# Lockheed Skunk Works reveals new fusion reactor design **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 15, 2014, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408 "2014-10-15T16:26:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![StrangerThanFiction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f05b48/32.png) [@StrangerThanFiction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StrangerThanFiction)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/1 "2014-10-15T16:26:13Z")
Fusion power is always 20 years off. The folks at the Skunk Works are claiming that they may have a breakthrough that puts it at only ten. Essentially, they discard the tokomak design, and… I don’t really know. Somehow, they use a differently-shaped magnetic field to contain the plasma, reducing the amount of power required to operate the thing by an order of magnitude at least. Also, it is the size of a jet engine rather than the size of a jet engine factory. Article here: [http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compact-fusion-reactor-details](http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compact-fusion-reactor-details) YouTube video here: [Lockheed Martin: Compact Fusion Research & Development - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlYClniDFkM) They have some pretty smart folks on board over there. Do our physicist dopers think the science is legitimate? Is this worth getting excited about, or just another ‘monumental breakthrough’ that puts abundant, clean energy barely over the horizon? ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/2 "2014-10-15T16:54:43Z")
You beat me to it. I was going to come over here to ask what the straight dope on this is. Sounds mighty optimistic. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/3 "2014-10-15T17:09:08Z")
Is the world really ready for a fusion-powered skunk? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/4 "2014-10-15T17:18:07Z")
There was another thread about this. There seemed to be a lot of wishful thinking then, and a lack of details. I don’t see much change here: > [@](#): > > The team acknowledges that the project is in its earliest stages, and many key challenges remain before a viable prototype can be built. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/5 "2014-10-15T17:26:10Z")
They don’t seem to have published the design (or the principle behind it) in any peer-reviewed physics journal. Normally this would be a huge red flag. I suppose in this case, it might be because someone decided it’s export-controlled material, but still, it seems strange to release this much information without publishing an academic paper. Also, I see it was “5 years away from a working prototype” [a year and a half ago](http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/02/new-google-solve-for-x-lockheed.html), and still is. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/6 "2014-10-15T17:54:10Z")
The problem with any plasma fusion is that plasma is cranky. As found when working with Tokomaks, as you start to squeeze hotter and hotter plasma with stronger and stronger magnetic fields it behaves like squeezing a balloon, and will become unstable and bubble or “pop out” of its confinement in places. When the plasma hits the physical wall of the vessel, that causes it to cool off. The idea with magnetic confinement is to heat the plasma and squeeze it so high-energy collisions occur regularly enough that the collisions which cause the plasma to fuse release more energy than is needed to keep the reactor running. The theory may look good on paper, but have some practical problems like confinement failure that stop it from being practical. Will it work in the real world? There’s only one way to find out. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/7 "2014-10-15T21:41:40Z")
I’m looking forward to a large magnetic pliers, which is the way Green Lantern would do fusion. ---
**Author:** ![AndrewL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/8 "2014-10-15T21:51:21Z")
The design they seem to have is supposed to be a lot better for its size at containment than a tokomak. Allegedly this design has a magnetic field that becomes stronger and better at containment the further out from the plasma you go, so the plasma is a lot better contained. The thing that I find concerning is that they have magnetic coils actually inside of the plasma bottle. Running at practical power-generation levels, using Deuterium as a fuel, those are going to be exposed to a pretty bad neutron flux which won’t be good for the longevity of the superconductors. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/9 "2014-10-15T22:04:13Z")
[Previous thread referencing another thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=684225&highlight=skunk+fusion). The press releases seem to have a strategic purpose and aren’t announcing any real developments. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/10 "2014-10-16T17:14:46Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > They don’t seem to have published the design (or the principle behind it) in any peer-reviewed physics journal. Normally this would be a huge red flag. I suppose in this case, it might be because someone decided it’s export-controlled material, but still, it seems strange to release this much information without publishing an academic paper. Thinking off the top of my head, but since a patent lasts only 20 years, if you had a revolutionary concept that would earn super megabucks but only after as many as 20 years of development, might you postpone patenting (which would require you to postpone publishing, or else it becomes public domain.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/11 "2014-10-16T17:24:14Z")
