WUWT reader Paul Ostergaard tips us to this article from Aviation Week and Space Technology – video follows
Hidden away in the secret depths of the Skunk Works, a Lockheed Martin research team has been working quietly on a nuclear energy concept they believe has the potential to meet, if not eventually decrease, the world’s insatiable demand for power.
Dubbed the compact fusion reactor (CFR), the device is conceptually safer, cleaner and more powerful than much larger, current nuclear systems that rely on fission, the process of splitting atoms to release energy. Crucially, by being “compact,” Lockheed believes its scalable concept will also be small and practical enough for applications ranging from interplanetary spacecraft and commercial ships to city power stations. It may even revive the concept of large, nuclear-powered aircraft that virtually never require refueling—ideas of which were largely abandoned more than 50 years ago because of the dangers and complexities involved with nuclear fission reactors.
Yet the idea of nuclear fusion, in which atoms combine into more stable forms and release excess energy in the process, is not new. Ever since the 1920s, when it was postulated that fusion powers the stars, scientists have struggled to develop a truly practical means of harnessing this form of energy. Other research institutions, laboratories and companies around the world are also pursuing ideas for fusion power, but none have gone beyond the experimental stage. With just such a “Holy Grail” breakthrough seemingly within its grasp, and to help achieve a potentially paradigm-shifting development in global energy, Lockheed has made public its project with the aim of attracting partners, resources and additional researchers.
![Compact%20Fusion%20Reactor%20Diagram_0[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/compact20fusion20reactor20diagram_01.png?quality=75)
I would point out to everyone that practical fusion is an engineering problem not a science problem … the science is done once we created plasma in a lab the science was done … its now an engineering problem … and has been for 30 years … when you want a theory about what you want built go to a scientist … when you want to build it get an engineer …
thorium reactors are past both the science and the engineering phases … we could have thorium power plants in 5 years time … fusion is a waste of time right now …
We’ve been 5 years from thorium power plants for 60 years.
“thorium reactors are past both the science and the engineering phases”
Nonsense.
Well I guess you don’t know Earnshaw’s theorem either. It says essentially there is no stable configuration of electric charges or magnetic poles.
You can’t hold hot dense repulsive stuff away from meltable and vaporizable walls indefinitely.
The science is not done. So they know the reactions that might fuse. Every body knows that, even the Geico gecko.
Well, they did make a pretty good fusion reactor called the hydrogen bomb in the 1950s and they used tritium and deuterium. Pretty dramatic proof of concept. So the science is done. The engineering is the business of materials and configurations and technologies. George you are an engineer, so you know this.
The first h-bombs used cryogenic hydrogen. Now modern Hbombs designs use lithium6-deuteride jackets around plutonium sparkplugs.
Modern variable yield fission weapons use a high pressure DT gas injection into the pit moments before detonation to dramatically boost the initial burst of neutrons in the first few shakes. The controversial neutron bomb designs of the 70’s were just essentially very high efficiency super-DT boosted plutonium low yield weapons, that made a humongous pulse of neutrons.
Well Gary, The idea is to produce a controlled thermo-nuclear fusion reaction. When I lived in St Louis MO, in the mid 1960s; actually, St Louis County, My house was heated in the winter, by an oil burning furnace.
When I wanted to produce more thermal energy (“heat”…noun), I simply turned a valve that increased the flow (continuous) of oil fuel, and the reactor produced more heat constantly, with no pulses, or implosions of instability whatever.
Well actually, I really moved a Temperature set point, and a feedback network did the valve twiddle thing as needed.
So with controlled fusion energy, the idea is to provide a steady controlled input of “fuel”, and get a steady controlled output of energy. Not bomb that goes off like a fire cracker, and then dies down like a wet match does.
Now I don’t know; have NO IDEA in fact, just what is in an H-Bomb of any generation. And my interest in knowing any of that, is orders of magnitude less than my actual knowledge, or same.
