it's plasma. And plasma is basically like an energetic gas, where the temperatures are so high that whatever atoms you put into it, the electrons are stripped off and allowed to move around freely.
14:12 Speaker 02 Right.
14:12 Josh Clark? Basically, the surface of the sun is plasma. That's what plasma is. It's a gas. It's a roiling gas. It's really hard to control and is really unpredictable.
14:21 Speaker 02 Which is when you see the sun, like that rippling, wavy-looking thing, that's plasma.
14:25 Josh Clark? Right, and the reason the sun manages to stay together is because it is enormously massive and has a ton of gravity at its core.
14:34 Speaker 02 Yeah, we don't have that advantage here on Earth.
14:35 Josh Clark? We don't. So, we try to make up for that by increasing the temperature.
14:39 Speaker 02 That's right. And he was on to it way back then in the 1950s. If we can just harness this, if we can just get it hot enough. And he created a tabletop device called the Stellarator. And it was in a figure eight position. It was a pipe in a figure eight.
14:55 Josh Clark? Yeah.
14:56 Speaker 02 And this would keep things from banging into walls theoretically.
14:59 Josh Clark? Yeah.
15:00 Speaker 02 And he was on to something, because, well, we'll get to Lockheed later, but they're using a similar device now. A figure eight.
15:07 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah?
15:08 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:08 Josh Clark? I didn't realize that was a figure eight.
15:10 Speaker 02 It is, which is weird, because what they eventually found out was that a donut shape was really the key to get that net gain.
15:17 Josh Clark? So, and the reason that they found out that a donut shape worked was because in the, I think, the late 50s, the US had run up against the wall. They're saying like, okay, we've got this, but we can't control the plasma. Because think about it, what you're trying to do is create a star inside something, but it can't touch any of the vessel that it's in, or else it'll just completely erupt it, right?
15:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, they compared it to holding jelly in rubber bands.
15:47 Josh Clark? Right. It was just like, you can't, they couldn't figure out how to control the plasma.
15:51 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:52 Josh Clark? So, when the US ran up against this wall, they said, hey, rest of the world, we're gonna declassify what Lyman Spitz, Lyman Spitzer?
16:00 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:01 Josh Clark? Has been doing.
16:01 Speaker 02 Help us out.
16:02 Josh Clark? And like, we'll share if you guys share. And it turns out that the Russians had already come up against this problem and licked it. They figured out that if you put the thing in a, what's called a toroidal shape, a donut shape.
16:16 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:18 Josh Clark? Using electromagnets, you can tame the plasma essentially. And the donut shape itself was pretty ingenious, but the real stroke of genius was by running electromagnets in rings around the donut. So, it's like you have a donut and you put a bunch of earrings around it, right?
16:37 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:37 Josh Clark? And those are electromagnets, so you're creating an electromagnetic force field, which contains the plasma. But then you also put an electromagnetic force field in the middle of the plasma. So not only does it heat it up to the temperatures you want, it also stabilizes it further. So the Russians had invented what they called the Takamak, which is this donut-shaped nuclear fusion reactor that basically became the standard for the next 50 years or so.
17:06 Speaker 02 Yeah, you basically could achieve a really dense, super-hot plasma. And we'll get into temperatures and stuff in a bit, but since we can't create that kind of pressure that they have in the sun due to their gravity, their gravity, the sun's gravity, you know, the sun and all those people. Like you said, we had to make up for it here on Earth with temperatures.
17:26 Josh Clark? Right, because apparently if you are in the middle of a nuclear reactor, a nuclear fusion reactor, you're going to find that the temperatures inside are about six times hotter than the core of the sun, not even the surface of the sun, the core of the sun. And the reason why it has to be so much hotter is because, like you said, we can't replicate that density. We can get to those temperatures that we need, but we can't get to that density, so we have to make up for it. So we'll talk about kind of the physics of what's going on here and why you have to have high temperatures and what we're making up for with density and everything right after this.
18:07 Speaker 04 First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?
18:09 Josh Clark? Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.
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21:00 Josh Clark? So Chuck, we're talking about nuclear fusion. And there's, it's actually surprisingly understandable at its most basic core.
21:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, you're fusing atoms. It's not. The hardest thing in the world to wrap your head around.
