1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,640 Welcome to an extraordinary episode of our podcast where we're privileged to engage 2 00:00:09,640 --> 00:00:17,600 with Dr. Gerald Kulsinski, a beacon of innovation in the field of fusion energy with over 15 3 00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:26,960 years dedicated to the advancement of a neutrality fusion energy, particularly helium-3. Dr. 4 00:00:26,960 --> 00:00:33,200 Kulsinski stands at the forefront of a movement that could reshape our entire energy paradigm. 5 00:00:33,200 --> 00:00:40,400 Dr. Kulsinski's journey through the landscape of nuclear engineering has been nothing short of 6 00:00:40,400 --> 00:00:47,520 remarkable. Holding the esteemed position of Rainier Professor of Nuclear Engineering, 7 00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:55,840 Emeritus, and having directed the Fusion Technology Institute, he has laid foundational stones in the 8 00:00:55,840 --> 00:01:03,760 bridge toward sustainable energy. His extensive career, decorated with prestigious accolades 9 00:01:03,760 --> 00:01:11,800 such as his election to the National Academy of Engineering and recognition by NASA, underlines 10 00:01:11,800 --> 00:01:19,160 the critical role he has played in pushing the boundaries of what's possible. In today's 11 00:01:19,160 --> 00:01:26,760 conversation, we dive into the transformative potential of helium-3 in neutron fusion energy. 12 00:01:26,760 --> 00:01:33,840 Dr. Kulsinski shares his visionary insights from the early challenges of fusion research 13 00:01:33,840 --> 00:01:40,480 to the modern-day feats that inches closer to a cleaner, more efficient energy future. 14 00:01:40,480 --> 00:01:47,200 We explore the innovative strategies and collaborative efforts that have marked the 15 00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:55,600 evolution of this field. But in the highlight of our discussion, and indeed the topic of monumental 16 00:01:55,600 --> 00:02:03,760 significance, is the ambitious goal of bringing helium-3 down from the moon to enable large-scale 17 00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:13,000 fusion energy commercialization. This audacious plan isn't just about sourcing fuel. It's about 18 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:19,720 unlocking a realm of possibilities for energy production that could lead to unprecedented 19 00:02:19,720 --> 00:02:28,480 levels of sustainability and efficiency. In an era where the creators of destructive technologies 20 00:02:28,480 --> 00:02:37,000 are often immortalized in Oscar-winning films, despite later remorse, true heroes like Dr. Kulsinski 21 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:44,960 walk among us. Dr. Kulsinski has devoted his exceptional talent and energy not to the instruments 22 00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:51,840 of conflict, but to the pursuit of peace and sustainability when presented with the same choices. 23 00:02:51,840 --> 00:03:00,880 Join us as we delve into the mechanics of fusion energy, the international collaboration shaping 24 00:03:00,880 --> 00:03:08,840 its future, and the bold steps being taken towards harvesting extraterrestrial resources. 25 00:03:08,840 --> 00:03:17,480 Dr. Kulsinski enlightens us on the technical and logistical challenges involved in lunar mining, 26 00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:26,480 the potential applications of helium-3 beyond just energy production, including medical and 27 00:03:26,480 --> 00:03:36,600 industrial uses, and the broader implications of all of this for humanity's future. Prepare to be 28 00:03:36,600 --> 00:03:45,920 inspired, informed, and invigorated by a conversation that spans the gamut from atomic particles to 29 00:03:45,920 --> 00:03:55,760 lunar landscapes and from current realities to future possibilities. Here's Dr. Gerald Kulsinski. 30 00:03:55,760 --> 00:04:08,440 Dr. Kulsinski, thank you so much for doing this. We have a lot of people asking questions and 31 00:04:08,440 --> 00:04:14,800 stories about fusion energy and the history of fusion energy and where we think fusion energy is 32 00:04:14,800 --> 00:04:25,000 going. So any insight you can give us, we're very grateful. What inspired you to start your 33 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:34,040 career in nuclear engineering? Well, I got my degrees and masters and PhD in nuclear engineering, 34 00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:41,640 so that was a pretty easy step. I worked a little bit, of course, as you know, at Los Alamos on 35 00:04:41,640 --> 00:04:48,880 nuclear rockets. But when I went to Hanford, which is a facility in the state of Washington, 36 00:04:48,880 --> 00:04:57,240 I was working more with the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons and other needs. 37 00:04:57,240 --> 00:05:06,440 And we worked a lot with the Hanford nuclear reactors, which were built during World War II, 38 00:05:06,440 --> 00:05:19,480 as you know, that's where the plutonium was made to be used in the bombs that they used in World War 39 00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:30,360 II at the end, of course. But they got to a point when we started to think about fusion in the late 40 00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:38,880 1960s, we could make plutonium a lot faster with fusion neutrons than we could with fission neutrons, 41 00:05:38,880 --> 00:05:45,120 and I won't get into the details of that. But we were very seriously thinking about replacing the 42 00:05:45,120 --> 00:05:52,320 three or four operating units at Hanford, fission units with fusion units, so we could produce 43 00:05:52,320 --> 00:06:00,320 plutonium faster, but using fusion to do that. And the key, of course, was using 14 of the neutrons. 44 00:06:00,320 --> 00:06:12,800 So that's what got us into the fusion side of the house. I left Hanford in 1971, I think it was, 45 00:06:12,800 --> 00:06:22,640 yeah, 71. And when I came to the University of Wisconsin, I was in charge of the Fusion Technology 46 00:06:22,640 --> 00:06:30,240 Institute, which is different than the fusion physics side. The physics side is where most of 47 00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:38,880 the effort had been, both in the United States and at that time, Russia was the lead organization, 48 00:06:38,880 --> 00:06:48,400 along with the United States. So we had some very close relationships with the Russians. 49 00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:58,560 And when I got to Wisconsin, we started to look at the engineering side of fusion reactors, 50 00:06:58,560 --> 00:07:06,080 not the physics. We were assuming the physics would work, and then we had to translate that 51 00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:13,840 into an engineering system that was both reliable and made economic sense. 52 00:07:17,520 --> 00:07:24,320 And that engineering system, was that TOKAMAC based? 53 00:07:25,520 --> 00:07:35,040 Well, at that time it was. As you know, the fusion community has gone through several 54 00:07:35,040 --> 00:07:42,720 configurations. Stellarators, which was one of the early approaches from Princeton, 55 00:07:43,360 --> 00:07:50,720 and then Los Alamos did a lot of work in linear systems and pulse systems. 56 00:07:51,520 --> 00:07:59,520 Los Livermore did a lot of work in inertial confinement fusion, but of course, that was more 57 00:07:59,520 --> 00:08:09,040 weapons related because that's how a nuclear weapon would work. So we had a lot of 58 00:08:11,200 --> 00:08:18,720 projects that we actually ended up designing, or were partners in the design of over 50 59 00:08:18,720 --> 00:08:28,880 nuclear fusion power plants when I came to Wisconsin. That effort in nuclear fusion 60 00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:34,640 engineering has sort of gone by the wayside now, and most of the effort is still put into the 61 00:08:34,640 --> 00:08:42,480 plasma physics side of the house. But you're never going to make a system that's economical 62 00:08:42,480 --> 00:08:49,680 without having an engineering that works. The physics is one thing, but the engineering is where you make your money. 