The #fusionenergy podcast! All about nuclear fusion energy research in lively conversations between PhD researchers from the Fusion CDT and other experts! Let us introduce all the science you need to understand the field. Then listen to us explore the burning energy (and space, astrophysics and medical) research questions and answers of fusion energy, plasma physics and materials science. Follow the podcast on itunes, apps and facebook; @glassofseawater on twitter for daily #fusionenergy research news and @aglassofseawater on instagram to see our outreach and scicomm work! Winners of the Institute of Physics (IOP) Rutherford Plasma Physics Communication Prize 2019.

Our first set S1 is a whistlestop tour of nuclear fusion as a physics process in the first episode; relating that to producing energy over the next two. We talk about forces, achieving fusion, goals of the energy mission and summarise some of the key pros and cons of our approach.

We go live to launch with a conversation in front of a British Science Week audience about how long fusion energy is taking – 30 years of fusion progress!

The second set S2 are a series of spotlights on plasma physics and fusion energy research themes. We will cover the work of our group of UK universities on magnetic confinement fusion, laser inertial confinement fusion, the materials science in extreme nuclear environments we need and the other uses of plasma in astrophysics (space) and medical applications. Don’t worry if it feels like a rush of headlines – we’ll be coming back to everything mentioned and much more as topics of episodes.

These taken together give you the science background, the rest are conversations – between us and with experts we meet – about the questions raised in the first few episodes and covering as many aspects of and ideas in plasma physics and fusion energy as we can think of!

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S1E1 – Fusion?

Into this glass we poured everything we know about nuclear physics – the processes and demands of nuclear fusion in nature. Barely enough for a meniscus, so we did some reading to top it up. Then we talked about the sun and the destruction of our galaxy. We’re ‘glass half full’ people deep down.

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Show notes In this conversation: Andrew, Bhavin, Joe, Will. Coulomb force and the strong nuclear force graph – The attractive force between two protons due to the strong nuclear force is only large when they are very close together. Beyond a few femtometers (14 zeros after the decimal point) the strong force is rather weak. The Coulomb force is the attraction/repulsion between two charged objects, for the Sun we are only interested in the repulsion of this force as we are looking at two protons (positively charged) fusing together. With both of these forces plotted over the distance between our two protons we can see that unless they are very close the Coulomb force will repel them apart. To get close enough to fuse requires collisions with a huge amount of energy, which most protons in the (pretty hot) Sun do not have! Quantum tunnelling Fusion in the sun – Most particles in the sun don’t have enough energy to overcome the Coulomb energy barrier and fuse, however they can quantum tunnel through this energy barrier and cause a fusion reaction. Without quantum tunneling stars the size of the Sun would not be able to support fusion reactions so you wouldn’t be here reading this! Wave-particle nature of protons is what gives them the chance to undergo quantum tunneling to produce a fusion reaction with another proton. (Swap the electron and electron-wave for a proton and proton-wave in the linked diagram.) Binding energy/mass defect of the elements figure Parent & daughter nuclei Binding energy difference released as kinetic energy of daughters In 4 billion years the Milky Way will collide with the Andromeda galaxy. We will have to move planets to see this however, as in 3.75 billion years the Sun will have become so hot that the Earth’s surface will no longer support water. So that’s all good then. Galaxy collision video – From a simulation by NASA. Universe sandbox

S1E2 – Knowledge is Power

We stirred into this glass all the extra bits of garnish that make nuclear physics knowledge useful! We get strict about criteria and chat about the bottom line(s) for harnessing the energy. How are we going to boil our seawater? Tea tastes better from a glass anyway I’m told.

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Show notes In this conversation: Andrew , Bhavin , Charlie , Joe , Phil , Will . A main goal of the global fusion energy programme is to ensure that no long lived radioactive waste is produced, see the last paragraph on this page. (The other is to end up with a unit-price competitive power source.) The Lawson criterion Fusion triple product versus the temperature of the plasma. (This is the figure of merit mentioned in episode 1.)

This figure shows the triple product for 3 different fusion reactions, Deuterium with Tritium, itself and Helium-3. The blue DT curve goes lowest, meaning that a DT plasma is the easiest with which to fulfil Lawson’s criterion.