21:14 Josh Clark? Yeah, so with fission, we're splitting atoms. You're taking an atom and you're splitting its nuclei apart. You're splitting the neutrons and the protons apart from one another. And when you do that, one of the four fundamental forces, electromagnetic force, pushes them away. And you get this burst of energy.
21:31 Speaker 02 Yeah.
21:32 Josh Clark? With fusion, you're taking nuclei from different atoms. You're taking protons and neutrons. And you're smashing them together. And when you do that, you're unleashing what's called the strong force, which appropriately enough is stronger than electromagnetic force. Which is why nuclear fusion yields more energy than nuclear fission.
21:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, Einstein himself said, you know, each time you smash these things together, you're gonna lose a little bit of mass. And that little bit of mass is a ton of energy, as it turns out.
22:03 Josh Clark? That's right. The famous E equals mc squared.
22:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I don't think he realized in 1905, or maybe Einstein did.
22:09 Josh Clark? Einstein probably did.
22:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, Einstein probably did.
22:11 Josh Clark? I would guess he did.
22:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
22:13 Josh Clark? So the problem is, even though it is very easy to smash some protons together,
22:19 Josh Clark? there is a tremendous amount of resistance to that smashing together.
22:23 Speaker 02 They don't want to smash together.
22:24 Josh Clark? No, because it's just like if you take a magnet, two magnets.
22:28 Speaker 02 Yeah.
22:29 Josh Clark? And you put the positive poles toward one another, they repel one another, right?
22:33 Speaker 02 Yeah.
22:34 Josh Clark? Same thing, that's the same principle on an atomic level too. If you take protons, which are positively charged particles, and try to put them together, they repel one another. And the closer you get them together, the stronger the repellent force is, the electromagnetic force, right? But, if you can get them close enough, the electromagnetic force is overcome by that strong force, the strong nuclear force. And they become bound together. Because the strong force is that one of those four fundamental forces of the universe. And that is the force that keeps atoms together. And that is the, that force is stronger than the force that repels. Like charged particles.
23:16 Speaker 02 Yeah, and when you talk about close, they need to be within one times 10 to the negative 15 meters of one another.
23:22 Josh Clark? Right, so that is. If you'll indulge me.
23:25 Speaker 02 Sure. Are you gonna read a bunch of zeros?
23:27 Josh Clark? Yeah. It's point 00000000000001 meters apart.
23:37 Speaker 02 Right.
23:37 Josh Clark? That's how close they have to be.
23:39 Speaker 02 That's right, uh, to get them to accept one another and to fuse.
23:43 Josh Clark? Right.
23:43 Speaker 02 I think, I have a theory that if they, they're not fusing because they think they're gonna be made into a bomb, and if we told them that we were creating energy, they might be more willing to fuse together.
23:55 Josh Clark? Yeah, because protons are peaceniks. Everybody knows that.
23:57 Speaker 02 Sure.
23:58 Josh Clark? So, when, when they do fuse together, right, when you do cross that threshold and the strong force takes over and overcomes the electromagnetic force, um, like we said, a tremendous amount of energy is released, and it's released in part in the form of neutrinos, neutrons, right?
24:17 Speaker 02 Right.
24:18 Josh Clark? Which are neutral particles, which suddenly start carrying a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. So let's say you have, uh, one atom, you got another atom, and they're both like, "I'm not getting close to you. We're not gonna get to..." Okay, we got together.
24:31 Speaker 02 Yes.
24:31 Josh Clark? That force, that, that mass that's displaced is transferred through the neutron that gets kicked off of the atom, right?
24:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
24:40 Josh Clark? And is carried out. Now, a neutron doesn't have any kind of positive or negative charge. It's neutral. It's a neutron.
24:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
24:47 Josh Clark? Which means that it can pass through the very electromagnetic fields that are keeping this plasma where this reaction is taking place together. Once that happens, Chuck, it can go out to what's called a blanket wall in a thermonuclear reactor, warm it, and then that heat is transferred into a water cooling system. The water's warmed up, turned to steam, which generates a, which I guess moves the turbine.
25:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:16 Josh Clark? And then all of a sudden, the turbine's producing electricity.
25:18 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's funny how it just, it gets so complex, but all you're still trying to do is create steam.
25:23 Josh Clark? Yeah.
25:24 Speaker 02 To move it, turn a turbine.
25:25 Josh Clark? It's like hooking the ISS up to a horse.
25:27 Speaker 02 Right.
