FUTILE WORK
  • Home
  • News
    • Articles Of Interest
    • Numbers In The News
    • Life and Humanity
    • Quotes
    • Futile Updates
  • Curio
    • The Wonder of Lasers
    • Japan 2011 Psyop
    • Know Your Rights
    • Masonic Symbols and the LDS Temple
    • The Nun's Story
    • Special Edition
    • Explosion On The Launch Pad
  • Archive
    • COVID Charts Quiz
    • Dave McGowan
    • Document Archive
    • Multi Media
    • Time For A Laugh
  • Blog

Lockheed Martin announces its Skunk Works wants to build a fusion reactor

10/15/2014

 
nws.club/CUT
Picture
Lockheed Martin has announced its Skunk Works has been working on a fusion reactor, in the hopes of meeting the world's demands for energy. The compact fusion reactor, or CFR, is (at least in theory) safer, cleaner, and more powerful than existing nuclear reactors, according to an Aviation Week article.

It's much harder to use fuel required for fusion to build weapons

Fusion happens when two or more high-energy atoms collide, creating a new atomic nucleus and releasing a great deal of energy, provided that the atoms being crunched together have a lower atomic mass than iron. It's how the sun shines: by slamming together high-energy hydrogen particles, and in so doing, creating helium atoms. It's the opposite of fission, which splits an atom apart to release energy. Fission is how the bombs dropped on Japan during World War II worked; the first energy-releasing reactor in the US was built in Idaho by Argonne National Lab and started operation in 1951.

It's much harder to use the nuclear fuel required for fusion to build weapons, and atomic scientists have called for further exploration of fusion power. Lockheed appears to have obliged.

Most existing fusion devices slam together atoms using a tokamak, a magnetic device that contains the superheated plasma required for fusion to occur. Invented in the Soviet Union in the 1950s, it's what most nuclear fusion devices use. The problem is, the energy required to sustain the reaction is almost as much as what's created by the reaction.

The research field is littered with failures

Lockheed says they've figured out how to solve that problem, using their CFR, a jet-engine-sized device. They've changed the process for holding the plasma in a way they say has 10 times the output of a tokamak.They also say there's no risk of a meltdown, and that radioactive waste will be considerably lessened.

No prototype has been built or tested yet, though, and this research field is littered with failures, despite millions of dollars of investment. The most notable is "cold fusion" — when, in 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, working at the University of Utah, claimed they had achieved fusion in a simple tabletop device working at room temperature. However, no one who tried to reproduce their experiment was successful, and the finding was discredited.

Physicists often joke that widespread use of nuclear fusion energy has been 40 years away every single decade since the 1970s. Lockheed says its new device will be ready for prime time in 10 years, and that a prototype will be developed in 5. We'll see.

Correction: A previous version of this article said the bombs dropped in World War II were hydrogen. They weren't. We apologize for the error.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/15/6982101/lockheed-martin-announces-its-skunk-works-wants-to-build-a-fusion


jump to top | return to articles home

Comments are closed.
    Articles Home

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    March 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    June 2020
    November 2019
    October 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    May 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    July 2011
    May 2010
    April 2010
    May 2006
    December 2004
    October 2003
    June 2002
    September 2001
    February 2001
    February 1998

New Here?

Updates
About

Miscellany

​Contact
Disclaimer

Search

  • Home
  • News
    • Articles Of Interest
    • Numbers In The News
    • Life and Humanity
    • Quotes
    • Futile Updates
  • Curio
    • The Wonder of Lasers
    • Japan 2011 Psyop
    • Know Your Rights
    • Masonic Symbols and the LDS Temple
    • The Nun's Story
    • Special Edition
    • Explosion On The Launch Pad
  • Archive
    • COVID Charts Quiz
    • Dave McGowan
    • Document Archive
    • Multi Media
    • Time For A Laugh
  • Blog