No it's not an item about planes.

Lockheed Martin Claims Breakthrough on Fusion Energy

Oct 15 (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade.

No it's not an item about planes.

Lockheed Martin Claims Breakthrough on Fusion Energy

Oct 15 (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade.

Hmmm... that IS interesting! Thanks Winterknight :)

Well, if anyone can do it they are the team I would put my money on.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

The only fusion Lockheed-Martin can do is that of the runaway with its F35 engine for short takeoff. I hope the jumpjet carriers of Great Britain and Italy have been duly reinforced.
Tullio

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The only fusion Lockheed-Martin can do is that of the runaway with its F35 engine for short takeoff. I hope the jumpjet carriers of Great Britain and Italy have been duly reinforced.
Tullio

I didn't read anything in the article about fusion propulsion. And to quote the OP:

No it's not an item about planes.

Did you even bother reading it?

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Member of the People Encouraging Niceness In Society club.

I get the feeling that Tullio has a very low opinion of the work being done by the engineers and scientists under the employ of Lockheed/Martin in their quest for a working fusion reactor. I have heard similar claims from other research organizations and they have all failed to produce useful energy from their devices. One can only hope that L/M is truly on to something.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

I have read in theregister.co.uk the opinion of prof. Edward Morse of the UC Berkeley School of Nuclear Engineering and he is very skeptical too. Anyway, let them try. Time will tell.
Tullio
Here is prof. Morse:
Morse

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I get the feeling that Tullio has a very low opinion of the work being done by the engineers and scientists under the employ of Lockheed/Martin in their quest for a working fusion reactor.

Tullio is skeptical and rightly so. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Let's see a dozen independent analyses confirm that this device produces more energy via nuclear fusion than it consumes, and then we can break out the champagne and thank Lockheed Martin's scientists and engineers for saving humanity's future.

Until then, as you noted, it's yet another in a long line of failed attempts.

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I liked this bit...

Lockheed sees the project as part of a comprehensive approach to solving global energy and climate change problems.

Compact nuclear fusion would produce far less waste than coal-powered plants since it would use deuterium-tritium fuel, which can generate nearly 10 million times more energy than the same amount of fossil fuels, the company said.

:)

I wondered about this bit - given our dodgy history as a species at extracting things we want from our environment - and where we'll be sniffing about for these ones...

Ultra-dense deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, is found in the earth's oceans, and tritium is made from natural lithium deposits.

:/

And this bit made me wrinkle my nose in distaste...

McGuire said the company had several patents pending for the work and was looking for partners in academia, industry and among government laboratories to advance the work.

:(

...even though I concede that patents and intellectual property rights may be a necessary evil (in the sense of recouping costs and getting a return on investments) ... they've become a blockade to further research in the past...

As for this bit! I REALLY didn't like... It should have led the article... It's the overriding reason for the research - not the cosy one they started with...

A small reactor could power a U.S. Navy warship, and eliminate the need for other fuel sources that pose logistical challenges.

*duplicity ooze alert* :[

And I can't comment on the science - my armchair hasn't seen a lab in years...

@Chris's BTW: didn't expect to feel much - then felt sad :( and extremely disapproving :[

Cold Fusion, the remake?

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No, this is hot fusion. It looks very much like a Z-pinch (Perhapsatron) which was developed by the US Department of Energy and then abandoned. But Lockheed-Martin is looking for investors (venture capital) which may be the reason behind this announce. Fueion research experts are now in St. Petersburg for a congress. Why wasn't it announced there?
Tullio

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... developed by the US Department of Energy and then abandoned. But Lockheed-Martin ... (venture capital) ... Fusion research experts are now in St. Petersburg for a congress. Why wasn't it announced there?

Tullio,

This is yet another of a similar series of announcements this year from the 'secretive' 'Skunkworks'...

My suspicions are similarly suspicious for such grand claims with nothing of substance to believe...


All a game of funding?...

Whatever happened to Thorium??


Keep searchin,
Martin

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Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

This is yet another of a similar series of announcements this year from the 'secretive' 'Skunkworks'...