63 00:08:50,560 --> 00:08:57,680 That's definitely the big frontier now. I feel like more and more people recognize that. 64 00:08:58,480 --> 00:09:04,720 When we talk about fusion energy commercialization, a lot of the conversation is around 65 00:09:04,720 --> 00:09:12,720 materials and engineering. I think we need to figure those two things out. 66 00:09:13,600 --> 00:09:21,040 How did you even hear about nuclear engineering? Did you know about it when you were 14? Did your parents tell you? 67 00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:28,640 No, actually I found out about it when I was a chemical engineer at the University of Wisconsin 68 00:09:28,640 --> 00:09:41,840 as an undergraduate. We built a fission system in the confines of the engineering campus 69 00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:53,920 in the early 1960s. That's how I got into the nuclear side of the house. 70 00:09:53,920 --> 00:10:02,480 My undergraduate training was in chemical engineering, and we have a very strong program in Wisconsin at that time. 71 00:10:02,480 --> 00:10:08,960 It was an easy transfer from chemical engineering to nuclear. 72 00:10:08,960 --> 00:10:15,120 I think I was the second person to graduate from the nuclear engineering program advanced degrees. 73 00:10:15,120 --> 00:10:19,520 I got in on the ground floor, you might say. 74 00:10:19,520 --> 00:10:31,200 Is nuclear energy, when we talk about the nuclear rocket program, is that for ignition or thrust or sustainable? 75 00:10:31,200 --> 00:10:38,960 At what stage of the rocket would something like that be used? Is it fusion or fission? 76 00:10:38,960 --> 00:10:52,480 The nuclear rockets originally were fission. What they did was take liquid hydrogen, 77 00:10:52,480 --> 00:10:59,920 which is down around a few degrees Kelvin, pass it through a graphite core that had uranium or 78 00:10:59,920 --> 00:11:07,920 plutonium in it, and it would heat it up to about 2,000 degrees Kelvin. The exhaust from the rocket 79 00:11:07,920 --> 00:11:18,800 would push the rocket much faster than you could push it with chemical approaches in rocketry. 80 00:11:18,800 --> 00:11:23,040 They were trying to cut down the time it would take to get from the Earth to Mars. 81 00:11:25,440 --> 00:11:33,120 The fusion systems at that time would probably get you to Mars two or three times faster 82 00:11:33,120 --> 00:11:42,480 than chemical systems would. Can we build fusion generators now for this? Would they be clean? 83 00:11:42,480 --> 00:11:46,720 How do you harness the radiation from such a reaction? 84 00:11:48,720 --> 00:11:55,040 Well, it depends on how you design it, obviously. The original design 85 00:11:55,040 --> 00:12:04,880 was never really put into operation. We actually ran reactors in the Nevada desert 86 00:12:05,440 --> 00:12:14,480 to go to Mars and back, but we never actually did it, of course, with a nuclear rocket. 87 00:12:14,480 --> 00:12:23,520 We were using chemical rockets at the time. Now, if you want to do it by 88 00:12:23,520 --> 00:12:33,120 converting fusion energy to electricity and then using the electricity to exhaust the propellant, 89 00:12:33,120 --> 00:12:40,800 that's another way of getting to someplace faster than you can with chemical systems. 90 00:12:40,800 --> 00:12:50,480 So nuclear was really meant in that regard to replace chemical rockets, but of course, 91 00:12:50,480 --> 00:12:58,240 nowadays we've got the chemical rockets that get us to the Moon and back, and some 92 00:13:00,240 --> 00:13:06,000 programs that get us to Mars and back, but not much more than that. 93 00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:15,440 Cool. Switching gears a little bit, I'd love to know the story of ITER. You hear things about how 94 00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:22,960 during the Cold War, there was a full-blown communications breakdown between us and the 95 00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:32,400 Russians. They decided that in order to keep the relationship, the doors open for communication, 96 00:13:32,400 --> 00:13:39,360 they would work on just one project together, and that was the ITER project. I know that you were 97 00:13:39,360 --> 00:13:45,600 there on day one. What did that look like? What were those conversations like? 98 00:13:45,600 --> 00:13:52,640 Well, there are two tracks here. One track is the scientist to scientist, and that worked out pretty 99 00:13:52,640 --> 00:13:59,680 well. The political side is a little beyond my pay grade, so I'm not sure I would be a good person 100 00:13:59,680 --> 00:14:07,600 to give you that side, but the scientific side, we worked very closely with the scientists. 101 00:14:07,600 --> 00:14:13,760 The scientific side, we worked very closely with the Russians. Now, the Russians had a very strong program at that time. 102 00:14:13,760 --> 00:14:21,280 They don't now. They've slipped to third or fourth in the world, but they were up near the top, and they 103 00:14:21,280 --> 00:14:30,000 declassified their work and fusion very early in the game. They were the ones, obviously, that invented 104 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:38,640 the tokamak, and the tokamak actually was the survivor of a bunch of different designs that 105 00:14:38,640 --> 00:14:50,000 we had worked on in the United States, and then we could talk in a lot of detail with the Russians, 106 00:14:50,560 --> 00:14:58,880 had good friendships with the Russians, and I traveled to Russia several times. 107 00:14:58,880 --> 00:15:06,240 We had some Russians that came to Wisconsin, and we were working on the same programs. 108 00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:17,360 We don't anymore. That's all gone by the road now, but in those days, and well, actually, 109 00:15:17,360 --> 00:15:27,600 probably in the 1970s, is where it really, really flowered a lot, 70s and 80s, and that was the 110 00:15:27,600 --> 00:15:37,040 beginning of ITER. Now, that turned into a political thing, because the collaboration 111 00:15:37,040 --> 00:15:46,800 between the United States and Russia was very good, and that was a good way to have good relations 112 00:15:46,800 --> 00:15:57,040 with someone who we were antagonistic at times with. So, we worked together, and the site that we 113 00:15:57,040 --> 00:16:09,600 worked at was Vienna, and it was under the auspices of the United Nations, and that's in the 70s, 114 00:16:10,400 --> 00:16:20,560 was where we had meetings with the Russians. The Russians, Europeans, Japanese, and the United 115 00:16:20,560 --> 00:16:29,680 States were the four groups that worked on the initial design of ITER. It was called INTOR, 116 00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:35,360 was the name, but it evolved into ITER later on. 117 00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:45,760 Nice. I like INTOR. It sounds like a robot. When you say we don't anymore, 118 00:16:45,760 --> 00:16:55,360 the US and Russia are still part of the 35 or 36 ITER countries. We just don't actively do projects 119 00:16:55,360 --> 00:17:03,760 anymore together, is what you mean. Yeah, the transfer of information is not anywhere close to 120 00:17:03,760 --> 00:17:11,360 what it was in the 70s when we were really serious about building ITER. We were going to build ITER 121 00:17:11,360 --> 00:17:20,960 by the turn of the century, and INTOR was the first design. There were 16 people who spent, 122 00:17:20,960 --> 00:17:27,600 oh, I guess we spent a month or two together in Vienna designing the system, made a lot of progress, 123 00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:34,480 made a lot of friends, and the scientific transfer in those days was very good. 124 00:17:34,480 --> 00:17:37,760 Now it's not so good. It was very good then. 125 00:17:37,760 --> 00:17:46,320 Wow. Was that before or after you were the director of the Fusion Energy Technology Institute? 