Is Fusion Energy Close To Becoming A Reality?
Lockheed Martin claims to have a fusion reactor built in the next 5 years. How would this technology work, and what would this mean for the world? Trace explains.
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Lockheed Martin’s Plan to Make Fusion (Finally) a Reality
“Lockheed Martin's secret fusion power program came out of hiding last week. This week, the Skunk Works engineer in charge of the ambitious effort met with reporters to explain just how the defense giant plans to make fusion the real deal within five to 10 years.”
Lockheed Martin’s fusion goals meet scepticism
“Lockheed Martin formally entered the nuclear-fusion arena on 15 October, laying out a 10-year roadmap to commercialize a reactor that would fit on the back of a lorry.”
Mr. Fusion? Compact Fusion Reactor Will be Available in 5 Years Says Lockheed-Martin
“The Farnsworth Fusor; Pons and Fleishmann. It seems the trail to fusion energy has long gone cold — stone cold, that is, and not cold as in cold fusion.”
Does Lockheed Martin Really Have a Breakthrough Fusion Machine?
“Lockheed Martin’s announcement last week that it had secretly developed a promising design for a compact nuclear fusion reactor has met with excitement but also skepticism over the basic feasibility of its approach.”
Compact Fusion
“It’s no secret that our Skunk Works® team often finds itself on the cutting edge of technology.”
Harnessing the Energy of Nuclear Fusion Reactions with Superconductors and Lasers
“What do a six-ton superconductor and the world's largest laser have in common? Both are fundamental components in two very different approaches to harnessing the energy of nuclear fusion reactions.”
Skunk Works
“Skunk Works is an official alias for Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP), formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects.”
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44 thoughts on “Is Fusion Energy Close To Becoming A Reality?”
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This vid makes it sound like we’ve never been able to perform fusion, which
is totally off the mark.
Uncontrolled fusion was first performed in a thermonuclear weapon in the
1940s and controlled fusion was first performed in the late 50s. Since
then, fusion has advanced at a rate similar to Moore’s Law, doubling about
ever two years. In 2008, a 14 year old was able to achieve fusion.
What we’ve always been 20 years away from is a man-made fusion reaction
with a net gain in energy, meaning more energy is created than used to
sustain the reaction. ITER is the first reactor that will theoretically
create more power than it consumes, but the extra power will not be enough
to overcome other operational losses. Based on this reactor and the
multitude of other paths to achieve fusion that are being researched, I
think the next generation of fusion reactors beyond ITER will be viable
sources of energy…
This, yet again, leaves us 20 years from viable fusion energy and probably
another 10 years before Fusion becomes commonplace. Bottlenecks in getting
this done will likely relate to funding and government regulation….
”You can have the energy of the sun on the back of a truck!” Wich means
harnesting power for warp drive and stuff doesn’t require any sun-covering
solar panels right? And if those things get cheaper, i will buy a little
one to power my house, no more poopy solar panels.
Lockheed Martin has probably made interstellar hyperdrives… (not really)
They make things we don’t even know exist AND they are the ones that
benefit financially from war… A single Hellfire missile costs USD
$110,000 ffs
Dickkk news niahahahhahaah
I love you for the Starcraft reference.
Where did you get that shirt?
Would someone please tell this dork that there is no such thing as fossil
fuel. If you don’t believe me take a bunch of fossils, grind them and then
try to make fuel of them. I dare you!
+Thomas Nickelsen What is coal?
Am I the only one who sees this as a way to build the helicarrier?
+Flakkes That could be a use for it. It would still be very expensive to
run.
+Flakkes Dozens of thermal turbojets and a fast neutron reactor? You
probably get the Valiant from Dr Who.
No, but in all reality it is a terrible design.
well cold fusion is much more cheaper that hot fusion
+dan ellis lol … same can be said to hot fusion coz up until now most of
the reactors takes more energy than than it produce and hot fusion had like
50 + years of time and yet still no real result … yet cold fusion only
under 20 years and faced most criticism(SHEEP like your self) to hold it
back . yeah sure go trust what ever “they” are telling
And BTW there can not be something work for some and work for others . MIT
had it checked and they said 4/10 it works ,and the thing they should check
is why didnt it work on 6 times rather they bashed due to funding they
missed if it were comes to main stream
and P.S. :plz do think b4 you talk (on this case type) little sheep 😛
+menaka fernando current cold fusion is fickle and what works for one
person may not work for the others, thats not science. currently cold
fusion is a trick more often then not and most of the great advances you
hear about in making it a reality come from people who believe the
government is reptiles. Yes cold fusion may one day be usable as anything
other than a cheap parlar trick that has a 99/1 against chance of working
but even if we could make the reaction happen when ever we wanted its still
not proven we could actually get power out of it. as for the navy its cold
fusion experiments closed down a while ago when they deemed it “non –
profitable” which should tell you something.
