Let There Be Light (2017)

[bunniefuu]

[wind gusting]

[chirping]

[Mark Henderson]
What I wanted to do first
is to give you an image

of what drives me
forward in fusion.

[Henderson]
Imagine you're reaching up
and you're grabbing the sun,

something of the order of
a 100 million degrees Celsius,

and you want to put
the sun in a bottle.

And we have ways of doing that.
We create a magnetic model.

Compared to anything
that mankind has ever
done in the past,

be it walking on the moon,
be it decoding DNA,

this is a great challenge.

We, as humans, we're lazy.
[chuckles]

In the sense that if we have
a choice of going

a very easy path
or very complicated path,

we would always go
the easy path.

And that's what
we're doing with energy.

We're burning fossil fuels,

coal, natural gas, crude oil,

and that is changing
the environment.

We're similar to,
I hate to say it, to yeast,

where the yeast basically
multiply, multiply, multiply,

eat up all of the flour
and the dough

until basically they die off
from their own excrement,

uh, because they've just eaten
up all their resources,

and they've d*ed from their own
pollution that they've created.

We have to find a clean source

that's going to be available
for lifetimes,

and that's what fusion is.

I really feel that if we don't
cr*ck fusion, we are doomed,

to be honest.

[man] What we're trying
to do here is to make

a artificial star.

Stars have some things
we don't have on Earth,

size and mass.

The Sun, for example,
is a very nice fusion reactor

that enjoys considerable
public support,

and it works
on the basis of gravity

plus its magnetic field,
uh, to confine the plasma.

Now, the sun is really big,


something like, across.

Uh, we clearly don't want
anything that big,

so we have to rely
on the magnetic fields alone.

That turns out to be doable,

but technologically difficult
to do on a large scale.

And so we've been learning
how to do this

for about 40 or 50 years.

What's amazing about work in
that era is we didn't know

what the energy process
that drove stars was.

[keyboard clacking]

Hans Bethe,
the nuclear physicist,

uh, was at a seminar,

and the next day
he was gonna give a talk

where he talked about a fusion
fuel cycle for the stars.

But he had a date that night,
and so they went out for a walk.

And he came out
with what has to be
the best line ever,

which is, "Aren't the starts
beautiful tonight?

And right now, I'm the only guy
in the world who knows why."

[TV host]
In the sun's core,

when these particles
are accelerated to high speeds

and collide...
[claps hands]

...they fuse.

[man] Fusion fuel is in,
essentially, infinite supply

and is available to all
countries at negligible cost.

The fuel, or fusion...
is in common water.

Fusion will produce no noxious
chemical combustion products,

and there will be absolutely
no chance of a runaway reaction.

And fusion will not
involve materials

that could be stolen or used
for clandestine purposes.

When I came into this project
almost 20 years ago,

there was a tremendous amount
of enthusiasm.

Everyone was confident
of success.

[man]
In the Zeta apparatus,

we have produced temperatures

which are about
one-third of those

at the center of the sun.

[man]
But this enthusiasm

was a kind of
ignorant enthusiasm.

As fusion researchers
have painfully discovered,

it's just not that simple.

After this initial enthusiasm,

then came a decade
of caution and skepticism.

And now, after 20 years,
we're back to enthusiasm.

[man] In the early 1980s,
we expect to create

many thermal megawatts

of fusion energy
for the first time.

[Michel Laberge]
So the whole planet
needs a lot of energy.

And so far, we've been running
mostly on fossil fuels.

Been a good run.

It got us to where we are,
but we have to stop.

So we are trying different
types of energy now,

alternative energy.

But it proved quite difficult
to find something

that's as convenient
and as cost-effective

as oil, gas, and coal.

Now, we know of two way
of making, er, nuclear energy:

Fission and fusion.

Now, in fission, you take
a big nucleus,

you break it in part, in two,
and it makes lots of energy.

This is how the
nuclear reactor today works.

Works pretty good.

And then there is fusion.

Now, I like fusion.
Fusion's much better.

So you take two small nucleus,
you put it together,

and you make helium.

And that's very nice.
Makes lots of energy.

And if the whole planet would
run on fusion, it would run--

We could extract
the fuel from the ocean,

it would run for billions
and billions of years.

Now, if fusion is so great,
why don't we have it.

Where is it?

Well, there's always
a bit of a catch.

Fusion is really,
really hard to do.

Physics-wise, fusion is the,
the fusion, ha-ha,

of two nucleus.

Usually, you use
a hydrogen nucleus

or isotope of hydrogen.

And when they touch each other,
they fuse together,

and they make helium

and release a lot of energy
in the form of a fast neutron.

So this is the, the nuclear
reaction in the center.

Now the problem is
those two nucleus,

they're electrically charged,
they're both positive,

so they don't want
to stick together.

They go like this,
whoo, shoo,

and they never fuse.

So in order to fuse, you have
to throw them at great speed.

And speed in a gas
is the temperature.

So you have to heat the gas
so the thermal agitation

is fast enough so the nucleus
can touch each other.

And that temperature is
a 150 million degrees C.

That's pretty hot.
And this is how the stars work.

The-The stars are very hot

and inside the star,
there is this fusion reaction.

So on the Earth here,
we need to heat the gas

to 150 million degrees C.

And the other problem is a gas
that hot wants to cool down.