I mentioned D-T, because it seems to be fairly well known, that it is maybe the lowest ignition condition fusion reaction.
I frankly don’t know whether our 600,kV Deuterons, clobbering a heavy ice target, could be called a nuclear fusion reaction or not. I know we got copious neutrons at about 14 MeV, as the field of research was in fact studying the polarization of such beams, both experimentally, and theoretically. We had some totally crazy math whizzes, who were trying to calculate all that stuff.
But that would be a D-D reaction anyway. You also get high energy protons out of that setup.
But on your last point; no I am not an engineer; I am a physicist, but I do do engineering, in several fields, but I “engineer” my designs from physical principles, down to the bare metal. And it is NOT the same as “engineering” stuff from a cook book. Now I am NOT putting down engineering or engineers. They likely do more efficient utilization of resources including money, than a physicist based approach might achieve.
On many of the things I do, I can determine a priori, what is the theoretically best result it is possible to achieve; usually constrained as it happens, by the second law of thermodynamics, and I have patents (now long expired) on products that were manufactured, that actually achieved within spitting distance of those theoretical limits, and engineering usually doesn’t tell you what those limits are.
Now when you get down to turning a paper design, into “glass and brass” as they say in the optics business, engineering constraints often will determine what is “practical” to achieve, towards those theoretical goals.
So no; I don’t believe the science is done on nuclear fusion. Now I believe that there is good knowledge of the possible reactions and fuel candidates; and thank you, I would rather not know what those are. But I am not convinced that there is a theoretical path to success, let alone, an engineeringly smart path.
And on the side, I don’t do “texting”, so what the hell does LENR stand for. I don’t think anywhere in this thread, anyone explains that.
I guessed low energy nuclear reactions, but what the hell do I know ??
Electricity won’t do it all.
There’s also the Wendelstein 7X in Greifswald, Saxony. Max Planck Society.
Our Greens try to stop the project via the courts – citing danger of neutrons.
OF COURSE Greens will fight anything nuclear. What did you think! They are Luddites first, Maoists second.
The blanket will become highly radioactive in time as it stops the various bits and pieces flying off any sustained fusion. That has always been a problem with it. Folks think it is “clean”, but it isn’t. I suspect the problem can be dealt with, but deal with it they will have to.
More promises, only constrained by:
..”Connected to sensors, injectors, a turbopump to generate an internal vacuum and a huge array of batteries, the stainless steel container seems an unlikely first step toward solving a conundrum that has defeated generations of nuclear physicists—namely finding an effective way to control the fusion reaction.”
The ” huge array of batteries” could be a sticking point.
Nothing new for some:
Nice musical metaphor, for Lockheed marketing!
Transatomic may be a winner. Three or four years for design, then three to five years for NRC approval. Thorium is too far away (though China is shooting for 2020). For fusion, I would look at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics. Small, but a great team. Aneutronic fusion, no neutrons, no radioactive waste. They do not need magnets. They have the temp and confinement time. They are working on plasma density. Their fuel will be hydrogen-boron11. Small units of perhaps five megawatts ( garage size ), very cheap to produce.
Interesting. I have never heard of the Skunk Works advertising anything that wasn’t already successful (i.e., unclassified) or, that they could not do, regardless of how outlandish it seemed. The timing of this ‘announcement’ is interesting. It will certainly be a game changer, if true.
Right on! I wish we had these guys working on climate science, too. They know more about the atmosphere, planetary dynamics, the sun, the planets, the radiation, magnetics…..
There have been plenty of Skunk Works failures. They just never got past prototype out the black world.
At a guess, their usual source of funding has cut or eliminated their funding line item as the project does not offer much/any potential for whatever the hell the Usual Funding Source does to justify its existence. So Lockheed is looking for (an)other sponsor(s). How can you check that possibility? I don’t reckon you or I can.