25:28 Josh Clark? You know? Move it over there.
25:31 Speaker 02 So, there are a few types of fusion reactions. Um, the ultimate goal, right now, what we can do... On a small scale is what's called a deuterium-tritium reaction.
25:44 Josh Clark? Yeah.
25:45 Speaker 02 That's the one that we can currently achieve. That's one atom of deuterium and one atom of tritium combining to form a helium four atom and a neutron.
25:53 Josh Clark? Yeah.
25:53 Speaker 02 The ultimate goal, I mean, that's good and that'll create a lot of energy, but there are a few downsides. Tritium is radioactive for one.
26:02 Josh Clark? You have to mine it from lithium.
26:04 Speaker 02 Yeah.
26:04 Josh Clark? And lithium's fairly rare.
26:05 Speaker 02 Sure. The ultimate goal is to to reach deuterium-deuterium reactions, which is two deuterium atoms combining to form that helium three and a neutron. And you can get that from the seawater. It's abundant, almost limitless. And I couldn't find this, but I think clean water can be a residual effect of this. Am I wrong?
26:27 Josh Clark? I don't know if it's if, well, you're probably not injecting water, but to get the deuterium.
26:33 Speaker 02 Uh huh.
26:33 Josh Clark? I mean, desalination plants are the key to the future as far as supplying the world with fresh water.
26:40 Speaker 02 Yeah, I thought I saw somewhere where it was an actual byproduct, but.
26:42 Josh Clark? Is that right?
26:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, but then I couldn't find it, so I'm not sure if that's right or not.
26:45 Josh Clark? You know what? You just jogged my memory. I feel like in a hydrogen powered car, water is one of the byproducts.
26:52 Speaker 02 So maybe so.
26:53 Josh Clark? Yeah.
26:54 Speaker 02 All right, don't quote me on that, though. At the very least, it's a great way to create energy.
26:58 Josh Clark? Right. And what's, you also can get tritium from helium, I believe. So even now with the the deuterium-tritium reactions that we're working on, there's there's already a there's a workaround. You know, like you can create a thermonuclear reactor that's a breeding reactor to where the byproduct helium can be used to harvest more of the fuel you're using tritium.
27:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, and aren't we running low on helium?
27:27 Josh Clark? We are, which is like, remember when we were talking about in the the dirigible, the zeppelin? Which one was it? Blimps, how blimps work?
27:35 Speaker 02 Yeah, and then a long time ago, we did one on, uh...
27:38 Josh Clark? The Mars Turbine.
27:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, Mars Turbine.
27:40 Josh Clark? Yeah, but yes, there is very clearly a helium shortage. And the idea that we're just using it for party balloons rather than this
27:48 Speaker 02 Yeah.
27:49 Josh Clark? is scary.
27:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, and don't be confused if we say things like deuterium and it sounds super complex. All that is hydrogen with an extra neutron.
27:57 Josh Clark? Yeah, it's an isotope.
27:58 Speaker 02 Yeah.
27:58 Josh Clark? So there's three isotopes of hydrogen. And they're all still the same element. They're all still hydrogen. But they have different configurations as far as their neutrons go. So protium is a hydrogen isotope with one proton and no neutrons. Deuterium is a hydrogen isotope with one proton and one neutron. And tritium is a hydrogen isotope with one proton and two neutrons. And like you said, tritium is radioactive. But the beauty of it is, you need very, very, very little of it to fuel a nuclear fusion reactor. And it becomes a stable helium, a non-radioactive helium, in the reactor. So you don't have this leftover radioactive fuel. Isn't that awesome?
28:42 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think they said there's an... It would be equivalent of the radiation we just see every day in a walking around on the street, right?
28:48 Josh Clark? Yes, the background radiation, I believe. I saw that, too. The thing is, is the parts to the nuclear reactor themselves will become irradiated over time. Apparently, though, compared to the kind of radioactivity that's generated from nuclear fission, um, this stuff you could just disassemble and bury in the desert for 100 years, go back and dig back up, and it'll be totally inactivated. So it's... The stuff that is radioactive is extraordinarily manageable.
29:19 Speaker 02 Yeah, it is. And, um, like I said, we don't want to make it sound like this is perfect. There is, uh, they do predict the short to medium term radioactive waste problem. And they say that's due to activation of the structural materials.
29:32 Josh Clark? Right, the actual thermonuclear device itself.