So it cools down really quickly.

So you put some energy
in there to heat it up,

and then the heat escape.

And when it's hot enough,
it makes some reaction,

it makes some fusion,
it makes some energy.

So the name of the game
is to try to get

more energy out than you put in.

[clanking]

[man] The world's
most ambitious attempt

to harvest fusion
as a source of power

is taking shape in France.

The project is costing


and it's being backed by
a whole swathe of countries

around the world.

[Ken Blackler]
ITER's going to be built
from about a million pieces,

so it's a real nightmare

to know where pieces are
and don't lose them,

know which piece goes where,

wh-what is this piece
that I'm looking at.

We build the tokamak
from the bottom up,

so you can only build it
in a certain way.

So if a certain piece
is missing,

we'll have to wait for it.

So it's key--
At the moment, what we're doing

is a very large planning effort
with all the members

to make sure that each piece
is delivered to us

in good time
and at the right time.

[Guenter Janeschitz]
The parties all want to learn
all the technologies,

which means you not giving
one component to a party,

you're giving a piece of a
component, and the other party

wants another piece
of the same component

so that they all can learn
the technology.

It is luckily not so that
we have seven pieces

-of each component that
it will be too difficult...
-[man laughs]

but we have sometimes
three or four pieces

of each component,
and that means...

We have to talk to our partners,
to the members,

in all the-- as you say,

in all these countries
around the world,

in Korea, in Japan,
in Russia, China, US, India.

You have not
one guy to deal with.

You have three
or four guys to deal with

for the same component.

We are pushing the edge
of technology

and therefore, sometimes
we run into problems

and we have to solve
these problems.

[man]
Critics point out that the costs
have trebled in five years.

They say the whole project
is a gamble

that won't pay off.

[Janeschitz] Will we be able,
with our complex structure,

and the money we have,
to be in time?

This is actually the most, uh,
difficult thing at the moment,

to stay in time.

[man]
What's slowly taking shape here

in the southern
French countryside

could provide the answer
to the world's energy crisis,

or it might prove one of
the most expensive failures

in scientific history.

[Mark Henderson]
So I'm gonna try
to go through quickly.

I wanna give you an idea
of the realistic schedule.

I received an email this morning
of a new first plasma date,

which is different
from the first plasma date

that you will see, uh,

or which was the first plasma
date of about two weeks ago,

which is different
from what you'll see.

So there's three iterations
behind the first plasma date.

When ITER organization
came about in 2006,

we said that we would be
producing the first plasma

in 10 years.

And if you guys do
the math real quickly,

you realize that we're not ready
for first plasma next year.

Not sure where
I'm gonna put this guy.

[panting]
It's a toad.

-[man] Where was that?
-He was inside the compost.

So he digs underneath...
in the compost pile

to stay warm.

My problem is that I turn
the compost all the time,

so I don't want him
to go in there again.

I'm gonna put him
underneath here.

Back when I started in fusion,

back in the 19-- mid-1980s,

the idea was that fusion
was gonna be successful,

and we would have
fusion on the grid

in about 50 years.

And now, it's, uh,




Up until about 2000,
the year 2000,

we were just advancing
and advancing

at really a fast rate.

And now, the problem is
is that, uh,

in order to make the next step,

we just need to go
to a bigger machine

and unfortunately,
bigger machines

take longer to build,
are much more complex.

I know that I will be retiring
before ITER's successful,

so I'm like the guy
building a cathedral,

who have-- knows that he's
gonna be putting this brick on,

this brick on,
and this brick on,

and he's gonna be spending
his whole career

putting bricks together,

but he'll never see
the end piece, the cathedral,

that will take hundreds
of years to build.

[man speaking English]

My name is Evgeny Velikov,

and now my main position
is honorary something.

[journalists shouting]

[news reporter]
Are you optimistic,
Mister President.

I'm always optimistic.

[ticking]

[Henderson] I was gonna ask,
do you want me to explain
the gyrotron real quick?

Yeah, I can do it very quickly
and really cool.

If you take--
I don't have a Coke bottle--

if you take a Coke bottle
and you blow across

the top of the Coke bottle...

Do you mind-- Can you get me
a Coke bottle downstairs?

It's down over there.

I have four minutes, no?
How much? Yes, four minutes.

Four minutes?
Is that okay? It's downstairs.

-Do you know where
the coffee machine is?
-Yes.

The gyrotron works pretty much
like a Coke bottle.

Except instead of blowing across
the top of the Coke bottle

and changing the resonance,

uh, it-it-- you-you do
a electron beam.

You have basically a little...

filament down here,
like in a light bulb.

It heats up,

and this beam of electrons
comes up,

and you get a resonance.

So just as you take
your Coke bottle, you blow
across the top of it,

and the wind is creating
a compression wave

and making a resonance,
making the sound go up higher,

this thing is passing
an electron beam,

and it creates
an electromagnetic resonance.

You can almost imagine it like
a bunch of little laser beams,

that you combine them
into a single coherent beam,

which is the gyrotron beam.

And then once
this ignites the plasma,

the plasma itself heats it
and keeps going.

That makes sense, kind of.

Oh, no, doesn't it have to be
a glass one? Oh, man!

-Well--
-We lose the analogy.

What do you do with the can?

-No, not a can.
-A bottle, a bottle.

