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Certain Doom or Power Boom? Lockheed Developing Mini Fusion Reactor

JacksinPA said:
It was the name of a company started by GM in the 1980s to make neodymium-based permanent magnets. My degree is in chemistry & I worked for a big French chemical company that sold separated rare earths.



The Chinese also have a hold on most of the rare earth ores.
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So you know exactly what I am referring to.
The Chinese did not STEAL our rare earth manufacturing processes. For all practical purposes, we pretty gave away the entire store. I daresay that having our own domestic presence in rare earth refining and manufacturing is, or was, a pretty important thing to keep.

Your insight into this matter is no doubt a lot better than mine, I just remember that my reaction at the time I read about it was along the lines of
"WTF were they thinking?? The Chinese are already actively engaged in all kinds of corporate espionage, and now we're saying 'Here, take this too, we don't need it'???"

And, it's not JUST the USA by the way, as you probably already well know.

https://vimeo.com/40226173
 
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A patent is a 2-edged sword. Yes it gives you a monopoly for 17 years. But enforcing it can sometimes be more difficult & expensive than it's worth, especially if it's inside some piece of Chinese or Russian top secret military hardware.
 
JacksinPA said:
A patent is a 2-edged sword. Yes it gives you a monopoly for 17 years. But enforcing it can sometimes be more difficult & expensive than it's worth, especially if it's inside some piece of Chinese or Russian top secret military hardware.
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I completely understand, and so is copyright infringement.
 
JacksinPA said:
https://sputniknews.com/science/201804021063148722-Lockheed-Developing-Mini-Fusion-Reactpor/

Lockheed Martin is developing a new nuclear fusion reactor like no other. The US defense contractor says that the reactor is no bigger than a shipping container, but could power 80,000 homes.

What once was the provenance comic books — a super-compact, high-powered fusion reactor — is now becoming a reality, and soon Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark could see their might matched by none other than Lockheed Martin. But instead of powering the Ironman suit or Gotham City, Lockheed's reactor is expected to make waves in the realm of everything from aircraft carriers to spacecraft.

The company's patent, discovered March 28, also contains a drawing of an F-16 jet, signalling Lockheed even sees an application for the reactor in fighter aircraft.
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I will retrieve the referenced patent & post it here as it is a public document & is not subject to copyright laws. Here are the first 5 pages:

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Cool!
 
Self-sustaining fusion isn't something that has been achieved. I'll believe they can pull off a "mini" one when I see it.
 
Yeah realistically this is at least 5 or 6 decades away.

The international prototype fusion reactor ITER is meant to go online in like 20 years or so, and that's simply a prototype for a useful fusion reactor the size of a giant building.

Good to see companies working on this though! Fusion is definitely the holy grail of energy.
 
longview said:
True, I was not worried about coal, because it has real logistics problems, which will cause it's own demise.
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Coal has more against it than just logistics. The railroads own a lot of the mines & make $$$ hauling it. But compared to natural gas it is uneconomic & there is also the problem of disposing of the toxic ash left over when coal is burned. This ash is rich in heavy metals & things like arsenic.
 
spud_meister said:
Self-sustaining fusion isn't something that has been achieved. I'll believe they can pull off a "mini" one when I see it.
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it would be cool to see something like this in my lifetime. i remember that someone claimed to have discovered a cold fusion process in the 1980s, but that one fizzled out. we did get this, though :

fusion.webp
 
Helix said:
it would be cool to see something like this in my lifetime. i remember that someone claimed to have discovered a cold fusion process in the 1980s, but that one fizzled out. we did get this, though :
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Actually there are plenty of people who are still working on what was called cold Fusion.
Brilliant Light Power | Brilliant Light Power has developed a new commercially competitive, non-polluting, plasma-based primary source of massive power from the conversion of hydrogen atoms of water molecules to dark matter, the previously unidentifi
Dr. Mills seems to be the closest, but for him to be right, lots of physics is wrong,
but his cell is doing something.
 
