This could be the best news EVER.

Let's hope the skeptics are wrong and Lockheed Martin can do what they say:

http://news.yahoo.com/lockheed-says-...--finance.html

Lockheed thinks they can make fusion energy a reality and may be able to build reactors that can fit on a truck.

Key quote:
--------------------------------
In a statement, the company, the Pentagon's largest supplier, said it would build and test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year, and build a prototype in five years.
--------------------------------

Another key quote:
--------------------------------
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
---------------------------------

If this pans out, it will be the biggest technological revolution ever - bigger even than the computer and the Internet.

This would put coal out of business and the oil industry on life support. It would be the end of our CO2 problems and end the threat of global warming.

We would need gas and oil for vehicles for a while, but if we can develop better batteries, we could convert all vehicles electric and do away with gas engines completely.

All ships would become fusion powered. No more oil.

Cheap, abundant, pollution free energy.

I guess we will know in a year or so if the test reactor works.

Let's hope so. It's about time we had a 21st Century power source.

Nukes on a truck goodie...

Nukes on a truck goodie... Originally Posted by i'va biggen

Not a nuke.

This is fusion, not fission. It uses hydrogen, so the "fuel" is water. There's no uranium, strontium, plutonium, etc.

Small amounts of hydrogen get fused at a time. Not enough to make a nuclear explosion.

And, very importantly, since oil is out of the equation 9ecept for lubricants), all the Muslim lands will have to figure out how to make an honest living. Saudi Arabia will no longer be able to fund mosques around the world.

Not a nuke.

This is fusion, not fission. It uses hydrogen, so the "fuel" is water. There's no uranium, strontium, plutonium, etc.

Small amounts of hydrogen get fused at a time. Not enough to make a nuclear explosion.

And, very importantly, since oil is out of the equation 9ecept for lubricants), all the Muslim lands will have to figure out how to make an honest living. Saudi Arabia will no longer be able to fund mosques around the world. Originally Posted by ExNYer

According to what I read at Forbes, some of the skepticism arises from the fact that fusion is still nuclear in that “you are generating neutrons, which means you are generating some pretty serious radiation, and that means a lot of radiation shielding.”
I cannot personally speak to that with any authority. Those skeptics claim that the necessary shielding would increase size and weight to the point that it would preclude the reactors use on planes or trucks. If Lockheed has some solution to those issues however, and I hope they do, it truly would mean a lot for world.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdet...-dust-settles/

Let's hope the skeptics are wrong and Lockheed Martin can do what they say:

http://news.yahoo.com/lockheed-says-...--finance.html

Lockheed thinks they can make fusion energy a reality and may be able to build reactors that can fit on a truck.

Key quote:
--------------------------------
In a statement, the company, the Pentagon's largest supplier, said it would build and test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year, and build a prototype in five years.
--------------------------------

Another key quote:
--------------------------------
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
---------------------------------

If this pans out, it will be the biggest technological revolution ever - bigger even than the computer and the Internet.

This would put coal out of business and the oil industry on life support. It would be the end of our CO2 problems and end the threat of global warming.

We would need gas and oil for vehicles for a while, but if we can develop better batteries, we could convert all vehicles electric and do away with gas engines completely.

All ships would become fusion powered. No more oil.

Cheap, abundant, pollution free energy.

I guess we will know in a year or so if the test reactor works. Originally Posted by ExNYer

OK, I will mostly defer to you on this thread, since you are an engineer...however

Current batteries to propel a decent car like a Tesla 300 miles (with light driving) weigh 2000 pounds - compare a 20 gallon gas tank at 150 pounds. The other alternative is a Nissan Leaf - which no one seems to want. They cannot produce adequate power to overcome their weight which drags them down, unless you make it a high end luxury car. Even the electric taxis made in China cost 60 grand each!! Replacing those old batteries every 8 years will cost a fortune, and pollute the environment.