You might, if you were only ever able to get one patent. In a world where you can get many, though, what you do is you get a patent on whatever it is you’ve got right now, then you use that patented technology to do years of development to improve it, and then you patent the improvements, too. Repeat this process until it’s good enough to sell, at which point you have 20 years (or 14, I think, isn’t it?) in which you’re the only company that has that last generation of improvements, and everyone else has to either make do with the previous generation that wasn’t good enough, or has to make novel improvements of their own to catch up. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/12 "2014-10-16T17:38:52Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > [Previous thread referencing another thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=684225&highlight=skunk+fusion). > > The press releases seem to have a strategic purpose and aren’t announcing any real developments. The video on the OP looks like something out of Kickstarter. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/13 "2014-10-16T18:16:12Z")
I’m curious about the two little cavities on either side. To me, it looks like they’ve probably mangled the picture and those would actually be an input and output, respectively. If they’re basing their idea on the concept of a space engine, being able to super-accelerate something certainly makes sense. Is there some way to use a fusion reaction in that way? ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/14 "2014-10-16T18:47:34Z")
Huh. So _this_ is how the world ends. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/15 "2014-10-16T19:34:27Z")
I thought that tritium was a significant limiting factor in scaling up any deuterium-tritium reaction. They say that they can breed from lithium, but I remember reading an article which implied that you would need 100% efficiency in neutron conversions in a lithium blanket to maintain a steady state of fuel supply. Basically, that article stated that blanket technology was just as important as fusion technology, but much further behind. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/16 "2014-10-18T03:33:42Z")
> [@StrangerThanFiction](#): > > Fusion power is always 20 years off. The folks at the Skunk Works are claiming that they may have a breakthrough that puts it at only ten. > > Essentially, they discard the tokomak design, and… I don’t really know. Somehow, they use a differently-shaped magnetic field to contain the plasma, reducing the amount of power required to operate the thing by an order of magnitude at least. Also, it is the size of a jet engine rather than the size of a jet engine factory. > > Article here: [http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compact-fusion-reactor-details](http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compact-fusion-reactor-details) > > YouTube video here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlYClniDFkM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlYClniDFkM) > > They have some pretty smart folks on board over there. Do our physicist dopers think the science is legitimate? Is this worth getting excited about, or just another ‘monumental breakthrough’ that puts abundant, clean energy barely over the horizon? “…they ‘may’ have a breakthrough…” Operative word ‘may’. “…design…” Operative word ‘design’, not ‘reactor’. I’ve got a \*design \*for a perpetual motion machine, that _may_… ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/17 "2014-10-18T04:21:07Z")
They still don’t know if fusion power causes any nuclear fallout or radioactive waste like nuclear fission.So it is noting to get excited over yet. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/18 "2014-10-18T14:18:06Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > They still don’t know if fusion power causes any nuclear fallout or radioactive waste like nuclear fission.So it is noting to get excited over yet. I’m not sure what you think you mean by this, but of course radioactive waste has been studied for decades. There are better sources, I’m sure, but why not just check [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#Waste_management)before you post? > [@](#): > > Waste management > > The large flux of high-energy neutrons in a reactor will make the structural materials radioactive. The radioactive inventory at shut-down may be comparable to that of a fission reactor, but there are important differences. > > The half-life of the radioisotopes produced by fusion tends to be less than those from fission, so that the inventory decreases more rapidly. Unlike fission reactors, whose waste remains radioactive for thousands of years, most of the radioactive material in a fusion reactor would be the reactor core itself, which would be dangerous for about 50 years, and low-level waste another 100. Although this waste will be considerably more radioactive during those 50 years than fission waste, the very short half-life makes the process very attractive, as the waste management is fairly straightforward. By 500 years the material would have the same radiotoxidity as coal ash.[136] > > Additionally, the choice of materials used in a fusion reactor is less constrained than in a fission design, where many materials are required for their specific neutron cross-sections. This allows a fusion reactor to be designed using materials that are selected specifically to be “low activation”, materials that do not easily become radioactive. Vanadium, for example, would become much less radioactive than stainless steel. Carbon fiber materials are also low-activation, as well as being strong and light, and are a promising area of study for laser-inertial reactors where a magnetic field is not required. > > In general terms, fusion reactors would create far less radioactive material than a fission reactor, the material it would create is less damaging biologically, and the radioactivity “burns off” within a time period that is well within existing engineering capabilities for safe long-term waste storage. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/19 "2014-10-18T14:31:31Z")