Oh, you wanted a bottle?

Yeah, because you can blow
across the top of the bottle

to make it resonate.

And you call yourself
a physicist.

[overlapping conversation]

[Ken Blackler]
The greatest challenge
is to align these huge pieces

to the millimeter tolerance,
to the accuracy that we need.

It's really the magnets,

the-the-- what we call
the toroidal field magnets.

These magnets make the main
magnetic field of ITER.

They're the things that hold
this magnetic bottle,

hold the plasma
inside the machine,

and keep it away
from the walls.

And the accuracy that
we can install these magnets

really is how smooth
the plasma will be

and therefore
how well it performs.

So the better we do
and the closer we get

to the required position
for these magnets

will really affect, for decades,

the future performance of ITER.

So that's a great challenge
for us.

[speaking English]

[machine whirring]

[speaking Italian]

[speaking Italian]

Well, you need some area,
of course, to absorb...

-Yeah, yeah.
-the excess material.

[chuckles]

[indistinct chatter]

For sure.

You cannot avoid that.

I'm curing them.
I'm curing with my hand.

Ahhh!

[speaking Italian]

It is not a work
for emotionally weak people,

because you need
to be very strong and confident

because otherwise...
you will never do anything.

You'll just be so scared.

[Sabina Griffith]
Although ITER is called

the largest
scientific enterprise,

international collaboration
on Earth at the moment,

nobody knows about us.

ITER is, um...

is working with public money,

so the whole project
is jointly funded

by all these nations
under the ITER roof,

and so, in fact
it's the taxpayer

who pays for what we do, right?

So this is not
a private organization

or a private enterprise.

This is one of our top
benchmarks,

that we develop this project

and this fusion reactor
for the benefit of everything.

And we want everybody to share
and to join in

and to be proud of this, right?

So transparency and having
an open-door policy

is one of our top priorities
in ITER communications.

[Henderson] A lot of people talk
about a magnetic model,

and I don't feel
there's a good understanding

of how the magnetic field ties

-with this idea
of trapping a particle.
-Mm-hmm.

And then I want to go
into the challenge of ITER.

The question is, well, how come
we're taking a long time?

They made a study back in 1976

that showed that depending
upon how you fund fusion,

you can either get
a fusion device

generating electricity
somewhere in the 1990s

out to 2006 all depending upon
how much money you put in

as a functional time.

And then I'm going
to overlay this

as what the US
has actually been funding.

And the funding has gone up.

It peaked around 1978

and then has dropped well below,
based on today's dollars.

It's very understandable,
very honest,

but I won't do this because
we have the US here on Monday,

uh, physically, and...
[clears throat]

it's a very touchy thing
in the US.

Because here you're picking out
the US from the--

We have to be careful
we don't,

in official presentation,
want to criticize, right?

We can say it's difficult.
Right?

Because, um, in the 70s,
the funding was wow.

Everybody wanted fusion
to happen now.

-Then everything
dropped again. Right?
-Poof! Yeah.

We survived. We managed
to survive, and we're here now

building the world's
largest fusion device.

But it's hard,
and it only happens,

and we say we can deliver, uh,

around the mid
of the century...

provided that we have
somebody sort of...

-Funding us in the back.
-... funding us
in the back. Right?

[brass band music playing]

[Henderson] And so to me,
before we basically die

in our excrement
like yeast molecules,

we need to realize that
we need another energy source.

We need to be-- It may not be
for our generation.

I mean, the good news is
we're, we're okay.

But it's the next generation
or the generation after that

or the generation after that.

Yeah, I'm actually surprised
how low the funding is.

Would you be able to have, er...

better progress, faster progress
if you had better funding?

I think so. There was
a study made in one country--

I'm not gonna name
the country--

back in the 70s.

And they said if you keep
the level of the order

of, let's say,
I think it was about



you would be able to achieve
an ITER-like machine,

uh, within about 20 years.

Then if you drop it down
to about 500 million,

it would be extended out
to about 30 years.

And there is a point
of no return,

where basically if you invested


on a year-to-year basis,

you would actually--
it would take infinity

to achieve a reactor.

Because there you had to keep
the supporting technology base,

the administrative funds.

If you go below 300 million,
you'll never get fusion.

Well...

that country has never invested

more than something like


The more money you put into it,
the faster the return.

And-And we really
have been putting in peanuts.

[Mark Uhran]
I don't think there's
a broad public acceptance

of hydrogen fusion in
the United States at this stage.

Uh, people back in the US
still in general

don't understand
the differences

between uranium fission,

which is the process that's been
used in nuclear power plants

for over 40 years now,

and hydrogen fusion,

uh, which is believe is
the process of the future.

You have to keep in mind
a couple of things, you know.

First, this is one of the
grand challenges of engineering.

And solving a grand challenge
on a fixed price

is, is a challenge
in and of itself.

Now, by the same token,

you have to be very cost
and schedule conscience--
conscious,

because the sponsors
of this project have to,

you know, continue to maintain
their sponsorship

and believe strongly

that the cost is worth
the investment.

[Eric Lerner] I actually
got interested in fusion
as a child.

Uh, my mom, when I was eight,

got me what I think was
my first science book,

which was about the sun.

And I still remember vividly
this illustration

of this hundreds of millions
of miles long coal train

delivering all the coal
that equaled the energy

that the sun's fusion created
in a single second.