126 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:51,360 It was coincident at the same time. Okay, very cool. 127 00:17:51,360 --> 00:17:59,200 Because when I moved from Hanford, I moved out of the fission side of the house to the fusion side 128 00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:08,480 of the house. We had one of the strongest programs, if not the strongest in the world, 129 00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:19,280 in fusion engineering. We also had physics, a lot of physics people who worked on fusion, but 130 00:18:19,280 --> 00:18:29,200 the engineering side was really put into play in the 70s and 80s. 131 00:18:32,400 --> 00:18:44,560 Wow, interesting. Would you say in terms of physics for fusion energy, all of the key 132 00:18:44,560 --> 00:18:52,480 components have been proved out? Is it really just a matter of engineering now or are there any 133 00:18:53,520 --> 00:19:10,960 outstanding physics? How would you say that? Are there anything that have remained theories 134 00:19:10,960 --> 00:19:18,400 and not been proved out? I know that we haven't had a sustained plasma field for a long period 135 00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:25,280 of time, but is there anything in the baseline physics itself that stops you from doing that? 136 00:19:25,280 --> 00:19:31,120 Or it's just possible if you throw more at it? Well, it depends on what you use for fuel. 137 00:19:31,840 --> 00:19:39,760 The original physics work on fusion was done with deuterium and tritium, and that stems all 138 00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:48,400 the way back to World War II because a lot of that came out of that program. We didn't 139 00:19:49,600 --> 00:19:54,800 design systems in World War II for making electricity. We were designing things to end the 140 00:19:54,800 --> 00:20:05,520 war. So the biggest difference there is the energy of the neutrons. Now we know a lot about 141 00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:12,800 radiation damage from low-energy neutrons, the lowest, I mean million electron volts. 142 00:20:13,360 --> 00:20:22,480 When you get to fusion, the neutrons are in the 14 MeV million electron volts, and the reaction 143 00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:31,200 with the neutrons and the metallic structures of the power plants is quite different than it is 144 00:20:31,200 --> 00:20:39,280 in fission. It's not just a factor of seven or eight, which would be 14 over 2 MeV. 145 00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:49,920 There's a major difference in the physics of what goes on with a 14 MeV neutron than what goes on 146 00:20:49,920 --> 00:20:57,600 with a fission neutron, and the biggest difference is with 14 MeV neutrons, you produce a lot of N 147 00:20:57,600 --> 00:21:10,480 alpha reactions. That means neutron helium atom reactions, and helium is a bad actor in this sense 148 00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:17,280 because it goes to the grain boundaries and makes the material very, very brittle. You get a lot more 149 00:21:18,640 --> 00:21:27,280 helium production in a fusion reactor with DT than you do with a fission reactor using uranium 150 00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:33,760 or plutonium, and that's the biggest difference, and we have not solved that problem. We thought 151 00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:39,600 we were going to solve it early if we had built some test reactors. We never did build them, 152 00:21:40,320 --> 00:21:48,240 and so that's still an uncharted area. We know that there's going to be a real problem with 153 00:21:48,240 --> 00:21:55,040 deuterium and tritium, but people are, most of the money and the investment is going into the 154 00:21:55,040 --> 00:22:01,040 plasma physics side of the house, and that determines whether you end up with a toroidal 155 00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:11,040 system or a linear system or a pulse system versus steady state and so forth. So 99% or so of the 156 00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:17,760 money that's invested in fusion is invested in the physics side of the house, and they're not, 157 00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:25,040 they haven't solved those problems. They're getting close, getting close, but once they 158 00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:30,560 solve those problems, they still have to get over the engineering hurdle, and that really, 159 00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:39,280 if they use deuterium and tritium, is going to be a big hurdle because what we know about the 160 00:22:39,280 --> 00:22:47,520 reaction of 14 MeV neutrons versus two and a half MeV neutrons is there's a big difference 161 00:22:47,520 --> 00:22:54,960 in the lifetime of metallic structures that get bombarded. Now that also gives you 162 00:22:56,560 --> 00:23:01,680 radioactivity, but that's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is keeping the material so it 163 00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:08,000 doesn't become brittle, and 14 MeV neutrons are a bad actor with respect to that. 164 00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:17,280 Right. I was talking to somebody on the Eater podcast or Eater Communications team yesterday, 165 00:23:17,280 --> 00:23:22,720 and they wanted to know my thoughts on a neutronic fusion fuels. And I think 166 00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:30,720 one of the things that we've talked about and we like vehemently agreed on it was that for fusion to 167 00:23:30,720 --> 00:23:37,680 be commercially viable, like meaning if you're going to build 1000 generators over the next 168 00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:45,920 50 years or so, it would have to be a new tronic, there's just no other way to go about it. So do 169 00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:56,320 you think some of these challenges, definitely the engineering, but then is the physics challenge also 170 00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:07,280 something we have an answer for with a neutronic fuels? I know that a neutronic fuel 171 00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:11,200 fuels automatically make the engineering aspects easier. 172 00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:23,760 Well, that's true, but it's also harder to make the reactions take place. If you go from DT, 173 00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:32,800 deuterium tritium, to say D helium-3, it's three times harder to make that reaction go. And it 174 00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:41,360 might even require a different configuration than a tokamak toroidal system. But right now, 175 00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:50,720 that's one of the biggest things. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is the helium-3, 176 00:24:50,720 --> 00:25:03,840 helium-3 reaction, which has no neutrons. And that's the program that we were enthusiastic about 177 00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:12,560 once we discovered, or we not we, but the Apollo program discovered the million metric tons of 178 00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:19,840 helium-3 sitting on the moon. Prior to that, people knew about the reaction of deuterium 179 00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:24,640 helium-3, but the answer always was, well, you're not going to do anything with a few 180 00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:32,640 tens of kilograms. And the real breakthrough came through in 1986, when we put two and two together 181 00:25:33,360 --> 00:25:41,040 between the Apollo program and the fusion program. And that story is a very interesting one. 182 00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:51,040 We had, in that time period, President Reagan had a program called the SDI program. They were going 183 00:25:51,040 --> 00:26:01,120 to try to shoot down missiles carrying nuclear weapons with an X-ray laser, and they needed 184 00:26:01,120 --> 00:26:12,000 power for the X-ray laser. And we designed for the Air Force a 30 