Nuclear fusion was supposed to be a dream come true.

As soon as we discovered that you could smash little atoms together to make bigger atoms

and release a bit of energy in the process, scientists around the world

realized the implications of this new bit of physics knowledge. Some wanted to turn it into

weapons, and some wanted to turn it into clean, efficient, nearly inexhaustible energy for

electricity, for our homes, for our businesses, for our spaceflight,

for everything. But it turns out that fusion power is hard, really hard, really complicated,

full of unexpected pitfalls and unrealized traps. We've been trying to build fusion generators

for three quarters of a century.

And in all honesty, as we'll see in this episode, we've made a lot of progress.

You know, not just a lot. That's not a big enough word. We've made enormous, groundbreaking,

horizon expanding progress. But we're not quite there yet. Fusion power has been one of those things

that's been only 20 years away for about 50 years now. But I'm not giving up on fusion power.

I'm actually very hopeful about this, and we're going to see why. Because the most frustrating slash enticing thing about fusion power, and that combination of

frustration and enticement, is very common in the sciences.

It's part of what keeps us up at night and gets us motivated in the morning.

The most frustrating slash enticing thing about fusion power

is that it's not impossible.

At least, there's no principle

or law of physics

that when you turn the crank on the equations

and you spit out the math,

...