Lockheed Martin Develops Compact Fusion Reactor

[jordan179]

According to Reuters, "Lockheed says makes breakthrough on fusion energy project," by Andrea Shalai,

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 for use in a decade.

Tom McGuire

Comments

[prester_scott]

I agree, this is tremendously good news.

The angle that warms the cockles of my heart and which you did not really develop in your post, is that these reactors being small and modular with high density output and high fuel economy, will in time render the power grid obsolete. Transmission and distribution of electric power is a tremendous cost, maintenance problem, and vulnerability to assault by both natural and human forces.

Another point: the costs and logistics of transporting coal will fade away, and for oil, will be vastly reduced.

[jordan179]

That's a good point -- every small city could own one or two of these reactors and supply their power needs locally. This would greatly reduce the vulnerability of our grid to attack and accident.

And yeah -- you could transport the whole fuel requirements of one of these reactors for years in a single (lead shielded) box easily within the capability of an ordinary car to carry. Say farewell to trainloads of fuel.

[prester_scott]

Some years ago I visited the power plant closest to where I live. It's a coal plant. I was allowed onto a high enough floor of the main building to be able to see the whole property out the windows. Acres of coal piled up. Conveyance systems. Sprinkler systems (the piles will catch fire if left to themselves). Train tracks leading off in all directions. And what I saw represented, oh, maybe two weeks' worth of fuel. Two weeks? So if the trains stop rolling for even a few days, they're at risk of having to shut down

[jordan179]

And nuclear fusion is an inherently safe technology -- if the reaction runs hot and breaches magnetic containment, it dies out almost instantly. You'd at worst get a flare of plasma which might destroy the reactor chamber and start conventional fires. Tritium is seriously radioactive, but it's a light gas, and one which would either escape into space or combine with oxygen to make tritiated water -- the tiny amounts of tritiated water which could be released into the ecosystem would be rather rapidly diluted to harmlessness. A simple double-layered containment shell around the reactor vessel, designed to be far enough away that the plasma torch would cool before touching it, would provide enough safety for commercial purposes. There are no heavy metals involved to get stuck in the local soil

[selenite]

they have the resources to see this through

Lockheed is not in the business of spending its own money to make things. They build what the government pays them to build. The Skunk Works announcement is marketing to get DoD to pick up the cost a viable system.

Note that if you dig into the AvLeak story they're doing "simulations" and "experiments" but don't even have a prototype yet.

[jordan179]

Lockheed is not in the business of spending its own money to make things. They build what the government pays them to build. The Skunk Works announcement is marketing to get DoD to pick up the cost a viable system.

There is no shortage of potential buyers for the described reactor, if they can build it. The US Department of Defense to begin with, and numerous friendly navies, and the commercial power industries of America and many other countries spring to immediate mind.

Note that if you dig into the AvLeak story they're doing "simulations" and "experiments" but don't even have a prototype yet.

Yeah -- they're a year from building a prototype and ten years from building a practical reactor. That's what I reported. No "digging" needed.

[silent_o]

Pardon me as I jump for joy.

This is news of the most excellent kind.

The applications for space exploration and exploitation give me warm fuzzies.

Mars Direct would benefit greatly.
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Also leaves the troublesome nations that are only relevant for their oil without international leverage.

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Not sure DEW can be considered artillery by classical definitions.

[jordan179]

The applications for space exploration and exploitation give me warm fuzzies.

Oh yes. An ion-drive spaceship powered by one of these would have the potential to go anywhere in the Solar System -- life support would be the major bottleneck. And a plasma-drive spaceship (if the reactor or its future developments are sufficiently power-dense to allow opening one end of the bottle to make a rocket) could do it fast enough that life support would become a relatively minor issue.

Also leaves the troublesome nations that are only relevant for their oil without international leverage.

Indeed. Let's see someone try to monopolize water :) Doesn't even have to be fresh water, either, as the additional cost of distillation is trivial compared to the cost of deuterium separation and enrichment of some of the deuterium into tritium.

[silent_o]

Upon more pondering an optimistic seed has rooted in the garden of my mind.

Could this be the beginning of Post-Scarcity? Are we bearing witness to our species' transition from childhood to adolescence? How much longer until we leave the cul-de-sac and find a nice studio apartment in the Big City? ;)
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On a parallel note, what is your opinion of John C. Wright? I'm considering buying a few books come payday and The Golden Oecumene seems like it could be a series worth reading.

[jordan179]

I don't believe in true Post-Scarcity (because we can always desire infinitely more than we have), but I do believe that we are on the threshold of an economic era in which we will have vastly more than we do now. Consider the way we live in America today -- even in the midst of a Depression -- compared to the way we lived a century or two ago

[benschachar_77]

When you consider that we are simultaneously studying reactionless drives and warp FTL it sounds like there is going to be a perfect storm that will enable space travel outside our solar system within our lifetimes.

[jordan179]

Possible -- though the difficulties of scaling up pure electromagnetic effects such as the Em-drive or Woodward-effect drive, which so far have yielded only very tiny thrusts, may take many human generations to reach the point of a practical engine. The Alcubierre warp drive would be a true space drive with potentially FTL capabilities, but would require at least minor advances in physics and major advances in engineering to realize -- I would be very surprised if we had a working warp drive sooner than 50-100 years from now, and happy if we got it that soon.

[jordan179]

Now to be more optimistic.

It's very obvious that we're living in a technological Golden Age, something analogus to around 1875-1925 when a whole host of technologies were converging on major breakthroughs in energy generation and transportation (electrification, oil wells and petroleum engine, the steam turbine, the internal combustion engine, the motorcar, the airship, the propellor plane, the oil-burning and eventually steam-turbine surface ship). One of the key factors is that there are now many Powers and private launch companies involved in spacecraft design and operation. We're entering a new Space Age, and while the obvious first targets are the Moon and Mars, I think this will run strong until we have explored and begun colonizing at least the whole Inner Solar System, probably the Asteroid Belt, and possibly the moons of Jupiter and Saturn as well.

[belvarius]

Yes, a new space age indeed! I'm 35 and now with this development I think it's likely I'll live to see colonies (and not just government research facilities) established on the moon and quite possibly Mars. This also gives a huge boost to the possibility of orbital space colonies. We'll quite likely see those future interplanetary spacecraft being constructed in space docks before I die so long as it's old age that gets me.

[shockwave77598]

I do so hope this is legit and not just vapor ware. It would give America cheap energy, giving Americans money to spend while lowering the costs of manufacturing in the states again. The roaring 90s will look pale in comparison