+dan ellis Wow non existent … tell that to Israel Gov., American
navy,Mitsubishi coz they are researching on non existing things ….. and
there are some working prototypes(portable) made too …and you are a
genuine SHEEP
cold fusion is much more non existent than hot fusion you idiot.
they already figured it out. it is just they invested a lot of money on oil
before the fusion energy and they want it back. that’s why they hide it for
now and will reveal it when they find a way how to make money in Fusion
energy.
sources? I couldn’t find anything credible to support your claim
Am I the only who gets upset at the thought that we probably won’t live in
the age of space travel, colonizing worlds and technology with endless
possibility?
An episode of the BBC’s ‘New Tricks,’ [The Gentleman Vanishes] covers Cold
Fusion. Interesting !
they didn’t take giant squids seriously until one washed up on a beach
+dictionaryzzz Mainstream archaeologists, historians, and philosophers
don’t take Atlantis seriously. Atlantis isn’t an innovation or discovery
waiting to change the world; it’s a future reboot to a movie franchise.
well it would if we find atlantis
+dictionaryzzz Let’s say we explore more of the ocean… more wrecked
ships, more unusual deep sea creatures. I don’t see this changing how we
live.
We should invest in liquid thorium powered nuclear fission reactors.
But yes, fusion would be better for earthly and interstellar
transportation. And thorium for cities and bases, because it’s more
abundant and easier.
Either way we still aren’t harnessing the energy properly… :/
Fusion is still better in most ways but thorium is good for powering cities
but fusion is good for cars and all that as you can have cold reactions
Haven’t we been 20 years away from Fusion, for the last 60 years?… It’s
always just 20 years away!
Anyhow, Long live the NCR!
of course, if you want to go big on He3 fusion reactors, you will need a
big source of fuel, be it the moon or Jupiter. but the reactor they
proposed uses tritium/deuterium, that can be found on earth
+Danilo “Dantiger” Oliveira It might be better to mine it on Moon though,
considering it’s surface might be rich of He3 due to being bombarded by
solar radiation.
no, He3 can be found on earth and manufactured, its just really rare on
earth. but on earth we can find tritium and deuterium, the main fuel for
their reactor design.
this video is BS they problem with fusion reactors is not the design its
the fuel He3 is found on the moon. till to day they haven’t been successful
in producing extra energy.
+Martin “Rekalty” Fusion has been creeping ever closer to producing more
energy out than was put into it. It is very close to that point now.
Probably the reason more money hasn’t been put into fusion are that oil
interests have paid off congress, but they can’t hold it back for much
longer. ITER will produce more out than is put into it, but it is enormous,
and smaller plants would be far better for us in general, and new fusion
reactor designs are popping up. Within a few years, given current trends,
we’ll be there.
Just a little info for you guys. Of all the three isotopes of Hydrogen-
Hydrogen 1 (Protium), Hydrogen 2 (Deuterium) and Hydrogen 3 (Tritium), only
Deuterium and Tritium can be fused in a fusion reactor. Protium can only be
fused in a star, like the Sun. The most abundant is Protium followed by
Deuterium with Tritium being the least abundant. For every 1 000 000 atoms
of Hydrogen, 156 are Deuterium, less than 1 are Tritium and the rest is
Protium. So fusion reactor fuel is not as abundant as you may think. The
total amount of energy you can get from fusion reactors is a lot less than
what you can get from solar converters. Still…the amount of energy you
get from it is a lot larger than both fission fuel and fossil fuel
combined.
If the Protoss have fusion power then why would they ever need more vespane
gas? Vespane gas is a power source. Have the Terrans developed fusion power
in Starcraft?
+Pancakes2good Whatever it is it’s not a power source for a battlecruiser.
It’s an extension to a building.
That’s why the battle cruiser requires a fusion core and the Yamato cannon
needs research in the fusion core…
+asdfghjkl the protoss use vespene as a catalyst for their psi-driven
machines. Its not the power source
Cool idea. I just never quite get the presenter’s jokes though…
They are just gonna charge us more just to use it
The joke was referring to a real time strategy game in the early 2000’s
called star craft the Protoss built energy pylons to increase their unit
count. The energy pylon in real life though was a Nikola Tesla idea to
supply free power to everyone by wireless means. If fusion power
becomes a reality in a compact form using only heavy water as fuel, then
it might be possible to realize Tesla’s idea. Just imagine your cell
phone or electric car never running out of power because it’s always
within range of a Tesla tower. This will probably be Elon’s next world
changing business venture. Tesla towers to power Tesla cars.
There no money in unlimited energy