Lockheed Says Its Fusion Reactor Could Power Airplanes

rtart

Here's the link:

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Lockheed-Says-Its-Fusion-Reactor-Could-Power-Airplanes222910-1.html

Lockheed Martin is working on a compact fusion reactor that could be small enough to provide a power source for aircraft, and it could be ready to fly in 10 years or less, the company said on Wednesday. "Our compact fusion concept combines several alternative magnetic confinement approaches, taking the best parts of each, and offers a 90-percent size reduction over previous concepts," said Tom McGuire, compact fusion lead for the Skunk Works' Revolutionary Technology Programs. "The smaller size will allow us to design, build and test the CFR in less than a year." After completing several of these design-build-test cycles, the team anticipates being able to produce a prototype in five years. That first prototype should be small enough to fit on the back of a truck, and could provide enough power for a city of 100,000 people, the company said. A C-5 cargo aircraft powered by the reactor could fly for about a year powered by "just a few bottles of gasoline," the company said. The company says that technology will be available "within the next decade."

The compact reactor is housed in a magnetic bottle that can handle extremely hot temperatures, reaching hundreds of millions of degrees. By containing the reaction, the technology is then able to release it in a controlled fashion. The heat energy created by the compact fusion reactor will drive turbine generators, by replacing the combustion chambers with simple heat exchangers. In turn, the turbines will then generate electricity or propulsive power for a number of applications. "Unlimited range, unlimited endurance -- that's what nuclear fission can do for an airplane," said McGuire. "We think we have a very robust strategy … in 20 years, we have clean power for the world."

Msabot1

Yea...read about this yesterday...If LM can make a practical working reactor..then OPEC will be drinking their oil reserves...this is still in the design phase though..won't have a working prototype for 10 years...then you will have to get around the powers that control energy as it stands now,regulations...and all of the other roadblocks that are sure to come up to block the implementation of such a radical technology....

mhardy6647

Mr. Fusion -- I'm waiting...

Fusion has long been the holy grail of efficient, relatively clean, virtually boundless energy for a long time (well, I guess since the first fusion bomb tests after WWII). It's simple in concept but challenging to render practical (much less compact, much less cost-effective).

Amusingly, there were fairly serious suggestions of fission powered aircraft, to the extent that a modified Convair B-36 did fly with a nuclear fission reactor onboard in the 1950s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_aircraft



Folks also talked, in those days, with a straight face, of using fusion bombs ("H-bombs") to power spacecraft and to "dig" canals and tunnels on Earth. In fairness, fusion bombs don't have to be "dirty" - they can make big, but radiochemically clean, booms, though.

Mikey081057

Very cool...

Mikey081057

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlYClniDFkM

gdb

Moose68Bash

Frankly, I find this hard to believe.

While I was working at Princeton University, I worked a lot with the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, where there some of the best minds in the world -- especially in astrophysics and plasma physics -- working on the problem of developing a commercially viable fusion reactor.

There were many challenges, most of which were beyond my comprehension. But one overarching problem was clear: To be commercially viable, any reactor had to produce more usable energy than it consumed to get the fusion reaction going and to contain it.

PPPL experimented with many designs -- e.g., Tokamak and toroidal -- but none could crack that big nut -- a net positive usable energy output.

Also, I remember a question the Dean of the Faculty (himself an renowned physicist) put to me once: Phil, do you really want the world to have unlimited energy?

Think about it.

mhardy6647

Well, the 'trick' to a fusion reactor is simple enough -- get hydrogen (typically, deuterium, so-called "heavy hydrogen" with a nucleus containing one proton and also one neutron) gas hot enough and the nuclei will begin to fuse to form helium. Thanks to a little thing called the atomic mass deficit (basically, the mass of two hydrogen nuclei is a little bit less than the mass of one helium nucleus) and another little thing that Einstein sussed out (E = m*c^2), that little bit of lost mass (m) arising from every nuclear fusion event produces, relatively speaking, a lot of released energy (E). c is the speed of light, 3 x10^8 meters/second, which is why a little m becomes a lotta E!

But there's one little problem -- how do you make a little bit of gas that hot? Well, if you have the luxury of doing it "one and done", you can use a fission bomb (atomic bomb) to start a quick fusion event -- thus the hydrogen bomb, Edward Teller's awful brainchild that held the world hostage for decades (and, arguably, perhaps still does).
Lots of energy, but it dissipates kinda quickly.

So,the tricks mentioned in Moose68bash's post above (magnetic field containment, e.g.) have been applied in attempts to make small but controlled fusion devices.

AFAIK, no one's really had a whole lotta luck in so doing, though -- so this Lockheed announcement is either a big deal or just a PR opportunity of some sort.

Personally, I think big-rump (ahem) fusion reactors to supply clean energy on terra firma would be more of a value-add for the world as a whole.

EDIT: PS -- well, the word B-U-double T is anathema, but rump is A-OK! Remember that, all youse smart-rumps! ;- )

gdb

What's an athema ? A henway ? A nice jester?
(c:

mhardy6647

half as good as two athemas (or is that athemae?), I guess...

... or an ancient Grecian urn...

Moose68Bash

mhardy6647 wrote: »

half as good as two athemas (or is that athemae?), I guess...

... or an ancient Grecian urn...

"'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'"

sucks2beme

Can you say "SHEILD Helicarrier?"

engtaz

Skunk Works developed the SR-71 Blackbird (look it up, It was designed in the 50's, compare what was flying during that time and what still cant compete with it today). I don't doubt those people.