
Lockheed Martin has obtained a patent for a compact fusion reactor - joak
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/19652/lockheed-martin-now-has-a-patent-for-its-potentially-world-changing-fusion-reactor
======
scottmsul
The real deal is here, from MIT:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4)

Apparently there was a recent breakthrough in superconductors, which allows
significantly more current in the inductor coils while still maintaining
superconductivity. This in turn allows for much stronger magnetic fields,
hence tighter confinement of the plasma and therefore more fusion. A standard
tokamak with these new superconductors should produce more energy out than
energy in, and be a viable source of energy.

~~~
tudelo
Preface: I know nothing about this.

How can it "produce more energy out than energy in"? I don't know if I am not
aware of what you mean by that, but that doesn't seem possible?

~~~
mark-r
That's the _whole point_ of fusion: it produces energy. But you can't do
anything practical with it until you have a reactor that produces more power
than it takes to run.

~~~
gryfft
To clarify, it produces energy equal to the difference between the mass of the
fuel and the mass of the final byproduct multiplied times the speed of light
squared. Energy and mass are conserved, but some mass is converted into useful
energy.

Doing so in a way that produces sufficient energy to sustain the fusion
reaction without creating an uncontrolled reaction ("boom") is the trick that
always seems to be 30 years away.

~~~
orclev
> Doing so in a way that produces sufficient energy to sustain the fusion
> reaction without creating an uncontrolled reaction ("boom") is the trick
> that always seems to be 30 years away.

Uh, no, not really, a run away fusion reaction has never really been a
concern. In fact, that's one of the biggest advantages of a fusion reactor vs.
a fission reactor. Fission is a self-sustaining reaction, once it starts you
have to work to stop it (via injecting a mediator to interfere in the fission
reaction), where as fusion requires constant energy input in order to maintain
the reaction. The part that "always seems to be 30 years away", is achieving a
fusion reaction that produces more energy than it takes to maintain (allowing
some of the output energy to be siphoned off to maintain the reaction). There
have been a number of techniques attempted to achieve this with the holy grail
being so called "cold" fusion, where cold is defined in this context as
something less than the surface temperature of the sun. It sounds like the
ultimate solution to the problem though is simply better magnets, not cold
fusion at all.

Assuming this pans out, the real thing needed to make this viable as something
other than a novelty is how much more efficient the reaction can be made.
After all, if the output energy is just barely over the input energy you'd
need to scale out to ridiculous extremes to produce enough usable energy, but
if it's a significant amount higher then that makes more modest size plants
viable.

------
cornholio
A practical small sized fusor is a fantasy at this point. The only reaction
that stands any chance to break even is the Deuterium-Tritium fusion, which
generates one neutron for each tritium atom fused. Since tritium is not found
in nature and has a 12 years half life, it needs to be produced by capturing
the free neutron. The classic proposal is to line the reactor with a thick
blanket of molten or ceramic lithium that will breed a tritium atom for each
captured neutron.

This whole design is purely speculative, there is no practical instance of
this process at industrial scale and there are significant doubts tritium
self-sufficiency is even attainable -the neutron capture and tritium recovery
efficiency must be close to 100% or you need a large ratio of neutron
multiplication that brings its own problems of nuclear waste and
contamination. Tritium is a particularly hazard with the nasty habit of
replacing hidrogen in living tissue, seeping out of the tinniest pores and
embrittling the reactor vessel and ducts.

Assuming all these problems are solved (which are themselves already
researched for decades and worthy of 100s of patents), you will still end-up
with a factory sized tritium production facility, not something container
sized. BTW, did I mention tritium is the key ingredient for moving from clasic
fission nukes to thermonuclear weapons? (never mention the classic
proliferation appeal of any environment with plenty of neutrons)

And this is just one subsistem, one problem to solve out of a vast number. But
hey, they've got a patent.

~~~
Zarathust
This is a critical part to consider in "current" fusion research. Most of it
rely on the deuterium / tritium fusion which will probably require a classic
nuclear plant to generate the fuel. This makes the whole "infinite clean
energy" claim pretty bogus for now.

~~~
gruturo
Not only the "infinite" part in that statement is indeed bogus - but the
immense neutron flux makes me skeptical of the "clean" part as well.

~~~
GCU-Empiricist
We know how to contain strong neutron flux. We know how to contain short to
medium lived activated materials, we know to avoid cobalt is hardened
materials, we don't have to deal with water based corrosion in a fusion
containment, though neutron embitterment may be a similar issue.

------
Animats
It's a very strange project. If some startup was doing this, it would sound
completely bogus. But it's Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works. They have a
reputation for making the impossible work. Lockheed Martin is funding this
internally, and, in one of the few public statements about this, their CEO
said that progress was sufficient that the company was putting in more money.