IF that is what is going on, then I would expect that:
The concept is not a sure thing. If it were, the UFS would find money somewhere.
Neither is it a near sure thing. If it were, Lockheed would have spun it off or sold it to someone.
But it has some real chance of success. If it didn’t, Lockheed would just shut it down.
Just Guessing.
A nuclear fusion reactor designed by an aeronautical engineer. How amusing!
I guess this explains why they haven’t taken into account that they’ll need to get the thing licensed before they can sell it.
In production in ten years? This story will be good to go back and read for a few laughs ten years from now.
CFR is a great choice for the name, because when it doesn’t work, they can just switch over to calling it the cold fusion reactor.
I don’t believe this guy for a moment. His face is tense, he stutters, his body language says, loud and clear, that they don’t have any positive practical results. The change of his voice, when he talks about military application of the “future reactor,” and his repetition of studied phrases, indicate that they are fishing for more money from Pentagon. It all is so obvious, one doesn’t need to be his fellow con man to see a con here.
Atomic fusion similar to Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.
You may have already won the Jackpot and don’t know it.
Man, I consider myself a sceptic, but I’m not a composting pessimistic naysayer type. Most of you are missing something here. Universities on government grants are one thing and most of the research has been government stuff of this kind with all the failures you cite as evidence that it is a ‘laughable’ enterprise. These types of projects are highly likely to have the same results as their predecessors.
Lockheed is a private company that has delivered more real engineering than any university or government research agency. They’ll know the problems that need working on and they will get the best to solve the various problems. That they say 5 years, its a gutty reckoning and they know there will be people around to laugh plus the fact they are wagering a lot of their own dough on it. They are also a manufacturing company – no duck tape here. If they say they will make such and such a progress in five years, that is equivalent to the 30-50 years guesses safely made by doddering 9-to-5 (3:00?) institutional researchers – it’s conveniently beyond the beginning of their retirement. No, no academic committee is going to get such a demanding thing off the ground.
You certainly wouldn’t want to have a government or university build you a supersonic aircraft or a space vehicle that you expected to work, now would you? Have so many of you been infected by the anti free-enterprise virus that has been going around? Lockheed can go out and attract the best for their team and they have a track record of scheduling highly complex projects to completion. I wish their stock wasn’t $180.
Maybe, but I pay for most of what they sell.
Best not to forget that.
Or should I say, remember that.
At least is works.
Much as I admire the Skunk Works’ history of achievement, colleagues working on fusion appear generally skeptical. Or maybe just jealous:
http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-bash-lockheed-on-nuclear-fusion-2014-10
OTOH, there is its record, however diminished lately by problems with the F-22 Raptor & especially F-35 Lightning II. (Historians disagree as to whether the original P-38 Lightning counts a Skunk Works project or not.)
“composting pessimistic naysayer type” – I plan to shamelessly steal that phrase for future use.
The Lockheed F-35 is a ‘supersonic fighter’ program, way over budget, way behind schedule, and still not delivering even the basic specification promises. Another Lockheed quagmire at taxpayer expense. And they don’t have any ‘teammates’ on that program, to pull their chestnuts out of the fire for them.
I’m not a ‘composting naysayer type’ either. But I pay attention to results, not slick marketing that presses all of the current politically correct buttons, where Lockheed is concerned.
Sell Lockheed Martin stock. Now.
