Gadgetory

with all the talk about increasing global energy consumption and finding a source of power that won't run out like fossil fuels will one day we've been looking for something both sustainable and powerful for quite a long time solar and wind are much discussed options to solve this problem but simply put they're just not efficient enough today to address most of our energy needs and traditional nuclear power which relies on uranium fuel that may be depleted one day as well also presents the additional problems of radioactive waste and possible meltdowns enter fusion power we've been kicking this idea around for so long that it seems like fusion research is becoming another quest for the Fountain of Youth but why is that why don't we have it yet and what is so special about it well what's special is that fusion can produce lots of energy from relatively small amounts of fuel by literally smashing atoms together usually these are hydrogen atoms that are well they're well they're fused together to make helium the same stuff you find in balloons well hold on a second line is I took grade 11 chemistry look at the mass of a helium atom it's lower than the two hydrogen isotopes that smash together to produce it well it turns out that this missing mass was converted to energy during the fusion process because of differences in how strongly the protons and neutrons that make up hydrogen and helium stick to each other and a very small amount of mass is equal to a huge amount of energy you know that famous equation that people spout out whenever they want to look really smart what that means is that fusion is extremely powerful even more than conventional nuclear fission which splits atoms instead of smashing them together and because the only by-product is the helium we'd be rid of the carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels and we wouldn't even have to worry about radiation presenting an environmental hazard well cool then so why don't we just get a bunch of hydrogen and start like smashing atoms the special isotope of hydrogen that we need for fusion called a deuterium is abundant in the oceans and could meet our energy needs for millions of years so it's not like we don't have enough fuel well there are other problems aside from the obligatory funding issues and political wrangling that come with any major scientific endeavor one major issue is that you need lots of energy to start a fusion reaction in the first place our own Sun is a natural fusion reactor in fact hydrogen fusion has kept it burning for billions of years and will keep it burning for billions more but the Sun can only do this naturally because it's so large the intense gravity at its core creates temperatures of millions of degrees that both smartguy it's hot enough to make the atoms fuse don't worry about it but here on earth creating those kinds of conditions is much more difficult right now there are experimental fusion reactors that do work but because we have to heat deuterium to such high temperatures they require more power to be put into them than they actually generate like trying to charge a solar flashlight with another flashlight the other big issue is how to keep a fusion reaction going once you started it you need to create enough excess energy with your initial reaction to cause other atoms to fuse not to mention that you then need a way to contain that reaction not only to keep it dense enough to keep temperatures up but also because you don't want a hydrogen plasma heated to millions of degrees hitting the walls of the reactor for what I think should be fairly obvious reasons a very strong magnetic field is one possible solution to the containment problem which is being used in one of the newest experimental fusion reactors located in Germany German engineering am i right whose next goal is to keep a reaction going for a mere 30 minutes to see if sustainable fusion is something that's even feasible down the line so we're still a ways away from seemingly limitless clean energy but we are starting to see the possibility that fusion could be the solution to a future energy crisis that is assuming of course that doc ock doesn't come along and steal it for his a layer I can't come up with a transition for this so tunnel there yeah that's right Tunnel Bear Tunnel bears the VPN that lets you tunnel to 20 different countries allowing you to browse the internet and use online services as though you are in one of those countries which sounds great but it's not the best part the best part is Tunnel bear is easy to use they have apps for iOS Android PC and Mac they also have a Chrome extension and all you got to do is choose a country in the app turn tunnel bear on and watch as your bear tunnels your internet connection to a new location you can actually watch anything there wouldn't be time to watch it like turns on in like a couple of seconds anyway once it's on your connection gets encrypted and your public IP address gets switched and that's it you bypass all those annoying details like port configurations DNS any router settings anything like that Tunnel bear handles it all in the background they've got a top-rated privacy policy and if you're not sure if tunnel bear is right for you you can try it out for free with five hundred Meg's of data and no credit card required then if you decide you like it and you want to upgrade to unlimited data you can save 10% by going to tunnel bear comm slash Linus linked in the video description thanks for watching like if you like dislike if you disliked look at our other channels leave a comment with future suggestions for videos that you want to see and subscribe and follow and all that good stuff