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)
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I’m skeptical. The guy is an aeronautical engineer. No offense to engineers but they should consult nuclear physicists. After all physicists built the atomic bomb, nuclear reactor and fusion bomb. Aeronautical engineers tried to build a nuclear airplane since 1946. None so far. They don’t even know if the physics will work in this compact fusion reactor. But it’s worth trying.
Physicists are good for the theory and even the demonstration of it, but when you come to build something outside the lab that has a chance of working – this is engineer work. The biggest oxymoron in the science/tech fields is the term “rocket scientist”. There ain’t such a thing. So the guy’s merely and aeronautical engineer in charge of the project. He’s already said they want to attract specialist engineers into the project. I’m not a physicist but I understand the theory. University projects of this kind have too many physicists – one will do. The engineers will take care of the hardware if it can be made to work.
Good point if not only for the fact that the atomic bomb was invented by Oppenheimer and his physicists team, the nuclear reactor by Fermi, the H-bomb by Teller, the liquid-fueled rocket by Goddard. Damn they’re all physicists. Okay, okay engineers are good too.
The search for a viable fusion reactor has cost billions, from Zeta in the 1950s through the Russian Tokomak design to the present day multi-national ITER project. The latter alone has cost over 50 billion so far and is not expected to produce results before 2027.
Here is a summary of the state of the art of futuristic nuclear developments :
Cold Fusion – Doesn’t work. Classify with astrology, alien abduction, bigfoot, time travel, etc.
Thorium Reactors – Will work for short time but high maintenance costs due to use corrosive materials render them non-commercial at present.
Fusion – Promises unlimited energy with no risks. Proof of concept established but can’t sustain reaction long enough to be commercial.
Sorry, but “thorium reactors” is nonsense. Thorium is not reactive – not fissile. The idea is to breed fertile thorium in a fission reactor powered by something like U-238, which would be a uranium reactor. Should the thorium converted to U-233 contribute to the reactor’s power generation (which has never been demonstrated), it would still be a uranium reactor.
It looks very much like a Mirror Machine, a concept for a fusion reactor researched in the 1960s, and dropped. However, that machine was the size of a small room, but small compared with later pulse machines. I’m very sceptical.
How good would it be if somehow we could force all patents out of the oil ,coal and gas companies so young minds could revisit them with today’s understanding. Surely there’s a young Tesla out there that could carry on his work. Or what about a young Stanley Myers that could hydro us all up. Scientific funding has to come from somewhere and I can’t see the Rockefeller’s digging deep to fund free energy devises . If your interested in how America got to where it is and how it got there then read this http://educate-yourself.org/ga/RFcontents.shtml . America government is how many trillions in debt, how many billions if not trillions do the Rockafeller’s control ? So who’s really in control ? The rothchilds own Europe and are in with the Rockafeller’s to create one world order. The first step has already taken place with the introduction of the Euro. Why do you think the pommies never converted and will never convert away from the pound? Do you think they will give away their right to print money? Don’t ever under estimate the financial power of monarchy. Free trade and self regulating takes the power away from governments and gives it (power) to privet enterprise to the point were we elect people like the Bush oil family. I read somewhere that the Binlarden family gave them a leg up and helped them out when they were struggling . The real watermelons aren’t the greenies it the American government . Obama comes across as a green on the outside but American political system is as red as Russia . How much of Americas debt is owed to China, the sleeping giant.
Anthony why would there be a ISIS add at the top of your page.
REPLY: Ads are context/browsing history sensitive, and inserted by wordpress.com – I have NO control over them. If you had read some articles about ISIS recently, your cookies would tag you as having an interest in that subject, and so the ad machine decides to display an ad about ISIS to you. Try an experiment. Go look up some stuff you normally wouldn’t look at, like say “baby formula”, or maybe “flower arrangements”, or perhaps even “Travel to Alaska”. Search then browse those topics so that you look at least three or more different webpages on those subjects. It will be likely that you’ll see ads for one of them here, though I don’t know for certain if those are in the advertising mix wordpress.com system. – Anthony
Cheers Anthony , I thought that was the case . It took me by surprise because I’ve not looked up anything to do with ISIS . Are you happy with Google trying to build a profile up on you/me so they can sell to advertisers .
Share price seems solid if a little weak along with general prices. So the people in the know must be happy with this announcement and the research funds going into it.
