Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

aviationweek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 375 posts

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#61

Post by etiam »

delinka wrote: post #46
etiam wrote: post #9

> U.S. submarines and aircraft carriers run on nuclear power, but they have large fusion reactors on board that have to be replaced on a regular cycle. sigh To the extent this is true I suspect those "large fusion reactors" are tuned not so much for generating electricity and a great deal for annihilating whatever the carrying missile is pointed at. But never mind fuzzy thinking at Reuters right now. This is amazing…

Unless I'm missing something, I think you're making a similar mistake. Submarines and carriers run on a fission reactor. And it powers everything - drives turbines for locomotion, electricity...

Maybe you're just less bothered than I about the writer conflating fission and fusion when the difference between them makes for a good deal of the newsworthiness of the article.

I'm well aware of the fission reactors in large military ships, but if there is any application of nuclear fusion on them then pretty much the only option today is thermonuclear warheads. It would be really nice if that's about to change.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#63

Post by raverbashing »

etiam wrote: post #9

> U.S. submarines and aircraft carriers run on nuclear power, but they have large fusion reactors on board that have to be replaced on a regular cycle. sigh To the extent this is true I suspect those "large fusion reactors" are tuned not so much for generating electricity and a great deal for annihilating whatever the carrying missile is pointed at. But never mind fuzzy thinking at Reuters right now. This is amazing…

From what I've heard, the reactor actually outlives the ship, no?

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#64

Post by bhhaskin »

everyone wrote: post #30
orkoden wrote: post #17

>U.S. submarines and aircraft carriers run on nuclear power, but they have large fusion reactors on board that have to be replaced on a regular cycle. I don't think so.

I'm guessing thats a typo

That is a pretty big typo if it is.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#65

Post by DennisP »

27182818284 wrote: post #42

> could be ready for use in a decade. That's the standard issue joke. "Nuclear fusion has been just ten years away for the last fifty years" It is so common as a joke I'm surprised the article didn't mention it.

No, the standard joke is "thirty years away." Or at least it was. Strangely enough the number keeps decreasing with the passage of time.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#66

Post by JohnnyLee »

Based on the image of the machine, this is a magnetic mirror with neutral beam injection. Mirrors were some of the first plasma confinement devices. An issue they have is that they lose charged particles out the ends in a way that depends on the ratio of perpendicular to parallel velocity and the magnetic field strength. It may be that they think they can use the neutral beam injectors to inject the fuel in such a way that it's well confined in the machine...

Never mind, another linked article says that the injectors are only used for ignition.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#69

Post by seren »

csdrane wrote: post #67

Can we assume that their reactor isn't energy positive? Because if it were, I would imagine that they would be announcing so--rather than this nebulous "breakthrough."

From the aviationweek.com [0] article, it seems it is a concept, and they don't even have a prototype. They are trying to get some fundings to build the PoC. What makes the announcement a bit strange is that they have very concrete claims "it will fit in a truck" without much substance.

[0] http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compa...

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#70

Post by nerdy »

I know there are some very smart people at skunk works who've done incredible things in the past but humans have cried wolf so many times on fusion it's sort of hard to just accept until they've actually built a working reactor, shown it and had it independently verified.
Post reply on HN