Lockheed Martin's Fusion Reactor: The Next Big Thing? Or No Big Deal?

American Thinker ^ | 10/16/2014 | Rick Moran

[SeekAndFind]

Lockheed Martin has announced that their celebrated engineers in their hi tech Skunk Works technology shop have created a design for a small fusion reactor that could fit in the back of a large truck. The breakthrough could mean that clean, nearly unlimited energy might be just over the horizon.

The discovery could virtually reinvent the world in the same way that the telephone, the jet engine, and the silicon chip have done over the years.

Or not. They don't expect to have a working commercial reactor for a decade and there's no guarantee of success. Still, the Skunk Works has a track record of innovation that is the envy of the world and some of the smartest people on the planet work there.

Reuters:

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, who heads the project, said he and a small team had been working on fusion energy at Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works for about four years, but were now going public to find potential partners in industry and government for their work.

Initial work demonstrated the feasibility of building a 100-megawatt reactor measuring seven feet by 10 feet, which could fit on the back of a large truck, and is about 10 times smaller than current reactors, McGuire told reporters.

In a statement, the company, the Pentagon's largest supplier, said it would build and test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year, and build a prototype in five years.

[catnipman]

Publicity stunt.

[pepsi_junkie]

I wonder how much tax money they want to continue their development?

You might be surprised. If it's developed internally, they own it and all patents. If the government pays for it, not so much. For lots of things which have no commercial market (missiles, fighter jets, etc) the government ownership issue is not a consideration. But if you come up with a revolutionary technology to change how we create energy, well, you want to own that. And that could mean "we'll take partners, we'll take collaboration, but we don't want your money"

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

If it's developed internally, they own it and all patents. If the government pays for it, not so much.

. . . which is certainly a possible explanation as to why the Lockheed-Martin people are being so cagey with any revelation as to how they propose to accomplish their miracle.

But that caginess inevitably invites a “fusion energy is ten years away? Yeah, it’s always that way” reaction.

[JimRed]

why it’ll be too cheap to meter....where have we heard this before?

The running joke about solar power used to be that it would become available when the electric company found a way to meter the sun.

There is a simple solution, though; lease the equipment to the users, with a maintenance agreement.