Will may have said 10^20 but obviously he meant 21. Like what we’re doing? Why not subscribe and help us out by leaving a review?! Find us on facebook and twitter for fusion news and updates. Check out our website fusion-cdt.ac.uk/outreach/podcast-2/ for more episodes and to send us your feedback!

S1E3 – More Knowledge is More Power

Ok this one’s a tall glass so we’re continuing where we left off – talking about the serious side of working with nuclear things. How we’re going to meet the criteria we were talking, including shortcuts. We close these intros with a number of ‘promising’ tangents to tease future episodes for you!

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LIVE!

Our launch party (coinciding with British Science Week 2018) included this episode recorded in front of a live public audience. We discuss 30 years of fusion progress – the things we’ve learned, the hiccoughs, the tangents and whether ‘why is it 30 years away?’ is a good question. Join the crowd!

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S2E1 – Talk-o-mak

We’re back! New glass, same seawater. A neat trick if you think about it. We’re kicking off with the favourite glass – favourite to win that is. This episode is a spotlight on magnetic confinement fusion. It’s the route to fusion farthest along and often involves tokamaks (which we focus on for simplicity… for now!)

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S2E2 – Now for Something Completely Laser

This time our glass is positively effervescent – filled with High Energy Density Physics. To Will’s delight, we finally recorded an episode on laser fusion. In this episode we give an overview of Inertial Confinement Fusion with help from one of our fabulous academics: Dr Kate Lancaster.

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Show notes In this conversation: Bhavin , Kate, Phil , Will . So what is inertia for a start?

Step by step what does ICF look like? A nice image of our 4 step process

A little extra info on ablation

A reminder on alpha particles

If you want to see what Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities look like

Check out this particle for an exquisite picture of a Indirect Drive hohlraum

S2E3 – Blood, Sweat and Materials Science

Never mind the seawater. Today it’s all about the glass and its materials. What happens in the challenging environments of a fusion reactor? Does the glass even exist yet? And maybe there’s some other material questions to be answered…

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S2E4 – 99 Percent of Nearly Everything

The last glass in our set: what can we do with plasma besides fusion energy? The answers will include fundamental physics, manufacturing, medicine and space tech… and we’re just getting started. What better teaser to keep listening as we start our focus episodes?!

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S3E1 – The Basics of high power lasers

Newcomers Chris and Sarah join Bhavin and Will to talk about lasers and the technology that goes into them. Also why lasers are so important and a brief look into some of their many applications.

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Show notes In this conversation: Bhavin , Chris , Sarah , Will . A brief bio of the father of laser science

An explanation of population inversion with a diagram

A short description of atomic energy levels in a laser

A short History of lasers

Standing waves , (the modes formed in a laser cavity)

A quick recap of the electromagnetic spectrum for talking about the x-ray laser

S3E2 – Nobel Prize: CPA explained

This time Will, Charlie, Kate and new-comer Chris M have gathered to talk about this year’s Nobel Prize Winner: Chirped Pulse Amplification. We break down exactly what this technological breakthrough was and why it was so important. Then we look to the future to consider what might be the next big step in high power laser science.

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Show notes In this conversation: Charlie , Chris , Kate , Will . A link to the Nobel prize website summary on the prize

The wikipedia pages of Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou

A quick mention to optical tweezers

The wikipedia page on CPA, with a nice diagram

This link has an overview image of the Vulcan laser system. The compressor is in the cylindrical chambers on the far right

The Extreme Light Infrastructure website

S3E3 – A Glass of Seawater?

If you’ve been wondering why would we call ourselves a glass of seawater, you’re in for a treat. Today Bhavin, Tom and Michail discuss how much fuel for the fusion reaction can be taken from a glass of seawater. And how much energy that could produce. The answer may surprise you.