~~~
fastbeef
Be aware that the CEO is probably factoring in PR-value in the calculation of
“sufficient progress”.

~~~
garmaine
Having worked at Lockheed, that is most certainly not how they think. The
bottom line is pretty much all that matters and the self-investment even more
striking for a government contractor.

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eloff
I don't know enough to say what their odds are, other than very long. But one
day, probably in my lifetime, we'll master fusion power, and it will begin a
revolution that will make the industrial revolution look like a minor event. I
don't think people realize that really cheap, clean energy solves pretty much
every problem of scarcity. We'll enter an age of plenty like the world has
never known. Limitless energy means limitless water, food, and materials. Of
course it's not really limitless, but if it's even an order of magnitude
cheaper than what we have now, the possibilities would be mind blowing.

~~~
qntl
We could pretty much save the world with fission today, but we don’t because
politics. I’m not confident that we’ll actually adopt fusion even when the
tech is ready.

~~~
eloff
We don't adopt fission because it's disastrous when things go wrong, so it
scares people. Plus it produces a waste problem that lasts for an incredibly
long time.

Fusion doesn't suffer from those problems.

~~~
ExcelSaga
D-T fusion suffers from all of those problems.

~~~
eloff
To the same extent as fission? You're being disingenuous here with that
comparison.

~~~
ExcelSaga
Fission is required for D-T fusion at this point, otherwise you don’t have any
tritium. It’s the people who ignore that, and our failure to breed tritium
within a fusion reactor who are disingenuous. If you don’t know even that much
about the science, I’d strongly recommmemd refraining from accusing people of
being less tham forthright.

~~~
yellowapple
Per the article, it sounds like the fusion reactor itself could indeed be the
thing producing the tritium by way of a lithium blanket. Of course, that means
it'd need to have some way of generating the neutrons (the design seems to
include two spots for "neutral beams", but I missed any mention of what's
supplying those beams).

------
Nokinside
Last time this came up, in Google Solve for X in 2013, it was quickly picked
part in physics forums by scientists.

It's a brainchild of Thomas McGuire, aerospace engineer who has studied some
fusion in the graduate school. His team don's seem know what they are doing.

I wish there would be betting market for this kind of stuff.

edit: Here is actual critique from plasma physics laboratory
[http://www.ipp.mpg.de/3787558/cfr](http://www.ipp.mpg.de/3787558/cfr)

~~~
castle-bravo
> I wish there would be betting market for this kind of stuff.

[https://www.google.ca/search?&tbm=fin&q=NYSE:+LMT](https://www.google.ca/search?&tbm=fin&q=NYSE:+LMT)

~~~
Nokinside
I would like to bet against.

Lockheed stock is not going to react negatively if they waste few millions for
this.

~~~
rco8786
Buy puts :)

~~~
perl4ever
As the parent says, it's presumably not material to the company.

------
apo
_Lockheed Martin has quietly obtained a patent associated with its design for
a potentially revolutionary compact fusion reactor, or CFR._

This is a _patent application_ , not a _patent_. The difference is
significant.

A patent application can be filed by anyone on any idea, without government
review.

A patent is granted by the US government after a review process.

Part of the review deals with whether the application contains enough
information for "one skilled in the art" to reproduce the invention.

------
gandalfian
I never understood this. They casually suggest they can solve the energy
crisis but think the big break-though will be making it compact? Its like
saying I can turn lead into gold but I'm waiting for the travel version? It
makes no sense.

~~~
IshKebab
It does because the non-compact version is ITER and that costs $50bn. Smaller
= cheaper.

~~~
kortex
Smaller = cheaper and faster to build = more iterations = faster learning
about these systems.

------
cabalamat
The fact that you can patent something before you know if it works is an abuse
of the original intent of the patent system and shows how much it has been
corrupted.

~~~
lallysingh
Why? If it doesn't work, the patent is worthless. And the patent office still
gets their fees.

------
logicallee
I'll just leave this here (mentioned in the middle of a list in the article):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-5_Galaxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-5_Galaxy)

\------

EDIT: I'm surprised at the downvote. Anyway I'll explain my thinking for
sharing that link. I was surprised at the importance of being "container-
sized" size since within limits who cares how big a fusion reactor's building
is. On land. In the sea or air is a different matter - and when you see the
word "Lockheed Martin" most people do think of planes.

This is mentioned in the article, in this sentence:

>According to the company website on the CFR, the reactor could be powerful
enough to run an aircraft carrier, power a plane the size of a C-5 Galaxy
airlifter, provide electricity to cities with anywhere from 50 to 100,000
people, and maybe even speed up a trip to Mars.

So Lockheed Martin already has planes of a large enough size that such a power
plant could make sense.

That's pretty amazing if you imagine it. I mean, nuclear submarines already
have reactors - why not a plane?

A quick google "airplane nuclear reactor" returns:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_aircraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_aircraft)

and

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion)

but no practical models. (The first of these two links starts with the words
"A nuclear-powered aircraft is a concept for an aircraft intended to be
powered by nuclear energy." and goes on to say none have been produced.)

So if Lockheed Martin already makes planes that big, then it might be natural
and amazing for them to explore containerization of the power plant for that
reason.

After all, what other space or size/weight constraints are there for nuclear
power plants? Where else does it bother anyone whether it's container-size or
the size of a two or three or six story building?