By the time I graduated,

I actually didn't intend
to go into fusion

because this was the high point
of the enthusiasm

about the tokamak device,

which is still the most
funded device in fusion.

And I thought, "Well,
I guess this is solved,"

and I got interested instead

in astrophysics
and other things.

But, um...

pretty soon
it became clear, nope,

it wasn't solved.

The first error that was made
by the government programs

back in the 1970s

was to put all their eggs
in the tokamak basket.

Now, 40 years later,

people would have to say,
objectively we do not know

which route will lead
to practical fusion,

and we certainly don't know
which route will lead

to the most economical fusion.

What you have to do is take
a crash program approach,

a broad-based approach

in which, if there are


and by good ideas,
I don't mean ideas

that I think will work.

I mean ideas that
I can't prove won't work.

This is an important
vital question for humanity:

What is an energy source
that can replace fossil fuels,

that can be safe,
clean, unlimited,

and more economical,

cheaper than anything
we have today?

[Laberge]
I used to live on Bowen Island,

so the commute was great.

So I could get on my bike

and it was, like,
a 10 minute bike to the garage.

The part will arrive, and I
would assemble all the parts,

and I will actually do
all the experiments myself.

There is only one guy here.
It's a one-guy show.

So that was actually quite fun.
I enjoyed that.

And then I would build
this machinery,

and then I will fire it up, and
then I would get bad result,

which is most of the time
you get that.

And then I will tweak it
and adjust with a little click

and some transfer somewhere.

And then I started
to get some neutron
coming out of this thing.

So I was very excited
about my neutrons.

Then, eventually,
I went out

and tried to raise
more money with that thing.

The company got bigger
and more successful,

but the fun went
downhill since then.

Now, after my PhD, sadly,
I did not manage

to find a job in fusion.

So I got a job at a local
company doing laser printer,

because I was kind of good
with lasers.

Turns out that
what I was trying to do

was trying to make
printing so cheap that
we could cut the forest

and jam you with junk mail,
you know.

So that was not
very satisfactory.

And I was looking at the
energy situation on the planet,

and it was pretty bad.

I think we're going
towards a brick wall,

and nobody seems to be paying
much attention, you know.

And it was actually
on my birthday,
the 40-years-old birthday,

and I decided I had
a terrible midlife crisis,

and I say, okay,
I-I-I will change.

I will not do this job anymore,
and I will do fusion.

In the center of the machine,
there's a big sphere

and in that sphere,
there is liquid metal.

Now the liquid metal is pumped
by some pumps

in those pipes over there,

and it's made up to swirl.

So the-the liquid is injected
near the edge like this,

and it swirls around.

And because it swirls around,
it appear in the center,

like a centrifugal force
keep the liquid out

and near the center--
up near the center of the thing.

So we fire those 14 pistons
all at the same time,

and they're quite
well-synchronized.

It's gonna go clonk,
clonk, clonk!

And then the acoustic waves
squash the liquid,

and it collapse the vortex
over the plasma.

And the plasma, when you
compress it, will get hotter.

And hopefully we will hit


which is the temperature
required

to make the nucleus to fuse.

It's piston, and it's rings.

It's, uh, it's metal and pipes.
It's plumbing.

Turning that into a power plant
will actually be

not that complicated.

I have, I have a saying here
at General Fusion

I told all my engineer, "If you
can't find it at Home Depot,

it doesn't go in the machine."

So the tokamak
and the laser fusion have

more chance of working
than what we do here,

because the physics
of compressing the plasma

with a magnetic field is new.

However, their chance
of turning out a power plant

that's cost effective is low,

because their machine
is so complicated.

I-I'm quite confident that
we can make this work,

and I'm a little concerned

that we might run out of money
before we make it work.

[Janeschitz] We have
everywhere problems.

We have had problems
in the TF coils,

uh, and it was solved.

Uh, we-we could go
into the envelope

with the help of Japan,
Europe, and so on.

So, many things we could bring

into a reasonable envelope
of schedule,

but we cannot make miracles.

Time lost is lost.
I cannot recover.

It can only be better
from now on.

[man] The problem that
I don't understand is

how are you gonna get there


'Cause we heard this morning

there's a problem
with the vacuum vessel,

tooling issues,
all kind of things.

I don't see what the plan is.

But I thought you have
a much better plan,

uh, when it comes
to the technologies,

engineering the solutions.

Whatever that is,
I mean, convince us

that I think we can get there
within 10 years.

This morning
when I asked the DG,

what was the failure
of this whole problem was,

and wasting 10 years,

he said he was a manager.

Right?

Is there any change?
Doing anything?

[woman] There's a lot
depending on ITER, right?

So the whole fusion research
going on all around the world,

whether it's in China,
in Europe, in the US,

they all depend on ITER.

So if ITER is closed down,

a lot of people will
not only lose their jobs,

but, um, fusion will be dead

forever or at least
for a very, very long time.

Nobody will ever bet on fusion
for a long time.

So this is our facility where--

you know, storage facility,
which is actually quite cheap.

The key thing is,

more money has to go
into fusion research.

It has to go
for many other devices,

obviously including our own.

We and our neighbors are
shielded against the neutrons

by three feet of concrete.

It's also shielded
by this copper mesh

that radio waves
can't get through.