Helix said:
it would be cool to see something like this in my lifetime. i remember that someone claimed to have discovered a cold fusion process in the 1980s, but that one fizzled out. we did get this, though :

View attachment 67231118
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:lol: Fusion's certainly possible, the challenges are just technological. At some point we'll get it, and technically you could argue that solar panels harvest fusion energy anyway.
 
longview said:
Actually there are plenty of people who are still working on what was called cold Fusion.
Brilliant Light Power | Brilliant Light Power has developed a new commercially competitive, non-polluting, plasma-based primary source of massive power from the conversion of hydrogen atoms of water molecules to dark matter, the previously unidentifi
Dr. Mills seems to be the closest, but for him to be right, lots of physics is wrong,
but his cell is doing something.
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Bah, load of nonsense. Even accepting he can downshift an electron, where does it, and the nucleus, go to to make dark matter?
 
spud_meister said:
Bah, load of nonsense. Even accepting he can downshift an electron, where does it, and the nucleus, go to to make dark matter?
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If he is talking about a LENR reaction, the electron gets used as electrical current the neutron and positron get popped off in low energy radiation. Its basically a low energy fission reaction that generates electricity directly in the process of transmuting elements. The trick is generating the terahertz frequencies necessary to do this efficiently. So far no joy. Yet.
 
spud_meister said:
Bah, load of nonsense. Even accepting he can downshift an electron, where does it, and the nucleus, go to to make dark matter?
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I have not read the recent work, his earlier explanation did describe why people could not replicate Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
If this is true, Lockheed-Martin may indeed become another "trillion dollar company", possibly the largest one.
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They have been working on it just a few years. Other small companies have gotten in on it. The main difference now between the 'big researchers' is that there are off the shelf super conducting tape for magnets. That means that they can make the components of the reactors with 'off the shelf' components, on a much smaller scale than the big research reactors. The 'design' process has been cut back drastically, and the cost has been cut back drastically for the prototypes. Other companies are that are researching fusion power are Google, Helion Energy, TAE Technologies, , and I would also look at 7-x stellerator
 
I met a physicist a few months ago who works for the Naval research laboratory in Maryland. He was saying that they’re doing quite a bit of work on this there as well.
 
spud_meister said:
Self-sustaining fusion isn't something that has been achieved. I'll believe they can pull off a "mini" one when I see it.
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Same. People have been saying fusion power is right around the corner for decades. Hasnt happened because the engineering problems seem pretty insurmountable so far. I believe it wont happen until there's a technological leap in both magnetism and building materials that can withstand high intensity heat without melting.
 
PoS said:
Same. People have been saying fusion power is right around the corner for decades. Hasnt happened because the engineering problems seem pretty insurmountable so far. I believe it wont happen until there's a technological leap in both magnetism and building materials that can withstand high intensity heat without melting.
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The project this physicist is working on in the naval research lab involves creating aerosolizable small plastic droplets containing heavy hydrogen, and then activating the reaction inside the droplets with a laser. Apparently this can be done, and controlling it with how much of the aerosolized droplets are released.
 
ataraxia said:
The project this physicist is working on in the naval research lab involves creating aerosolizable small plastic droplets containing heavy hydrogen, and then activating the reaction inside the droplets with a laser. Apparently this can be done, and controlling it with how much of the aerosolized droplets are released.
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Thats inertial confinement fusion- the idea isnt new. The problem is being able to ignite the rest of the fuel and maintain it, so far it hasnt been achieved.
 
When they actually have a working fusion reactor that produces more power than it uses, I'll get excited. Press releases are meaningless.
 
PoS said:
Same. People have been saying fusion power is right around the corner for decades. Hasnt happened because the engineering problems seem pretty insurmountable so far. I believe it wont happen until there's a technological leap in both magnetism and building materials that can withstand high intensity heat without melting.
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Well, the reason so many companies are looking at it right now is that there HAS been a substantial technological leap in magnetism... and that the superconducting tape that can be used for magnetic confinement is 'off the shelf'. . (I.e. a lot cheaper than custom made).
 
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