Lockheed says makes breakthrough on fusion energy project

[NW-Bound]

Many experts in the field already voiced skepticism about this Lockheed claim.

For example, see: Scientists skeptical of Lockheed Martin's truck-sized FUSION reactor breakthrough.

 

[donheff]

About time to see some promising advances in fusion. I have always believed that we can develop our way out of the need for fossil fuels. Sounds like this may come to fruition in 20+ years starting us on that glide path. Couple fusion with the new advances in batteries for our vehicles (charging in minutes) plus some unknown unknown advances and we could really leap ahead on the energy front. Add in a few technologies to protect the coasts from the inevitable floods and some drought resistant crops (we are already at or past the warming tipping point) and we are golden.

 

[FUEGO]

Ignoring the specifics of the energy source, if energy costs do go up, then the market changes. Saving energy will become more cost-effective. At $0.09 kwh electricity, I don't care a lot about small savings. At $0.30-50 kwh as some in the world pay, it makes more sense to conserve.

Higher energy prices will drive savings on the efficiency side.

 

[samclem]

Higher energy prices will drive savings on the efficiency side.

I think it might be more accurate to say "higher energy prices will drive higher expenses on the efficiency side. If energy prices go higher, I might add insulation to my attic, but the spending comes at the expense of something else that I would have preferred if energy costs had stayed low. And it remains an expense, not a savings. Over time I hope to spend less money than I would have otherwise, but it wouldn't be an optimum use of my money overall (compared to other uses) if energy prices hadn't gone up (else I should have bought the insulation earlier).

If cheap fusion energy comes to pass, we'll need to stop thinking about increased energy use as environmentally suspect. Cheap, clean energy can be used to address and remediate a lot of existing environmental problems.

 

[38Chevy454]

As someone that works with the "other" use of fusion, I see the following problems:
1) it is very hard to initiate the fusion reactions, then the containment of the plasma while controlling the rate of the reactions
2) fuel source is not readily available
3) hazardous materials
4) radiation, especially irrational public perceptions and fears

I encourage the research and wish success. However it is not as easy as the articles and press releases seem to indicate.

 

[robnplunder]

Mere mention of "matter/anti-matter experiment" scares me. Isn't it the stuff that can destroy everything if they clash?

Replace fossil fueled cars with nuclear fusion fueled cars? That sounds like picking a lesser evil except do we know which one is "less?"

 

[NW-Bound]

Same as a commenter in a link I provided in an earlier post, I am skeptical that this will fan out. It is highly unlikely that a young engineer managed to do what so many before him failed, even if he had a PhD from a prestigious school (don't they all?).

And if this is so close to being fruitful, why doesn't Lockheed spend more money on this world-changing invention, and the engineer had to go outside looking for a partner for more money?

 

[travelover]

Mere mention of "matter/anti-matter experiment" scares me. Isn't it the stuff that can destroy everything if they clash? .........

Hell, I'm scared of the delete button on my keyboard.

 

[NW-Bound]

And I often wish I hit the delete button than not.

 

[mpeirce]

If cheap fusion energy comes to pass, we'll need to stop thinking about increased energy use as environmentally suspect. Cheap, clean energy can be used to address and remediate a lot of existing environmental problems.

+1

One example is water in certain areas (where I live the problem is often to much water...). A string of desalination plants powered by cheap small fusion or fission plants could provide plenty of water to California without building more reservoirs or canals.

Another example is drastically reducing the problem of tankers and oil spills.

 

[samclem]

And if this is so close to being fruitful, why doesn't Lockheed spend more money on this world-changing invention, and the engineer had to go outside looking for a partner for more money?

The Optimist: It makes sense for Lockheed to seek outside partners (money, nuclear engineering, and big civil project expertise) because the race is on. If they've hit on a novel approach that might work, somebody else can do it, too. They are way better off to be seen as the lead of a team of groundbreaking companies, locking in their 3% of whatever this turns into, than taking a decade longer to do it in house and getting beat out.

The Cynic: Lockheed doesn't need for this thing to actually work in order to make a lot of money. Just keep hope alive as long as possible, and soak up all the DoD, DoE, DARPA, and any private development money that can be had for a decade or so. Lockheed knows how to get government money. The field is littered with fusion attempts that didn't pan out, so they wouldn't bring much discredit on themselves ("we said it was high risk, and we learned a lot, bringing the day closer when . . .")

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

Here are a couple of tidbits gleaned from many comments on the story.

1. LM isn't claiming it created a working, net-power-positive fusion reactor, nor that it is even close. The media is hyping the wrong "breakthrough".

2. LM is claiming that it has come up with a design for a fusion reactor that is substantially smaller than current technology. The implications of this are that the costs of construction will be substantially reduced, the power required to create fusion reactions will be substantially lower, etc... all possibly leading to the construction of a viable, net-power-positive reactor sometime in the not-too-distant future.