Now, the main bang trigger
is basically a big switch.

When we're at full power,
all 12 will be hooked up.

These instruments are actually
our thermometer.

If you wonder
how can you measure

one or two billion degrees,
this is it.

Maybe there's some way
you could tape this so that

-it's out of the line of sight.
-Okay.

Even though we're
a very tiny group,

science is
a collaborative effort,

and we're collaborating through
the scientific literature

with people
all around the world.

-Hey!
-Oh, sorry.

-You're on camera.
-[laughing]

This is an important member
of the team.

This is Tom,
who's the landlord here.

Hey, guys.

[Lerner] People ask,
"How can you succeed

with so few resources?"

You know, are you saying
you're a thousand times smarter?

No.

We're saying we've got
an easier route.

A plasma,

which is what most
of the universe consists of,

is electrically
conducting matter,

matter in which the electrons
are stripped away

from the atoms and can
freely move about.

What we today call
the "pinch effect"

forms instabilities
within the plasma,

basically pinching the plasma

into a lot
of filamentary structures.

The conventional attitude
towards the instabilities

is to suppress them.

As we put it, to make the plasma
sit still like a good dog.

The problem with that is
the plasma doesn't want

to sit still.

And trying to confine
the plasma for long enough

for the fusion reactions
to take place

becomes sort of like
confining a can of worms

without the can.

What we do is
to imitate nature.

In nature, on a scale
of... solar flares,

quasars, entire galaxies,

these filaments organize
and structure the universe.

[Lerner]
What's your trigger pressure?

It's 12.36.

So when the machine fires,

we get a ion beam

that goes down this drift tube.

Once the machine fires,

then it's the job
of all our instruments

to find out
what actually happened.

Everybody ready?

Power on. Charging.

So what we do
in the plasma focus

is we don't try and fight
these instabilities,

we try to use them
to compress the plasma

and to confine them.

Twenty...

thirty.

Set. Fire.

That means the device
can be much smaller.

The energy can be
much more concentrated,

and that makes the device
much cheaper.

Now, that was a free fire.

Didn't you hear that?

I just want to make sure
it's not self-f*ring.

There was a slight
ticking noise in there

I couldn't identify.

The scope still set?

They're dry.

Power on.

[machine whirring]

Charging.

Ten...

twenty...

thirty.

Set. Fire.

-[ticking]
-Nope.

We know of no reason why this is
physically impossible.

And more, no one has told us

a reason why they think
this is physically impossible.

And this project is
a very public project.

We've published
in peer-reviewed papers...

that are among the leading
journals in our field.

We've gotten a lot
of press coverage.

People have a lot of opportunity
to take potshots at us.

Some people say
this is a long sh*t,

this is way out.

Well, ultimately, they're just
expressing their feeling.

I do say that compared
with all the other...

private fusion efforts...

our results at present
are the best.

So, here-here-- Tom just became
our latest shareholder.

-Yeah.
-[laughter]

Okay...

[Bernard Bigot]
It's my pleasure
to welcome all of you.

I introduce myself.

I'm the director-general
of the ITER organization.

It is really my honor
and pleasure

to address you here today
in this role.

This little project as you know
is a very promising project,

which now gathers
seven large parties.

All of them as you know,

they're representing
over 85 percent

of the gross national product
in the world,

and all of them are very keen
to understand

how they will get their
energy supply in the long term.

All of you know that
there is renewable energies,

and we are very keen to see
these renewable energies

to move on, to progress.

But for the time being,
it is clear

that it will not be able

to fulfill the expectations
of the world.

-[phone ringing]
-Oh, sorry.

I will-- I will say stop.

Hello?

[speaking French]

Sorry.

We are always
interconnected, so...

As you know, renewable energy
is good for...

[woman] I think
we all have great respect

for what he's trying
to do here,

what he has to do.

We are all standing behind him,
to help him to...

to get the big puzzle together.

It's different, right?

I mean, the first two
director-generals were Japanese

and certainly, um,

different cultures have
different approaches

to... to work with,

uh, different priorities,

and Mr. Bigot is
a European.

So for us Europeans,
it's certainly easier,

right, to understand
what he wants.

But if it is possible
to demonstrate

and it will work for, okay,

thousand and thousand of euros,

I'm ready to wait for 20 years.

-Is not my problem.
-[chuckles]

[speaking French]

No, no, no, you know,
the sun is not obsolete

even after five billion
of years.

[speaking French]

[Charles Seife]
Well, I think there is something

inherently difficult
about fusion.

That it is, uh,
an attempt to harness

some of the most difficult-
to-harness forces in nature.

You have to get something

at tens or hundreds of millions
of degrees Kelvin

into a tight package,
and nature resists that.

So tha-that is inherently hard.

But on top of that, um...

there seem to be
political pressures

trying to blow apart
any large project.

That once you have to gather
many, many people

from different countries
to combine resources,

especially over decades
and decades,

the different political wills,
the different goals,

uh, all clash with each other

and eventually you wind up
with infighting,

with cost overruns,

and things begin to fall apart
after several years.

And this is what we saw
with ITER round one,

and the same thing seems
to be happening again,

uh, with round two.