So Google links truth ( IS ) with tereraism . So the real war is about truth (IS) , and the real threat to Americas national security IS the internet because people can seek out the truth. America Is going on like a bad perient by saying ” do what I say not what I do”
I took a snapshot of of your home page showing your adds placed there by Google no drought and nothing at all to do with you I suspect . I would have posted the snapshot but I haven’t worked out how to yet on my mobile device. Sick of buying PC’s and laptops so people can hack and crash them. I’ve had two dry lightening strikes hit my house and fry most electrical devices .
jmorpuss. You might want to look into ad-blockers. There are a number of ad-blocking technologies available for all common PC platforms. They somewhat undermine the implied arrangement of companies providing free services in return for being allowed to present us with some advertising. I wouldn’t recommend them except that some advertisers are quite ill-behaved and their advertising activities are intrusive, time consuming, and a real nuisance.
Anyway Google or any other decent search engine will likely lead you to an ad-blocker that will suit your needs.
Don , Thanks for the tips . Cheers and I hope you have a great day.
Too bad Jane Fonda is too old to do a remake of China Syndrome with fusion technology and head this off before we get the benefit of this new technology! SARC/
I want it to work, but what we have here is funding bait. I wonder why Lockheed need to go cap in hand to investors?
Listen carefully to what he is saying at 2:00 for the next 20 secs. “we think we can get to a prototype in 5 years”, “high risk, high payoff” “testing the concept to see if it holds the promise we think it does”
If I’m still around in 5 years, I’ll check back to see if they have the prototype up and running. As I said I want it to happen but the press release and video does not enthuse me.
LM is famous for using OPM for projects that deliver nothing. Classic is the Warrior 2000 project, $7B for software that was 10 years late and couldn’t do 10% of the promised capability. F22, F35, etc…
Northrup has a far better track record, but then they tend to start using their own money. F18 Hornet/Super Hornet as an example.
If the concept worked out, it would drive the guys below nuts. Wouldn’t that be fun —
• “Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.”- Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute
• “The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”- Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
• “Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”- Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
If anyone can do it, Skunk Works could, but not holding my breath at all. Sustained/workable fusion is 1000x more difficult than fission.
Maybe in a century or two….
Every time the idea of a preposterous breakthrough coming in an out-of-the way place arises, I think about two things. A couple of bicycle builders developed the airplane in a shop in Dayton and a garage at Kill Devil Hills. And their “announcement” of success was a telegram to their father that they would be home by Christmas because they had flown successfully.
@MikeB
The evidence is becoming rather overwhelming that LENR is real.
Dr. Hagelstion from MIT gave a short course on LENR. Students all received a LENR device. These devices are producing excess energy, and energy beyond chemical. So imagine that, students at a 101 level course doing nuclear experiments that produce excess energy (about 14x)
CBS 60 minutes hired a WELL trained physicist and said “check this out”. He started out 100% skeptical, and after looking into LENR stated he was converted.
Video here:
That video was 5 years ago. 5 years later the reasons are WELL known as to why so many LENR experiments fail. (main issue is allowing sufficient time to load up the metal lattice).
One has to be RATHER hard pressed to ignore the witness and testimony of SO MANY people experiencing the heat effect of LENR devices.
As more information and evidence comes out, the BETTER the case becomes for LENR. This issue is no different then reading about how global warming is some big huge problem, but looking closer we see it is not.
There is much growing evidence Fleischmann-Pons are NOT THE ONLY ONES to have seen this “heat” effect. This effect is real, and has been seen 100s if not 1000’s of times around the world.
It is now “reasonable” in public to accept LENR as real. And as noted it is NOT likely “classical” fusion, but it is clearly a heat effect and one that occurs at the nuclear level as opposed to chemical.
So a paper stating that typical fusion by-products not being present ARE correct, but only because LENR is NOT a typical fusion reaction. LENR is a nuclear process and effect. We are seeing heat, and seeing excess heat at a nuclear level. (what more do we need?).
The fact is that we DO SEE heat! (so did Fleischmann-Pons). The debate is thus not is this fusion, but WHAT KIND of nuclear reaction is occurring here.
What remains is commercial potential of this energy source.
Rossi claims to have 1 million watt system at a customer site. They are currently dealing with problems of control when the system is “under load”. They expect these problems to be resolved within a 1 year time frame. This is clearly beyond the lab and theoretical stage, but a system in a commercial environment.
Regardless of Rossi’s “claims”, I much predict the “resistance” to LENR will ONLY fall when such devices are working in a commercial environment.