megawatt system electric that used 185 00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:21,600 de-helium-3. And we had enough helium-3 to do that, because a war would only last perhaps a few hours 186 00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:32,400 or a few days, but not enough helium-3 for the production of electricity. And so, after we 187 00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:41,040 designed it for the Air Force, we said, well, it's not our job to do the military side. It's our job 188 00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:50,240 to try to help society, ours meaning the University of Wisconsin. And so I took the group off campus 189 00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:59,440 for about two weeks. We went to a motel outside of Madison, and we tried to figure out where we 190 00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:09,600 could get enough helium-3 to use helium-3 as a fusion fuel. And we spent a week to two weeks 191 00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:16,640 going down a lot of blind alleys until two of our people came up with the idea that, well, the sun 192 00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:26,240 makes a lot of helium-3, and where does it go? Well, any place the solar wind would blow 193 00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:36,160 on our solar system would be affected if the body that they were transported into either had a 194 00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:43,040 magnetic field or an atmosphere, because the magnetic field would cause the helium-3 to be 195 00:27:43,040 --> 00:28:00,080 moved outside the planet, and the systems would be with a gas environment. Couldn't penetrate that. 196 00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:06,400 So people would always say, well, helium-3 is interesting, and you don't make as many neutrons, 197 00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:12,800 and you don't make as many neutrons, or if you go to helium-3, helium-3, you make none. But there's not 198 00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:19,600 enough helium-3 to make any difference, because helium-3 comes from the decay of tritium, and 199 00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:29,440 tritium is basically man-made, as you know. So that was really how we got the tie-in between the 200 00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:38,720 lunar helium-3 reserves, which are about a million metric tons of helium-3, well documented from the 201 00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:46,160 Apollo and the Russian programs. And now the Chinese are moving very fast in that area, 202 00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:53,120 too. They've landed in the high helium-3 concentrations on the moon. They don't advertise 203 00:28:53,120 --> 00:29:00,640 it very much, but we're in a race with the Chinese. Right, it's become quite the global thing. 204 00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:09,120 I was reading a story, I think, like yesterday, where they discovered rust on the moon, and 205 00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:16,960 in order for that kind of oxidation, there needed to be oxygen, and there's obviously no oxygen. 206 00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:25,360 So apparently they found out that every time there's a lineup where the Earth is right 207 00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:33,360 between the Sun and the moon, the solar radiation from the Sun kind of pushes oxygen past the 208 00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:39,360 magnetic field of the Earth, and there's a little bit of oxygen that gets on the moon. And so, 209 00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:44,960 you know, it just kind of blows on there and stays on there. So it's kind of interesting. 210 00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:52,560 Well, there is a lot of oxygen on the moon, but it's tied up chemically, so it's hard to get it. 211 00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:55,520 Free oxygen is hard to get. 212 00:29:55,520 --> 00:30:06,720 Breathable free oxygen, gotcha. But is it possible to then make with what's there? 213 00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:11,200 Can we convert what's there to breathable oxygen and create an atmosphere? 214 00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:15,920 Sure, sure, sure. 215 00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:18,000 Maybe can we send robots to do that? 216 00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:30,640 Oh, sure. I mean, the first application of lunar resources will be for life support, 217 00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:42,880 and you'll use the solar energy to extract solar wind volatiles, nitrogen, hydrogen, 218 00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:48,880 and oxygen and others from the lunar regolith. And there's a lot of hydrogen and a lot of oxygen, 219 00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:57,200 some nitrogen, and that will support life support on the moon, because you know it's very expensive 220 00:30:57,200 --> 00:31:00,880 to send food to the moon. 221 00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:10,320 Right. Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating stuff. I was watching a documentary on Netflix on how the 222 00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:16,880 JWST telescope was sent up in a couple of pieces, and there were robots that kind of brought 223 00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:24,000 themselves together and created it. And I was just, it inspired me to do the same thing with the 224 00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:33,600 fusion energy generator. I know we've kind of talked about that before, but how would we, 225 00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:40,960 I mean, if there were ways like, you know, space elevators, you know, rail magnets to throw it up 226 00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:48,640 there or rocket boosters to get it up there, what would a fusion energy generator on the moon then 227 00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:56,160 look like? Can it really just, could it process what's already there, generate the electricity, 228 00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:03,360 make us some water, make us some oxygen, grow some plant, like power the robots to grow us some 229 00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:05,680 plants and do that? 230 00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:17,360 Well, the answer to that is yes, but of course, it's not as easy as it sounds. And the early 231 00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:26,480 applications for technology on the moon is going to be to extract the oxygen, hydrogen, 232 00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:36,320 and other minerals that you need for life support. And that'll happen quickly. I would expect in the 233 00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:43,600 next five to 10 years, we will have units on the moon, we, meaning the world, not necessarily the 234 00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:53,120 United States, will be able to extract the elements that you need for life support. 235 00:32:54,000 --> 00:33:00,880 That same technology can be used to extract the helium-3, but you have to do it at a bigger scale. 236 00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:08,560 And so we've been doing experiments here on the earth to see how we could get the 237 00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:16,960 helium-3 out of the regolith, the very fine powder on the moon. And we found that agitation 238 00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:26,480 can do it very well. So it reduces the energy required to get the helium-3 out of the 239 00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:34,160 regolith. It's not zero, but it's better than thermal energy. But the thermal energy can be 240 00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:40,960 used to get the components that you need for life support. And that'll be the first application. 