You’ve probably heard about nuclear fusion. Maybe you've heard recent news about the Livermore National Lab achieving a nuclear fusion breakthrough called "ignition" - meaning it produced more energy than it took to start the reaction. That's a huge deal! But it leaves other questions unanswered. I wanted to know more. I started by asking the CEO of the nuclear fusion company Helion all my big questions: What is nuclear fusion, really? I know it happens on the sun, but how can we do it on earth? Are we doing it already? Then, I ask one last question: “I’ve heard about kids building fusion reactors in their moms’ garage… if fusion is so hard… what are THEY doing?” The answer sets off the most fun and ambitious Huge If True episode yet. It turns out that you can actually BUILD a nuclear fusion device. So I team up with my friend Simone Giertz to try. When something goes wrong, it turns into an explainer on what’s really going on with the world’s most-hyped energy source. Special thanks to Jessie, Ron and Joben at Helion for helping set up such an exciting shoot (and not giving up!). And thank you to Anna Bresnahan for helping shoot this episode! Chapters: 00:00 We tried to build a nuclear fusion reactor 03:07 What IS nuclear fusion? 04:51 Thank you, Oura! 05:31 How close are we to nuclear fusion? 07:30 How does nuclear fusion work? 08:31 How does the sun do fusion? 09:21 Magnetic confinement fusion 09:52 Inertial confinement fusion 10:37 Magneto-inertial confinement fusion 11:01 What does fusion LOOK like? 12:03 Why CAN'T we do fusion? 13:33 Why do we need fusion? Correction: 07:48 In plasma, one or more electrons are torn free from an atom (as opposed to protons and neutrons themselves being "broken into bits"!)