
Lockheed Martin’s Claims on Fusion Energy Meet with Skepticism - ghosh
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/531836/does-lockheed-martin-really-have-a-breakthrough-fusion-machine/
======
mcv
There's that famous rule of thumb: if it sounds too good to be true, then
maybe it is. Lockheed Martin's cheap, compact fusion reactor does sound too
good to be true. Then again, if it works, that's enormous. And the massive,
expensive ITER can't possibly have the same kind of impact on our energy. I
want Lockheed Martin to be correct.

But are they? If this approach has been tried before without success, and no
fusion scientist considers this likely to work, then I wonder why Lockheed is
even trying this. On the one hand I think Lockheed must be on to something. On
the other hand, if they don't have any good data to share (or are unwilling to
share it), then why are they going public with this at all? If it makes sense
to keep it secret because it's a secret, commercial, profit driven project,
then why not just keep it secret?

Why seek publicity when they don't want to share anything real? Is the share
price down? Do they need extra funding?

~~~
blackkettle
All reasonable points, and there is plenty of good reason to be skeptical. On
the other hand, Lockheed Martin is one of the largest defense and aerospace
contractors out there, with a solid track record for bringing to market
sophisticated aerospace solutions. They also made ~$3B in profit last year, so
they are probably ok on the money front. At the least they deserve a bit more
benefit of the doubt than, say that Italian guy running around claiming cold
fusion.

~~~
Ygg2
On the other hand, they are the makers of F-35, no? I think a fair amount of
skepticism is needed.

~~~
FreezerburnV
On the other other hand, they are the makers of the SR-71 Blackbird, so I
think a little benefit of the doubt is needed. ;)

~~~
mzr
That was designed in the '60s by a prolific aircraft designer. It was quite a
different time.

~~~
hga
But they continued that with e.g. the F-117 stealth fighter(-bomber), after
Kelly Johnson was no longer running the show. The story of the prototype's
development is stunning, see e.g.
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316743003/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316743003/)

As for the F-35, the TFX like requirements are its biggest problem
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-111_Aardvar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-111_Aardvark#Tactical_Fighter_Experimental_.28TFX.29)
see also _The Strategy of Technology_ if you want the whole picture).

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tjradcliffe
Skepticism is not unreasonable, but so is hope:
[http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1644](http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1644)

Short version: details matter, Thomas McGuire is a smart guy who knows enough
to avoid the obvious mistakes, Lockheed Martin is a commercial company taking
a commercial route to technology development, so they are disengaged from the
scientific community.

Will it work? They only reasonable answer is: "Maybe." We'll know better in
five or ten years.

~~~
easytiger
To be fair to LM if they get this right and it works, they will assume a large
portion of all the world's wealth rather quickly.

Also surely we need a Manhatten project for nuclear fusion. Indeed it is
possible it the the fault of the Manhatten project that Fusion wasn't pursued
at the time

~~~
Icybee
If this works, and the global demand for fossil fuels significantly reduces or
disappears, imagine the impact it will have on the countries whose economies
are largely dependant on exporting oil, gas or coal. A large part of the
Middle East, or even countries lie Russia or Venezuela could be in for a very
bad few decades.

We could be in for turbulent times, if it works.

~~~
jahnu
Surely cheap energy for all would help any country raise it's standard of
living. I think you could as easy argue that we'd see less turbulence since
nearly all resource constraints would be relaxed. Salt-water can be
desalinated cheaply and pumped anywhere. Factories powered. Homes heated or
cooled. Travel would be inexpensive. CO2 could be extracted from the air and
buried.

~~~
patrickk
> Travel would be inexpensive.

This would be particularly exciting. Ships, trains and physically large forms
of transport (maybe even aircraft/spacecraft?!?) could have fusion reactors
built in.

Electric cars charged by cheap power from local, neighbourhood fusion
reactors. The power grid is decentralised with reliable baseload power
sources, that are clean, reliable (no intermittent problems with weather with
renewables) and safe. Power sources can be located where they are needed,
whether it's in a basement, on a roof of an urban building or on Mars.

~~~
db48x
Don't get too starry-eyed; this is deuterium-tritium or deuterium-deuterium
fusion they're talking about. It produces neutron radiation so you still need
shielding, and it really complicates the materials engineering. All the
properties of the material you're using to do some job depend on what kind of
atoms are in it, and all those neutrons are busy transmuting those same atoms.
The first working fusion reactor will probably have crazy maintenance
requirements. (It's already a bit of a problem with fission plants, but with
the simpler fusion reactions as much as 80% of the energy is produced in the
form of neutrons.)

The holy grail that you're thinking of is aneutronic fusion, usually
deuterium-helium3 or deuterium-lithium6. He3 is super rare though, so a D-He3
reactor using it might need to get the He3 from a bigger fusion reactor using
D-D fusion, which produces it (and that pesky neutron).

Even better still might be proton-boron fusion; it needs temperatures an order
of magnitude higher than D-D fusion (and magnetic confinement two or three
orders of magnitude stronger), but produces far fewer neutrons (there are
fewer undesirable side reactions). Alas, this route will produce four orders
of magnitude less energy than the much simpler D-D reaction.

Given the scale of the engineering problems, we could even end up harnessing
fusion power by building dyson spheres; a star might be the only feasible,
stable way to build a fusion reactor. Hopefully our universe was set on an
easier difficulty setting than that when it was instantiated.

~~~
mcv
> The holy grail that you're thinking of is aneutronic fusion, usually
> deuterium-helium3 or deuterium-lithium6. He3 is super rare though

Finally a good reason to go to the moon!

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FiatLuxDave
I don't see anything to get excited about in the information which has been
provided in the press. Hutchinson's comments are about the basic type of
design. I presume they have some kind of secret sauce which they see as
providing a better solution. I say, good for them for trying it.

Just like some of the other commenters, I suspect that the reason they went
public with an information-lite release is due to internal politics at LM.
When I was in the fusion research business, we stayed in stealth mode the
entire 5 years. We probably could have continued if we had put out press
releases like this to attract more funding. We didn't think we had any results
worth having a press release about, however, and I didn't want to be that guy.

If I were to jump back into fusion, I probably would go with a linear, mirror-
type, high beta device. They are easier to build, cheaper, and have one major
design flaw (i.e. problem which needs fixing). I have had some ideas on how to
improve the endcaps, which are the real weakness of the design type. I saw
that dkirtley had some good things to say about the Budker-style Gas Dynamic
Trap design in the last thread about this. I'm not so sure that I buy into
that way, but I'm glad that people are following that path.

What the article really tells us is that there is one more group out there who
is following a technical path that probably wasn't being followed before. That
is good news, because there are many ways to build a fusion reactor that
doesn't work, but there may be one or more ways to build one that does. It's
good that we have a few more scouts checking the territory.

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crdoconnor
I got a little suspicious when this came at the exact time a few other bits of
news did that were clearly intended to push the price of oil futures down.

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freedombeer
I'm always skeptical of bald claims. And bold ones too, of course.