Regards,
Albert k
Navy has been working on LENR too. http://lenr-canr.org/wordpress/?page_id=952
I’d be less skeptical if there were clear, reproducible evidence of nuclear reactions, rather than the sporadic and episodal and non-reproducible results that have been reported in the past. It would also help if one had a theory.
I actually do have a theory, and have written out a description of a LENR device that should work, as opposed to might work only by violating some laws of thermodynamics — it might even explain to some extent the anecdotal reports of radiation and nuclear reaction. If anybody wants to give me a few million dollars (seriously) I’d be happy to build a prototype and demonstrate the concept. With my approach, there won’t be any ambiguity — if it works, it works, and will produce both heat and radiation, and a ten minute talk is sufficient to demonstrate why it theoretically should work UNLESS non-magnetohydrodynamic nonlinearities (that is, easy stuff) intervene to keep one out of the favorable regime. But I don’t think they will. As I said, it probably explains the accidental success of many LENR researchers.
rgb
Well, the difference is Rossi not asking for money like you!
His rights and technology were purchased by Industrial Heat. And the designs for their commercial reactors have REALLY changed in just one year. And the 3rd party test of his device was done without Rossi present. It is a good start.
And I don’t think the results are “sporadic” anymore. Rossi’s device worked at will (you could turn it on and off).
And it not just Rossi, we have the above CBS video I posted and their visit to a lab in Israel. These testimonies ARE important since we seeing complete DIFFERENT groups of people state that such an LENR effect exists. And they gone well beyond the “hit and miss” ability to create these effects.
We also has Dr. Hagelstein at MIT who been running devices for months on end now. And students of his class receive a working LENR device.
The simple matter is this discovery will TAKE time to flow thought the physics community.
Recall in 1985 A Doctor discovered ulcers are NOT DUE to life style, stress and bad foods. The WHOLE medical community had based their “dogma” on ONE poor test in the 1950’s. It took the medical community NEARLY 20 years to toss out their pre-conceived notions that ulcers could be “cured”. So in 1985, the doctors discovered a cure for ulcers). Dr. Barry Marshall and Robin Warren were awarded the Nobel Price in 2005. (so it took the medical community 15+ years to change their views on ulcers).
As for theory? There are several, including this one from LENR startup Brillouin.
http://www.brillouinenergy.com/Docs1/BrillouinEnergyHypothesis.pdf
Ross’s 3rd party test is amazing and the result of people putting their credibility on the line. However, while the results are amazing, I would accept that the report and testing leaves much desired. So labs in Israel, MIT, Rossi, SRI, Brillouin etc. have and are producing the LENR effect on demand.
In fact this “follows” much how new technology and science moves forward (not just one person). In many ways, this “new” industry is springing up like the computer industry in the 1970’s. We can get our hands on a CPU processor, but who will be to market with a computer beyond the “kit” and basement development level.
LENR is TRULY a garage type of industry that can grow to be the next Apple.
So while you might have a theory, I suggest you fast get going.
Industrial Heat has a commercial system being worked on at a customer site. Brillouin has prototype reactors being tested at Stanford Research Institute.
So these folks are about 5 years ahead of you.
Keep in mind MANY MORE companies are NOT so public about LENR and rightfully so by judging some of the comments here.
Others like Hitachi(recently awarded patents in Japan in regards to LENR) are not that public about their theories and plans.
The simple matter is the LENR revolution is occurring right before you eyes – likely one of the most interesting stories of our lifetime if not for mankind.
Regards,
Albert Kallal
Farnsworth already invented a working LENR in 1964 called the fusor. It is a favorite science project of high school students.
This is all hype. Observing excess heat does not mean cold fusion is occurring. Most likely the apparatus gained heat from its environment. Almost impossible to keep the apparatus and the environment at exactly the same temperature. It takes weeks to observe the excess heat. Tiny temperature variations surely had taken place in such a long time. This explains why the heat effect is variable and inconsistent among many experiments.
“It takes weeks to observe the excess heat.”
Check out the E-Cat report. 900 watts in, 2600 watts out, IIRC. It doesn’t take super-sensitive calorimetry to observe that. There’s still lots of stuff to criticize, have fun with it.
The claims in the E-Cat report are bogus.
