Popular Mechanics: Lockheed Martin's Plan to Make Fusion (Finally) a Reality

[tammywammy]

Lockheed Martin's Plan to Make Fusion (Finally) a Reality

Lockheed Martin's secret fusion power program came out of hiding last week. This week, the Skunk Works engineer in charge of the ambitious effort met with reporters to explain just how the defense giant plans to make fusion the real deal within five to 10 years.

The key to practical fusion power—which has eluded scientists trying to crack the problem for more than 60 years—is to go small. So says Tom McGuire, program manager for the compact fusion program at the Revolutionary Technology Programs group at Lockheed's Skunk Works.

"We think we've invented something that's inherently stable and it's ten times smaller than the mainstream approaches," he told reporters on Monday. "What's really exciting about that is we can develop it more quickly because of its scale." McGuire said he and his team completed much of the theoretical work behind their system over the last four years, and have begun the first experiments.

"We don't have any results that we would want to publicly call out qualitatively," he said. "[But] we know we can heat and ignite the plasma with under a kilowatt of power and get it lit."

-snip-

http://www.popularmechanics.com/_mobile/science/energy/next-generation/lockheed-martins-plan-to-make-fusion-a-reality-17337914

[PeoViejo]

1. Refueling in Space

Poland Spring Comet Water.

[NuclearDem]

2. If it actually works, go for it.

Fusion is the nuclear power I'm in favor of.

[DetlefK]

3. Compare the magnitudes and you see it's a hidden PR-campaign:

1.
That experiment costs Lockheed Martin a few hundredthousand dollars per year, maybe a few million over the next years, tops. (I know, what this kind of equipment costs.) Last year Lockheed Martin made a profit of $2.9 billion.
That experiment is exactly a drop in the bucket. A PR-campaign would cost the same.

2.
If Lockheed Martin is so confident that their approach is revolutionary and will yield technological breakthroughs and fortunes, why are they looking for outside-investors???



EDIT: That poor enthusiastic guy in the promo-video. He really believes that this will work and that Lockheed Martin won't dump him the very second his project runs into difficulties.

[packman]

7. Lockheed Bob

We will hang the fission people from the walls of energy making and make them tremble in their reactors.

[kysrsoze]

4. Man, I hope they aren't blowing smoke and really are onto this. It would be a world changer.

[longship]

5. Optimistic, mainly because of L-M. But still skeptical.

Fusion energy has been 5-10 years away for decades.

It takes so much energy to fuse atoms that containment is very very difficult.

However, maybe small is a better approach.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. K&R

If they can pull it off- big if- it could be a game-changer for the human race.