29:36 Speaker 02 Yeah, and while you don't need much tritium, uh, even a few grams of tritium is problematic. Um, but...
29:43 Speaker 02 Hopefully, you know, there's no accident. Although, they say accidents with these, if you just turn the power off, it stops everything.
29:52 Josh Clark? Yeah.
29:52 Speaker 02 It's not like a chain reaction can occur.
29:54 Josh Clark? Right.
29:54 Speaker 02 Like a fission reactor.
29:56 Josh Clark? There's not a melt-
29:56 Speaker 02 Where it's out of your control.
29:57 Josh Clark? There's not a meltdown, which also, if you want to know more about that, go listen to our "How Nuclear Meltdowns Work" episode. That was pretty good. We released it right after Fukushima.
30:07 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah.
30:07 Josh Clark? But it applies to all fission reactors.
30:11 Speaker 02 That's right.
30:11 Josh Clark? So, the goal is ultimately deuterium-deuterium reactions, where you're pairing those together.
30:17 Speaker 02 That just sounds clean.
30:17 Josh Clark? It does. And the reason why is, again, it's abundant fuel. You can get it from desalinating seawater. And then, secondly, it's not radioactive at any point. So, it wouldn't make the thermonuclear reactor itself radioactive, too.
30:31 Speaker 02 That's right.
30:31 Josh Clark? The reason why we're not doing that already is because we can't achieve the temperatures necessary.
30:36 Speaker 02 That's right. Which leads us to the two big stumbling blocks. Everyone knows this is a great idea. There's no one out there saying, "Oh, I don't know about this fusion thing." Creating a star in a box sounds kind of weird. The problem is the barriers that we have here on Planet Earth, which is, one, temperature, and, two, pressure. We have achieved the temperature, which is, the requirement is 100 million Kelvin. And like you said, that's about six times hotter than the Sun's core.
31:07 Josh Clark? Mm-hmm.
31:07 Speaker 02 Which is pretty intense. And the other is pressure. Like we said, we need to get them within, I'm not going to make you read all those zeros again, but smash-
31:16 Josh Clark? I will.
31:17 Speaker 02 Smash them that close in order to fuse. And since we don't have that kind of mass and gravity that the Sun does, there are a few pretty genius ways that we're working around that.
31:28 Josh Clark? Yeah, there's basically two, as it stands. And then, the Lockheed Martin one, which a lot of people are skeptical about, we should say.
31:37 Speaker 02 Yeah.
31:37 Josh Clark? It's kind of a variation on one theme. But there's basically, there's two ways that we've figured out to create nuclear fusion reactors so far. One is using magnetic confinement.
31:47 Speaker 02 Uh-huh.
31:48 Josh Clark? And the other is using inertial confinement. So, magnetic confinement uses that Takamak technology.
31:56 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's sort of like CERN, you know? It's using magnets to create pressure. I guess in CERN's case, we're using it to create speed.
32:04 Josh Clark? Right.
32:05 Speaker 02 But in this case is to create pressure.
32:07 Josh Clark? Right, so what you're doing is, is you have a, you have this donut-shaped chamber, and that's your reaction chamber, and then again, rings around the donut that go around the inside and outside of the donut. I know, I'm kinda imagining wonderful donuts, too.
32:21 Speaker 02 We're going Homer Simpson here.
32:23 Josh Clark? They create electromagnetic fields. Now, remember, this plasma is hydrogen gas that's been heated up to a temperature so hot that the electrons just float off and move around freely.
32:35 Speaker 02 Yes.
32:36 Josh Clark? And because of this higher temperature, these particles have become really, really energized, so they're moving and bouncing all over the place, and the pressure's building up. But, because electrons are negatively charged, and because protons are positively charged, if you use alternating electromagnetic fields, you can contain this plasma, so that this incredibly hot gas, that's six times hotter than the core of the sun, can be contained within the electromagnetic fields.
33:04 Speaker 02 That's right. And we talked about power in, power out. You'd need about 70 megawatts of power to create this, to start this fusion reaction, but you're gonna yield about 500 megawatts.
33:17 Josh Clark? That's the Ider project, I believe.
33:19 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's the Ider, and that's, that's only a 300 to 500 second reaction, but like we said earlier, the eventual goal is that it's sustaining itself.
33:28 Josh Clark? Right.
