Fusion Breakthrough?

[Jackalope]

Of course I hope that it's real, but there is so much BS in that article that I have my doubts. For example

U.S. submarines and aircraft carriers run on nuclear power, but they have large fusion reactors on board that have to be replaced on a regular cycle

Everything is wrong in this sentence.

I've seen other versions of the wire story that at least corrected the fusion/fission mistake.

[LastPoet]

I will remain unbelieving that too. Funny how we do fusion bombs, yet, unable to harness that energy. I hate to sound political about this, but blowing people up is more worthy for some invisible hand, than inproving said people's lives. How ironic that what drove scientific development the most, was war. Science stands amoral, it should be time for religion to be so humble.

[Anomalocaris]

The Av Week article seems most detailed of what's out now. Lockheed is claiming a factor of 10 improvement over a break even tokamak device.

(the numbers in the article were more optimistic for some reason)

That they seem to have some actual theoretical science (beyond wishful thinking) that implies a significant improvement over an existing device of known characteristics is encouraging, the 'however' is that in my view they are premature by 5 years and 1 day in making their announcement.

Aviation Week and Space Technology may somehow managed to become considered a somewhat respectable trade news magazine in the aviation field by mass news outlets, but it had a well known and a long history of uncritical reporting of sensationalistic technological claims. When this magazine is reporting on technological stories that seem to be too good to be true, it very likely is untrue.

[pocaracas]

There's a lack of detail on that story and on the press release from Lockheed themselves that it doesn't sound like they're doing anything at all.
Publicity stunt... at best.

[vorlon13]

Sci-Am reported it too.

[Anomalocaris]

Sci-Am reported it too.

I have to say the quality of Sci-Am has also taken a nose dive since about 10 years ago and is rapidly approaching that of popular science.

[vorlon13]

I will remain unbelieving that too. Funny how we do fusion bombs, yet, unable to harness that energy. I hate to sound political about this, but blowing people up is more worthy for some invisible hand, than inproving said people's lives. How ironic that what drove scientific development the most, was war. Science stands amoral, it should be time for religion to be so humble.

Fusion bombs are essentially triggered by a fission reaction that is triggered by a chemical explosive charge.

There is a formula, the temperature you can heat deuterium to simultaneous to the pressure you achieve when multiplied has to be over a certain number. The sun actually fuses at a fairly low temp and an extremely high pressure. Hydrogen bombs can only instantaneously make the high temp and high pressure required. A power plant has to either do it continuously (not even attempted ever) or in bursts repeated very rapidly. I can assure you, it is an extremely difficult thing to do. Instantaneously heating deuterium makes it expand, and that defeats what you want in regards to pressure.

One old proposal was to detonate a fusion bomb deep underground, and then utilize the (tremendous) residual heat to boil water for a steam turbine. If the bomb is big enough and deep enough, you might get to break even, but this isn't viewed as an 'elegant' way of doing it.

Hydrogen bombs are technically very interesting. Some derive most of their energy from fusion. The 'big' US test back in the '50s actually was only 25% fusion, the rest of it's power was fission. The fusion reaction triggered an addition fission reaction in an extremely large mass of U.

The 'big' test had a chemical explosive triggered fission, fission triggered fusion (which was simultaneously boosted with more fission), and all of that triggered an enormous final fission reaction.

[Lemonvariable72]

I will remain unbelieving that too. Funny how we do fusion bombs, yet, unable to harness that energy. I hate to sound political about this, but blowing people up is more worthy for some invisible hand, than inproving said people's lives. How ironic that what drove scientific development the most, was war. Science stands amoral, it should be time for religion to be so humble.

It's not a political thing, it's a matter of physics. You As far as we know the force needed to create a Fusion reaction can come from 2 sources, A fission reaction that releases a shit load of energy at once, or a large scale gravity based reaction like a star. Both are a touch problematic for your local power company.

[Aractus]

The E-Cat is already being peddled by conman Andrea Rossi.

[Minimalist]

There's a lack of detail on that story and on the press release from Lockheed themselves that it doesn't sound like they're doing anything at all.
Publicity stunt... at best.

There isn't much point in printing scientific details in an American press release. 44% think the fucking bible is real.