Rossi and Focardi have applied for a patent that has been partially rejected in a preliminary report. According to the report, “As the invention seems, at least at first, to offend against the generally accepted laws of physics and established theories, the disclosure should be detailed enough to prove to a skilled person conversant with mainstream science and technology that the invention is indeed feasible. … In the present case, the invention does not provide experimental evidence (nor any firm theoretical basis) which would enable the skilled person to assess the viability of the invention. The description is essentially based on general statement and speculations which are not apt to provide a clear and exhaustive technical teaching.”
It’s more fun to accept bogus claims, have fun with it.
More on the E-Cat scam.
“With other companies now trying to capitalize off of this speculative, unverified and highly dubious claim, it’s time for the e-Cat’s proponents to provide the provable, testable, reproducible science that can answer these straightforward physics objections. Independent verification is the cornerstone of all scientific investigation and experiment, it’s how we weed out all sorts of errors from miscalibration to contamination, and how we protect ourselves from unscrupulous swindles.”
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/12/05/the-nuclear-physics-of-why-we/
Nuclear physicists are sure it is a hoax.
15 Oct: RT: Russia develops hybrid fusion-fission reactor, offers China role
The project is open for international collaboration, particularly from Chinese scientists…
A hybrid fusion-fission reactor may be several times more efficient than a traditional fission reactor. And building one is “a goal for tomorrow” rather than the distant future, as is the case for a fusion reactor like the famous France-based International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) that Russia collaborates on, Kovalchuk said…
http://rt.com/news/196088-russia-hybrid-nuclear-reactor/
“…if not eventually decrease, the world’s insatiable demand for power”
How does a new source of useful energy decrease demand?
I do not think Tritium-Deuterium reaction is such a good idea. It releases an awful lot of neutron radiation, which is hazardous, does tremendous damage and is impossible to confine with a thin structure. For comparison, in this case neutron radiation is fifty times more powerful for the same energy output, than for Uranium fission.
Lack of long half life radioactive isotopes in waste is true, but fission reactors with the same property could also be designed. Only our current Cold War Plutonium factories, with their extremely low fuel efficiency, fail at this test.
There are alternatives, of course, like aneutronic fusion, with no radiation output at all. Boron-proton (11B+p -> 3x4He) reaction for example releases only hot alpha particles (Helium), nothing else. There is a formidable challenge in it, as the reaction requires 6.6 billion Kelvin, but that can be replaced by a moderate energy 600 keV proton beam directed at a Boron target, which sounds a bit more reasonable. These devices can be designed and operated far away from thermodynamic equilibrium, so talk about temperature is wanton.
It’s a great reaction for making enhanced radiation warheads, incorrectly called “neutron bombs”, aka, “the capitalists’ dream, a bomb that kills people but leaves property untouched”, as per Soviet propaganda. The people they were designed to kill were invading Russian armored vehicle crew, & the property to be preserved was German villages.
Well, there is a difference between preserving evacuated German villages against an invading Soviet army and a compact fusion reactor (CFR) design to be used in ordinary baseload power generation, even in aircrafts. Powerful neutron radiation may be desirable in the former case, not so much in the latter one.
This Lockheed Martin / Skunk Works communication is nothing but hype. A proper breeder fission reactor design is superior in every conceivable respect. What is more, the technology for it exists and was tested many decades ago. It was only dismissed because it failed to satisfy demand for Plutonium, that is, bomb stuff.
I agree. Even if the villages weren’t evacuated, ERWs offered advantages to the NATO defenders, since the neutron projectiles would have been detonated over Soviet tank & motor rifle regiments attacking between built up areas. The missile & artillery packages were designed with the typical area covered by Soviet tactical formations & the average spacing between German villages in mind. The Russians tried to counter ERWs by covering the tops of their tank turrets & glaces with lead blankets.
Israel for obvious reasons still favors neutron artillery projectiles as tactical nukes.
I like breeder reactors & think the US should be building them.
As a serious aside, your concern about neutron release as a part of high-energy fusion reaction is noted.
But, as far as we know about high-energy fusion, the 0n1 release you reference is a natural and unavoidable result. And, trapping those 0n1 generates a noticeable extra heat transfer mechanism for the fusion reactor as a whole system. (On another side note, I have never seen a viable, reliable, maintainable high-energy design for getting the continuously-created radiant fusion energy from inside the vacuum, through the vacuum-barrier (which must be a high-alloy piping) and the large higher-energy hot magnets around the piping. Regardless of the fusion theory used, you must get the plasma energy from each reaction through all those barriers into pure water able to become steam. No steam, no reliable power production using any existing technology we know about.)
