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Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

aviationweek.com

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Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#151

Post by adventured »

regularfry wrote: post #128
jobu wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the Aviation Week article that flexie linked: "The team acknowledges that the project is in its earliest stages, and many key challenges remain before a viable prototype can be built." They don't actually say it, but it sounds like they've only got computer models to work with at this point. Not very likely that they've actually cracked it.

Aditional weird: this is the second round of publicity they've had on this project, for what looks like no progress. Why publicise? Why now?

Push the oil and natural gas markets lower, pile on all the other factors pushing them down right now, and further harm Russia's economy.

I'm half joking, but I'd keep an eye out for more unusual energy related press releases, to see if that'll confirm that it's a media blitz aimed at the oil market etc.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#152

Post by zamalek »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #140
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is HN. If the hyperloop was a technological breakthrough, so is this press release.

Hyperloop case doesn't have 50 years of track record of being "just few years from now", and as far as I remember, the design was more-less feasible if only someone would get around to building it. It didn't have such hard problems to be solved as fusion still has.

> Hyperloop case doesn't have 50 years of track record of being "just few years from now"

There have been steady incremental advancements in the field. I think your knee jerk reaction is coming from "cold fusion" which does have the problems you are talking about. Two very different fields.

The main issue with fusion is that it can't be weaponized and therefore doesn't have a nice military grant behind it. It lacks a Manhattan Project. It's probably always been "a few years from now" under the assumption of adequate funding.

The events following this announcement will probably be a good time to form a concrete opinion on fusion. It's being given a fair chance, so lets first see if it can prove itself.

This is promising stuff. Most of the other reactors have been Tokamak reactors - which are better suited to research and not practical applications, so we could be seeing some interesting results here.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#153

Post by danbruc »

wcoenen wrote: post #57

> 100-megawatt reactor measuring seven feet by 10 feet, which could fit on the back of a large truck A typical thermal power station has an efficiency below 50% for electricity generation, so the plant dissipates at least as much heat as it generates electrical power. I wonder how you could get rid of 100MW of waste heat from a volume small enough to fit on a truck. That's a heat flux of more than a megawatt per squa…

The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 has 1200 hp and therefore probably produces around 2.5 MW waste heat at full power. A factor of 40 is still quite a difference but it does not sound like an unsolvable problem.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#154

Post by ufmace »

akavel wrote: post #81
robin_reala wrote: post #28

“the first reactors […] could be ready for use in a decade.” I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere before…

I have the link to xkcd 678 "Researcher Translation" bookmarked for those occasions. Quoting the appropriate row here: If a researcher says a cool new technology should be available to consumers in... -> what they mean is... [...] ten years -> "we haven't finished inventing it yet, but when we do, it'll be awesome."

That would be http://xkcd.com/678/

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#155

Post by anovikov »

regularfry wrote: post #104
nerdy wrote: post #70

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.

Fusion physicists I know are very sceptical that this design can work. It's a variant on a known design with a known problem: the plasma leaks out of the ends of the magnetic containment. It's also unclear why Lockheed would be publicising it this way at this point, unless it's a naked ploy for more funding from the DoD, and an attempt to bring in money (and possibly pressure) from non-classified sources. That being…

Maybe it's the reverse. It is a PR to make an impression that the fusion is just around the corner to discourage other nations from investments into tokamaks and improved fission reactors, out of impression that this fusion breakthrough will make them all soon obsolete.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#156

Post by DubiousPusher »

javajosh wrote: post #93
wcoenen wrote: post #57

> 100-megawatt reactor measuring seven feet by 10 feet, which could fit on the back of a large truck A typical thermal power station has an efficiency below 50% for electricity generation, so the plant dissipates at least as much heat as it generates electrical power. I wonder how you could get rid of 100MW of waste heat from a volume small enough to fit on a truck. That's a heat flux of more than a megawatt per squa…

That's an excellent point! Perhaps they intend the truck to be sitting at the bottom of a fast moving river. But what gets me is that they are burying the lead. No fusion reactor of any size has reached sustainability...so why is the story here talking about size at all? Small size would be a very nice added bonus; fusion reactors that don't consume more energy than they produce are earth-changing.

What the commenter is pointing out is that it may not matter how you cool the reactor. It could be in interstellar space and it might not matter because the material the reactor itself is made of may not be able to transmit the heat away from the reactor. And no such material may exist.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#157

Post by dkirtley »

flexie wrote: post #20

Here is more on the tech, including a drawing: http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compa...

This looks very similar to the old Russian Gas Dynamic Trap: https://e-reports-ext.llnl.gov/pdf/366958.pdf

RF and neutral beam heated steady reactor with very high mirror ratio and superconductors.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#158

Post by 3pt14159 »

zamalek wrote: post #152
TeMPOraL wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hyperloop case doesn't have 50 years of track record of being "just few years from now", and as far as I remember, the design was more-less feasible if only someone would get around to building it. It didn't have such hard problems to be solved as fusion still has.

> Hyperloop case doesn't have 50 years of track record of being "just few years from now" There have been steady incremental advancements in the field. I think your knee jerk reaction is coming from "cold fusion" which does have the problems you are talking about. Two very different fields. The main issue with fusion is that it can't be weaponized and therefore doesn't have a nice military grant behind it. It lacks a…

It already has been weaponized, in the form of a fusion bomb.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#159

Post by FiatLuxDave »

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.

My favorite form of the old joke is: "Nuclear Fusion is the energy of the future, and always will be."

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#160

Post by DennisP »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #140
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is HN. If the hyperloop was a technological breakthrough, so is this press release.

Hyperloop case doesn't have 50 years of track record of being "just few years from now", and as far as I remember, the design was more-less feasible if only someone would get around to building it. It didn't have such hard problems to be solved as fusion still has.

It's true that there were people in the early 70s who said fusion was thirty years away. However, they conditioned that on a certain level of funding. For the funding they got, the same people said it would never happen.
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