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Dennis Whyte

πŸ‘€ Speaker
1833 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

It's because, well, you've got seven chefs in the kitchen.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

So what is this meant in terms of the speed of the project and the ability to govern it and so forth?

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

It's just been a challenge, honestly, around this.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

And this is – I mean, it's very hard technically what's occurring.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

But when you also introduce such levels of – I mean, this isn't just me saying it.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

There's like GAO reports from the U.S.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

government and so forth.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

It's hard to like steer all of this around.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

Yeah.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

And what that's tended to do is make it – it's not the fastest decision-making process.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

You know, my own personal view of it was – it was interesting because you asked – you said about the magnet and commonwealth fusion systems.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

It was, I worked most of my career on ITER because when I came into the field in the early 1990s, when I completed my PhD and started to work, this was one of the most, like, you can't imagine being more excited about something.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

Like, we're going to change the world with this project.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

We're going to do these things.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

And we just, like, poured, like, an entire generation, and afterwards as well, too, just poured their imagination and their creativity about making this thing work.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

Very good.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

But also at some point, though, when it got to being another five years of delay or a decade of delay, you start asking yourself, well, is this what I want to do?

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

Am I going to wait for this?

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

So it was a part of me starting to ask questions with my students.

Lex Fridman Podcast
#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy

I was like…