My suspicions are similarly suspicious for such grand claims with nothing of substance to believe...


All a game of funding?...

And there is this similarly dubious recent release which contained this absolute doozy:

Researchers ... say they have detected significant numbers of neutrons—byproducts of fusion reactions—coming from the experiment. This, they say, demonstrates the viability of their approach and marks progress toward the ultimate goal of producing more energy than the fusion device takes in.

Any bright middle-schooler can tell you this is utter twaddle... hundred-dollar tabletop Farnsworth fusors (including home-made) do fusion and produce neutrons, and have for seventy(?) years, and none of them have even approached an order of magnitude of closeness to breaking even. And theoretically, they couldn't no matter how they are designed.

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Hi Martin. Thorium was investigated in Italy many years ago and then abandoned. Recently Carlo Rubbia proposed an energy amplifier by which a particle accelerator would bombard a Thorium target and start a fission reaction All this seems too complex. Last year Italy got 26% of its electricity from renewable sources (Sun, wind and hydroelectric power). This seems to me more reasonable.
Tullio

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No, this is hot fusion. It looks very much like a Z-pinch (Perhapsatron) which was developed by the US Department of Energy and then abandoned. But Lockheed-Martin is looking for investors (venture capital) which may be the reason behind this announce. Fueion research experts are now in St. Petersburg for a congress. Why wasn't it announced there?
Tullio

Did not mean the method, but the big press conference and then no one being able to reproduce the results.

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The only hope I see for this process is that Lockheed/Martin does not usually back or sponsor losing ideas.

We are going to laugh and ridicule every new fusion concept right up to the one that works.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

We are going to laugh and ridicule every new fusion concept right up to the one that works.

The laughter is an earnest requirement; ideally it should be loud enough that it is heard by bamboozled politicians about to throw more money their way.

I'm all for fusion research, but when groups start making the kinds of pronouncements I quoted, it sounds as though they are fleecing a public desperate for an alternative energy source to preserve its future. Or perhaps they just need a better press agent. :^p

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And this bit made me wrinkle my nose in distaste...

McGuire said the company had several patents pending for the work and was looking for partners in academia, industry and among government laboratories to advance the work.

...even though I concede that patents and intellectual property rights may be a necessary evil (in the sense of recouping costs and getting a return on investments) ... they've become a blockade to further research in the past...

You have it backwards. Patents are a necessary good. Lockheed is a private company. If the technology does not work, they don't make money. It is not by accident that a country with a strong patent system is developing this, while the others just complain (whether it works or not).

You have it backwards. Patents are a necessary good. Lockheed is a private company. If the technology does not work, they don't make money. It is not by accident that a country with a strong patent system is developing this, while the others just complain (whether it works or not).

*attempt to enter thread nose first*

*fail*

Erm... *place pet grieves about certain pharmaceutical and chemical company patents on floor outside door*

*step gracefully forward to concede a point* *trip over pet grieves* *emphatically plant nose firmly into opposite wall*

Aah.... :) Erm... Hi Jim1348 :) You don't mind if I call you Jim do you? :) Fair comment... and I like what you did there :) long time since I've seen "necessary" and "good" put together. Refreshing :)

You have it backwards. Patents are a necessary good. Lockheed is a private company. If the technology does not work, they don't make money. It is not by accident that a country with a strong patent system is developing this, while the others just complain (whether it works or not).

*attempt to enter thread nose first*

*fail*

Erm... *place pet grieves about certain pharmaceutical and chemical company patents on floor outside door*

*step gracefully forward to concede a point* *trip over pet grieves* *emphatically plant nose firmly into opposite wall*

Aah.... :) Erm... Hi Jim1348 :) You don't mind if I call you Jim do you? :) Fair comment... and I like what you did there :) long time since I've seen "necessary" and "good" put together. Refreshing :)

They are necessary and good, but that does not mean the current structure of patents is the most optimal. I'm thinking that a patent for a treatment should be a shorter term than a patent for a cure which should be shorter than a patent for a vaccine. This to encourage more R&D dollars be spent towards making sure people don't get sick rather than making money off continuing treatments.

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