Flaws
a) Everyone who has attempted to put superconducting magnets closer to the plasma than the neutron-using blanket runs into huge troubles, including inadequate breeding of tritium from Li in the blanket and ridiculous power requirements to pump heat out of 4 K temperature magnets. Superconducting magnets must be as far from the plasma and its neutron source as possible.
b) This is a mirror machine. I like mirror machines. LLNL put a huge amount of money and incredibly smart people into them. At small scale, and low plasma performance, they were ok. Losses between the two rings were acceptable. The problem is the two ends. Yes, it is possible that LM found a way to “stopper” the ends that LLNL never found despite decades of work, incredibly smart people, complex modeling, and many experiments – but i bet with LLNL and against LM. LLNL had even built a very elaborate mirror machine with more believable stoppers than this cartoon back in the 1980s. It was built and all ready to use, but modeling results showed it would not meet performance and DOE never gave them the money to turn it on. Personally, i think this was one of those idiotic DOE decisions.
c) To paraphrase Admiral Rickover, the inventory of the US Nuclear Navy, all reactors on paper are cheap, simple, easy to make, reliable. Reactors in the real world are expensive, complex, pose difficult manufacturing challenges, and are challenging to operate. He was talking about fission reactors, but his observation is even more true of fusion.
d) Even if the physics was totally proven to achieve an energy payback over 10, there is still the minor little problem of engineering and materials. No way is the relevant engineering 10 years away.
e) If LN management really thinks this is a decade away, they are delusional. Any management that delusional will make other mistakes. Gee, like confusing English and Metric units on the Mars Climate Orbiter.
Please correct me if wrong, but it was my impression that that was NASA’s fault, not Lockheed’s.
Concur. I did some work with R Post at LLNL 27yr ago on a table top mirror machine, and saw the same. The big machine you are referring to was MFTF-B in bldg 431. The vacuum roughing line was like a meter in diameter for that machine. It would have been fun had they turned it on.
Back in the day we used to refer to the Aviation week as the Aviation leak, is that still the case?
No, now we just build our factories in China, train the employees in best practices and let them reverse-engineer our technology.
No leaks, and profits soar for a bit.
But it doesn’t release any beneficial CO2.
Could you keep the plasma going by turning off the microwave and injecting co2 directly into the container ? http://m.youtube.com/results?q=pasmoid%20in%20a%20microwave&sm=1
What needs to be done is to create a fission (tare apart) and fusion (put together) reactor. Not one that is big enough to connect to the grid. Rather one that is the size of a shoe box or smaller that will power up or homes . Maybe we can use laser printer tech’s to create cold fusion. Hang on this would be a economic disaster because after purchase we would have free energy and as our former pm John Howard said “nothings for free nore should it be” . This is the liberals war cry and the reason for poverty . People that have fallen on hard times don’t need a hand out , what they need is a hand up. You give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for the rest of his life. One thing I think we can all agree on, that is things need to change and the only way to create change is to stop doing what your been doing and move forward, stop repeating the mistakes of the parts. Get of the Merry go round so to speak .
Engineers from the University of Washington have published their design and analysis findings and will present them at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Fusion Energy Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, this week. It was funded by the US Department of Energy.
The new design is known as a spheromak, meaning it generates the majority of magnetic fields by driving electrical currents into the plasma itself. This reduces the amount of required materials and allows researchers to shrink the overall size of the reactor.
The researchers estimated the cost of building a fusion reactor power plant using their design is comparable to building a coal power plant.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2792848/is-holy-grail-green-power-zero-emission-fusion-reactor-promises-cheaper-coal-energy.html
Its funny how all these people are so enamored by the idea of fusion for whatever reason, that is years and decades away only because its is an accepted idea by the authorities, yet we have a LENR device that is putting out power NOW and nary a peep because of the bad rap cold fusion got. The E-cat just had a third party report issued. The MIT/Jet device has been working for the last 5 years on the same nickle technology with just a slightly different catalyst and you can go online and learn how its done..
The hypocrisy is over powering. I work in Inertial Confinement Fusion and am fascinated by lattice assisted nuclear reactions. In my opinion LENR has way more promise than hot fusion. The energy density is much higher. The nickle hydrogen reaction is similar to a catalyst in that all a catalyst does is modify the energy levels by the presence of its electric field so that reaction are easier. A catalyst is not used up which is similar to epitaxy.
Irving Langmuir discovered this stuff 50 years ago. The Langmuir plasma probe is named after him…
When are people going to get a clue….