So, this is the reason for my leaving the link to the specific airplane
mentioned in the article.

~~~
tzahola
Ok, but why?

~~~
adventured
I doubt fusion power plants in a plane is something worth considering much in
the next 30 years at a minimum.

That said - it'd be for power plants that can be flown around the world and
utilized on the ground once landed, as a large recharging supply source for
the future in which a lot of military hardware use batteries.

Or for powering large aircraft that can stay aloft for very long durations and
are armed with high powered solid state lasers used to shoot down objects. Or
alternatively used for AWACS. Can you fit a fusion power plant in a large
cargo plane along with the tech necessary for a large solid state laser? I
can't imagine, maybe as they both miniaturized over decades, but this is all
just fantastic as a premise.

~~~
logicallee
The article says

>If this project has been progressing on schedule, the company could debut a
prototype system that size of shipping container, but capable of powering a
Nimitz-class aircraft carrier or 80,000 homes, sometime in the next year or
so.

I feel completely justified in my pointing out the consequences of that
statement.

Based on your reply, it might as well have said, "at this rate by the time
someone born today is in college, their watches will have six or eight fusion
reactors each, depending on whether they are also using it for personal
trasportation."

In other words, pixie dust. Don't blame me for having reading comprehension :)

------
jlebrech
I can see fusion being crucial to colonising mars, solar power is diminished
and for earth we could use LFTR (for earth) as it should be cheaper.

The development of fusion at a the cheapest it's even been would bring
competition to fission and also push the development of LFTR too.

------
pbhjpbhj
The claims appear to define nothing more than, what sounds to me like, a basic
plasma confinement.

Also it says it's a pending application.

It's there something interesting or especially novel here?

~~~
Nomentatus
I haven't seen the patent - but there were minor novelties, maybe the steel-
backed tape, modularity method, immersion method, etc. Probably enough to get
a patent, but I suspect not a patent of great value since there will be other
slightly different implementations unless their "metal-backed" tape is their
secret sauce. That's possible.

"Just build it smaller" can't be patented, that's not a method. Just use tape
from that's made by X corp, I can't see that being a patent either.

------
m3kw9
I want to see one actually work before getting hyped up. There has been “good
news” thru the years but nothing happens with it

------
King-Aaron
In this thread from a few weeks ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16590030](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16590030),
there were a lot of commenters saying that Fusion (/ cold fusion) is not much
more than vapourware. Is this news evidence to the contrary?

~~~
deelowe
Progress is steadily being made on fusion, not sure why anyone would say it's
vaporware. Cold fusion is something totally different...

~~~
King-Aaron
Ok, thanks for that. Wasn't sure there was a distinction between the two
(layman here with a casual interest in the topic)

~~~
pbowyer
Search for "Pons and Fleischmann" to learn more about Cold Fusion :)

~~~
King-Aaron
Appreciate that!

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reubenswartz
As much as I'd love to have safe, reliable, economic fusion reactors, the
recent progress in solar and batteries makes me wonder if they best place for
a fusion reactor isn't 93M miles away. ;-)

------
oldsklgdfth
Is it me or is Lockheed Martin trying to take over the world? They are
producing their own semiconductors, moving into radar and now defining new
markets to make money from.

~~~
hokumguru
I mean, they're in the business of war. It makes complete sense that they
would be producing defense-oriented technology as a defense contractor.

~~~
oldsklgdfth
This is true. Unlike others in that field they seem to be trying extra hard

------
KerrickStaley
This is a very big deal if they can make it practical (that's a very big if).

------
RobLach
I sometimes wonder if we actually need Fusion right now. There's a big sun
throwing it's energy at us all the time.

Cost of ITER is gonna be around $20 billion.

That's 8 Topaz solar stations, together putting out 10 TWh annually. That
would give 1.5 San Franciscos electricity at the cost of maintenance/staffing.

~~~
runj__
"right now" \- Probably not. But with something like fusion for free energy
would could just start pulling carbon from the atmosphere, we could start to
transmute elements, it would be great for interstellar travel and energy would
be the limiting factor of a global AI.

~~~
bewo001
Fusion power will be as 'free' as wind power. Both technologies struggle with
high installation cost that has to be distributed over the number of customers
and the lifetime of the plant. For fission power, the installation is already
too high to compete with wind.

~~~
solarkraft
but fusion throws out _lots_ of energy. the argument is that the energy will
be very very cheap compared to the installation cost (because you just get so
much).

~~~
bewo001
Fusion reactors also consume a lot of energy. ITER plans to have a gain factor
of 10, making 500MW of heat -- not electricity -- out of 50MW. According to
wikipedia, a gain factor of 22 would be needed for commercial operation. The
record is a gain factor of 0.67..

If fusion will ever become economically viable is an open question.

~~~
Nomentatus
But that gain factor declines steeply if sunk costs decline, as they would for
smaller reactors producing more energy per pound installed.

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Aoyagi
And not a single thought was given to using this on railways?

~~~
detritus
What's made you leap to that assumption? One would think they'd be keen to
make the thing work before they start defining its applications.

~~~
Aoyagi
The diagram in the article.