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Show notes In this conversation Bhavin , Tom , Michail Video explaining difference between nuclear and chemical reactions

Some information about deuterium and it’s properties/abundance

Walkthrough of calculation in a glass: 250ml of water -> 250 grams -> 13.9 Moles ~ 8.36e24 molecules -> 1.7e25 Hydrogen atoms -> 2.6e21 Deuterium atoms in a glass

NOTE: Around the 7 min mark, Tom accidentally says there are 1.7e24 Hydrogen atoms in the glass, but the actual number is 1.7e25 atoms… silly Tom

Wikipedia page of things that release around a Giga-Joules (10^9) of energy

Info about the UK’s electricity and energy usage

S3E4 – Jim Al-Khalili SciComm Special

For our anniversary episode we sat down with Prof Jim Al-Khalili! We talked about science communication (scicomm) with him and Dr Lancaster – their motivation, experiences and how to talk about complex research topics like fusion energy. Every bit as good as Radio 4 ‘s The Life Scientific!

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S3E5 – Plasma Thrusters for Space

How can we use plasma jets for propulsion? Scott’s been working on using fusion fuel as rocket technology for cubesats (satellites). We talk about Hall effect and photon thrusters too. Plasma fusion rocket science, it’s not exactly rocket science is it?

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S3E6 – A Day in the PhD Life

Most of us have an impression of what student life is like but maybe not that of a PhD student. This episode we have Sam, Helen, Tiantian and Emma to shed some light on the secret life of a Physics PhD student, their experiences and what they’ve learnt along the way. We chat about the love/hate relationship with research and the scary potential of life away from academia!

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Show notes In this conversation: Emma, Sam, Helen, Tiantian

S3E7 Fusion Energy: Nuclear Waste Not, Want Not?

Nuclear energy expertise from fusion and fission combines in this episode to talk about the nuclear waste from fusion reactor designs. Where does it come from? How do we avoid making any? How do we manage the stockpile? We discuss how this key selling point for fusion energy informs our research – if the Chernobyl mini-series has you worried, let us explain how waste is dealt with!

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S3E8 – Superconductors

Magnets are mission critical to magnetic confinement nuclear fusion energy and find their way into laser fusion too. Understanding the strongest magnetic fields using near-absolute zero temperature materials science would be great. But we dont. So here we talk about what we do know, how we control the world’s biggest superconducting magnets we have and where the physics research is going next!

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Show notes In this conversation: Bhavin , Paul Branch, Andy , Alex

If you’re curious about what magnets are or how to make your own take a look at sciencing.com/make-super-strong-permanent-magnets-6520830.html

Quenching is a familiar idea from materials science in rapidly cooling metal, our problem is when the magnet material rapidly heats up!

Superconductors in small amounts are already used in lots of places! Good list on wiki en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_applications_of_superconductivity

Understanding the increases in temperature of novel materials for superconductors is important. See this great graph for progress, reference temperature and the complicated combinations of elements that are used. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Timeline_of_Superconductivity_from_1900_to_2015.svg/1024px-Timeline_of_Superconductivity_from_1900_to_2015.svg.png

Check out a small tape here www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHl02g5DUAU and a really big winding of superconductor tape here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaRW50ZSqmk Like what we’re doing? Why not subscribe and help us out by leaving a review?! Find us on facebook, insta, twitter for fusion news and updates. Check out our website fusion-cdt.ac.uk/outreach/podcast-2/ for more episodes and to send us your feedback!

S4E1 – Laser Fusion Schemes

A second round on laser fusion energy ignition research! Here we discuss advanced ignition schemes and big laser facilities. We also get to have a closer look at what Phil, Will and Kate actually do.

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Show notes In this conversation: Bhavin , Kate Phil , Will .

An old but good’un animating NIF in action.

If you’re dead keen to get into QED and QCD go for it but be warned it’s post-graduate material! A one sentence guide? Here S4E2 – STEPisode UK nuclear fusion energy got a big budget boost last year as designs for a power plant prototype were commissioned – a project called STEP. We sit down with UKAEA CEO Ian Chapman tasked with overseeing it and dig into what it takes to turn fusion research from physics experiment to commercial reality. https://webfiles.york.ac.uk/fusion-cdt/agosw/2020/02/200120_S4E1_STEPisode_final-1.mp3 Download episode Show notes In this conversation: Sam, Bhavin, Ian Chapman

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