A scientist works inside a fusion reactor. But frustration with the slow pace of big projects has led to small privately funded efforts to find a faster, cheaper process. Monty Rakusen/GettyImages
Posted on 10/27/2014 5:30:40 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
The defence company’s announcement that it is working on a fusion reactor that could fit on the back of a truck was greeted with surprise. It could change the future of the planet, but some are sceptical. Dan Clery reports.
Lockheed Martin, the US defence company behind stealth aircraft, is known for working on futuristic projects. Even so, its announcement last week surprised many people. The company revealed it is working on a fusion reactor that it says could power a small city but will be compact enough to fit on the back of a truck. At a press conference last week, Lockheed team leader Tom McGuire talked about fusion-powered ships and even aircraft. “We have an idea that makes us very excited,” he said. Fusion researchers have reacted with some scepticism, especially to the claim that the reactor could be ready for commercial use in 10 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at cosmosmagazine.com ...
Coming from just about anyone else I would write this off as fantasy but the skunkworks has a long history of doing the impossible.
I’ll be watching this. Lockheed is a little more reputable than most making such claims.
Aha! So THAT's how they did it.
“Investigators at a major US research university recently discovered the heaviest element known to science. The element, tentatively named Congress, has no protons or electrons and thus has an atomic number of 0. However, it does have 1 neutron (president), 435 assistant neutrons (house), 100 vice neutrons (senate) and 17000 assistant vice neutrons (staffers), which gives it an atomic mass of 17536. These 17536 particles are held together by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson- like particles called morons. It is also surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons (lobbyists).”
Looks interesting. Let’s see how they stop 2.4 MeV and 14 MeV neutrons in something that fits on a truck! Exciting times.
A frequent guest on CNBC mentioned this onCCNBC's Fast Monet toi today and says if this happens,...fossil fuel is dead ...Oil down to 10. dollars in the near futute.
The financial analyst that drove down the Oil and Gas sector today said that the end of the oil era is coming, in part because of this Lockheed fusion announcement.
Another reason sign to stop reading, and start buying the RYE ETF.
Wow! Yeah! Democrat presidential candidates are all drooling at the possibility to sell the technology to China for “campaign donations - wink wink”.
Why don’t they build a functioning fusion reactor of ANY size?
Then we can talk about the possibility of shrinking it.
Fusion power has been “20 years away” for at least 40 years, and probably more.
Reminds me that Physicist Robert Bussard (of Bussard Ramjet fame) was working on a small fusion reactor project over 30 years ago. DOE got pressured to deny funding. Here’s the OMNI interview from 1981!
http://www.askmar.com/Robert%20Bussard/Omni%20Interview.pdf
If Lockheed can do it, a cheap energy economy could be a civilization changer.
They’ll use that really thick Reynolds Wrap, the kind you use for grilling.
Hey, they designed an even smaller fusion reactor for the Back to the Future movie. And it worked every bit as well as the Lockheed one. So far.
Just seems kind of stupid to me to talk about sizing when you haven’t even proven that the concept works.
If they can build the thing, I’ll be very happy, and I hope they get very rich. But so far this is about as proven as my design for the antigravity generator.
I’ll take the bright red Mr Fusion, please.
Indeed. Lockheed does amazing things, to include satellites that are out of this world. Hehehe. The SR-71 is my favorite Lockheed accomplishment.
is this for real?
Lockheed seems more respectable than E-cat.
but not much.
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