Sir Thursday Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 According to this article, Lockheed-Martin are in the process of developing a new reactor design that would potentially make nuclear fusion a viable technology from an economic standpoint. I'm excited! It's one of those technologies that acts a gateway to a lot of the cool, sci-fi type stuff futurists have been talking about for years now, and in a form that sounds far more practical than the big fusion generator the ITEF is building in France. Scale it down enough that you can put it in a moving vehicle of some kind, and suddenly the skies are open. This is the sort of thing that would make space a viable place to visit again. What does everyone else think? Am I overly optimistic here? The time-scales in the article suggest it'll be about a decade before it's ready, but I can wait that long... ST Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
straits Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 Lockheed Martin aims to develop compact reactor prototype in five years, production unit in 10 Isn't this the technology that is always about 10 years away? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gillio Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 this thread is giving me deja-vu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arch-MaesterPhilip Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 this thread is giving me deja-vuI'd buy that for a dollar! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarsen Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 I doubt that fusion is coming. In fact I doubt that it has even begun to breathe hard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spring Bass Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 It's not coming yet. Nature has the best FAQ on this, and what it says is that they've got a half-scale prototype that isn't at the "breakeven" point - the point where it generates more power than is put into it and sustains the reactions itself. Scaling has tended to be a huge problem with fusion efforts in the past, with new problems showing up when you try and scale a reactor to a greater size than the test prototype. That's the main reason why fusion had so many optimistic predictions that failed to pan out - promising small-scale setups (Tokamaks, Stellerators, Polywell) turned out to be much more difficult when you you tried to scale them up to the point where they'd hopefully break-even and drive the fusion reactions themselves under containment. I hope it's possible. The fusion reactions we see in nature aren't particularly promising, especially stars - the Sun's core has roughly the power output per meters cubed volume of a compost heap despite being at immense pressures and temperature due to the Sun's gravity (it generates so much energy and light simply because it's so massive). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 You're definitely being overly-optimistic - any prediction that puts a timescale on developing a technology that hasn't been invented yet has to be taken with a massive pinch of salt. Correct me if I'm wrong, there's still never been a case of scientists creating a fusion reaction that sustains itself for more than a few seconds. Has there even been one where more energy came out than it took to ignite it? If Lockheed were claiming this officially I'd find that pretty laughable, though judging by the article it's more that someone's got their hands on an overly optimistic (probably fund-chasing) internal communication.I totally understand your hope though. If we ever achieve sustainable fusion reactors, that's a complete gamechanger, and unlike many gamechangers of the past, it's something we know about and can actually theoretically aim for (it's just proving really really hard). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
all swedes are racist Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 this thread is giving me deja-vuDeja-vusion is coming! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Altherion Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 We just had this discussion a couple of days ago. I will repeat my conclusion from there: the most interesting part about this announcement is that it was made by Lockheed-Martin. The latter is a huge, transnational, multi-billion dollar corporation and even the crumbs of funding that fall to their "skunkworks" are in absolute terms quite likely to be larger than any single university working on fusion. They don't have anything worthy of calling a breakthrough yet -- many people have tried to find geometries that beat the tokamak and nobody has done it yet -- but it's not implausible that Lockheed-Martin is on to something interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solmyr Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 Fusion is Coming! Good, because Winter, too, is coming. And I cringe when thinking about my heating bill :mellow: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weeping Sore Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 This is not news. Fusion has been with us ever since Bitches Brew came out in 1969. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 Ben Bova was right... the corporations will build it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jo498 Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 On sun-scale it has been going on for billions of years, on bomb scale for several decades. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spring Bass Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 Kleiman's right for calling out ThinkProgress' weird combination of fusion pessimism and misplaced hope that 2015 will be the "peak year" for rich country emissions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry of the Lawn Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 This is not news. Fusion has been with us ever since Bitches Brew came out in 1969.Touche! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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