33:29 Speaker 02 Which is just a beautiful concept.
33:31 Josh Clark? Yeah. So basically, what they do is, they have the, the, the gas is injected into the chamber, the hydrogen gas, and then there's the electromagnetic fields that are holding the plasma in place. But then, remember, we said the Russians figured out that if you put an electromagnetic field in the middle of the whole thing, it will stabilize that plasma, but it also heats it up, so it serves this double purpose. And then, just to add a little extra temperature, they shoot it with microwaves and some other stuff.
33:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:59 Josh Clark? And then heat it up, and then as the plasma goes crazy and all the fusion energy is released, the neutrons move their way outside of the electromagnetic field into the blanket, which they heat up, and the heat energy is transferred to power. That turbine.
34:15 Speaker 02 That's right.
34:15 Josh Clark? Or move the horse down the, down the lane.
34:17 Speaker 02 And it's just creating steam.
34:19 Josh Clark? Yeah, and there's, I mean, that's like, that's what Ider is doing right now. That's what they're trying to prove. Um, and then also as Ider is spending billions and billions and billions of dollars and running into tons of delays.
34:30 Speaker 02 Yeah.
34:30 Josh Clark? Um, it is an amazing project. Lockheed Martin basically just came out and said, oh, by the way, this thing that you're trying to do, that's going to be a hundred feet tall. And require staggering amounts of energy and money. We're doing one that puts out the same amount of energy as yours, but it's a tenth of the size. Which means it's almost out of the gate commercially viable.
34:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, that is their Skunk Works, um, division of Lockheed and they announced this like three days ago. Uh, here in mid-October and, um. They've gotten a lot of blowback from the scientific community.
35:08 Josh Clark? Cause they wouldn't release data.
35:09 Speaker 02 They don't have data. They said it's a high beta device right now and kind of shut out the scientific community as far as questions go.
35:16 Josh Clark? Right.
35:17 Speaker 02 And, um. Every scientist that I saw interviewed for this said, yeah, they're, they're trying to get some attention to get some partners to join in.
35:25 Josh Clark? Well, yeah, plus it makes you want to run out and buy Lockheed Martin stock because if one company can figure out. How to create a thermonuclear fusion reactor here on earth that's scalable.
35:36 Speaker 02 That fits in a truck.
35:37 Josh Clark? Yeah, then that, that, that person would be very wealthy.
35:40 Speaker 02 Yeah, so it's a dubious claim, but they are, you know, they're working toward a good thing. I'm not like poo pooing the whole thing.
35:47 Josh Clark? Right.
35:47 Speaker 02 But until they have hard data and like some proof, then I think the scientific community's got their arms folded right now.
35:52 Josh Clark? Yeah, and, and I mean, they have released some details. It's just not detailed enough for a scientist. It's detailed enough for aviation week.
36:00 Speaker 02 I bought it.
36:00 Josh Clark? Yeah, they wrote an article on it and basically what they, what the guy they interviewed was saying was. That over at Ider, they have a low beta ratio, which is the amount of electromagnetism that you need. Compared to the amount of plasma you can put into the chamber.
36:17 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:17 Josh Clark? So there's like 5% plasma to 95% electromagnetivity.
36:23 Speaker 02 Right.
36:23 Josh Clark? Or electromagnetism. Just to keep this plasma thing from just blowing up.
36:27 Speaker 02 Right.
36:27 Josh Clark? Because that can happen.
36:28 Speaker 02 Sure.
36:29 Josh Clark? They might not melt down, but if everything went wrong, the whole thing could blow up.
36:33 Speaker 02 Well, and you know, you know what an atomic bomb is. It's a fusion reaction.
36:37 Josh Clark? Right. This is a lot of those all put together in 100-foot tower. This guy was saying that the beta ratio for their machine is like 100%. So what he was saying is they figured out a way, and again, it's not very detailed.
36:52 Speaker 02 Sure.
36:52 Josh Clark? But they figured out a way to contain the plasma, but in a way that also allows it to expand.
36:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
37:00 Josh Clark? Because if you think about it, the more plasma there is, the more hydrogen atoms there are.
37:04 Speaker 02 Yeah.
37:05 Josh Clark? The more hydrogen atoms, more isotopes there are, the more nuclear fusion reactions or events you can have, the more energy you can yield, right?
37:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
37:12 Josh Clark? So they're saying they figured out how to contain the plasma, but again, like you said, the scientific community is really skeptical because they think it's just a PR stunt.
37:21 Speaker 02 Well, I think they made the mistake by saying they invented a magicometer to make it all happen. And that's, and don't ask about it.
37:29 Josh Clark? Yeah, right.
37:30 Speaker 02 I did see, though, that Lockheed was using the figure eight stellarator configuration.
37:35 Josh Clark? Yeah.
37:37 Speaker 02 And I think that's true. I tried, I found a couple of more sources that were kind of vague about it, and I think the details on it are just vague period.
37:43 Josh Clark? Yeah.
37:43 Speaker 02 I don't know why they would abandon the donut shaped if the figure eight was, you know, 1950s technology that's sort of been disproven.
37:51 Josh Clark? Well, supposedly their whole jam was that the, even in the donut, in the Takamak.
37:56 Speaker 02 Yeah.
37:56 Josh Clark? This donut shaped reactor, plasma has a tendency to just move around and make its way out.
38:03 Speaker 02 Sure.
38:03 Josh Clark? Like it's not, it's still not fully contained.
38:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
38:06 Josh Clark? And they're using something, basically mirrors, to catch the plasma that's getting out and moving it to parts of the electromagnetic field that are less dense.
38:17 Speaker 02 Right.
38:17 Josh Clark? So if there's a bunch of protons in this part of the field, that field is being strained.
38:21 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
38:22 Josh Clark? But then maybe there's not that many protons over here, so they use mirrors to direct the protons to the low-density area.
38:29 Speaker 02 Just keep it all even.
38:29 Josh Clark? Of the field. Yeah, to even the whole thing out.
38:31 Speaker 02 Makes sense.
38:32 Josh Clark? Which makes sense, but again, if you're not releasing data, don't expect the scientific community to buy it.
38:37 Speaker 02 You got that right.
38:38 Josh Clark? So there's another way to build a thermonuclear reactor that's currently being worked on too, and we'll talk about that right after this.
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40:49 Speaker 02 So Buddy, magnetic confinement is pretty neat. And we talked about that, and that's understandable, and I love it. I want to date it. But internal confinement, I want to marry, because it has lasers. At the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, they are actually using laser beams. They have a device called the NIF device, where they focus 192 laser beams on a single point in a 10-meter diameter target chamber called a Hallraum. That's got to be German. And basically, inside that target chamber, they have a little tiny pea-sized pellet of deuterium-tritium in a little plastic cylinder. It's funny that it can be plastic somehow.
41:34 Josh Clark? Yeah, you'd think it would introduce like impurities or something into it.
41:37 Speaker 02 Yeah, or it would need to be like iron or something. I don't know. It just seems unstable. But that is 1.8 million joules of power from these lasers. It's going to heat the cylinder up, generate some X-rays, and then that radiation will convert that pellet into plasma and compress it. So, again, they're creating plasma, but instead of smashing it together with magnets, they're superheating it with lasers.
42:00 Josh Clark? So that's your monies on that one?
42:03 Speaker 02 I just think it's neat because I like lasers.
42:05 Josh Clark? But that's your preference of the two?
42:07 Speaker 02 Yes. Well, actually, whichever one works is going to be my preference.
42:10 Josh Clark? Okay.
42:11 Speaker 02 And that one will yield 50 to 100 times more energy out than energy put in.
42:17 Josh Clark? I gotcha.
42:18 Speaker 02 So that's a good goal.
42:19 Josh Clark? So, yeah, I guess basically the whole point of magnetic confinement is that if you can do without electromagnets, you have a more simple and elegant...
42:32 Speaker 02 Oh, you mean the internal confinement?
42:33 Josh Clark? Inertial.
42:35 Speaker 02 Inertial?
42:36 Josh Clark? Yeah, that's what I mean. Inertial confinement. Basically, the whole thing just happens so fast, you don't even need these magnets to confine plasma because you're not creating the sustained ignition, right?
42:46 Speaker 02 Yeah, I might have said internal confinement before, by the way.
42:48 Josh Clark? It's inertial.
42:49 Speaker 02 Yeah, I know.
42:50 Josh Clark? That's all right.
42:51 Speaker 02 So what about cold fusion, Buddy? That was all the rage I remember back in the 80s.
