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Lex Fridman Podcast

#485 – David Kirtley: Nuclear Fusion, Plasma Physics, and the Future of Energy

11/17/20252 hr 45 min

David Kirtley is a nuclear fusion engineer and CEO of Helion Energy, a company working on building the world's first commercial fusion power plant by 2028. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep485-sc See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/david-kirtley-transcript CONTACT LEX: Feedback - give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey AMA - submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama Hiring - join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring Other - other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact EPISODE LINKS: David's X: https://x.com/dekirtley David's LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4qX0KXp Helion: https://www.helionenergy.com/ Helion's YouTube: https://youtube.com/HelionEnergy SPONSORS: To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: UPLIFT Desk: Standing desks and office ergonomics. Go to https://upliftdesk.com/lex Fin: AI agent for customer service. Go to https://fin.ai/lex Miro: Online collaborative whiteboard platform. Go to https://miro.com/ LMNT: Zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix. Go to https://drinkLMNT.com/lex BetterHelp: Online therapy and counseling. Go to https://betterhelp.com/lex Shopify: Sell stuff online. Go to https://shopify.com/lex OUTLINE: (00:00) - Introduction (03:00) - Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections (11:35) - Nuclear fission vs fusion (21:35) - Physics of E=mc^2 (26:50) - Is nuclear fusion safe? (32:11) - Chernobyl (38:38) - Geopolitics (40:33) - Extreme scenarios (47:28) - How nuclear fusion works (1:20:20) - Extreme temperatures (1:25:21) - Fusion control and simulation (1:37:15) - Electricity from fusion (2:11:20) - First fusion power plant in 2028 (2:18:13) - Energy needs of GPU clusters (2:28:38) - Kardashev scale (2:36:33) - Fermi Paradox PODCAST LINKS:

Clips

2028 Fusion Power Deadline
Fusion Can't Make Bombs
Meteor Strike Safety Test
Flip Field In Microsecond
Buying Pumps On eBay
Direct Powering Data Centers

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Lex Fridman· Host0:00

    The following is a conversation with David Kirtley, a nuclear engineer, expert on nuclear fusion, and the CEO of Helion Energy, a company working on building nuclear fusion reactors and have made incredible progress in a short period of time that make, uh, it seem possible, like we could actually get there as a civilization. This is exciting because nuclear fusion, if achieved commercially, would solve most of our energy needs in a clean, safe way, providing virtually unlimited clean electricity. The problem is that fusion is incredibly difficult to achieve. You need to heat hydrogen to over 100 million degrees Celsius and contain it long enough for atoms to fuse. That's why the joke in the past has been that fusion is 30 years away and always will be. Just in case you're not familiar, let me clarify the difference between nuclear fusion and nuclear fission. By the way, I believe according to the excellent Sample Size subreddit post by pmgoodbeer on this, the preferred pronunciation of the latter in US is nuclear fi-sion, like vision, and in the UK and other countries is nuclear fi-ssion, like mission. I prefer the nuclear fi-sion pronunciation because America. So, uh, today's nuclear power plants use nuclear fi-sion. They,

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