Lockheed Martin Skunkworks – Nuclear Fusion Project

9 responses to “Lockheed Martin Skunkworks – Nuclear Fusion Project”

1. 

   jurvetson

   Feb 9, 2013 at 11:40 pm

   

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2. 

   In Memoriam: jerryfi_99

   Feb 10, 2013 at 4:31 am

   Did I miss something? Has sustainable, controllable, fusion been demonstrated? For years, I’d been waiting/hoping to hear something from LLL, but…..

   With the LM Skunkworks cachet behind it, one’s hope might be raised…. ???

   BTW, is that 100mW (milliwatt), or a 100 MW (megawatt) reactor in the 2nd para? The former might indicate a demo model, the later doesn’t seem feasible in that package size? But I’m often amazed by new technology…. =8-o

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3. 

   jurvetson

   Feb 10, 2013 at 6:31 am

   Mega – fixed the caps typo. No, they have not achieved net positive generation, but they are predicting that they will with a Beta (plasma pressure/magnetic pressure) now of almost one. There’s some clever mechanism they have for a self-tuning feedback mechanism whereby the magnetic field increases as you go out farther from the center of the plasma. I did not see a diagram of it, but it’s visible in the "T4 Experiment" in purple above. He contrasted that with the rotating plasma in a Tokamak where the magnetic field dies out with distance from the center.

   Of course, Moses also predicted that they were just months away… in 2010…
   

   …and 2009…
   

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4. 

   jurvetson

   Feb 13, 2013 at 5:42 am

   And the video of his talk just came out.

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5. 

   In Memoriam: jerryfi_99

   Feb 13, 2013 at 7:16 am

   Thanks for the link to the video. Interesting. I’ll keep my Exxon stocks for now, but continue to hope for that breakthrough. A fusion powered world will be unrecognizable to us mere fossil fuel users. Hard to imagine the possibilities…

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6. 

   js.brain

   Feb 13, 2013 at 10:12 am

   So this a plan for 2050 🙂

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7. 

   DMShannon

   Feb 14, 2013 at 8:40 pm

   Now could we get Lockheed interested in aneutronic fuels/dense plasma focus?

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8. 

   Taylor Ratliff

   Feb 16, 2013 at 1:31 am

   As a grad student interested in magnetic fusion I’m blown away by this announcement. This is the most credible "we’re close to fusion" talk I’ve yet seen, and I’m really surprised they kept this secret since the magnetic fusion community is relatively small and the research published openly, even during the height of the cold war.

   Its also the only talk on fusion to mention getting to Mars quickly (my other interest) that didn’t cause me to instinctively roll my eyes, since its Lockheed.

   Interesting timing announcing this right as one of the big three experiments in the US, Alcator C-Mod at MIT, is being shut down.
   tech.mit.edu/V132/N65/cmod.html

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9. 

   msimon6808

   Feb 17, 2013 at 4:37 am

   " in time to have an impact on our climate."

   Fixing the climate models so they have predictive power will have a bigger effect on climate. Assuming that models have any effect on climate what so ever. Their biggest effect appears to be on funding.

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