Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy | Lex Fridman Podcast #353

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/@mitplasma....scienceandfusionc621
Commonwealth Fusion Systems: https://cfs.energy
Commonwealth Fusion Systems YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CommonwealthFusionSystems

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Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playli....st?list=PLrAXtmErZgO

OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
0:32 - Nuclear fusion
18:31 - e=mc^2
32:58 - Fission vs fusion
38:10 - Nuclear weapons
41:56 - Plasma
49:07 - Nuclear fusion reactor
1:04:27 - 2022 nuclear fusion breakthrough explained
1:25:04 - Magnetic confinement
1:44:14 - ITER
1:49:01 - SPARC
2:03:00 - Future of fusion power
2:11:33 - Engineering challenges
2:30:14 - Nuclear disasters
2:34:58 - Cold fusion
2:49:14 - Kardashev scale
2:58:38 - Advice for young people

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