Fusion Power ,,,maybe at last!

Of course we wont know TILL it really pans out ,

(I remember the PM flying cars in every garage in 1955)
,but this weeks this weeks Aviation Week has an article on fusion power that will be a world changer. A Lockheed Martin research product.

AviationWeek.com/CFR

They claim 5 years to a functioning demo unit and 5 more till production.

100MW , fits on 2 trucks , assemble on site , fuel is deuterium , cheap from sea water.

100MW will run a ship or an aircraft ,or 80,000 homes.

No long term hot products to store forever .

Sounds too good to be true , so I have my fingers crossed!

Unless your boat is larger than usual 100MW might be a bit much.

 

The Lockheed project back in the 50's was a FISSION reactor that was abandoned. The world is still waiting for controlled fusion.

Dino

 

Fusion???

I have worked on the ITER project in the last few years, a 15 Billion USD$ research reactor, and there will be at least several decades, if ever, until this method of producing heat may be harnessed. The technology also has plenty of problems of radioactive contamination too, although the promoters downplay this.

Technically, it is like using Robert Fulton technology (1807) to build a jet fighter plane. Just not even a chance of it producing useful power unless the aliens give us all kinds of Unobtanium.

 

The break through was they extracted more energy than what they put in for 1 millionth of a millionth of a second so will definitely be a while yet. A bit early for claiming its viable I think.

 

Sadly, even if we got Unobtanium our abundant Bureaucratium resources will ensure bupkis for years to come.

 

Read the link,

This is not a 70 year old Tokamac or a restoration of the long dead fission aircraft project.

Fusion is not fission , no radioactive material used , just a pin point created at the hot spot.

The radio active section is very small,so when a plant is de-comissioned it will be treated same as medical waste 100 year burial.

ALL private funding , no gov billions for decades of research .

And the program is not Top Secret , they are looking for world wide tech assistance to speed up the research.

 

Why is it not "top secret" ?

 

Military will get these first.
I think Skunkworks team released this for several reasons, one being they let our adversaries know we are very close to working fusion powered military, and with that powerful lasers, suspersonic weapons, rail guns, are almost here.

The other is they really believe in their technology, that it will improve life for people all over. So if your on our side politically, you are going to be much better off.

 

maybe - checkout this guy talking about his research. Even the kids are doing it



edit - this talk wasnt Fusion, but heavy water Fission, which would use up all the exisiting nuclear waste material

good background here

 

With Thorium being everywhere abundant, I think it is inevitable that it will happen. The reason we went with uranium reactors was to make plutonium for the bombs.

 

The alternative has been around for 50-60 years and works.

Candu reactors burn almost anything you can feed them-nuclear waste,old weapons,plutonium, plain decent strength raw ore etc. and they can't melt down.

 

Sorry but I'm a skeptic. I have read many articles about this, and I'll believe it when I see it. This sounds like the numerous announcements of the discovery of cold fusion.

 

What - including the site that ran for 20,000 hours ? Thats million times better than edit : Fusion, ( makes a big difference )

 

All I'm getting is con-fusion !

 

Fusion is no biggie.

Even Vegeta with his raging ego could pull it off.