The curse of Fleischmann (died, 2012) & Pons (renounced US citizenship for French).
I think it might be about scalability, I’m sure I couldn’t afford one 🙂
I’ve already got cheap natural gas, why complicate things ?
Besides, it might make the wind turbine manufacturers mad 🙂
Irving Langmuir died 57 years ago.
I detetect approval of this Skunk Works project as a possible replacement for fossil fuels by those who still think that fossil fuels will warm up the world. I simply question the entire concept of having to get rid of fossil fuels because they allegedly are responsible for anthropogenic global warming or AGW. This is just pseudo-scientific rubbish. They are not and demonstrably addition of carbon dioxide to the air from burning coal or oil does not warm the air. This is not an opinion, it is a scientific observation. The keeling curve tells us that atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing but there has been no warming for 18 years now. Arrhenius theory of greenhouse warming has been predicting warming all these years and getting nothing. If you are a scientist and your theory predicts warming but you get nothing at all for 18 years you know that this theory is invalid. The greenhouse warming theory of Arrhenius is simply invalid and belongs in the waste basket of history where there is a spot for it, right next to phlogiston, another failed theory of heat. Their pseudo-science failed to predict the appearance of the mysterious lack of warming they call “hiatus” and is still failing to explain what causes it. They are in a panic now and one peer-reviewed scholarly article after another comes out trying ti explain it away. Anthony has recorded over fifty of them and more are on the way. Their explanations are actually funny if it wasn’t so sad for the state of climate science. One, for example, blames speedup of the trade winds in the Pacific for the hiatus. And what makes them speed up? They are sure it must be ocean currents in the Atlantic (not the Pacific!) Ocean. My favorite excuses are the ones that are loolking for that lost heat in the ocean bottom. Reminds me of Trenberth and Fasullo who in four years managed to lose 80 percent of oceanic heat in the Pacific. They were sure they were right about it because “…Since 2004, ~3000 Argo floats have provided regular temperature soundings of the upper 2000 m of the ocean, giving new confidence in the ocean heat content assessment—…” If I had been the reviewer of that paper I would have told them to forget that confidence and get to work on Argo buoys until they could explain that discrepancy. But that is work and their buddy reviewer let them through with all that missing heat, now a global warming mystery. Since the Arrhenius greenhouse warming theory simply does not work we need an alternative theory that does. And the Miskolczi greenhouse theory, MGT, is such a theory. When Arrhenius predicts non-existent warming, Miskolczi predicts what we see: addition of carbon dioxide to air does not warm the air. It came out in 2007, was vilified on the web, and blacklisted because of its predictions. Grad students never knew about it and as a result, not one of those over 50 attempts to explain away the hiatus made use of Miskolczi. According to MGT water vapor and carbon dioxide, the two chief greenhouse gases, establish a common joint absorption window in the infrared. Its IR optical thickness is fixed at 1.87, determined by Miskolczi from first principles. If you now add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, it will start to absorb in the IR, just as the Arrhenius theory says. But this will increase the optical thickness, and as soon as this happens, water vapor will start to diminish, rain out, and the original optical thickness is restored. The added carbon dioxide will of course keep absorbing but simultaneous reduction of water vapor in the atmosphere will keep total absorption constant, and no warming is possible. That is why there is no warming today despite a steady increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide as recorded by the Keeling curve. This has important consequences for climate science. The lack of warming from added carbon dioxide means that there is no such thing as enhanced greenhouse warming. Since the enhanced greenhouse warming is alleged to be the cause of AGW it follows that there is no such thing as anthropogenic global warming. It turns out to be just a pseudo-scientific fantasy, invented by an over-eager climate worker to justify the greenhouse hypothesis. This lack of warming also applies to runaway greenhouse effect and thereby explains why very high carbon dioxide levels in geological past have not caused any runaway warming.
