More Details About Lockheed’s Fusion Gadget
October 15th, 2014
Back in March of last year someone from Lockheed Martin gave a talk describing, somewhat vaguely, a compact nuclear fusion reactor that they were working on. I didn’t think the few details offered added up to a very promising picture, and I said so at the time. I think I was a little uncharitable, but as I recall I was reacting to an exasperating spurt of uninformed media breathlessness.
There are some interesting ideas there, but nothing to change my original assessment substantially. The fundamental concern in a device like this is the stability of the confined plasma. Unfortunately, while one can admire the optimism of the arrow in their diagram pointing to the “stable fusion plasma” within their proposed device, one needs a little more evidence that they’ve cracked the diabolical, half-century old nut of fusion confinement before that optimism becomes infectious. However, they’re obviously very talented and I wish them the best of luck.