If that fusion contraption is even possible (remember the Aggie professors who claimed they did it at room temperature awhile ago) I could see it on ships, since current nuclear subs can go for a year or more without refueling, quite useful, and even on trains...but it would likely be too expensive for passenger cars for another 30 years - which is my investment time frame for fossil fuel powered cars - there are 1 billion of them on the road right now, BTW, and another 65 million or so made every year, plus trucks.

People have been trying to make electric batteries store enough power (power density versus gasoline) since Henry Ford tried it as well as steam for passenger vehicles - it is a major obstacle of physics.

Perhaps Lockheed-Martin is thinking they can create a vehicle that is capable of traveling fast enough to "out run" the radiation generator by the power plant.*

"Now where are those sarcasm "smileys"?

According to what I read at Forbes, some of the skepticism arises from the fact that fusion is still nuclear in that “you are generating neutrons, which means you are generating some pretty serious radiation, and that means a lot of radiation shielding.”
I cannot personally speak to that with any authority. Those skeptics claim that the necessary shielding would increase size and weight to the point that it would preclude the reactors use on planes or trucks. If Lockheed has some solution to those issues however, and I hope they do, it truly would mean a lot for world.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdet...-dust-settles/ Originally Posted by Ducbutter

The think is, you don't need it on a plane or truck.

I think that mentioned that it could fit on a truck just for a size comparison, not as an implementation.

We primarily need this to eliminate all coal and gas fired plants. People would also convert their home from oil and gas furnaces to electric.

And all large ships could be powered by it.

The next improvement would be next generation batteries. The are some promising technologies involving nano-wires that could greatly increase energy storage. If we could make batteries that weigh just a few hundred pounds that could run your car for a couple of weeks at a time, then the gas engine disappears, too.

At that point you would only need oil for lubricants and aircraft fuel.

OPEC is fucked, the Muslim countries (mostly Saudi Arabia) run out of money to spread their religion and to fund terrorism, and global warming goes away.

not going to happen
http://news.discovery.com/tech/alter...unk-130528.htm

1 no gravity
nature, a star's immense gravity works to do the job of crushing hydrogen nuclei, protons, to create the reaction. But on Earth, crushing hydrogen atoms is no easy matter. It typically requires a machine that generates plasma -- atoms stripped of their electrons -- and runs at ultra-high temperatures in the millions of degrees Fahrenheit range. In short, more energy gets put in than what comes out, and that is not efficient.

2. Coulomb barrier
most obvious objection has to do with temperature. According to physics, fusion can't happen at temperatures lower than a few millions of degrees Fahrenheit. That is because protons are positively charged and repel each other. Bringing them close together in order to fuse them makes the repulsion forces stronger. This is known as the "Coulomb barrier."

3. gamma rays
Fusion reactions generate dangerous amounts of gamma radiation. Any person standing near a fusion reactor without shielding would die, A shield could help. "Two inches of shielding gives you 96 percent shielding," said said Ethan Siegel, a professor of astrophysics at Lewis & Clark College in Oregon. But even four percent is enough to cause radiation sickness, he said, and Rossi's machine didn't appear to have that much shielding around it– or any at all.

4 Supernovas cant do it
. Rossi initially claimed to be making copper out of nickel. But the addition of a proton to nickel to make copper requires so much energy that not even dying stars that are collapsing into themselves, aka supernovas, can do it. The reaction in the universe that makes copper requires a neutron, a star that has collapsed and become extremely dense. The only place they are found in abundance on Earth is near nuclear reactors or in radioactive materials.

5.

Does that make you happy, BCPL?

Does that make you happy, BCPL? Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

be specific, does what make me happy?

not going to happen
http://news.discovery.com/tech/alter...unk-130528.htm

1 no gravity
nature, a star's immense gravity works to do the job of crushing hydrogen nuclei, protons, to create the reaction. But on Earth, crushing hydrogen atoms is no easy matter. It typically requires a machine that generates plasma -- atoms stripped of their electrons -- and runs at ultra-high temperatures in the millions of degrees Fahrenheit range. In short, more energy gets put in than what comes out, and that is not efficient.

