#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

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
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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

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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)– 2022nuclear 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