[Laban Coblentz]
I am often asked the question,

how do you maintain
a sense of urgency

on a project that takes


Yeah? And so the answer
is that globally--

'Cause for this crowd,
the Apollo Project

is what they always
think about as the--

that if we think about
how short for most of us


and all that has happened--

The Secretary of Energy
was asked specifically

to make a recommendation
by the second of May this year

on that topic,
a progress report on ITER,

and should the US stay in
or should they not.

Yeah, I think that
it's quite clear

that, uh, things are moving
in a positive direction,

but we were digging out
of a fairly significant hole,

and so progress was
really necessary.

It's up to the American Congress
to make the decision,

you know, if the project
will deliver.

[man] Sub-Committee on Energy
will come to order.

And we wanna welcome you
to today's hearing entitled,

"An Overview of Fusion
Energy Science."

Is it ee-ter or eye-ter?

-[man] Ee-ter.
-Ee-ter. Hmm. Okay.

Tokamak. I keep wanting
to say "Tomahawk,"

-and I know that's...
-[laughter]

that's not right.

With the complexity
of a multi-national
collaboration like ITER,

this project has faced
more challenges than most.

Fortunately, today, we have
the opportunity to hear

from the director-general
of the ITER project directly,

Dr. Bernard--
Is it Bee-go?

Uh, I do believe if we have
the proper management,

we will be able
to deliver on time.

We have spent how much money

over the last ten years,
the United States?

When the US signed up
for the project,

you know, the representation
was made

that this project
was ready to go

to an extent that,
in retrospect,

probably wasn't the case.

When you think about what
we spent on imported oil alone--

I just want to understand
the dimensions of the cliff

that we're playing near when we
talk about the US pulling out.

If you're gonna have to lay odds
on, on all the engineering

and all these things
coming together,

uh... what are your odds?

I do believe this project
could be so beneficial

to the world,
that it is really worth

to try and to demonstrate.

-And again--
-Let me mention this.

There are a lot of wonderful
things we can do in this world.

-[Bigot] I know.
-Wonderful things.

-And--
-Including ITER.

Yeah, um, okay.
And ITER may be one of them,

but what we do is we judge
each one based on the cost

and the chances of success.

Because, in theory, it's such
a beautiful and simple idea.

Yet, throughout,
people have found

as soon as they get
around the next corner,

there is yet another hurdle.

Um, and nature seems
to have this way

of throwing up, um,

blockade after blockade
after blockade that makes

scientists' optimism,
uh, look naive.

My favorite fusion conman,

uh, was Richter from Argentina.

He was a German
or Austrian expat--

We actually know
very little about him--

who moved to Argentina

and managed to convince
Juan Peron

that he had figured out
a method

of, uh, harnessing the sun

and called it thermotron.

And so they built
this secret lab on an island.

And this crazy expat
was running around

pouring gunpowder
in experiments,

blowing doors off his lab,

writing fusion
on ticker tapes everywhere,

convincing everyone for
a matter of months and years

that he has solved
the world's energy problems.

Until he was finally
found out as a fraud
and wound up in jail.

[cell door clanking]

One of the things that's
interesting about his story

is that the physicists

who first thought
about magnetic fusion

were inspired by his story.

They saw a front page
New York Times claim

about fusion energy
in Argentina,

and the scientists here
were thinking,

how could that be done?

[Lyman Spitzer]
My wife and I were
planning to leave for Aspen,

and my father, he said,

"Well, I understand
the Argentines have, uh,

have gotten ahead of you
in the fusion program."

He'd seen the
New York Times article

that a fellow named Richter
had released fusion

in a controlled manner
in Argentina,

and Peron made quite
a thing of it.

I read the
New York Times article.

Then we got on a train
down to Aspen.

It was during the intervals out
there, when we weren't skiing,

I was thinking about this.

How would one do it
if one were trying to?

I worked out some
of the general ideas

that I later developed
into the stellarator.

[man] So Spitzer came up
with this cool device

called the stellarator.

Stellarators are a
complicated machine,

and they have
worse confinement in general.

But there's no such thing
as disruption in a stellarator.

And so stellarators
for the past decade

have just been more
and more complicated.

They look like squid fighting
each other at this point.

You can specify what magnetic
field configuration you want.

So then you give the computer
the job of iterating

through a bunch of possible
different coils

until it gets to the right
magnetic field configuration.

And you end up
with something weird, like this.

It's cool, right?

All right, any other questions
before we move on
to the tokamak?

Okay, let's bust a move.

So W7-X is
a really cool experiment.

It's a stellarator which has

a lot of advantages
over a tokamak.

The biggest advantage
is that it can just run.

It just-- You know,
for hours hopefully.

And once you can do that,
you can build a power plant.

Um, and so tokamaks
right now have a problem

where they just,
they can't run continuously,

but this experiment
is designed to show that

it can be done continuously

at parameters that are
good enough for fusion, so...

I came here, and I came
to know about stellarators

and somewhere along
the line, I switched

from believing in tokamaks
to more in stellarators,

and I thought, yeah,

maybe this is the future
of energy and fusion.

[Sibylle Guenter] This project
would not have been possible

without the reunion of Germany.

It is co-financed by Europe
to a big extent.

But still the project team
is in our hands.

We had to take care
that we have young people

being able to do physics now
with the new machine

and really to make this a team.

Wendelstein is a highly
optimized stellerator device,

three-dimensional design.

It goes back about 20 years.

