[ExI] Lockheed skunkworks announcement about fusion

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Tom Nowell
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2014 1:41 AM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: [ExI] Lockheed skunkworks announcement about fusion

 

Lockheed announces breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy <http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/15/lockheed-breakthrough-nuclear-fusion-energy> 


 


 

 <http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/15/lockheed-breakthrough-nuclear-fusion-energy> Image removed by sender. image

 

 

 

 

 


 <http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/15/lockheed-breakthrough-nuclear-fusion-energy> Lockheed announces breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

Defence company has developed 100MW reactor small enough to fit on back of a truck that could be in use within 10 years

	


 <http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/15/lockheed-breakthrough-nuclear-fusion-energy> View on www.theguardian.com

Preview by Yahoo

	


 

								

 

(Apologies for the preview at the top, people using text-only browsing, yahoo mail seems to want to do this automatically with my link)

 

Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade.

Tom McGuire, who heads the project, said he and a small team had been working on fusion energy at Lockheed’s secretive Skunk Works for about four years, but were now going public to find potential partners in industry and government for their work.

Initial work demonstrated the feasibility of building a 100-megawatt reactor measuring seven feet by 10 feet, which could fit on the back of a large truck, and is about 10 times smaller than current reactors, McGuire told reporters…

 

 

 

 

Tom I saw this yesterday and was most puzzled.  As much as I would like to believe it and that my own company developed it, the numbers they are calling out make no sense to me.  Just from first principles, the ones we learned in sophomore physics, we would disprove the notion of 100 megawatts coming from any device of these kinds of dimensions, a few meters on a side.  Calculate the temperature that would need to reach.  

 

I am doubly puzzled by Tom McGuire releasing this.  He has engineers who could advise caution.

 

Another thing: Tom says some device can be built which can make 100 megawatts, which would solve humanity’s biggest problems in a few years.  So he says they will build one in five years?  No pal, if you have something like that, you will build it on the schedule the USA built fighter planes starting 7 December 1942.  Not five years, not next month, we need that NOW!

 

I met Tom McGuire; he isn’t a bullshitter.  But I must reluctantly conclude this is a mistake or is outright bogus.

 

spike 

 

 

 

 

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