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The Final Barrier to (Nearly) Infinite Energy

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February 13, 2025

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They say fusion is 50 years away, no matter when you ask. Then why are billions suddenly being pumped into fusion startups? Yes to train LLMs, but there's a reason the technobrats are bullish on fusion in particular. The fact is, the technological challenges have been chipped away and in many cases solved over the past decades, and there's really no one deal-breaker difficulty remaining. One of the final challenges is deciding on the physical vessel to contain our mini artificial stars--and we have some pretty sci-fi options that are nearly ready to go.

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Hosted by Matt O'Dowd

Written by Matt Caplan, Jake Mitstifer, & Matt O'Dowd

Post Production by Leonardo Scholzer, Yago Ballarini & Stephanie Faria

Directed by Andrew Kornhaber

Associate Producer: Bahar Gholipour

Executive Producer: Andrew Kornhaber

Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez

Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing

Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: John Campbell

Spacetime is a production of Kornhaber Brown for PBS Digital Studios.

This program is produced by Kornhaber Brown, which is solely responsible for its content.

© 2024 PBS. All rights reserved.

End Credits Music by J.R.S. Schattenberg

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PBS Member StationsSign UpSpace Time Discord CheckMatt O'Dowd WrittenMatt Caplan Jake MitstiferMatt O'Dowd Post ProductionLeonardo Scholzer Yago BallariniStephanie Faria Directed

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The Final Barrier to (Nearly) Infinite Energy · Pbs Space Time · Sentinel