I would rather have a company like LM develop a viable fusion reactor since unlike academia, there is a clear profit motive involved. Funding, staffing, management for the R&D would hopefully be akin to that of of SpaceX or other private companies driven by a cheaper, faster and more efficient way to do things. A major difference between SpaceX and LM is that the former is building on existing, workable space technology, whereas the latter has no viable fusion reactor to improve. Then again, fusion research has been going on for decades, so perhaps there is a "critical mass" (pun intended) of R&D available, needing only a slight push to get over the viability line.

 

[NW-Bound]

My career was mostly with large corps like Lockheed, and it was in R&D so I was able to see how this developed.

A young hotshot engineer came up with a novel idea, and was able to start a proof-of-concept project. Then, after a couple of years when it became clear that it would require greater commitment, meaning mucho money, to continue further, upper management would say that they wanted to see some outsider's interests.

A big part of it was to see if a 3rd party would "buy" the idea. Remember that upper management is often not as technical as the researchers to judge on the technical merits, but they are smart enough to see the response of outside interests, who would bring in their own experts.

And I have seen large projects costing several hundred millions from the corp and interested parties going down the tube this way, with nothing much to save at the end.

PS. What often happened was that the novel feature of a design that set it apart from the previous state of the art brought about a different and new shortcoming, which turned out to be crucial and insurmountable in the end, and doomed the entire project. And this was after they already demonstrated working prototypes! Sadly, the prototypes kept breaking down and had a very short life, or other deficiencies that made them inferior to the previous machines.

 

[nuke_diver]

Mere mention of "matter/anti-matter experiment" scares me. Isn't it the stuff that can destroy everything if they clash?

"

You aren't going to get your warp core started without it

Just sayin'

signed

Scotty

 

[robnplunder]

You aren't going to get your warp core started without it

Just sayin'

signed

Scotty

Engage!

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Interesting. I spent 5 of my last 5 1/2 yrs working as a QA guy for the government in a Lockheed Martin facility involved in missile defense stuff.

Marty, I'm a DCMA QA guy as well (for a few more days anyway) at a Lockheed plant too. The things I've seen this company do with simple airplanes has scared the crap out of me more than a few times. I sure hope it's a different team working on this!

Remember the Olympic suits Lockheed designed and which failed miserably?


Sent from my mobile device so please excuse grammatical errors.

 

[unno2002]

The corporate website carries more of the story.

Compact Fusion · Lockheed Martin

The picture of the reactor on their site reminds me of the design by Dr. Bussard.

[FONT=&quot]Consider the “Should Google Go Nuclear” story:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]http://www.askmar.com/ConferenceNotes/Should%20Google%20Go%20Nuclear.pdf[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]

 

[explanade]

I would expect a breakthrough to come from a place like Lawrence Livermore, not Lockheed.

If they truly had a revolutionary design, they'd have no problem getting funding and accelerating it, though of course, you never know with all the entrenched interests from the carbon-based energy industry influencing govt. policy.

But this announcement is being received in some quarters as a play for investors.

If they really had something, I would think both private and public investments would line up.

I hope this pans out, doesn't go the way of cold fusion, but have to be skeptical until proven otherwise.

 

[M Paquette]

They're supposed to have a benchtop demonstration ready by the end of next year.

I won't bet on a breakthrough unless that actually appears. Meanwhile, for my benchtop neutron source, I'll stick with a Farnsworth Fusor.

 

[braumeister]

Time to get back to work on tabletop cold fusion again, I guess. Where are today's Pons and Fleischman teams?

Novel designs are often waylaid by circumstances. Here is a rather interesting example of it:
Astron (fusion reactor) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[bjorn2bwild]

I would expect a breakthrough to come from a place like Lawrence Livermore, not Lockheed.

Or maybe from the yet to be finished International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor - ITER, with optimistic plans for deuterium-tritium fusion by 2027. A lengthy but interesting read -

A Star in a Bottle - The New Yorker

 

[Lakewood90712]

I'm thinking this : V8 V-Fusion® + Energy | Home is the only Fusion Energy most of us will see in our lifetimes.

 

[zedd]

Sounds like a bad George Carlin joke:
"A freak accident happened today--four freaks in an anti-matter powered bus hit two freaks in a fusion powered van. Authorities are still searching for San Francisco."

 

[mpeirce]

Or maybe from the yet to be finished International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor - ITER, with optimistic plans for deuterium-tritium fusion by 2027.[/url]

These "big science" projects always struck me as more about rent seeking than science. Another example is NASA since Apollo.

I put more faith in more aggressive upstarts like Polywell or SpaceX. Maybe even Lockheed.

 

[bjorn2bwild]

These "big science" projects always struck me as more about rent seeking than science. Another example is NASA since Apollo.

I put more faith in more aggressive upstarts like Polywell or SpaceX. Maybe even Lockheed.

Some problems require the enormous resources of big science. The Large Hadron Collider would be a good example. I think controlled fusion fits here too.
The innovative upstarts are certainly more nimble and will have a role after breakthrough progress on the hard stuff.