[ExI] Lockheed skunkworks announcement about fusion

[BillK]

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 9:40 PM, spike  wrote:
> Before I do any asking, we can do some BOTECs to give us a vague feel for
> what is going on here.  Let us assume that a miracle has occurred and the
> conversion efficiency of fusion products suddenly jumped from struggling to
> break even (for the past half century) to a mind-boggling 50%.  If we take
> the third law of thermodynamics as a LAW rather than a friendly suggestion,
> then one of the derivatives is the Steffan-Boltzmann's equation, (some
> squiggly furrin letters) times sigma (5.67e-8) T^4 = 100E6 W/m (Tom said it
> was 100 megawatts in a package that will fit in a truck.)  So make some
> reasonable assumptions on what kind of truck he meant, but I am getting
> surface areas all in the less than 100 square meters range, so T^4 is still
> going up there in the E15-ish range before I even need to reach for an
> envelope to C the BO.  This part can be done in our heads.  Where is all
> that heat going?  If radiation, we are up well over 1000Kelvin, which in a
> truck sized package would be... bad.  If that heat is being carried off by
> convection, we would need a cyclone.   Helicopter blades going full throttle
> kinds of breeze to carry away the heat.
>

Wikipedia seems to have more information.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_beta_fusion_reactor>
Quote:

Design

The device is 2x2x4 meters in size. It is cylindrical shaped. It has a
vacuum inside with high magnetic fields, made using electromagnets.
Uncharged deuterium gas is injected. It is heated using radio waves,
in much the same way a microwave heats food. When the gas temperature
reaches over 16 electron-volts, the gas ionizes into ions and
electrons. This plasma exerts a pressure on the surrounding magnetic
fields. This plasma pressure is counterbalanced by the magnetic field
pressure in a beta ratio:

The plan is to reach a high-beta ratio. Plans call for a compact 100
MW machine. In October 2014, Reuters reported that Lockheed Martin
"would build and test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year,
and build a prototype in five years." The company hopes to be able to
meet global baseload energy demand by 2050. Here are some other
characteristics of this machine:

The magnetic field increases the farther out that the plasma goes,
which pushes the plasma back in.
It also has very few open field lines (very few paths for the plasma
to leak out; uses a cylinder, not a Tokamak ring).
Very good arch curvature of the field lines.
The system has a beta of about 1.
This system uses deuterium and tritium.
The system heats the plasma using radio waves.

The machine was designed by Dr. Thomas McGuire who did his PhD thesis
on fusors at MIT. Chase said that "the fuel (two isotopes of hydrogen)
has six orders [1.000.000] of magnitude higher energy density than
oil. You can't make a bomb from it, and it has no meltdown risk. It's
very different from nuclear fission reactors.
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BillK