241 00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:48,800 Once they do that, then they will be able to have a lot of people on the moon have their own 242 00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:57,840 food growing and so forth. And then that technology can be used to start extracting the helium-3. 243 00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:06,480 Would we put them in canisters and send them back, or is there a way to send it in a solid form and 244 00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:11,120 we just, you know, we do the process down here? Which one would happen? 245 00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:16,880 No, they would do it on the moon. You'd do it on the moon and send the gas down? 246 00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:21,680 Well, you wouldn't send the gas down. You'd use it on the moon. 247 00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:32,160 And of course, you'd get a lot of helium-4, of course, and that'd be great for propulsion. 248 00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:42,880 And the moon would be a very good place to stop before you go into Mars. And so you wouldn't have 249 00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:52,400 to send things from the earth directly to Mars. You'd send a rocket to the moon, pick up your 250 00:34:53,360 --> 00:35:02,720 material that you need for propulsion, and fusion propulsion will get you to the Mars very quickly. 251 00:35:02,720 --> 00:35:12,880 So it'll be a two-stage process. Food first, energy second. 252 00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:21,200 Very cool. Very cool. So the moon is just like a gas station. It's like we're going to turn it into 253 00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:23,040 a big gas station. Yeah. 254 00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:29,920 It's gigantic. Wonderful. I think I'm selfishly thinking about it from like a fusion energy 255 00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:35,120 perspective on how we would be able to get that helium-3 down to earth. 256 00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:39,360 But you're saying... That wouldn't be a problem. 257 00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:48,160 That wouldn't be a problem, getting it down, because you'd be sending rockets going up, 258 00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:56,800 carrying a lot more than carrying back the helium-3. And you would drop it off at satellites 259 00:35:56,800 --> 00:36:04,800 around the earth and then come down from the satellite. So once you extract it, 260 00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:08,480 getting it back to the earth is not going to be a big problem. 261 00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:13,840 Oh, right. If you figured that out, this would be easier. That makes sense. 262 00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:22,400 You know, by the way, the helium-3 on the earth right now is worth about $4 billion a ton. 263 00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:28,560 $4 billion. Yeah, because it's a gas. So a ton would be a gigantic amount. We tried to... 264 00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:37,760 We wanted to do some experiments with UCI, and we wanted to buy helium, and we were looking around. 265 00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:44,240 And we saw that we could buy canisters from like a French company. And one tiny canister 266 00:36:44,240 --> 00:36:52,160 was about $30,000. And we would have used that in our experiment. It would have taken us about 267 00:36:52,720 --> 00:37:02,560 a millisecond for that entire amount to be gone. And so... And we saw that even though it was a 268 00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:07,280 French company, it said the source was Russian. So I think that... 269 00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:09,680 Yeah. 270 00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:19,440 Yeah. Is it from tritium capture that they're letting it decay for 12 years? 271 00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:23,200 Well, they're not letting it decay. Tritium... 272 00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:25,360 Unless they're just capturing it. 273 00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:33,520 Tritium decays with a 12.3-year half-life. And tritium, of course, is a major component of 274 00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:41,680 the hydrogen bombs. And the Russians make a lot of that. But they can't stop the tritium from 275 00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:49,760 being converted into helium-3. And so I think the... And I don't know the details, but I think the 276 00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:56,400 French are actually getting the helium-3 from the Russians, buying it and then selling it at a larger 277 00:37:56,400 --> 00:38:05,120 price around the world. And where our helium-3 would come from... And by the way, we have a 278 00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:10,480 neighbor north of us who makes a lot of helium-3. And their can-do reactor. 279 00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:20,000 I think there is a percentage of power plants that have the tritium capture systems, and then 280 00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:26,320 there are the older generation ones that don't. I mean, why am I... You would know better than I do, but 281 00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:36,960 I'm just... When you look at the numbers of fission generators being built in Russia, China versus 282 00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:45,920 Canada and the US, if I put tritium capture systems on all of the new generators I was building, 283 00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:51,440 then I would think that China and Russia would have a surplus of it, just as waste from their 284 00:38:52,720 --> 00:38:59,520 fission systems. But I wouldn't know. Well, it depends whether they're using deuterium 285 00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:09,760 at moderator. And the can-do reactors use deuterium. And our... The United States reactors, 286 00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:17,360 it comes from the making of tritium in the fission system. And you don't make a lot. 287 00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:24,720 You make some, and of course it's stable. So once you make it and if you extract it, it'll sit there. 288 00:39:25,760 --> 00:39:36,160 It won't go away. But there is... The demand for helium-3 is only in a few kilograms per year 289 00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:42,240 a level. And that doesn't last you very long in the power plant. 290 00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:49,680 Right. None of this is sustainable for fusion energy, large-scale commercialization. The only 291 00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:54,720 way to do it is go to the moon, but it's possible. Yeah. That's what the reserve is. 292 00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:04,320 I feel like there will be a convergence of the two technologies in terms of when fusion energy 293 00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:10,240 generators have passed the research stages and gotten to the point where helium-3 is useful, 294 00:40:10,240 --> 00:40:18,400 then the helium-3 will be available. Anyway, so just moving on, I guess. 295 00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:31,680 You've worked in a lot of countries, Dr. Kulsinski. What are the top four countries, 296 00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:42,160 do you think, will have the first fusion energy commercialization? Is Germany ahead of China? 