Crazy Wisdom
Against the Current: Unorthodox Energy for an Accelerating World
- Robots & Atoms
- fusion energy
- physics research
- energy infrastructure
- startup funding
- plasma physics
Crazy Wisdom Show Notes
Episode Guest: Jonah Messinger, PhD student of physics at Cambridge and writer for The Breakthrough Institute (check out his article here)
Topics Covered
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Fusion Developments: Recent developments in the fusion sector. The last 3-4 years have seen significant investment in plasma-based fusion technology from private startups, amounting to around 5 billion dollars.
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Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR): An overview of LENR or cold fusion, a sector of nuclear physics that has been castigated for 30 years but is now undergoing a resurgence. Jonah is part of an MIT research team awarded an ARPA-E research grant in this field.
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Physics Fundamentals: Explanation of plasma-based fusion and how it differs from LENR. Discussion includes protons, neutrons, and electrons, the strong nuclear force, and the relationship between mass and energy.
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Controversies around Cold Fusion: Delving into why cold fusion is considered heretical, including its inconsistencies with conventional theories and unexpected reaction pathways. Jonah outlines why despite its challenges, it still holds potential.
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In-depth Look at Cold Fusion Experiments: Discussion on various cold fusion experiments, highlighting experiments with unambiguous results. Jonah recalls his entrance into the field after reading a Nature article in February 2022 and how it influenced his research.
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Radiation and Cold Fusion: Conversation about nuclear energy outputs with chemical inputs, the theoretical framework of LENR, and how one can potentially engineer nuclear pathways. A discussion on radiation types and the relative low radiation of cold fusion also unfolds.
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Quantum Coherence and Fusion: Exploration of the role of quantum coherence in LENR, with reference to a quote challenging traditional assumptions about nuclear interactions.
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Commercialization and Future of LENR: Discussing the potential future of LENR commercialization, using the transistor's history as an analogy. Jonah emphasizes the importance of more people and resources coming into the field for LENR's progress.
Additional References
- Jonah Messinger's article on The Breakthrough Institute: https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/fusion-runs-hot-and-cold
- Jonah Messinger's Twitter:
People Mentioned
Episode transcript
Welcome to the Crazy Wisdom Podcast. This podcast is for you. If you have an insane drive to find the truth of things, it's not the good answers that we seek, but the good questions. I interview a range of different guests from many different fields, all with the intention to uncover the simple truths that are hidden in plain sight. Most people don't want to go there. I go there, my guests go there, and you benefit. Please let me know if you enjoy these episodes and as always, subscribe on itunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to the podcasts.
Welcome to the Crazy Wisdom Podcast. My guest today is Jonah Messenger. He is a PhD student of Physics at Cambridge and he also writes for the Breakthrough Institute. And we are going to have a conversation about fusion and it's something I haven't talked about in a long time. Very interested to hear what are the latest developments. So what are the. Welcome to the show. How are you doing?
Yeah, I mean, so the fusion sector broadly is doing quite well. Raised like just over collectively. There's a huge private startup space now and they've raised and collectively over $5 billion now. And so that's plasma based fusion. And it's really sort of really taken off just in the last, I'd say like three, four years. I think like five, 10 years ago, the fusion industry was sort of nascent and now it's sort of gotten quite, quite big.
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