…and if the adaptation of water vapor levels happens with a time lag, it explains the finding of Beenstock & Reingewertz that CO2 level cannot cause temperature, but the derivative of CO2 level can.
If you’re going to post anti-Arrhenius nonsense, even if you did tack a semi-relevant bit onto the front of your otherwise cut-and-paste screed, can you please at least try to learn how to break it up into chunks?
“Arrhenius theory of greenhouse warming has been predicting warming all these years and getting nothing.” and “Since the Arrhenius greenhouse warming theory simply does not work we need an alternative theory that does. And the Miskolczi greenhouse theory, MGT, is such a theory.”
Miskolczi’s work:
1. http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/08/comments-on-miskolczi%E2%80%99s-2010-controversial-greenhouse-theory/
Uses artificial non-realistic assumptions.
2. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/08/support-for-the-saturated-greenhouse-effect-leaves-the-likelihood-of-agw-tipping-points-in-the-cold/
Points to a saturated GHE for CO2, which was already known to be expected from its logarithmic nature. Confirming what was expected elsewhere doesn’t really confirm Miskolczi.
The “Arrhenius theory” you rail against is the improper collecting, concocting, and congealing of confounding climate components into confused climate models compiled with a GHE component. They didn’t predict “the pause”. Arrhenius’ real work is untouched and well supported.
You do make it convenient by announcing with the uninterrupted block style that your entire comment may be freely ignored and scrolled past, but it also makes it hard for those attempting to scan through it looking for at least a partially intelligent factoid related somehow to the story. Breaking it up into manageable pieces would be helpful.
Remember, I said “please”. 😉
I doubt it.
LockMart has a bad habit of overpromising and underperforming combined with massive exaggeration and underestimation of cost.
See the F-35.
Some things are just impossible.
Travelling faster than the speed of light seems to be one of those impossible things. If it was possible, the aliens would already be here.
And then some things are just too dangerous. The flying car is possible, but it seems that too many of them would crash and kill the pilots/drivers so it is not being used. Trains at 400 kms/hour are another one of those too dangerous things to do.
So fusion power is either one of those possible or impossible things and/or it might be too dangerous.
Maybe hydrogen is not the answer. It might be an isotopic transmutation solution using Nickel62 for example. Nobody has tried all of the isotopic solutions yet.
So, when we will have an answer to the questions? Maybe it is just impossible except in the middle of stars.
Rossi’s E-Cat:
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/156393-cold-fusion-reactor-independently-verified-has-10000-times-the-energy-density-of-gas
Debunking his claims:
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/12/05/the-nuclear-physics-of-why-we/
http://news.discovery.com/tech/alternative-power-sources/5-reasons-cold-fusion-bunk-130528.htm
The report from a few days ago.
http://www.sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/LuganoReportSubmit.pdf
Never say never again, as they say. Maybe somebody will come up with a radically new way to achieve it, with some resonance that will make it feasible. But at the moment, yes, I would put more trust in thorium reactors, and even in the EM-drive (at least it has been experimentally proven by three independent labs that motion is produced there) than in fusion. They talked enthusiastically about tokamak when I was a kid, 45 years ago. The talk continues, money flows…
and in hydrogen bombs
Imagine if the billions poured into windmills and solar had been used for fusion. There might by now, have been a genuine clean, green energy source.
You need to ponder why this did not – and still does not – occur to them. In fact the early attempts were even ridiculed and sabotaged. Funny, that.
Considering what has already been “poured into” fusion energy research i think the billions would have made no difference. It’s a black hole.
Saying you are 5 generations away from a prototype is like saying you don’t know what you don’t know… there could be a lot of surprises on the way…
Oh boy. This seems as promising as cold fusion. “The design is in my head to build a perpetual motion machine. I just need a few backers and I’m sure I can get it to the market in the next 5 years.”
Power from nuclear fusion has always been fifty years in the future and always will be.