297 00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:51,280 No. That's an interesting question because it depends on what timeframe you're talking about. 298 00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:58,960 If you were talking about 20 or 30 years ago, it was the United States and Russia. If you're 299 00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:08,320 talking about today, it's China and we're number two. That causes a lot of debate, of course, but 300 00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:20,000 we're maybe at best tied with the Chinese. The Russians have dropped down to third or fourth. 301 00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:30,160 That's Korea and Japan are probably passing up Russia right now. The Russians have really dropped 302 00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:40,160 out of the main picture. The Chinese are taking it over. There's a big difference, but now what 303 00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:53,120 a decision the standard will be 10, 20, 30 years from now is things that people can speculate on, 304 00:41:53,120 --> 00:42:02,080 but we don't know. It depends on a lot of things. Right now, the Chinese are vying for number one. 305 00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:15,040 I think I feel like I have faith in some of the commercial endeavors in America and I feel like 306 00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:22,640 it'll be a SpaceX situation where I feel like America will win. Maybe that's because I'm an 307 00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:34,560 American, so maybe it's more hopeful. Other than it's harder to fuse, but the physics has been 308 00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:41,200 proved out, in less than a decade, we'll be able to fetch the helium-3 from the moon. What are some 309 00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:55,200 of the other things then that are technological stop gaps for achieving a steady state helium-3 310 00:42:55,200 --> 00:43:04,560 aneutronic fusion? Well, there are lots of alternate applications. 311 00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:14,400 One, not necessarily the top one, but one that you might want to consider is using the helium-3 to 312 00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:21,200 make 14 MeV protons, which can burn up the fission waste that we're burying in the ground right now. 313 00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:31,360 That doesn't really contribute a lot to the business world, but it certainly would solve 314 00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:38,160 a problem of getting rid of nuclear waste. Is that nuclear transmutation? 315 00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:49,520 Yes. To make a cheap source of 14 MeV protons, not neutrons. That's one thing, but it's probably not 316 00:43:49,520 --> 00:44:00,080 a commercial thing, but it has a big impact on society. What would we be using those protons for? 317 00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:05,600 Is it possible to have some sort of direct energy conversion connect to that? 318 00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:07,680 No. Is that what we're going? 319 00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:18,800 Well, the 14 MeV protons, if you bombard a long-lived radioactive material, you can 320 00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:25,120 change it to a very short-lived radioactive material and it'll go away, depending on the 321 00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:34,000 half-life, of course. But some things that we're burying right now have a half-life in the thousands 322 00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:44,400 to an even longer time, a time half-life, thousands of years, and then they're going to be around for 323 00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:54,800 a lot longer than we are. So if you can convert them to very short-lived half-life materials, 324 00:44:54,800 --> 00:45:01,440 that have half-lives on the order of a year or so, then it'll go away in about 10 years. 325 00:45:02,560 --> 00:45:10,720 So that would be one application. The other is you can use it to make very short 326 00:45:12,240 --> 00:45:22,480 time-scale half-life materials for medical use. There's a process now that people can detect 327 00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:30,240 whether somebody is going to go into an epileptic fit on an operating table, but it requires oxygen 328 00:45:30,240 --> 00:45:37,920 15, which has a two-minute half-life. And two-minute half-life is something you can't make and transport 329 00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:43,200 very much because it goes away too quick. But if you made it in the next room to the operating table 330 00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:50,960 and piped it in and combined it with a certain molecule, they can get a forewarning of when 331 00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:55,680 somebody is going to go into an epileptic fit on the operating table, and of course they can be 332 00:45:55,680 --> 00:46:04,080 prepared for it. Now, that's probably, I don't know about the economics of that, but the social impact 333 00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:11,120 of that is pretty substantial because they can't do that now. So that's another use. 334 00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:19,440 Right. So there will be multiple, multiple uses for everything fusion, eventually. 335 00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:29,280 Yeah. Yeah, there will be. And I'm sure we haven't really more than scratched the surface of that 336 00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:36,800 because right now that's not what people are worried about. But if you had a fusion system 337 00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:45,840 operating on different fuels, anywhere from DT to DD to D-Elium-3 to P-BORN11, all the ones that we 338 00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:53,360 are considering, you can start thinking about the non-electrical producing systems which can affect 339 00:46:54,080 --> 00:47:00,080 the human society. That's down the road. Some of them could be very near-term. 340 00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:07,760 Some of them will take a lot longer. But there isn't much money going into that research right now. 341 00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:14,800 But there's money in other things, you know. I'm in the process of writing an article for just like 342 00:47:14,800 --> 00:47:22,880 a LinkedIn article on using fusion energy, how you would need fusion energy for something like 343 00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:29,840 cryptocurrency, how cryptocurrency, just the plans that people have, it's just not possible without 344 00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:36,800 fusion energy. The drain on the grid is too much. I think cryptocurrency last year used more energy 345 00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:47,920 than Idaho or something. So it's really just not sustainable. And even things like the advent of 346 00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:57,280 AI and quantum computing and just the energy that all of that takes, it requires, you know, 347 00:47:57,280 --> 00:48:08,880 I think it's almost not even possible to do at a sustainable scale if we don't figure out fusion. 