A couple of weeks ago a spokesman from the Lockheed Skunkworks gave a speech at a TED-like event where he claimed that his team was 4 years away from having a mass-produced fusion reactor the size of a shipping container.
Obviously, such a development, if true, would rock the globe. Mass-produced cheap fusion power would trigger a revolutionary transformation of the entire world economy, and produce a large political upheaval. Overnight Lockheed would become the most powerful corporation in the world. So it seems a little odd that such a transformative technology would be announced in such a weird backdoor fashion.
So, based on the claims that Charles Chase is making in the video, is it likely that they’ve actually had a breakthrough? Or is it just smoke and mirrors?
I just googled “Charles Chase” lockheed and I see no indication at all that he’s associated with the company except his own LinkedIn page. I smell something unskunklike.
The bottom line is that if Lockheed really did have something like this close to beta and they wanted to leak it, the person they chose to do it would have an easily discoverable pedigree. Not only that, he probably even have some sort of tacit approval, i.e., ‘when asked to comment a Lockheed spokesperson would only say that Mr. Chase has been with the company for many years and is a valued employee.’ [wink, wink]
This guy has none of that. Show me a single credible cite that even hints he works for Lockheed in some capacity other than janitorial services and I’ll STFU.
Considering the problems with the F-35 and the sequestrations you comment made me curious so I went back to look at a chart. You’re probably thinking about some time around mid-November. It was a real scary ride after that though.
Practical fusion power is about 50 years away, provided that the funding situation holds. It’s just not something a single company can develop out of the blue, independently of all other researchers. There are myriad little advances that need to be made along the way, and we’d have heard if Lockheed were involved in any of those.
Okay, yeah, I remember (reading about) the 50s, when fission was going to provide power “too cheap to meter”. I am certainly old enough to remember pons-and-fleischman. How many grains of salt is this going to require? Sigh.
If your energy is cheap enough you can even take the carbon out of the air, combine that with hydrogen from water and synthesize useful liquid fuels, and nip that global warming thing in the bud. As a bonus, you’ll also be creating plenty of cheap oxygen we can use to keep the rapidly growing population of old people alive.
