I wasn't expecting a afternoon promo video from Lockheed that starts with a dubstep intro either but that's what their Skunkworks project just dropped on us. Lockheed expects to be able to build a prototype compact reactor in five years. If everything goes well, the design could "be developed and deployed in as little as ten years." If they pull this off then they say we could have truly clean energy, one that we can export without fears of it being turned into a military weapon, and that it could be as small as a jet engine (and literally be put on a jet to power it), as well as scale up to much larger sizes, plug into the existing grid and "The 100-MW unit would provide sufficient power for up to 80,000 homes in a power-hungry U.S. city."
MOAR here: http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compact-fusion-reactor-details
Yes please!
Fingers crossed. Between this,the higgs, spacex, skylon and (maybe) Emdrive the future seems to finally be coming.
Now I want my flying car… Or at least a self driving one.
Self driving in 10 years looks plausible in some areas at least.
Skylon and its Saber engines will be that which ignites the spacemining industry!
Meezan33
It's great to see a young man like this, Let's hope nobody with money or power steals, extorts or stifles his progress, like what was done to Tesla. We would already be enjoying free power if he wasn't financially forced down.
Its nt b lyk that guyz
Finally, quick before energy companies get a hold of it and find a way to charge an large chunk of money.
hi
This is Lockheed Martin… nobody is stealing anything from them.
Cool beens
Cool beens!:)
I know I had compact fusion when I farted before I think that's N.A.S.A. at the front door. What to do what to do
That's good
Lol!!! +ian morrow
lol
I've let N.A.S.A. in and joy of joys they want my arse to power the next rocket to mars. I am seriously thinking about it. I hear the money there paying is great
.
+ian morrow you are hilarious…
Lockheed Martin stands to make billions just in military contracts. Add in civilian and their place in history is set.
If it works. PLEASE LET IT WORK!
Interesting.
Problem is all of the neutrons created after the reaction. They are heavy and basically blow the shielding away after a while. Talked with a professor I have that has worked at ITER.
Phyllis fay
Nothing to say about this
سكس
+Jacob Noon The blown shielding, that's with the Tokamak design. This seems to be something else entirely.
+Chill Out my fault. Your right. I got mixed up with another article.
+Rickey Brooks سكس
سكس
You make this work and you won't need to find another job. The next challenge will find you.
jodha akabar
+Deepak Gora how are you
nice
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Supper
Hello
Hello
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U look nice
+Deedee Smith haiii
sunset singh
nice
'll mm
, vcv Lloyds ppl, c vHg x
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Rbd
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+Paul Spoerry you WAS being sarcastic, wasn't you? Lockheed Martin F-35 (the most expensive fighter program) stolen by China.
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Hi
Be carefull
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Hiiii
nice
Stealing pieces of a design is entirely different than "stealing something". The J-20's engines can't even be figured out yet and then keep swapping in old Soviet Fighter engines (though they did announce recently a massive investment in R&D in that area in an attempt to catch the rest for the world).
+Paul Spoerry American officials have said that they think the Chinese have stolen their top secret stealth technology. I agree that it COULD just be a diamond encrusted turd but the Chinese have been caught trying to pay off workers to see top secret designs in the past. The Chinese jet doesn't just look a BIT like the F-35, it looks the double of it and it was seen VERY soon after the F-35 so it's highly likely they got the design.
One issue that I can see, at least with placing this into an airplane, is that almost all fusion reactions give off neutrons. Because of this, there will have to be shielding around the reactor. The only reactions that don't output neutrons are ones that involve He-3 (which is absurdly rare on Earth) or heavier elements, such as Li-6. The problem with the heavier reactions is that they take even higher temperatures and pressures to make them occur. The easier reactions are once that run off of deuterium and tritium, but since those fuels are rare (and tritium is radioactive), the energy still won't be cheap until we can get to the point of running off of good old H-1. But again, shielding will be needed due to neutrons and gamma rays. So, color me skeptical, especially about putting these reactors on planes.
+Robert Whisenhunt They plan to adopt the Boron11 fuel in the commerical reactor which produces three alpha's and no neutrons.
+Robert Whisenhunt Robert, the walls of the reactor will probably be made of lithium, neutron hits that wall, gives of tritium, they'd only need to add deuterium. Neutron escape is very minimal I know, don't know how much exacly but very low.
+Mathias Willems Pretty funny that Nations are spending billions, if not trillions on the ITER project and Lockheed manages to do it on it's own(years faster than ITER).There was also news about the E-CAT supposing to work, very sceptical machine but if that would be true someone just invented a fusion reactor in his garage. LOL.
Hi
Low.
+Mathias Willems E-CAT was just a scam it wasn't anything. And the ITER project is very different thing. They are working on a fusion plants to connect to the public electric grid aka not a military application for one thing, and its aimed at high power output.
Lockheed are looking at making them smaller for military purpose with less output, i don't know what a truck sized reactor would be useful for in the commercial world. The output is not going to power homes, it would be enough to power planes and ships, but i doubt commercial companies would buy fusion reactors for planes – compared to the price of fuel it is a no brainer to stick with fuel. It would also cost a lot of re-engineer the planes to use the new energy source. Equally i imagine it weights more than the fuel too. So until companies need to switch to fusion they obviously won't because it costs heck of a lot of money.
W
XYZ
Yes
They're building the Iter reactor…RIGHT NOW! Fusion is here.
+Endless Infinity
ITER is an important fusion experiment, but it's nowhere near a commercial fusion reactor. It's gain will be half of what is needed for a working reactor, and its pulse length is much too short. Indeed, it would be great if someone were able to build a compact reactor, but this group isn't giving enough details to evaluate if what they say is feasible. For the time being I'll remain on the sceptics side.
+Mee Mee, you should lookup the latest news on the Ecat, it might still be a scam but independent researchers have found crazy things.
For lockheed, they state it will be used for commercial use too, scale this up x10 and you 1gigawatt, that a pretty darn big nuclear fission plant you would need for that. YOu don't know anything about the price right now, so statements that it will not be used for in planes or such are not well placed I find. As with everything it will cost a lot in the begin but as mass production kicks in it can get cheaper. Btw materials the size of a truck will not cost billions. I think if the tech succeeds they will try to make as much money with it, so making this available for the masses is a logical next step. Curious how the oil companies would respond to this.
Regarding the planes, do you know how much it costs to tank a plane for a year… thats a very big bunch of $$$ 25 kilos of deutermium isn't gonna cost even one hundreth of that.
Union Is Straingth
"without fears of it being turned into a military weapon… "
You clearly are unfamiliar with our nation's military history…
Hello good morning
+0730Ender , you're scared.
Fear has little to do with the facts… Facts are quite objective where as fear is subjective.
"Power hungry US city"? … or powerfully inefficient US city…
+Douglas Smith
There's nothing to be scared about.
Do you have girlfriend or wife
Why the curiosity? It's not even peripheral to the subject matter.
+Mathias Willems
This sounds like there is a high probability of neutron interaction with the wall. Anything to back that up?