Restarting the Atomic Age

 Fusion Power  

Lockheed Martin plans to develop a compact fusion reactor (CFR) with potentially huge implications for future space and aircraft propulsion.  CFRs could one day be used to power space craft on deep-space missions to Mars.

At the research department at Lockheed Martin, known as the Skunk Works, a team of researchers has been working quietly on a nuclear energy concept they believe has the potential to meet, if not eventually decrease, the world’s insatiable demand for power.

They call it the compact fusion reactor (CFR), and according to their research, the device is safer, cleaner and more powerful than much larger, current nuclear fission reactors.
Lockheed believes the scalable concept will also be small and practical enough for applications ranging from interplanetary spacecraft and commercial ships to city power stations. It may even revive the concept of large, nuclear-powered aircraft that virtually never require refueling—ideas of which were largely abandoned more than 50 years ago because of the dangers and complexities involved with nuclear fission reactors.

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Aviation Week was given exclusive access to view the Skunk Works experiment, dubbed “T4,” first hand. Thomas McGuire, an aeronautical engineer in the Skunk Work’s aptly named Revolutionary Technology Programs unit is leading the project. The current experiments are focused on a containment vessel roughly the size of a business-jet engine. Connected to sensors, injectors, a turbopump to generate an internal vacuum and a huge array of batteries, the stainless steel container seems an unlikely first step toward solving a conundrum that has defeated generations of nuclear physicists—namely finding an effective way to control the fusion reaction.

McGuire knows that they are just starting now, but he claims the design is sound and they will advance quickly until its final implementation in just a decade:

"If we can meet our plan of doing a design-build-test generation every year, that will put us at about five years, and we've already shown we can do that in the lab. So it wouldn't be at full power, like a working concept reactor, but basically just showing that all the physics works."

"We would like to get to a prototype in five generations," he says. "If we can meet our plan of doing a design-build-test generation every year, that will put us at about five years, and we've already shown we can do that in the lab. So it wouldn't be at full power, like a working concept reactor, but basically just showing that all the physics works."

Lockheed estimates that less than 25 kg (55 lb.) of fuel would be required to run an entire year of operations. The fuel, deuterium is produced from sea water and is therefore considered unlimited.

So far simulations and experimental results “have been very promising and positive,” McGuire says. “The latest is a magnetized ion confinement experiment, and preliminary measurements show the behavior looks like it is working correctly. We are starting with the plasma confinement, and that’s where we are putting most of our effort. One of the reasons we are becoming more vocal with our project is that we are building up our team as we start to tackle the other big problems. We need help and we want other people involved. It’s a global enterprise, and we are happy to be leaders in it.”

McGuire also realizes that when it comes to nuclear power, the whole concept has an image issue. “That’s another reason to be public and get the message out there. We want to get people excited about all the positives. It’s about education, and when people find out more about it (CFR), it’s hard not to get excited and support it. We have a long ways to go, and there are lots of challenges, but we have a path to do it and a community of fusion researchers and national labs. There’s a collaborative atmosphere and we have got some really good feedback so far. There’s even private capital being employed –- so people seem primed to go for this.”




SOURCE  Aviation Week

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