And, um, to build this, to get
the support to build this,

they had to build it in
the then-reuniting Germany.

It's a crucial part
of the story.

So they started
a completely new institute

from nothing up here.

And they had to go
into building something that
had never been built before.

Now, unsurprisingly,
it ended up being more complex

and expensive and difficult
than they planned.

[man speaking German]

[applause]

[Chancellor Merkel
speaking German]

[Guenter speaking German]

[beeping]

[woman speaking German]

[Guenter speaking German]

Big emotion.
Big emotion, you know.

I do believe
it's really a landmark

in the history of fusion
to see with these stellarators

it works right away.

Very good.

She's a really great scientist,

and she know how to organize
the work of this people

to give good priorities,

and I really believe
she deserve

full recognition
for her achievement.

[indistinct chatter]

[Laberge]
Well, this fusion business

has been going a little slower
than we were all hoping

when we started this company.

We started with great gusto,

"Yeah, we're gonna
whisk that up."

And then we ran
into difficulties,

so it's a little longer
than what we wanted.

So it's a little bit
more challenging.

But we-we're still optimistic
that we're doing good progress.

It's going a little slower
than I'd like,

but it's-it's advancing forward.

So we're not kind of stopped.

So mood is okay, but now we're,
we're kind of gearing up

for a bit more of a long run
than a, than a quick success.

We're certainly not
the startup anymore,

like we used to be a real
scruffy little startup,

but now we're getting
more people,

it's a bigger shop,
and been here for a few years.

We have shown some result.

This is 1,500 microseconds.

The compression time is only


a little time here.

So the magnetic field
is going up and up and up.

This is good. This is what
we want when you compress
magnetic field.

But then again you see
all those oscillations,

both on the outside sensor
and the inside sensor

and then the plasma crash,

like it-it dies here.

What we want it to do is
to go up, up, up, up, up,

probably to about
this height here.

[alarm blaring]

[thud]

[man]
So, we're clamping it now,
um, Claude,

so stop flowing.
Stop flowing!

-[man 2] Okay!
-[man 1] Okay.

This is always
a stressful event,

because if we let air
into the chamber,

it's filled with moisture,
and it will ruin the quality
of our vacuum.

It will take weeks
and weeks to recover.

Ooh, gosh.

All right, go on,
cut the flow in... now.

Cut it now.

Very good. Thanks.

We did it.

Five years ago when
we were staring up

and building our first machines,

we were having things
blow up every day.

It was--
People were scared.

The siren really made
people frightened.

[indistinct chatter]

[man] There's no point building
the wrong thing though.

[man 2] I got it. Yeah,
absolutely. I know. I know.

But the flip side of that
is that that can go on

-for a while, right?
-Mm-hmm.

I know you got a good handle
on it, but just I gotta ask.

But-But I'm not against
actually restarting our...

-I... well...
-[laughter]

Because in my opinion, we should
try all the available targets.

-Got it. However--
-Because you don't know

what the hell
would work or not.

It it decided that we have
a pot of work,

and we're trying to fill--
we're trying to put people
in those pots.

No, no, no. We don't have enough
people to fill in those pots,

so we wanted to get people
to put into those pots

but what we have done...

-is make an extra pot.
-...is made a new pot.

-Be careful of that.
-Yes, I understand the problem.

[laughing]

Good.

I-I like... I'm a,

I'm a practical physicist,

an experimental physicist.

It is true that at work
I don't do the work anymore.

Now, all my guy do the work,
and we just--

I push paper
and answer emails.

Sometime I go into the lab
and turn some screws
just because I like it.

But yeah, this is one
of the hobby that I have.

[rattling]

I put my hat.
That's my mother hat.

She knitted this one.

Oh, long time ago.
Must be at least 30 years.

She passed away now.

She won't knit me a new one.

[engine starts]

My name is Mark Uhran.

I was previously the director

of the International
Space Station division

at NASA headquarters,
and I spent 28 years

working on
the space station program,

and I now work
for the US ITER project.

What struck me the strongest
from the very first year

as I began to meet the people

that were engaged
around the world

was how much this was like

the International
Space Station program.

Uh, ITER, when I joined,
was right around the end

of their final design phase.

And today they're on the cusp

between final design
and construction.

And the space station program

toward the end
of the final design phase

was really quite chaotic.

Uh, they had not yet
reached a point

where the
decision-making process

was being done

in accordance with practices
of systems engineering.

It took two to three years

to accomplish that turnaround,

because this was a project
that spanned five partners

and involved on the order
of five to ten thousand people

around the world.

Oh, it's like trying
to change the course

on a supertanker.

So when I joined ITER
four years ago,

the process was
similarly chaotic

and certainly in need of

a regimented and disciplined
systems engineering approach.

And over the past four years,

I've seen progress
in that direction.

This-This is a real test

of human civilization.

And it's a test that we
can't afford to fail.

We have to prove that
we have the intelligence...

to prevent our own extinction.

[speaking English]

[speaking Italian]

[all shout]

[Henderson] To be able to work
on fusion, I think is for me

is a dream come true,

but it's not just us.

It's actually you guys as well,

because your support,
or your taxes,

are putting force to this,

to the dawn of the fusion age.

And so, to a large extent,
I thank you guys,

one, for your curiosity
in coming,

but also for your support
for fusion.