But, the 0n1 are a short-term problem only. They will irradiate the fusion structure and piping and magnets and magnet cooling piping and the cables/conduits hooked up to the magnets. Unlike fission products – which are extremely radioactive and (some of which are very long-lived, some very short-lived) need to be very carefully treated and shielded and cooled for relatively long periods of time – neutron-activated isotopes in the vacuum piping and fusion structural components will be radioactive, but they are low-energy short-lived isotopes. No cooling needed, they are not “portable” because the irradiated pipe material stays in place, and they are minor problems for maintenance periods.
Which can be nasty on superconducting magnets, and you can’t put them far away from the reaction chamber, can you?
You can’t even make the thing compact either with thick concrete walls or a huge body of water necessary to shield against neutrons.
And thus my skepticism about the government’s ever-longer and ever-more expensive “consensus” Big Science high-energy fusion programs. And their bureaucrats. No one has yet shown how the engineering will be done to get that fusion-released continuous gamma ray blast and 0n1 flux out through the vacuum walls and OUT through the Tokamak/Torus magnetic “bottle” and OUT through its the power circuits and their cabling and insulation and wraps and OUT through supports for the magnetic bottle and its structural steel and concrete into a suitable blanket that will be cooled (?) by a pure water supply sufficient to boil sufficient steam to turn a useful generator…..
And I have seen no solutions to those same practical problems to fusion since my first nuclear physics and nuclear reactor design and control classes back in 1974.
Super-conducting, supercold magnetic bottles? OK, I did the design modeling for the late SuperConducting Super Collider magnetic core and magnetic strings around Waco/Waxahatcie TX back in the early 90’s. You can always blow a “power plant” worth of gamma rays through a super conducting magnet. You just cannot expect that super-conducting liquid helium piped magnet to work for very long after its been hit with that gamma ray flux …
This is Lockheed’s Skunk Works. They get more respect from me, because they’ve earned it many times, than some garden variety academic or guy in his garage.
The timeline is aggressive enough as to not be the usual pie-in-the-sky blather either.
We shall see, but when these guys say they can, I think just maybe they can.
Lockheed researchers looking for money, just like solar and wind developers using CAGW as the excuse.
Close relation of mine is a recently retired VP at Lockheed and was director of one of their labs with PhD in physics. He knows some of these lead folks at the Skunk Works. His impression: way over-hyped and they are probably in dire need of additional cash infusion. Same-old usual fusion talk.
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors
http://youtu.be/YVSmf_qmkbg
Snake oil salesman.
Except that snake oil actually has million times the energy density of gasoline.
We can economically recover the energy from gasoline.
Compact Fusion Skeptics
Well it’s not at all like trying to hold Jello with rubber bands. That at least works so long as you choose the rubber bands, and Jello geometries properly. BUT !! the rubber bands do actually have to touch the rubber bands, and that means the rubber bands and Jello can conduct heat between themselves, and possibly reach at least local thermal equilibrium.
The plasma is not aloud to touch the magnetic rubber bands, in the sense of conducting heat away from the plasma. If it does, you are likely to get allowed bang, and the breaker will blow.
Need I say it again: gravity sucks, which is why it can hold the plasma together without rubber bands.
What’s more the rubber bands have to touch the jello too.
Hah! Rubber bands are easy. You can SEE rubber bands holding Jello.
But, in a traditional consensus high-energy fusion generator –
I have to keep ALL of the air OUT
I have to keep ALL of the high-energy (pre-fusion) ionized ex-hydrogen ions IN,
I have to get ALL of the fusion-generated high-energy gamma rays OUT (through the magnetic bottle and its super-cooled super-conducting magnets and their supports and structures and cables and insulation (thermal and electric!) ,
I have to take care of all of those pesky and penetrating high energy neutrons going through everything,
I have get the fused hydrogen ions OUT(He out but no 1D2 and 1T3!)
but I have to put IN new 1D2 and 1 T3 at the same time,
and I have to keep the super-cold things cold and the super-hot things hot … in the same place.
And make the be able to run for 3-6 years continuously. And then be repaired without killing people.
its crapola. i read another blog called N#xtBigFut#re and the smart guys over there says its bs. All these companies release this stuff and say “look what we’ve invented or are working on” and then check back 5 or 10 years later and see how few of them ever made it to mkt. (especially on batteries and all things power related)
So it’s more of a government grant magnet.
This article about an Ecat report has more hands and feet.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2014/10/12/interesting-ecat-report/