Fusion power: how close are we? | FT Film

Watch FT Moral Money editor Simon Mundy uncover some of the biggest opportunities and challenges within the global shift to cleaner energy. Click the links below for related videos: Can hydrogen help the world reach net zero? | FT Film on.ft.com/47g3MvA Inside the global race for lithium batteries | FT Film on.ft.com/46ojrrA

It's hard. It will take a long time. Most of us won't live to see it - but it's worth everything we can throw at it, because it's possible and it will be the greatest revolution for humanity since we mastered fire.

This video/ documentary was perfectly made. We get a lot of different point of views, from the scientists themselves to the investors backing them. And the question in the video title has been answered, with a very reasonable ballpark. I hope that a commercial breakthrough happens in my lifetime as this would catapult the human civilization exponentially in all scientific fields.

Simon Mundy has be the FT's best presenter for these documentaries. Very good video!

20 years ....since the 1950's ...it's always been 20 years away....!!!! it still stands....!!!

The extremes they went through to get the tiny spark of net gain in mind blowing. That lab consumes something like the energy of a small town when it is just setting idle to keep all the equipment at proper temperature. There is no path to scalability.

To me, CFS (the SPARC project), driven in fact by the MIT fusion labs, seems to be the more promising, by which I mean the closest to not only demonstrate the concept, but to build a real power plant.

This is so much better than the coverage we got on 60 Minutes. This should clip should have many more views.

Well done, this is by far the most comprehensive and understandable film on the state of the fusion industry

Thank you so much for such quality and educational videos for free for everyone!

The thing people need to realise about Nuclear Fusion, is that they don't even know if it will work as a viable method of generating electricity. It's a massive science experiment that is always going to be decades away from when we need it ( and in all likelihood won't even be ready then ). Nuclear Fusion is a nice idea but it is an ideological one ( that in the end will amount to nothing) when to solve the climate crisis in time, we need a pragmatic one! We need to act fast and use ideas and solutions that will make a difference quickly before irreversible damage is done. I do believe cheaper and safer nuclear power will be essential for the future of green energy, but it will be fission not fusion that will get there in the time we need. Because if we keep waiting for fusion, there won't be a planet left. When i say fission i mean New Nuclear like Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs) and molten salt thorium fuelled reactors like (LFTR) Thorium is the future and the way forward. To learn more search Liquid fluoride thorium reactor and the work taking place with Kirk Sorensen at Flibe Energy. Also Dr Alvin M. Weinberg who invented nuclear power generation as we know it today. What's that i hear you say renewables like solar and wind are the answer and what we need.. Well let's talk about renewables. Yes, advanced nuclear does have its downsides but so do renewables. Renewables take up huge amounts of real estate and they have to be replaced every 20 years. The U.S. will need about 7.85 billion individual solar panels, each providing about 350W per hour and 500,000 5 MW wind turbines that are the height of a 50 story skyscraper. After 20 years, the U.S. will then have to replace 80 5 MW wind turbines each day and 1.23 million square meters of solar panels each day forever. All that material will need to be recycled or we will run out of atoms to make them. We will also have to build huge amounts of batteries and recycle them as well. The chemical energy in batteries and fossil fuels can only store about 2 eV of energy per atom. So just think of any battery as an equally-sized container of gasoline for energy content purposes. On the other hand, Uranium and Thorium atoms contain 200 million eV per atom or about 100 million times as much energy. That energy came from two neutron stars colliding to form a black hole maybe 6 billion years ago.

Wonderful doc! Thanks for producing the high quality film!

This FT report on the subject is the best out there that I am aware. No fluff, no nonsense, and well balanced coverage of all the work happening around the globe on this pursuit. Thanks.

The Fusion Reaction, if it can be maintained beyond "Ignition", which is what this is, can be self perpetuating if Lithium-6 Blankets are involved, maybe. But it is about 10 years down the road at least to even test the theory at ITER in France. That is the purpose of ITER. The reactor was expected to take 10 years to build and ITER had planned to test its first plasma in 2020 and achieve full fusion by 2023, however the schedule is now to test first plasma in 2025 and full fusion in 2035.

Fascinating video, well done FT film. Can't wait for the other parts of this series.

This is why we need to invest in modern advanced nuclear energy options. Small form reactors, LFTRs, Thorium Reactors, liquid reactors. Utilizing our advanced modern technology, engineering, material science, safety measures understandings and designs, computer technology, robotics, It will really allow any nation to be pretty much be energy independent. Less reliant on fossil fuels. They'll have efficient, stable electrical grids and the rest of the grid could experiment with alternative power sources, etc. We need to heal from the trauma of our past and see that it came solely from Us not understanding what we were doing, not have advanced enough technology, material science, engineering, safety measures, understanding of how to go about everything, etc. This source of energy will greatly help the world improve towards the future and lowering emissions more than anything else could while having a very stable electrical grid system. Currently we have alternative energy options but the majority of our grid is powered off of fossil fuels and emission producing sources of energy. We will be so much better going forward commiting to modern advanced nuclear energy options. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ {I truly believe, The more our surroundings flourish, the more we all flourish.} With how bad I've been seeing "water level/droughts" in the Western America lately. I really hope we not only reintroduce Beavers all over I hope we actively do cloud seeding to influence more rain to such important area's that supply crops, deal with forest fires, & are running out of water. We've really messed up natural waterways from hydroelectric. Ecosystems and biodiversity, water oxygen, carbon levels, algae blooms, nutrient flow from inland location to off shore location. In some areas like where I live in NW Oregon, rivers are a direct connection from the ocean to the inland ecosystems and how both those ecosystems can flourish which directly connects to our qualities of Life. Our natural waterways are crucial aspects of the entire overall health of every aspect of that environment and anything that environment connects too. In Oregon, we had some of the best Salmon runs on the planet and lush inland forests, wetland ecosystems, beaver's that created special habitats/fire safety and all that got totally flipped upside down from all the hydro dams they built in the early 1900s, and many other practices we once commonly did. Before we knew or understood the effects and outcomes that comes from them. So I really hope to see tons of projects that are working on rewilding areas for the sole purpose of reestablishing ecosystem's that once flourished. Because Humans inherently do better when their environment is doing better. It provides a ton of benefit to it's people and to the quality of Life as a whole for not just humans but the entire ecosystem around you which will definitely have positive impacts to so many layers to people's life's and your community as a whole. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seems that we’re making huge progress towards fusion power 🕺👌👌👌

For me, fusion really illustrates the importance of taking a balanced approach. I do think fusion will eventually pay off, but in the short-term, we really need to go all in on renewable energy and next-gen fission. We need to decarbonize as much as possible using the tech we currently have including solar, wind, tidal, thorium, hydro, and more. Once fusion pays off, we can start transitioning to that and increase our energy usage, but till that happens we need a temporary solution. Hopefully in the far future, we can start building a Dyson sphere and become a type 2 civilization.

I will have to watch the other two programs in the series before coming to any conclusions but so far so good.

Thank you for the balanced reporting