to harnessing the nuclear powers of the sun.

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Hey guys, Trace here, for DNews, with some engineering

and physics that might change the world.

A lot of time, we get you on here

and we talk to you about those things.

They're more conceptual and sometimes

really complicated and kind of jargony.

Whoosh.

But this, oh man, this is juicy.

This week scientists announced that they

can produce many suns-- seriously, for real this time.

I know, they've been saying, give us 30 more years

and we'll have it.

They might have been closer than they thought.

We are close to solving the mystery of fusion power

that keeps the Sun going.

While nuclear fission gets a bad rap,

nuclear fusion is completely different.

It's one of the holy grails of science.

Fusion offers a near limitless pollution-free cheap source

of energy.

The deuterium to power the reaction--

harnessed from seawater.

And it's waste is the super-rare helium 3 or helium 4

or perhaps more deuterium-- plus ideally, hundreds of times

more energy than we put in.

No big deal.

The best part, we get all of this with no more radiation

than we're exposed to in an average day.

Fission involves using heat and pressure

to split an isotope of uranium.

Fusion involves combining two atoms into one.

Both release huge amounts of energy.

But the whole fusion thing, so much more efficient.

The National Ignition facility has

used 192 laser beams to create an x-ray pocket

inside of a 77-ton machine.

The pocket super heats the hydrogen deuterium fuel

and excites the particles.

As hydrogen has a positive charge,

atoms normally repel each other.

But inside that pocket, as the small piece of fuel

burns at 100 million Kelvin, they move so fast,

they slam into each other, fusing and creating new atoms,

releasing massive amounts of energy in the process.

This is amazing stuff.

While these scientists have confirmed

that they can create this reaction for a microsecond,

they can't sustain it.

And without sustaining it, they won't

be able to use it to create electricity.

They say we haven't perfected that little pellet of deuterium

fuel.

It's microscopically uneven.

And those imperfections cause it to burn up too quickly.

But never mind that.

Even though we're not sure how it works,

the EU, the US, China, India, South Korea, and Russia

are all funding a single fusion plant in France,

separately from the NIF.

It's a different design, but here's to hoping one of them

gets this to work, because I could

use some cheap, clean energy right about now.

So there's one tiny little thing that I probably

should point out.

Scientists are saying that we are about 30

years from flipping the switch on a power plant,

so there's that.

But hey, let's be optimistic, right?

Guys?

Are you on board with this fusion power thing,

or should we just forget it and stick only

to renewables and other proven technologies?

Let us know your power thoughts in the comments.

And be sure you subscribe for more DNews.