-So, thank you.
-[applause]

-I'm Chuck Flanigan.
-Hi, Chuck.

Hi.

Back during the
engineering design phase,

I was the deputy manager
for the US team.

-Oh, fantastic!
-That was a long time ago.

I've been retired
since 95, so...

The Munich
television people come out.

They wanted to know, "How can
you be working on something

that's going to last


And Ken said, "Have you ever
been into the cathedral?"

Yeah, exactly.

Those people never saw
the final product.

-No, no, they passed away,
but they also--
-Good job.

-People like Spitzer, same way.
-Yeah. Right. Exactly.

-Thank you. Also thank you...
-Yeah, thanks.

for laying the foundation
in the road to get to where
we are today.

I came on February 14, 19--
uh, 2008.

I left CRPP Lausanne,
Switzerland one day

and showed up here
the next day to start working.

[woman talking indistinctly]

This is cool.

I get to go on-site.

I've never gone
beyond this point.

This is like Frodo, you know.

I've never been--
This is like, you know,

a first step on the site.

This is cool, isn't it?

Go this way?

I look at this and I see...

what is gonna happen
in five, ten years.

So even though
I haven't been down there,

I know what it is in my brain.

I can see the vessel.

I can see inside the vessel.

I can see everything,
but I can't see the plasma side.

That one, that one
I'm looking forward to seeing.

Okay?

Let's go. I wanna
get down there.

You guys are holding me back.

This is pretty cool, when
you think also that we're, uh...

gonna be about


It's weird to be here.

And to think that
in about...

ten years' time,
there's going to be about


above-- sitting above us.

And another four and a half
meters up is the level 1,

the ground floor... launchers.

The next level up, level 2,

the diagnostics,
the heating systems,

the ion cyclotron,
electron cyclotron.

It's all there.

Just give it some time.
It will come.

[speaking French]

[Laberge] I think that ITER
will probably work,

and it will demonstrate
that fusion is doable.

I think that as a project
it's very difficult

because it's international,

so there's all sort of project
management issue there.

So they're gonna blow
their budget

and their schedule big time.

It's just become such
a Tower of Babel in there,

it will burn money at twice the
rate that you need to do it.

But we'll,
we'll plow through it.

It will get built,
and it will work.

And this will, in my opinion,
give a big sh*t

in the arm of fusion
because here is a machine

that showed it can be done.

However, as a power plant,

I don't think
it's very practical.

It's a machine
that's very complex,

very expensive,

a little unreliable, there's
those disruption in there

that happen that can
damage the machine.

It's-It's difficult to conceive

that such a machine
can become a reliable

day-to-day power plant.

But, you know, it's-it's like
the Wright brothers, you know.

Like that plane didn't have
to take a 100 passengers

across the Atlantic,

but it evolved when somebody
showed that you can fly.

After that, lots of investment
and money goes in.

After that, the excitement
in fusion will go up,

because right now,

there's not much excitement
about fusion.

If you look at the
alternative energy concept,

you ever hear about fusion?

Ah, windmill, solar, tide,
chicken sh*t, whatever,

but never fusion.

Uh, this is
the Port Mann Bridge.

It's brand new actually.

It's one of those
cable-stayed ones.

It's actually quite nice.

A billion dollar... [chuckles]
to build such a thing.

It's about 20 billion
for 20 years.

A billion a year.
Fusion, I mean.

One bridge a year to try
to develop a new energy source

that will replace
all the fossil fuel

and the pollution
and the global warming.

Let's do it, you know.

One bridge a year. Peanuts.

Hopefully, we can cr*ck
this nut very soon.

I will work on this thing
all my life until it works.

This is my great dream
in life, you know.

I want to make fusion happen.

* When I think
of all the worries *

* People seem to find

* And how they're in a hurry

* To complicate their minds

* By chasing after money

* And dreams
that can't come true *

* I'm glad that
we are different *

* We've better things to do

* May others plan their future

* I'm busy loving you

* One two three four

* Sha la la la la la
live for today *

* Sha la la la la la
live for today *

* And don't worry
'bout tomorrow, hey *

* Sha la la la la la
live for today *

* Live for today...

[Laberge] And I have to say
that I was starting to be

a little nervous
on the money situation

before, uh,
the Malaysian came in

because, you know, the money
in the bank was going down,

and it was getting, "Uh, uh,
we're gonna run out,"

and then they came in
and then all the investor
put more money in it.

So now we're having actually
the longest runway

in front of us that we had ever.

* Have pleasure while we can

* Two three four

* Sha la la la la la
live for today *

* Sha la la la la la
live for today *

* And don't worry...

[speaking English]

You hear that?
That's a glowing recommendation.

* Baby, I need to feel you
inside of me *

* I got to feel you
deep inside of me *

* Baby, please come
close to me *

* I got to have you now
please please *

* Please please
gimme some a-lovin' *

* To gimme some a-lovin'

* To gimme some a-lovin'

* To gimme some a-lovin'

* Baby gimme some a-lovin'

* Gimme some a-lovin'

* Got to have all your lovin'

* Gimme some a-lovin'...

At current levels of financing?

Approximately the age
of the universe.

* Sha la la la la la
live for today *

* Sha la la la la la
live for today *

* And don't worry
'bout tomorrow, hey *

* Sha la la la la la
live for today *

* Sha la la la la la
live for today *