42:54 Josh Clark? Yeah, because in 1989, some researchers said that they successfully created nuclear fusion using just room temperature stuff, like palladium. They took palladium and...
43:10 Speaker 02 Banana peels and beer cans?
43:11 Josh Clark? Pretty much. Heavy water, which had deuterium in it. And they put the whole thing together and created nuclear fusion without the high temperatures. Hence the name cold fusion. And if you can get around these high temperatures, then you work out the whole material science problem. Right? And if you work out the whole material science problem, then this is, it's a desirable thing to have cold fusion. The problem is, is a lot of scientists tried to replicate these guys' findings and weren't able to. So basically, they were kicked to the curb.
43:44 Speaker 02 So does that mean, has cold fusion been abandoned? Or are people still trying to get on that train?
43:49 Josh Clark? No, in 2005, some UCLA researchers basically said, um, we think we might have this thing down. And they did. It's something called pyroelectric crystal fusion.
44:03 Speaker 02 Oh, that's right.
44:04 Josh Clark? Pyroelectric fusion.
44:04 Speaker 02 They use a crystal?
44:05 Josh Clark? Yeah, where basically it's the same result. They, they do what would be called cold fusion. Um, the problem is, is it has a negative net energy yield. You have to put in a lot more energy than you get out of it.
44:16 Speaker 02 Right. Well, that's no good.
44:18 Josh Clark? No.
44:19 Speaker 02 Um, Ider seems like they are making headway more than Lockheed despite their claim. Um, they are being, like we said, it's in Europe. And it's being financed by a bunch of different countries. Um, the US is in, but they're kicking in, I think, the least amount. Only about 17 million euros last year. Of course, we contributed dollars, but they're giving it to us in euros.
44:43 Josh Clark? Right.
44:44 Speaker 02 Um, I think the EU spends the most, about 80 million. South Korea and China kicked in about 20 and 19 million respectively each. And I saw earlier where Russia was involved, but then I didn't see what they had contributed financially.
44:59 Josh Clark? Yeah, they're definitely involved still.
45:00 Speaker 02 Are they still? All right. Well, maybe they're just, uh, we're writing a chit for them for later. They'll just pay us back.
45:06 Josh Clark? Right.
45:06 Speaker 02 Uh, but it is a very expensive prospect. Um, and you need, you know, countries getting together for something like this is not the kind of thing that like the US can take on on their own, I guess, unless you're Lockheed Martin.
45:18 Josh Clark? Right.
45:19 Speaker 02 And you don't have to prove your data.
45:20 Josh Clark? Right. So that's nuclear fusion. We'll see what happens.
45:24 Speaker 02 Yeah, you got anything else?
45:26 Josh Clark? Man, no. I just say everybody should go read Star in a Bottle on The New Yorker. It's really, really good.
45:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's pretty neat. There, you can also go to Instructables if you want to build a nuclear fusion reactor in your garage. You can do so. You're not going to create energy because like we said, you're going to be putting in more than you get out. But there are instructions and that kid did it. His was a little more advanced than the Instructables one, obviously. But, um, yeah.
45:55 Josh Clark? Nice. The 16-year-old kid.
45:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, he's amazing. His was legit. He's done more than that, too. His TED Talk was pretty impressive.
46:02 Josh Clark? Cool.
46:03 Speaker 02 He's like working on, with Homeland Security already for various projects
46:07 Josh Clark? Oh, I'm sure.
46:08 Speaker 02 that have nothing to do with this.
46:09 Josh Clark? Yeah, I'm sure.
46:09 Speaker 02 Yeah.
46:11 Josh Clark? Well, if you want to learn more about nuclear fusion, you can type those words in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. And since I said that, it's time for Listener Mail. And Chuck, before we do Listener Mail, I want to give a shout out to our Kiva team.
46:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, for those of you who don't know, we did a podcast many years back on micro lending. And Kiva, K-I-V-A dot org, is an organization where you can loan entrepreneurs in, well, it used to be just developing countries. Now you can do it here in North America as well. Twenty dollars at a time that you can get paid back for. You can get your money back if you're not happy. Or you can just keep re-lending that money and it helps them get their small business going. And we started Kiva Team many years ago and it is killing it. So you got some stats for us?
47:00 Josh Clark? So basically, as of October 19th, we have loaned, our team has loaned $2.7 million.
47:13 Josh Clark? To people in developing countries.
47:15 Speaker 02 Nice.
