Lockheed says makes breakthrough on fusion energy project

[Sasqui]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/15/lockheed-fusion-idUSL2N0SA04D20141015

"Oct 15 (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready in a decade.

Tom McGuire, who heads the project, said he and a small team had been working on fusion energy at Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works for about four years, but were now going public to find potential partners in industry and government for their work."

Short on details, damnit! ... and I was hoping it'd be some kid in his garage.

 

[twilyth]

http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compact-fusion-reactor-details

To understand the breakthroughs of the Lockheed concept, it is useful to know how fusion works and how methods for controlling the reaction have a fundamental impact on both the amount of energy produced and the scale of the reactor. Fusion fuel, made up of hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, starts as a gas injected into an evacuated containment vessel. Energy is added, usually by radio-frequency heating, and the gas breaks into ions and electrons, forming plasma.

The superhot plasma is controlled by strong magnetic fields that prevent it from touching the sides of the vessel and, if the confinement is sufficiently constrained, the ions overcome their mutual repulsion, collide and fuse. The process creates helium-4, freeing neutrons that carry the released energy kinetically through the confining magnetic fields. These neutrons heat the reactor wall which, through conventional heat exchangers, can then be used to drive turbine generators.

 

[erocker]

Am I mistaken or didn't some Russian fellow just claim the same thing a week or two ago?

 

[twilyth]

There was a post over on WCG about LENR type fusion - low energy nuclear reaction. They say that they had the output of their E-cat rig validated by independent parties but this has gone nowhere in the past. No one in the physics community seems to think this is possible but given how little we know about quantum chromodynamics, it might not be a good idea to count them out just yet if they really do have independent verification.


http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/191754-cold-fusion-reactor-verified-by-third-party-researchers-seems-to-have-1-million-times-the-energy-density-of-gasoline

 

[Frick]

Is it more exciting because it Lockheed? I have no idea what they track record looks like, but I assume it's more interesting because it's them and not some random canadian saying he built it in his shed.

 

[twilyth]

I think it's much more exciting. This would be true, classical fusion in a plasma which is the direction fusion research has traditionally taken. Projects like the National Ignition Facility have taken a slightly different approach in terms of the logistics. Rather than try to confine the plasma with magnetic fields and generate a continuous fusion reaction like with the old Tokamaks, they use an array of lasers to compress a fuel pellet. And they have had some success with that. I thing they reached breakeven energy output earlier this year or last. But continuous fusion from a reactor has traditionally been the primary goal. This seems to achieve that.

Magnetic containment has always been the key though. If they have cracked that with this new machine and it is indeed something that can be made compact, this will mark a huge milestone in human history not to mention the fact that it will give us essentially free energy.

 

[erocker]

Is it more exciting because it Lockheed? I have no idea what they track record looks like, but I assume it's more interesting because it's them and not some random canadian saying he built it in his shed.

Lockheed is huge.

 

[Nordic]

If they have cracked that with this new machine and it is indeed something that can be made compact, this will mark a huge milestone in human history not to mention the fact that it will give us essentially free energy.

Free energy? That alone makes me skeptical

 

[twilyth]

Free energy? That alone makes me skeptical

It's not technically free. You still need to isolate or created deuterium and tritium that used in creating the plasma. But I think there is enough heavy water (deuterium oxide) just in the great lakes to power the US for thousands of years. So it's a little like burning water to create energy.

The problem with plasma type fusion has always been the fact that you had to spend so much energy generating the containment field that you could never break even let alone get a positive energy output. Plus, the previous types of containments like the torus of a tokamak were always too unstable to guaranteed containment over any significant amount of time. Also they didn't do a great job of compressing the plasma.

But the idea that fusion would provide free energy has always been the whole point of pursuing it. You're probably thinking of 'free energy' in the context of perpetual motion devices. Those have always been bogus devices - using the zero point field to extract energy from the vacuum and things like that. In this context, free energy is a completely different concept.

 

[Ahhzz]

Absolutely Amazing. In a previous life, I was qualified to operate a "Nucular" reactor , and the search for a sustainable Fusion Reaction was, at that time, a pipe dream. The fact that someone, especially the size of Lockheed, has come out with this feasible project.... It's so far from a reality in my head that I kept checking to see if I was reading an April Fools page....

 

[Sasqui]

Absolutely Amazing. In a previous life, I was qualified to operate a "Nucular" reactor , and the search for a sustainable Fusion Reaction was, at that time, a pipe dream. The fact that someone, especially the size of Lockheed, has come out with this feasible project.... It's so far from a reality in my head that I kept checking to see if I was reading an April Fools page....

The tabletop fusion announced in the 1980's caused quite a craze till it was de-bunked. From what I read, the palladium used was saturated with hydrogen atoms (an interesting property of palladium is the ability to absorb A LOT of hydrogen). The exothermic reaction that was occurring was simply hydrogen being released and reacting with free oxygen in the air.

Now this appears completely different, but what many have tried to accomplish before. That is starting and containing a sustained fusion reaction to harvest energy from a matter to energy conversion.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

FINALLY! Some one is serious about fusion! This news made my day. I'm sad it is a private company and not something that will be public domain but better late than never. The world desperately needs fusion power.

Is it more exciting because it Lockheed? I have no idea what they track record looks like, but I assume it's more interesting because it's them and not some random canadian saying he built it in his shed.

Lockheed practically invented stealth technology and also holds the official record for worlds fastest manned aircraft with the SR-71. Skunk Works is famous for making the impossible possible.

I wonder if Lockheed funded this project out of pocket or if it was a black budget item.