Who’s this “they”? We know that both fission and fusion produce radioactive waste, that fusion produces much less than fission, and that neither causes fallout. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408/20 "2014-10-18T15:36:43Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > They still don’t know if fusion power causes any nuclear fallout or radioactive waste like nuclear fission.So it is noting to get excited over yet. The primary end products of the various nuclear fusion chains that might be used for power are ionized hydrogen, tritium, [SUP]3[/SUP]He, [SUP]4[/SUP]He, alpha, beta, and gamma particles, and neutrons and protons. The reaction itself produces no heavy isotopes as the processes of nuclear fission and decay do. The ionizing charged particles are all desirable because it is easy to capture their energy using magnetic or electrostatic fields that turn the kinetic energy directly into electrical potential or drive current. Tritium and helium are both valuable commodities although the production rates aren’t really high enough to yield great value by themselves. The most hazardous products are the highly energetic neutrons (which are electrically neutral products) which are not easy to directly capture momentum from because they don’t interact electrically. They can also irradiate many materials by neutron capture and decay (the same process that occurs in nuclear fission) resulting into converting normally stable elements into unstable isotopes (‘activation’) and structurally embrittle other materials. This requires special materials in a reactor structure that are resistant to neutron effects or readily replaceable. In order to capture the energy and protect the external environment, the use of some kind of material to slow (thermalize) and absorb these energetic neutrons is required. Water is a good medium because it has a relatively high and readily controllable neutron capture cross-section and is cheap. However, unless frozen water has to be contained within some kind of vessel which would have to be resistant to neutron impingement. A better solution may be controlled irradiation and activation of nuclear materials which could then be used as fuel in more conventional fission reactors or a type of hybrid fission-fusion reaction; this could also be used for controlled burn up of radioactive waste. Fallout is the result of material from an explosion (fission or thermonuclear fusion) being activated or contaminated with radioactive bomb residue and then being carried into the upper part of the troposphere and being distributed widely. A contained nuclear power generating plant generates zero fallout or airborne pollution of any kind, as all residue is contained within the fuel elements and the inner coolant loop is closed to the external environment. The only way to produce fallout would be a core meltdown which breaches the containment system or venting of the inner coolant loops. While this can certainly be detrimental it should be preventable with good design, and even a breech such as in Chernobyl or Fukushima released less radioactivity than a single atmospheric nuclear weapon test, hundreds of which were performed by the United States and the Soviet Union up through October 1963 when the Limited Test Band Treaty went into effect. This proposed Lockheed design is the same that was presented at least a couple of years ago. It does not appear to be in a state of technical maturity sufficient to credibly project when it would be available for commercial energy production. The [YouTube.com](http://YouTube.com) video is pure marketing with zero technical content, but what I know of this design does have some significant issues in achieving and maintaining stable fusion conditions. If this were really a workable system at a technology readiness level (TRL) sufficient to power aircraft or facilities Lockheed would most certainly be demonstrating it in those applications rather than making vague claims about its suitability to replace other forms of energy production. This would also be a focus for fusion researchers around the country and in cooperative nations to bring the technology to a point that the phenomena are well characterized and ready for commercial use which would also support research and doctoral theses for hundreds or even thousands of scientists and engineers, which would result in a massive number of papers in peer-reviewed journals such as _Journal of Fusion Energy_, _IOP Nuclear Fusion_, _IAEA Nuclear Fusion_, and _Applied Physics Letters_ among others, as well as being the cover story on every porn-sci rag from _Scientific American_ to _Wired_. It may be that this technology is a viable path to controlled nuclear fusion for commercial power generation at some point, but if this happens within the next decade I’ll eat my hat. Stranger [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lockheed-skunk-works-reveals-new-fusion-reactor-design/701408.md?page=2)