47:15 Josh Clark? And in the US here and there. And the big one is, we've exceeded 100,000 loans.
47:21 Speaker 02 Man.
47:22 Josh Clark? By our team. Our team only has 8,079 members, so
47:25 Speaker 02 Yeah.
47:26 Josh Clark? To all 8,079 of you guys, thank you. Way to go. Congratulations.
47:31 Speaker 02 Yes, and thanks as always to Glenn and Sonia, our de facto Kiva, what would you call them, presidents?
47:37 Josh Clark? Presidents.
47:38 Speaker 02 Presidents of the Stuff You Should Know team?
47:39 Josh Clark? Yep.
47:40 Speaker 02 Captains of the Stuff You Should Know team?
47:41 Josh Clark? No, presidents.
47:42 Speaker 02 Okay, presidents.
47:43 Josh Clark? Presidentes.
47:44 Speaker 02 Glenn's like, yes, president.
47:46 Josh Clark? Uh, yeah, they've been really, like, keeping it going for us.
47:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, and you know, sometimes we'll forget, and Glenn will nudge us, hey, guys, uh, remember the Kiva team? We should mention it.
47:55 Josh Clark? Right, so the next
47:56 Speaker 02 And we do so.
47:57 Josh Clark? The next goal we have is for $3 million in loans, and we're on our way to it, so come join us. We, uh, don't begrudge people who are late to the party. Just go to kiva.org/teams/stuffyoushouldknow and you can sign up.
48:12 Speaker 02 That's right.
48:13 Josh Clark? So now it's time for listener mail, right?
48:17 Speaker 02 Indeed, sir. I'm gonna call this a skywriting follow-up, um, from Australia. Hey, guys, recently listened to how skywriting works, and it reminded me of something. Although this may not be suitable for listener mail, which I disagree, actually, because I'm reading it.
48:31 Josh Clark? Clearly.
48:32 Speaker 02 I was maybe eight or nine when a few friends and I were out on the street, playing, and doing things that nine-year-olds would do. It's so awkward to say that.
48:41 Josh Clark? So you're not replacing something right there?
48:43 Speaker 02 No.
48:44 Josh Clark? Oh, why?
48:46 Speaker 02 They were just doing nine-year-old things.
48:47 Josh Clark? Okay.
48:48 Speaker 02 It's good, clean fun. Uh, we looked up and saw a plane starting to skywrite, and were, uh, instantly intrigued at what was being written. It started with an H and then an O. This went on for maybe 20 minutes, until finally, the word "Hooters" was scrawled across the sky, uh, albeit backwards. So, uh, I guess they had the Hooters Restaurant, uh, chicken wing chain in Australia.
49:07 Josh Clark? I guess they're
49:09 Josh Clark? A rich kid.
49:10 Speaker 02 Yeah.
49:10 Josh Clark? A really immature, rich kid.
49:12 Speaker 02 Yeah, or that. My brain couldn't comprehend how this person managed to screw up writing a word backwards. The best reason my childish brain could come up is that skywriting took place somewhere between us and a group of people that it was initially intended for and that I just thought it was written up and downwards rather than across the sky. Until now, I'd never understood or bothered to learn why it was like that. So, thank you for keeping the podcast great and allowing me to figure that out. That is from Marlin. Oh, boy. Hapurachi. Hapurachchi.
49:49 Josh Clark? Nice.
49:50 Speaker 02 Have you ever seen a word like that?
49:52 Josh Clark? Hapurachi.
49:55 Speaker 02 Hapurachi. Marlin, from Sydney, Australia. Man.
50:00 Josh Clark? Thanks a lot, Marlin H.
50:02 Speaker 02 And that's Marlin with an A even.
50:04 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah?
50:05 Speaker 02 Marlan.
50:07 Josh Clark? Well, thanks a lot, Marlin. We're gonna say it like that?
50:09 Speaker 02 Sure.
50:10 Josh Clark? If you have an awesome last name and want to share it with us, you can tweet to us at S Y S K Podcast. You can join us on Facebook.com/StuffYouShouldKnow. You can send us an email to [email protected] . And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.
50:32 Speaker 00 For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.
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Previous The Stuff You Should Know Doin’ Science Playlist: Legs! Legs! Legs! (The Periodic Table) Next The Stuff You Should Know Doin’ Science Playlist: How Global Warming Works Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated