100 Megawatt Fusion Reactor That Fits in a U-Haul

[XD45 7,124]

And now for something completely different...

 

First commercial fusion reactors could come online in 10 years.

 

I've been watching fusion research since the days of the TFTR (30 years).  The big breakthrough has always been just out of reach.  Evidently Lockheed has finally grasped it.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/lockheed-says-makes-breakthrough-fusion-energy-project-123840986--finance.html

[Spartacus 1,619]

Would be awesome if this technology can scale to where you'd have a unit

the size of your AC compressor outside powering the house.

[Rhodes1968 1,638]

The science is one thing, the politics another.

 

Look at whats happened to Thorium/Salt reactors. Safe cheap fuel and yet...

 

As a side note want to guess where the greatest supply of He3 outside of China? 

The moon

 

Guess who aint got a space program...

[Spartacus 1,619]

Yep, the politics.... and the greed of powerful corporate utilities will not want you to have a power

supply for your home/business that they can't bolt a meter to and send you a bill every month.

 

BTW, Lockheed Skunkworks is where they back-engineer the UFO stuff.   

[csspecs 1,987]

Cheap, clean, limitless power would be a huge advantage in the manufacturing market place. Everything from massive desalinization plants to massive 24 hour agricultural factories are profitable with almost free power.

 

Its everything solar is said to be, without it all being lies and exaggerations.

[Dad2142Dad 6,559]

I'll believe it when it's tied on to the grid and you'll never get one for the house. They'll just retrofit existing sites that are getting old. The other thing you have to think about is how do you replace the current fossil economy? Without crashing?

[Rhodes1968 1,638]

I'll believe it when it's tied on to the grid and you'll never get one for the house. They'll just retrofit existing sites that are getting old. The other thing you have to think about is how do you replace the current fossil economy? Without crashing?

 

You dont

[XD45 7,124]

Transportation will still need dinosaur juice for a long time regardless.

[Rhodes1968 1,638]

Transportation will still need dinosaur juice for a long time regardless.

 

To get from prototype to full implementation could take a generation even if you have enough He3, which we dont, and successfully fight the politicos.

That is why I say you dont try to prevent a crash, it is not close to an overnight transition.  

[Shandlanos 1,470]

Would be awesome if this technology can scale to where you'd have a unit

the size of your AC compressor outside powering the house.

Not gonna happen, nuclear tech is HIGHLY regulated and will be for a long time to come. Every reactor requires an extensive application and approval process before construction can begin.

 

 

The science is one thing, the politics another.

 

Look at whats happened to Thorium/Salt reactors. Safe cheap fuel and yet...

 

As a side note want to guess where the greatest supply of He3 outside of China? 

The moon

 

Guess who aint got a space program...

I'm right there with you, for the most part - except that what happened so far with molten thorium reactors is essentially nothing - no private company has funded a test reactor, and the idea has never proceeded beyond theory. It's an awesome idea that could provide a fantastic, relatively clean source of energy without any chance of melting down and without the potential for being made into an atomic weapon, and it uses an extremely abundant fuel. Unfortunately, nobody's ponied up the cash to actually fucking do it.

 

There's definitely a lot of corrupt shit out there - there's plenty of direct evidence of oil and gas companies funding anti-nuclear crazies. But I wouldn't believe for a moment that a mature thorium/salt heat transfer system has actually been secretly developed and is being suppressed.

 

 

Cheap, clean, limitless power would be a huge advantage in the manufacturing market place. Everything from massive desalinization plants to massive 24 hour agricultural factories are profitable with almost free power.

 

Its everything solar is said to be, without it all being lies and exaggerations.

It might be cheap, but it won't be limitless - we have a relatively small supply of tritium, and it is difficult and expensive to extract.

 

 

 

Transportation will still need dinosaur juice for a long time regardless.

 

To get from prototype to full implementation could take a generation even if you have enough He3, which we dont, and successfully fight the politicos.

That is why I say you dont try to prevent a crash, it is not close to an overnight transition.  

 

We definitely have enough tritium for the first several decades of implementation. You're absolutely right about it taking a long damn time and being a tough fight to actually get something like this done.

 

To be blunt I think this announcement is extremely premature. 10 years to a commercial, producing plant seems incredibly optimistic. There have been far too many supposed breakthroughs in fusion for me to get excited about this one. The very first energy-positive nuclear fusion reaction was recently achieved - that is, the total amount of energy put into the fuel was exceeded by the amount produced by the fuel. In that reactor, they're still a long way from net positive output - that is, more energy extracted from the reactor than put into the reactor. Unless Lockheed has made a true breakthrough in the last four years and developed a unique technology unlike anything ever built by any of a dozen fusion projects - it just doesn't seem likely.

and I will eat my fucking words with a healthy coating of ketchup if I'm dead wrong. I hope I am.

[G O B 3,516]

Coming from the Skunk Works, They just may do it!

[Azkamidaka 26]

I just cross my fingers that in ten years I can have my own power generating capabilites....it would be phenomenal.

[XD45 7,124]

I seriously doubt reactors will ever be available privately.

[jimdigriz 580]

Just in time for 2015.

 

 

Now I want a hoverboard and self-typing shoes.

Edited October 15, 2014 by Jim Digriz

[XD45 7,124]

 

Now I want a hoverboard and self-typing shoes.

That would go well with a self-tying keyboard.

[Spartacus 1,619]

 

Would be awesome if this technology can scale to where you'd have a unit

the size of your AC compressor outside powering the house.

Not gonna happen, nuclear tech is HIGHLY regulated and will be for a long time to come. Every reactor requires an extensive application and approval process before construction can begin.

 

 

True with the type of nuclear tech that we have now.

If this new tech can be made safely with no radioactivity or meltdown potential, it may be safe enough for private use.

 

Though it could be argued that anything that can create that amount of power in a small package is inherently unsafe.

[Long Shot 1,287]

I know I've seen this before somewhere.

 

 

There is a boatload of great clean energy tech at our disposal today.

 

OSU nuclear program developed a modular nuclear reactor system and fuel rod recycling tech right here in Oregon that's currently in use in France. I think China is using it also.

 

 

Politics is the obstacle blocking abundant, cheap energy for US.

[patriot 7,197]

I'd rather have a Shipstone.

 

http://www.correntewire.com/has_stanford_found_the_shipstone

[Rhodes1968 1,638]

 

Would be awesome if this technology can scale to where you'd have a unit

the size of your AC compressor outside powering the house.

Not gonna happen, nuclear tech is HIGHLY regulated and will be for a long time to come. Every reactor requires an extensive application and approval process before construction can begin.

 

 

The science is one thing, the politics another.

 

Look at whats happened to Thorium/Salt reactors. Safe cheap fuel and yet...

 

As a side note want to guess where the greatest supply of He3 outside of China? 

The moon

 

Guess who aint got a space program...

I'm right there with you, for the most part - except that what happened so far with molten thorium reactors is essentially nothing - no private company has funded a test reactor, and the idea has never proceeded beyond theory. It's an awesome idea that could provide a fantastic, relatively clean source of energy without any chance of melting down and without the potential for being made into an atomic weapon, and it uses an extremely abundant fuel. Unfortunately, nobody's ponied up the cash to actually fucking do it.

 

There's definitely a lot of corrupt shit out there - there's plenty of direct evidence of oil and gas companies funding anti-nuclear crazies. But I wouldn't believe for a moment that a mature thorium/salt heat transfer system has actually been secretly developed and is being suppressed.

 

 

Cheap, clean, limitless power would be a huge advantage in the manufacturing market place. Everything from massive desalinization plants to massive 24 hour agricultural factories are profitable with almost free power.

 

Its everything solar is said to be, without it all being lies and exaggerations.

It might be cheap, but it won't be limitless - we have a relatively small supply of tritium, and it is difficult and expensive to extract.

 

 

 

Transportation will still need dinosaur juice for a long time regardless.

 

To get from prototype to full implementation could take a generation even if you have enough He3, which we dont, and successfully fight the politicos.

That is why I say you dont try to prevent a crash, it is not close to an overnight transition.  

 

We definitely have enough tritium for the first several decades of implementation. You're absolutely right about it taking a long damn time and being a tough fight to actually get something like this done.

 

To be blunt I think this announcement is extremely premature. 10 years to a commercial, producing plant seems incredibly optimistic. There have been far too many supposed breakthroughs in fusion for me to get excited about this one. The very first energy-positive nuclear fusion reaction was recently achieved - that is, the total amount of energy put into the fuel was exceeded by the amount produced by the fuel. In that reactor, they're still a long way from net positive output - that is, more energy extracted from the reactor than put into the reactor. Unless Lockheed has made a true breakthrough in the last four years and developed a unique technology unlike anything ever built by any of a dozen fusion projects - it just doesn't seem likely.

and I will eat my fucking words with a healthy coating of ketchup if I'm dead wrong. I hope I am.

 

 

Last info I had on tritium was what was available ends up in nukes but then again there is that demand thing.

Lithium seems key at this point and that crap is uncommon as hell and most ends up in batteries. China controls the majority of lithium sources.

 

I agree this kind of thing pops up and a year from now is forgotten and then it seems to fade into obscurity.

Much like the thorium reactor. Why? Corruption what else

 

Could be wrong but to me it seems that this mess has a crucible to pass and what comes out the other end may not have the ability to produce matches much less reactors.

[Shandlanos 1,470]

I know I've seen this before somewhere.

 

image.jpg

 

There is a boatload of great clean energy tech at our disposal today.

 

OSU nuclear program developed a modular nuclear reactor system and fuel rod recycling tech right here in Oregon that's currently in use in France. I think China is using it also.

 

 

Politics is the obstacle blocking abundant, cheap energy for US.

The reactor system in France uses breeder reactors fueled with recycled mixed oxides of uranium and plutonium. Breeder reactors are essentially the first step in producing highly enriched plutonium for weapons - even when they're used for a closed-cycle fuel system, people freak out because people are stupid. Basically, in a breeder reactor there is a shell of U-238 - a non-fissile isotope. When a U-238 atom captures a neutron, it becomes U-239, which through a complicated decay pattern that I don't remember fully, becomes Pu-239. A breeder reactor produces more plutonium than it expends fissile uranium. When the shell and the expended fuel are recycled, new fuel rods are produced containing a mixture of fissile isotopes of plutonium and uranium (totaling about 3-5% fissile isotopes, the remainder of the fuel rods are non-fissile isotopes, largely U-238 if I remember right). With each successive cycle you end up with more and more plutonium, but you never need to add more fissile uranium - your new fuel is the result of neutron capture and decay in the uranium shell. Even though nuclear weapons require HIGHLY enriched plutonium (90% +), people are scared at the idea of enriching plutonium, even for reactor use, to 3-5% purity. France does it and has been for a long time. That sort of fuel cycle means no need for newly-mined fissile fuel, and greatly reduces the amount of high-level radioactive waste - because you're recycling nearly all of your high-level radioactive waste to produce new fuel.

 

Light-water reactors produce a shitload of high-level radioactive waste, and we just have to store it. It's stupid, when a better technology already exists - but ignorance and politics prevail.

Edited October 16, 2014 by Shandlanos

[XD45 7,124]

A little more info about the Lockheed design.

 

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/lockheed-martins-new-fusion-reactor-design-can-change-h-1646578094

[Shandlanos 1,470]

Thanks! Man, I hope this really works, and doesn't get quashed.

[XD45 7,124]

Catfight!

 

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/scientists-bashing-lockheed-martins-nuclear-232518813.html

[Dad2142Dad 6,559]

Oh yeah, let the bashing begin. They did the same to Einstein. Maybe they finally got access to the non-extant alien craft at area 51.

[Rhodes1968 1,638]

Bah Edison was somewhat less than he has been portrayed...

 

look what they did to Tesla 

[patriot 7,197]

Bah Edison was somewhat less than he has been portrayed...

 

look what they did to Tesla 

Yeah. Tesla got ripped off his whole career. He was interested in the science, and got ripped off by greedy assholes like Edison, Westinghouse, Marconi, etc, who made their fortunes off Tesla's genius.

 

I did a paper on him in college. You would be absolutely amazed at what that man accomplished with turn of the 1900s technology. Hell, he INVENTED quite a bit of that tech all by himself.

 

Even today, Tesla would be one of the foremost minds of our time. I'd gladly work for him as a gofer just to be able to learn from him. Imagine what he could do with today's tools. He was definitely a man out of time.

[james lambert 3,059]

I wouldn't hold my breath on this one.

 

shame i have to wait ten years to say  told ya so

[G O B 3,516]

 I tend to  believe the people who build hyper sonic airplanes, and worked on the NUCLEAR POWERED bomber. They just MIGHT know something that the other guys don't.

Or the whole thing is a cover for some black op - like the Glomar Explorer - 'gathering geodes from the ocean floor'.

[james lambert 3,059]

 I tend to  believe the people who build hyper sonic airplanes, and worked on the NUCLEAR POWERED bomber. They just MIGHT know something that the other guys don't.

Or the whole thing is a cover for some black op - like the Glomar Explorer - 'gathering geodes from the ocean floor'.

 

 I tend to  believe the people who build hyper sonic airplanes, and worked on the NUCLEAR POWERED bomber. They just MIGHT know something that the other guys don't.

Or the whole thing is a cover for some black op - like the Glomar Explorer - 'gathering geodes from the ocean floor'.

As a matter of fact my father designed many components of the nuclear engines for aircraft and the rover project.

And I worked in Los Alamos at the site working on fusion over a course of  several years,

 

I am no stranger to the technology,  there are articles from several top physicists that explain a few of the reasons this is not just around the corner.

The absence of anywhere near enough tritium to use is just the beginning of the problems.

 

study it.....