Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details • Hacker News Board

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#241

Post by logfromblammo » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 8:09 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #213

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always a safe bet that the top Hacker News comment will always be "won't work, it's too hard." It's like sitting around for a year trying to sell a project at my current employer, with everybody and their lead telling you "that'll never work," then you implement in a weekend and those same people start nitpicking what you've come up with. (What happened to it'll never work? "Well, your CSS isn't great.") Honestl…

That's hardly ever true. In my experience, Hacker News is full of people from the software field; folks whose professions are often unconstrained by physics,[1] and who have a generally optimistic "this can happen" mentality. That's why everyone here believes we'll have fully self-driving cars in 5-6 years. In the rest of the engineering world, the answer to any question is: it'll be harder than you think it'll be (p…

Physicists recognize the constraints on development imposed by the laws of physics.

Software professionals recognize the constraints on development imposed by entropy, information theory, and other esoteric branches of mathematics.

Rather than scoff at this article because Lockheed is making extraordinary claims without the backing of extraordinary evidence, I prefer to scoff because nuclear physics modeling and simulation software is still software. If I cross my arms and say "that has a critical undiscovered bug in it that invalidates the results," I'd be correct 97% of the time. It also has a SQL injection vulnerability, links to at least one library written 30 years ago, and was originally written by a physicist that knew a little programming rather than a programmer that knew a little physics.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#242

Post by titanomachy » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 8:12 PM UTC

charonn0 wrote: post #175

regularfry wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> the plasma leaks out of the ends of the magnetic containment According to this link[1] posted by another commenter, they create a "axisymmetric mirror by positioning zones of high magnetic field near each end of the vessel so that they reflect a significant fraction of plasma particles escaping along the axis of the CFR." [1]: http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compa...

Your link is actually the original article that this post links to. (It does indeed contain the quoted sentence.)

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#243

Post by aortega » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 8:12 PM UTC

tonyplee wrote: post #185

nabla9 wrote: post #164

I'm not seeing any top physicists working in this program (McGuire is not one). I would be willing to bet 1000 EUR that their math and modeling does not add up, or they have skipped some details. Problem with fusion research like this is that the closer you get self sustainment or energy generation, the harder it gets and problems pile up. This project looks like many other similar projects that have gone bust. They…

How much dangerous are the neutrons from such device? Similar to radiation, worst? Time sell any oil company stocks, mutual fund holding?

>How much dangerous are the neutrons from such device? Similar to radiation, worst?

Neutrons are radiation. Also It's the worst kind of radiation because unlike X-rays or Gamma, neutrons make other things radioactive.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#244

Post by CamperBob2 » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 8:14 PM UTC

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #234

rayiner wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's hardly ever true. In my experience, Hacker News is full of people from the software field; folks whose professions are often unconstrained by physics,[1] and who have a generally optimistic "this can happen" mentality. That's why everyone here believes we'll have fully self-driving cars in 5-6 years. In the rest of the engineering world, the answer to any question is: it'll be harder than you think it'll be (p…

> That's hardly ever true. Even pg discussed the phenomenon, as you undoubtedly know. There's a good idea, or a news article hailing progress, or some other kind of optimism, then the first comment is a mid-brow dismissal. They are the lowest-effort comments to make; "that won't work because X isn't well-respected and Y often happens to similar teams" requires almost no research and cannot really be refuted. The only…

The only solution is one that can't be applied here: LockMart shouldn't make extraordinary claims ("Check out this cool fusion reactor!") until they have extraordinary proof to go with them.

Right now, this entire story is just a waste of space on a hard drive somewhere in Palo Alto, and no comments pro or con are going to change that.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#245

Post by graycat » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 8:15 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #164

I'm not seeing any top physicists working in this program (McGuire is not one). I would be willing to bet 1000 EUR that their math and modeling does not add up, or they have skipped some details. Problem with fusion research like this is that the closer you get self sustainment or energy generation, the harder it gets and problems pile up. This project looks like many other similar projects that have gone bust. They…

The Skunk works has one heck of a good reputation. So, I have to guess that the Lockheed suits had this guy's work and PR reviewed with a microscope from tip to tail, math, physics, materials, software, experiments to date, etc., including reviews by people who would have loved to have found something wrong.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#246

Post by knappador » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 8:17 PM UTC

Aneutronic fusion would be lighter-weight, but it's good to see another concept we can learn something new from. There are two aneutronic fusion projects to look at. Polywell has become a Navy project last I heard and focus fusion (DPF) is working on an all-tungsten electrode, after which we might see the very first experiment without electrode contamination from arcing in the contacts vaporizing metal.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#247

Post by titanomachy » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 8:20 PM UTC

ninkendo wrote: post #239

Animats wrote: post #183

This might work. It's from Lockheed's Skunk Works, which has a very good track record and tremendous respect in the aerospace community. With the basic physics laid out, this is mostly an engineering and construction problem. Their plan is to build and test a new prototype every year. The Skunk Works can do that; they've been doing it for decades. They're a manufacturer of prototypes, and have in-house capabilities f…

> With the basic physics laid out, this is mostly an engineering and construction problem. That phrase has been accurate for nuclear fusion in general for more than 50 years. The engineering and construction problems are immense.

That's definitely true, and it's nice to have another set of brilliant engineers working on this problem from a somewhat different angle than that taken by previous brilliant engineers. Personally, I've become somewhat disillusioned with ITER after reading so much about their bureaucratic hurdles... but maybe they have enough talent onboard to pull it off anyway.

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#248

Post by the_real_bto » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 8:23 PM UTC

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #194

nabla9 wrote: post #164

I'm not seeing any top physicists working in this program (McGuire is not one). I would be willing to bet 1000 EUR that their math and modeling does not add up, or they have skipped some details. Problem with fusion research like this is that the closer you get self sustainment or energy generation, the harder it gets and problems pile up. This project looks like many other similar projects that have gone bust. They…

It's always a safe bet that the top Hacker News comment will always be "won't work, it's too hard." It's like sitting around for a year trying to sell a project at my current employer, with everybody and their lead telling you "that'll never work," then you implement in a weekend and those same people start nitpicking what you've come up with. (What happened to it'll never work? "Well, your CSS isn't great.") Honestl…

It's easy to be a critic.

Dropbox is a prime example of this effect: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#249

Post by peter_l_downs » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 8:27 PM UTC

Crazy. Vernor Vinge has an excellent short story called "Bookworm, Run!" [0] that, among other things, discusses the effects of cheap, clean, compact power being distributed around the world. In particular, it describes a wide-spread economic depression. Kind of interesting to think about, and definitely worth reading if you're into sci-fi.

[0]: http://books.google.com/books?id=tEMQpbiboH0C&pg=PA15&lpg=PA...

Re: Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details

#250

Post by chton » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 8:37 PM UTC

dkirtley wrote: post #176

chton wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds very similar to the way Helion Energy does it ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helion_Energy ). Do you know what the major differences are?

Helion here. There are pretty big differences. They did get the high Beta and compact/modular parts right. The primary differences are that Helion operates entirely pulsed with simple non-superconducting magnets. That allows us to go to higher temperatures, cleaner fuels, directly recovery energy, and if everything works as planned should eliminate the wall concerns and need for particle beams. I do think what they a…

Aha thanks for the explanation, that does make things clearer. Also a huge thanks to you for being at the forefront of technology. I consider energy research the single most important thing we can do for humanity, and I'm incredibly grateful to see real progress on fusion in my lifetime.