348 00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:17,040 So there are a lot of lucrative things that fusion will bring about that would offset the social 349 00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:26,320 causes, so to speak. I think the use of space is another one where we have very long duration 350 00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:36,640 space trips and you're going to need diagnostics if somebody has a cancer or something in the years 351 00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:43,600 that they will be traveling from the earth to someplace else. And you can make those isotopes 352 00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:53,280 that can be combined with imaging systems to show whether you have abnormalities in the human 353 00:48:53,280 --> 00:49:00,480 person. But you know, I'm not sure that's an economic thing, but it certainly will keep 354 00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:08,640 people who have 10-year, 20-year travels much healthier. 355 00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:18,640 But they're not going to make any money out of that. I think it's just saving lives. 356 00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:27,920 Right. I mean, if one system can, is breeding the right word when we say, when we talk about these 357 00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:33,520 isotopes and elements we're going to make, when we create these systems to do them, 358 00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:42,240 is it possible to use fusion for more than one isotope, whether it be medical isotope, 359 00:49:42,240 --> 00:49:46,000 like so could we make deuterium, tritium, helium-3, helium-4, 360 00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:56,240 all with an inertial or magnetic confinement fusion energy unit, but it would be the one unit 361 00:49:56,240 --> 00:50:03,280 that makes all of them? Is that, is the physics? Yeah, that's right. That's right. Because it depends 362 00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:11,520 on what you bombard, it does things. One, what are you making to cause a nuclear change? Is it a 363 00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:22,960 neutron? Is it a gamma ray or some other form of radiation? And what is the half-life? And what is 364 00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:29,920 its chemical proclivity so that you can combine it with certain molecules that will give you a 365 00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:38,880 diagnostic? I mean, there's a whole medical area here that is untapped that would be, at least from 366 00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:47,040 a science standpoint, be very interesting. Economically, I can't really project that. 367 00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:55,200 I mean, if it's, if we can make a system where we can breed things like tritium, and tritium is 368 00:50:56,640 --> 00:51:03,920 incredibly expensive, and so is deuterium, if we can build a system that can do 10 different isotopes, 369 00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:09,920 then it would automatically be commercially viable, I would think. I mean, if we make a, 370 00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:16,960 if you make two things that the pharma and the DOD industry can use, then you can make eight things 371 00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:26,320 at a loss and still come up with a profit at the end of the day. Well, I mean, we talk about making 372 00:51:26,320 --> 00:51:37,040 industrial heating units. I've been kind of beating down the idea of using fusion energy industrial 373 00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:43,040 heat for liquid fuel manufacturing, steel manufacturing, and cement manufacturing. 374 00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:52,560 And we recently spoke with a company that wants to make, wants to make jet fuel with biomass. And 375 00:51:52,560 --> 00:51:59,920 all of that requires you to have heat of above a thousand, thousand two hundred degrees centigrade. 376 00:51:59,920 --> 00:52:05,520 And we could use fusion generators to do that. I also spoke to a company that reached out, 377 00:52:05,520 --> 00:52:12,480 they're a fission company, but they reached out and they said that they could make us our heat 378 00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:19,840 extraction unit for our fusion energy generator at Kronos for that industrial heating purposes. 379 00:52:19,840 --> 00:52:25,120 So that was 10% of something that I thought I would need to do that I don't have to do anymore. 380 00:52:25,120 --> 00:52:32,240 So I'm very happy about that. We just like outsource that component. But, but we've had a lot of 381 00:52:32,240 --> 00:52:42,320 conversations around hydrogen, hydro H2 production. And, but we, if we could have a clean heat source 382 00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:50,240 for it at a thousand two hundred degrees, we could power cars. Hydrogen is almost better and more 383 00:52:50,240 --> 00:52:57,040 sustainable for cars. So it was, it was just, there were just, these are all conversations in the ethos. 384 00:52:58,480 --> 00:53:08,240 Yeah. Well, and I'm sure we really haven't gotten very deep into this because people have been 99.9% 385 00:53:08,240 --> 00:53:15,600 focused on making electricity with fusion, but about 10 to 20 years ago, we started to think about 386 00:53:15,600 --> 00:53:23,920 near-term applications and we identified 36 near-term applications. But we don't have the 387 00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:35,040 bandwidth to cover them all. So, yeah, yeah. I think it's coming. I think we live in a time where 388 00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:45,120 we live in a time where, you know, we just have to do it. We just have to do it. There is no other, 389 00:53:45,120 --> 00:53:52,480 no other way out. And I think more and more people are recognizing that. And luckily for humanity, 390 00:53:52,480 --> 00:53:58,960 the science is lining up, meaning the work that folks like you have been doing for the last like 391 00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:08,880 50, 60 years without any proper vision of fruition, so to speak. I think all of that, 392 00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:15,520 there's like a culmination of all of that work right now. And I feel like there's funding available 393 00:54:15,520 --> 00:54:21,360 for it from new sources that didn't exist before. And by that, I mean the private equity and the 394 00:54:21,360 --> 00:54:29,120 venture capital world is taking a more serious look at fusion. So I feel like it's really going 395 00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:35,920 to happen. I'm hopeful, obviously, like that's my job. That's part of my job. But I feel from 396 00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:43,920 a very pragmatic perspective, the world recognizes that technologically, some of the larger things 397 00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:50,000 that we hope for in terms of space exploration or cryptocurrencies or any of these things, 398 00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:55,920 we need some large fuel sources and we cannot do it the same way that we've been doing it before. 399 00:54:56,880 --> 00:55:07,760 And from like a step back even, we feel like we've really been using fuels like this for 150 years. 400 00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:15,520 That's like a blip of time in humanity. So there's nothing we cannot fix. I feel like if 401 00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:24,800 the next two or three generations can build a proper foundation for fusion energy commercialization, 402 00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:36,720 then anything is possible. Anyway, I have two last questions. One is, what was the largest 403 00:55:36,720 --> 00:55:46,960 fusion energy challenge that you have ever seen? And how did you overcome it? Well, 404 00:55:49,520 --> 00:55:57,200 again, it falls into physics versus engineering, because they're quite different. But they're both, 405 00:55:57,200 --> 00:56:05,120 you have to solve both problems. Otherwise, it doesn't work. And I can only speak from the 406 00:56:05,120 --> 00:56:12,720 engineering side at this point. And the largest problem, of course, is how do you control 407 00:56:14,160 --> 00:56:20,560 the radiation damage and the large amount of radioactivity that you generate using deuterium 408 00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:31,040 tritium fuels? That's a big challenge. It's one that's not very well thought out yet by the 409 00:56:31,040 --> 00:56:37,280 community. But one way to get rid of that, of course, is to go to advanced fuels, 410 00:56:37,280 --> 00:56:43,280 aneutronic systems, or at least systems that have very small amounts of nutrients emitted. 