I hope they have a working prototype but Lockheed wouldn't go public about it if they didn't know if it would work.

 

[Nordic]

I was speaking in a perpetual motion sense but free and or obscenely cheap energy still makes me skeptical. The name Lockheed holds a lot of weight though.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Besides hydro, nuclear fission is the cheapest energy source per gigawatt/hr. Nuclear fusion is safe (no radiation, no meltdown) and fusible materials are practically endless in supply. It is not free (nothing is) but compared to current sources of electricity/heat, it is undeniably the cheapest and safest.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Uh oh, I don't like this quote:

If it proves feasible, Lockheed's work would mark a key breakthrough in a field that scientists have long eyed as promising, but which has not yet yielded viable power systems.

How certain is Lockheed this will even work? Is that Reuters' words or Lockheed's? This hints that Lockheed is pretty certain:

Lockheed said it had shown it could complete a design, build and test it in as little as a year, which should produce an operational reactor in 10 years...

Also, another typo here:

U.S. submarines and aircraft carriers run on nuclear power, but they have large fusion reactors on board that have to be replaced on a regular cycle.

Edit: Huh, this is odd. This link (acquired via Google) doesn't have that typo:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/15/us-lockheed-fusion-idUSKCN0I41EM20141015

 

[HammerON]

This would be awesome if they succeed!

 

[64K]

I had no idea that we were so close to fusion reactors. One reason for lack of details right now might be because Lockheed doesn't want another corporation to have the advantage of their research and possibly beat LM to the invention. I imagine the profit from selling fusion reactors and the royalties from licensing would be enormous. Also I find it hard to believe that a corporation like LM would make the claim if they didn't have a pretty good idea that they can pull it off.

 

[Sasqui]

And the games begin...

http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-bash-lockheed-on-nuclear-fusion-2014-10

"Scientists Are Bashing Lockheed Martin's Nuclear Fusion 'Breakthrough'"

"Researchers at Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Skunk Works, announced on Wednesday their ongoing work on a new technology that could bring about functional nuclear reactors powered by fusion in the next 10 years.

But most scientists and science communicators we talked to are skeptical of the claim.

"The nuclear engineering clearly fails to be cost effective," Tom Jarboe told Business Insider in an email. Jarboe is a professor of aeronautics and astronautics, an adjunct professor in physics, and a researcher with the University of Washington's nuclear fusion experiment.'"

 

[twilyth]

This is just a guess, but looking at the design, it seems like the cavity will generate a standing wave in the plasma. This idea has been used to create refrigeration units with no moving parts. Inside the cavity there would be areas of high and low pressure just the same as one has in a traveling wave. If you tune the cavity properly, you can keep the areas of compression and rarefaction stationary. Maybe the idea is to have fusion occur at the point of maximum compression, which I'm guessing would be at the center of the cavity.

 

[Frick]

Lockheed is huge.

That much I know, but I don't know if they have a track record of promising impossible things.

 

[eidairaman1]

Jealously- Lockheed Martin have the rd/funds to accelerate progress of such projects, universities do not, its obvious universities would downplay such findings based upon jealously.

scientists would say the same thing if Boeing had made this discovery.

And the games begin...

http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-bash-lockheed-on-nuclear-fusion-2014-10

"Scientists Are Bashing Lockheed Martin's Nuclear Fusion 'Breakthrough'"

"Researchers at Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Skunk Works, announced on Wednesday their ongoing work on a new technology that could bring about functional nuclear reactors powered by fusion in the next 10 years.

But most scientists and science communicators we talked to are skeptical of the claim.

"The nuclear engineering clearly fails to be cost effective," Tom Jarboe told Business Insider in an email. Jarboe is a professor of aeronautics and astronautics, an adjunct professor in physics, and a researcher with the University of Washington's nuclear fusion experiment.'"

 

[Sasqui]

Jealously- Lockheed Martin have the rd/funds to accelerate progress of such projects, universities do not, its obvious universities would downplay such findings based upon jealously.

scientists would say the same thing if Boeing had made this discovery.

I'm guessing they'd say the same thing if anyone made the claims that Lockheed has done. Scientists have been chasing viable fusion reaction since the 50's. A hydrogen bomb is a form of fusion (initiated by fission... which in turn is initiated by conventional explosives).

 

[twilyth]

A hydrogen bomb is a form of fusion (initiated by fission... which in turn is initiated by conventional explosives).

Off topic, but there is a great show on the WGN (chicago) network called Manhattan about the development of the first atomic bomb. A lot of the plot centers around how difficult it was for them to get implosion to work. They make some significant progress in the most recent episodes which is pretty interesting. They needed to find a way to invert the shock waves from the conventional explosions and they talk in some detail about how they do it.

The show is fictional but there is a lot of interesting history too.

 

[Sasqui]

Off topic, but there is a great show on the WGN (chicago) network called Manhattan about the development of the first atomic bomb. A lot of the plot centers around how difficult it was for them to get implosion to work. They make some significant progress in the most recent episodes which is pretty interesting. They needed to find a way to invert the shock waves from the conventional explosions and they talk in some detail about how they do it.

The show is fictional but there is a lot of interesting history too.

I'm interested in finding that. I've got several good documentaries on the development of the bomb like "Trinity and beyond" and several others... too bad they're all on VHS!

 

[twilyth]

I'm interested in finding that. I've got several good documentaries on the development of the bomb like "Trinity and beyond" and several others... too bad they're all on VHS!

Unfortunately, if you're outside the Chicago broadcast area, you probably need to get "creative" in trying to find it - wink, wink.