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Page added on October 15, 2014
Lockheed Martin Claims Fusion Power in 10 Years
In a press release on Wednesday, defense contractor Lockheed Martin announced that its in-house fusion reactor program could produce a working prototype in as few as five years—and a practical, working system that could take the place of a conventional power plant on the grid within ten years.
It’s a bold claim by a single company—one that not even people behind the multinational, multibillion-dollar ITER fusion power research effort in France is making. If it holds true, it could overturn the energy industry with essentially limitless clean energy that could serve humanity for thousands of years, Columbia University physicist Mike Mauel tells PM.
Yes, we know, you’ve heard this one before. But the Lockheed Martin team says it can get to economically viable fusion power faster and more affordably than ITER by reducing the size of the system from something that takes up an entire building to something that could fit on a tractor trailer. The key is in the containment system needed to hold the 150-million-degree plasma that must be generated to start controlled fusion and harvest the energy created.
ITER and most of the other most promising designs use a torus-shaped configuration of superconducting magnets called a tokamak to contain the super-hot high-pressure plasma. Although intense research has focused on these since they were invented in the 1950s in the Soviet Union, no one has yet managed to get a tokamak design to drive a practical fusion power plant. ITER, using the biggest, most powerful magnets in the world, seeks to address the challenges that a future commercial system would face.
“The basic science of how to make a fusion plasma is not quite done yet,” Mauel says. “We’re still learning.”
Lockheed’s approach would use a new configuration of magnets that would allow the entire system to be ten times smaller than a tokamak. That would greatly reduce the cost. This video from Lockheed Martin gives a little more detail on how it would work.
A Lockheed Martin spokesperson tells us the company has been spending its own money on the project, and is coming out about it now to attract development and funding partners. She wouldn’t say how much the company has spent so far.
Mauel, for one, is cautiously optimistic about Lockheed Martin’s fusion project.
“When we have struggled with the challenges with making fusion work, and then someone comes up and says, ‘Well, I’m going to have something going in five years,’ and they haven’t even built a prototype yet, maybe they’re premature in their announcement,” he says. “On the other hand, I think that discoveries can be made…. By looking broadly like Lockheed Martin is doing, and coming up with something that hasn’t been tried before, there’s a potential that you can make a discovery that may make it easier, and I haven’t ruled that out.”
25 Comments on "Lockheed Martin Claims Fusion Power in 10 Years"
Dave Thompson on Wed, 15th Oct 2014 7:10 pm
Popular Mechanics and Lockheed Martin public relations (propaganda).
Northwest Resident on Wed, 15th Oct 2014 8:25 pm
On bad market and bad news days, you can expect them to roll out the hopium and spew it through all mass media channels. Lockheed Martin is major defense contractor and no small player in national affairs. The perception is that Lockheed Martin is a very high tech company, and the regular Joe sixpacks out there will be inclined to believe that if Lockheed Martin says it then it must be true. And this is how the propaganda machine operates to keep the masses in check.
Perk Earl on Wed, 15th Oct 2014 9:18 pm
So even big name corporations can muster up a crock to lure investors in to keep the lights on.
Nony on Wed, 15th Oct 2014 10:40 pm
Probably unlikely. Still having something lke this from LM means a lot more than some professor claiming GTL breakthroughs or blabla about flaring capture.
Again unlikely. Still warms my heart that someone is seriously trying.
Oh…and ITER is a waste of money.
PrestonSturges on Wed, 15th Oct 2014 11:27 pm
Is this a dipole or a polywell design?
“…..Still having something lke this from LM means a lot more than some professor claiming GTL breakthroughs or blabla about flaring capture…..”
Exactly – this is a publicly traded company and there are limits to what they can say that might influence their stock price.
q on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 2:22 am
Just another Ponzi scheme.
meld on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 6:55 am
just give us your money and in 10 short years limitless energy will be yours. I’ll definitely be investing in that, it sounds so wonderful!
PCTECH on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 7:11 am
Fusion powered airplanes? How about warp drive?
Come on, give me a break!
JuanP on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 8:57 am
Fusion has been ten years away since before I was born. This is more delusional crappy propaganda BS. I didn’t read it. I stopped reading fusion articles like 20 years ago. I have no time to waste.
Norm on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 9:32 am
Its the perfect standard pattern. Get others to pay, for the whimsical promise, that never pans out. But they bank profits the whole time for doing research. They are using lots of weasel words, ‘as little as 10 years’ etc. If it was actually going to work, they would spend the company funds privately, so they would own the intellectual property. Since its not going to work, their plan is sell it to the government and the middle class taxpayer is left holding a truckload of scrap metal and a labful of broken promises. But Lockheed gets to keep the research money while the energy shortage begins.
Norm on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 9:40 am
It says Restart the Atomic Age. Ya, private corporations make big bux building dangerous useless schit that leaves the public a toxic dump and an invoice, while the company bankrolls huge profits and higher share prices. Gotta do it all again!
Norm on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 9:51 am
AND in the video, instead of using a greasy unshaven hard-hatter to turn a wrench, they use a hot teenage underwear model to turn the wrench. Looks like, to sell a scam, flash some skin! When the energy runs out, THEY have extra funds to pay for bad times…… what used to be YOUR funds.
Steve O on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 9:54 am
“So even big name corporations can muster up a crock to lure investors in to keep the lights on.”
Lockheed is the largest defense contractor, there is no greater crock of shite than that.
J-Gav on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 11:54 am
Why not? I fully expect to be flying around powered by my (democratically-priced) jet-pack within 2 years. Might not know where the hell I’m going, or why, but who cares? Just punch in a destination and you’ll get there within minutes!
Don’t expect this nonsense to stop anytime soon.
GregT on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 12:09 pm
The biggest challenges facing human existence on the planet Earth, are over-population, and exponential growth. Yet we keep trying to come up with ways to continue on with BAU.
Stupid is, as stupid does.
kervennic on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 12:12 pm
And my dick will be one meter long in ten years…
shortonoil on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 1:32 pm
“Lockheed Martin Claims Fusion Power in 10 Years”, and in nine years there won’t be a sovereign nation on earth who will be able to afford their multi million dollar war planes. Good luck guys, you’re going to need it.
eastbay on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 1:48 pm
Forty-five years ago these hucksters were claiming cold fusion was twenty years away. They’ve been claiming this ever since. Until now.
Now it’s only ten years away. In twenty years it’ll be five years away and that’s where it’ll remain.
Hugh Culliton on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 4:32 pm
NR: Mmmmmm, sweet nourishing hopium: it eases the pain. You’re right on the money to point out that shit like this is used to game the markets yet again. Still, we bite every freaking time this ol’ chestnut’s dusted off and jammed up our arse. Why? Because we want it to be so. I’ll believe in fusion power when I can use it to recharge my flying car.
Northwest Resident on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 5:08 pm
Hugh — Being a Public Relations major in college and knowing how those guys operate, it is impossible for me to believe that Lockheed coming out with this “major breakthrough announcement” is anything other than a lame attempt to offset the really, really bad news of these last few days regarding the dim future of unconventional oil (and therefore all oil production “increases) and the correspondingly bad news in the markets. Coincidence? My ass! Hopium for the masses, served raw as needed. We’ll be seeing lots more of it, no doubt.
Norm on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 8:11 pm
I like the government researcher babe in Orange shirt. Marry her any day. Without meeting first. Hello orange government research babe, here I am, have also made illicit bux in government research, marry me and we will raise little government researcher tykes of our very own. One of you guys gotta tell her, I know she will want to take me up on this.
Newfie on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 9:04 pm
Limitless energy from fusion reactors is just ten years away. And it always will be… 😉
dissident on Thu, 16th Oct 2014 11:14 pm
Next step: garage fusion designs by assorted dabblers. Hey, all problems are solvable with some grit and determination. //sarc
Norm on Fri, 17th Oct 2014 1:01 am
ah yes. what is Lockheed closer to? Well on a logarithmic scale (what the scientists use) Lockheed’s proposal is much closer to the guy in a garage making bird houses with a $200 table saw,
than it is to the ITER machine which also won’t work (it will light up, but it wont be an economical power source).
If ya gonna snitch some research bux, think small. The gov won’t pay for another ITER, but it will pay for plenty of small time con jobs.
Apneaman on Fri, 17th Oct 2014 7:23 pm
It’s ground breaking! It’s an energy revolution! It’s a game changer!!
Just like the F-35; Let the never ending subsidies begin! Again!