411 00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:53,120 Because the neutrons cause radiation damage, which limits the life. And these designs for fusion 412 00:56:53,120 --> 00:56:59,760 reactors are so complex, but if you have to change out the structures in a fusion reactor, 413 00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:07,280 it's going to take you months, if not years, to do that. And you can't make any money out of that. 414 00:57:08,160 --> 00:57:16,320 The electricity production would not be economical. So radiation damage from 14 415 00:57:16,320 --> 00:57:25,520 MAV neutrons is probably the biggest issue from an engineering side. The handling of heat and 416 00:57:25,520 --> 00:57:35,200 electricity production and distribution are things that the fission community is pretty well fixed 417 00:57:35,200 --> 00:57:42,480 for us. And the fission community has also come up with pretty good regulations on radioactivity, 418 00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:52,800 what you can handle and what you can't. I remember in the 60s when I worked at Hanford, 419 00:57:52,800 --> 00:58:02,160 we had a 14 MAV neutron generator. And we had it inside a building that was about 100 yards from a 420 00:58:02,160 --> 00:58:11,600 road. Every time we turned it on, we had to close the road. Because the 14 MAV neutrons are right 421 00:58:11,600 --> 00:58:21,120 through the graphite moderator and out through the concrete walls and into the road. So, I mean, 422 00:58:21,120 --> 00:58:28,320 though it's not an easy problem to handle. And we can learn a lot from the fission community, 423 00:58:28,320 --> 00:58:38,080 because they've had some pretty good regulations. And so I think the key word here is A-neutronic. 424 00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:44,080 You're probably going to have to use deuterium tritium to get to break even and beyond. 425 00:58:44,080 --> 00:58:51,840 But beyond that, to make an economical fusion system, you're probably going to have to go to 426 00:58:51,840 --> 00:59:04,720 A-neutronic fusion. Yeah, I 100% agree. It's just not scalable otherwise. Were your parents scientists? 427 00:59:04,720 --> 00:59:19,120 No, no, they were not. They worked in the public sector, farmers as well, 428 00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:26,240 fishermen on the Mississippi River, commercial fishermen when that was a 429 00:59:27,920 --> 00:59:34,160 viable occupation. Nowadays, I don't think you could do it. But, yeah, I spent a lot of time 430 00:59:34,160 --> 00:59:42,880 as in my youth working with them on the rivers. And we used to drive cars across the Mississippi 431 00:59:42,880 --> 00:59:50,160 River in the winter. Wow, it freezes over that much? With water on both sides of us. 432 00:59:51,200 --> 01:00:00,160 And I tell you, I always used to stand on when cars had running boards. I always used to stand 433 01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:05,280 on the running board because I didn't want to be inside the car. And we only lost two cars. 434 01:00:07,520 --> 01:00:15,280 Just two. But people did that sort of stuff. So you could jump off easier. What's a running 435 01:00:15,280 --> 01:00:19,120 board? Is that the thing on the side that you would stand on? Never seen a running board. 436 01:00:20,880 --> 01:00:26,720 I don't know anything about cars. It might not be a tithing thing. Yeah, they don't have them 437 01:00:26,720 --> 01:00:35,440 anymore. But they had a little step on the door. And I used to stand on the running boards. And 438 01:00:37,600 --> 01:00:43,920 that's how we got across the river. But they were not scientists or 439 01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:55,920 educators. Although my children are in the education business and audiologists and so 440 01:00:55,920 --> 01:01:03,840 forth. But things change. Yeah, so that was going to be my last question. Like you, you are more 441 01:01:03,840 --> 01:01:12,720 than a researcher and a fusion energy pioneer. You're a teacher. How, how, what can we, 442 01:01:13,680 --> 01:01:21,200 to close this off, what can we say to the young people that need to get into this field? 443 01:01:21,200 --> 01:01:27,920 Because more than technology and physics and engineering, we need driven human beings 444 01:01:28,480 --> 01:01:34,720 who are willing to research this stuff and bring it to fruition. How do we get them to do it? 445 01:01:35,360 --> 01:01:43,840 Dr. Kulsinski. Well, you really hit the nail on the head there. Because what you need is young minds, 446 01:01:43,840 --> 01:01:56,320 they're not afraid to fail. And so you have to teach students not to be constrained by prior 447 01:01:58,400 --> 01:02:04,160 notifications from people that this can't be done. They need to be able to experiment and show why it 448 01:02:04,160 --> 01:02:11,200 can be done. And that's, that's one of the main things that we try to do for advanced students, 449 01:02:11,200 --> 01:02:19,120 is to get them to be thinking outside the box. And don't take even people who've been in the 450 01:02:19,120 --> 01:02:27,120 business for a long time, the advice that you can't do that. There's a lot of things that people 451 01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:35,360 have said you can't do that are economic today. So teaching students that is good. And students 452 01:02:35,360 --> 01:02:41,680 come up with all kinds of ideas. Most of them are a little bit out. But they're but at least 453 01:02:41,680 --> 01:02:52,320 they're thinking. I've had somewhere between 50 and 60 PhD students. And everyone was different. 454 01:02:52,320 --> 01:02:58,560 And everyone brought something different to the research side of the house. And everyone has got 455 01:02:58,560 --> 01:03:04,480 different jobs now. Some are generals in the army, some are directors of national laboratories, 456 01:03:04,480 --> 01:03:13,520 some are industrialists, some are making money making medical isotopes. They all have gone off 457 01:03:13,520 --> 01:03:20,000 in different directions. But the ones that are probably most successful are not the ones that 458 01:03:20,000 --> 01:03:27,040 had the highest grade point, but the ones who had a way to think about things in a different 459 01:03:27,040 --> 01:03:34,000 way than the previous generation and trying to teach people how to do that without hurting 460 01:03:34,000 --> 01:03:46,400 themselves is as is a big challenge for us all. Yeah, agreed. Anyway, thank you again for doing 461 01:03:46,400 --> 01:03:54,720 this. It was probably ask you another series of 20 to 30 questions and learn more about all of 462 01:03:54,720 --> 01:04:02,240 the work that you have done. I'm sure you've heard this a million times before. But, you know, 463 01:04:02,240 --> 01:04:07,360 we're all like, beyond grateful for all of the work that you guys have put in. 464 01:04:09,360 --> 01:04:14,640 We're going to see some financial incentives from it, if not my generation, the next generation, 465 01:04:14,640 --> 01:04:22,000 but it was really because of you guys that anything is even possible. And you worked hard at it when 466 01:04:22,000 --> 01:04:28,000 people said, don't do fusion, do fission, you said, no, I'm going to do fusion. When people said, 467 01:04:28,000 --> 01:04:33,200 do fission, it's more you'll make more money. You said, no, we should do fusion. So I'm very 468 01:04:33,200 --> 01:04:40,720 grateful for you sticking to this and laying the groundwork so we can all build on it. So thank 469 01:04:40,720 --> 01:04:53,600 you again. Dr. Kosinski. Thank you.