2. Coulomb barrier
most obvious objection has to do with temperature. According to physics, fusion can't happen at temperatures lower than a few millions of degrees Fahrenheit. That is because protons are positively charged and repel each other. Bringing them close together in order to fuse them makes the repulsion forces stronger. This is known as the "Coulomb barrier."

3. gamma rays
Fusion reactions generate dangerous amounts of gamma radiation. Any person standing near a fusion reactor without shielding would die, A shield could help. "Two inches of shielding gives you 96 percent shielding," said said Ethan Siegel, a professor of astrophysics at Lewis & Clark College in Oregon. But even four percent is enough to cause radiation sickness, he said, and Rossi's machine didn't appear to have that much shielding around it– or any at all.

4 Supernovas cant do it
. Rossi initially claimed to be making copper out of nickel. But the addition of a proton to nickel to make copper requires so much energy that not even dying stars that are collapsing into themselves, aka supernovas, can do it. The reaction in the universe that makes copper requires a neutron, a star that has collapsed and become extremely dense. The only place they are found in abundance on Earth is near nuclear reactors or in radioactive materials.

5. Originally Posted by bigcockpussylicker

Uh, thank you for the cut-and-paste of old news.

Except I am pretty sure the scientists at the Skunks Works already know all of those things. Do you really think that are all lying about figuring out a solution?

And fusion has been done before - for a tiny fraction of a second.

In all likelihood, the technology involves focusing a dozen laser beams at a minute speck of deuterium and fusing it into hydrogen. If the energy released exceeds the energy to run the lasers, then it is possible to do it.

They have applied for patents, so I image they are developing something legit.

Uh, thank you for the cut-and-paste of old news.

Except I am pretty sure the scientists at the Skunks Works already know all of those things. Do you really think that are all lying about figuring out a solution?

And fusion has been done before - for a tiny fraction of a second.

In all likelihood, the technology involves focusing a dozen laser beams at a minute speck of deuterium and fusing it into hydrogen. If the energy released exceeds the energy to run the lasers, then it is possible to do it.

They have applied for patents, so I image they are developing something legit. Originally Posted by ExNYer

Oh thanks for your retarded comments on old news

you mean like when it was announced they broke the speed of light a few years ago and it turns out it was a math trick/error/etc?
so not lying, mistaken
I'm more hopeful about artificially making natural gas
dozen lazer beans?
you image? HAHAHA stick to eating transfats and touching yourself.

The big catch is it takes a tremendous amount of energy to produce the initial heat required to make the hydrogen atoms fuse. In a Hydrogen Bomb, the heat comes from a fission trigger. In a star, the heat comes from the compression of the material through the tremendous gravity.

A good example of a "star" that is not quite big enough in mass to trigger Fission is the planet Jupiter. It's core is estimated to be within 20 % of being hot enough, but Al's, it isn't.

There is no doubt that mankind will solve the problems of Fusion in the future, we have a way of figuring things out. I doubt it will be in our lifetimes, maybe our Grandkids.

The big catch is it takes a tremendous amount of energy to produce the initial heat required to make the hydrogen atoms fuse. In a Hydrogen Bomb, the heat comes from a fission trigger. In a star, the heat comes from the compression of the material through the tremendous gravity.

A good example of a "star" that is not quite big enough in mass to trigger Fission is the planet Jupiter. It's core is estimated to be within 20 % of being hot enough, but Al's, it isn't.

There is no doubt that mankind will solve the problems of Fusion in the future, we have a way of figuring things out. I doubt it will be in our lifetimes, maybe our Grandkids. Originally Posted by Jackie S

Theoretically, if enough immigrants from Africa come here, one of them could figure it out. Let's bring them all in, and see what happens!!!