The Glade 4.0

(Reuters) - 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.

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.

In recent years, Lockheed has gotten increasingly involved in a variety of alternate energy projects, including several ocean energy projects, as it looks to offset a decline in U.S. and European military spending.

Lockheed's work on fusion energy could help in developing new power sources amid increasing global conflicts over energy, and as projections show there will be a 40 percent to 50 percent increase in energy use over the next generation, McGuire said.

If it proves feasible, Lockheed's work would mark a key breakthrough in a field that scientists have long eyed as promising, but which has not yet yielded viable power systems. The effort seeks to harness the energy released during nuclear fusion, when atoms combine into more stable forms.

"We can make a big difference on the energy front," McGuire said, noting Lockheed's 60 years of research on nuclear fusion as a potential energy source that is safer and more efficient than current reactors based on nuclear fission.

Lockheed sees the project as part of a comprehensive approach to solving global energy and climate change problems.

Compact nuclear fusion would produce far less waste than coal-powered plants since it would use deuterium-tritium fuel, which can generate nearly 10 million times more energy than the same amount of fossil fuels, the company said.

Ultra-dense deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, is found in the earth's oceans, and tritium is made from natural lithium deposits.

It said future reactors could use a different fuel and eliminate radioactive waste completely.

McGuire said the company had several patents pending for the work and was looking for partners in academia, industry and among government laboratories to advance the work.

Lockheed said it had shown it could complete a design, build and test it in as little as a year, which should produce an operational reactor in 10 years, McGuire said. A small reactor could power a U.S. Navy warship, and eliminate the need for other fuel sources that pose logistical challenges.

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

"What makes our project really interesting and feasible is that timeline as a potential solution," McGuire said.

Lockheed shares fell 0.6 percent to $175.02 amid a broad market selloff.

So Lockheed for some reason wouldn't bankroll his fusion power reactor, so now he's "going independent." Nope, there's absolutely no way this is a scam like the last 500 guys who went looking for "independent funding" for their fusion power scams!

What baffles me is how venture capitalists keep handing money to these people. Fusion power is like the perpetual motion machine of the 21st century, people should know better by now.

What baffles me is how venture capitalists keep handing money to these people. Fusion power is like the perpetual motion machine of the 21st century, people should know better by now.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

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.

If they actually have a working fusion power reactor it's the biggest breakthrough of the 21st century, but for some reason they need outside assistance. And a "small team" at Lockheed, in complete secret of course, managed to pull off what nobody else has in like 60 years?

I'm still calling scam.

First of all, that's what a skunk works is. You feed in every last piece of tech and a whole bunch of smart people, and see what they can produce. While they're doing that, you shoot anybody who crosses the fence without proper ID.

You also don't seem to understand the ramifications of producing something like this. If true, demand will so far outstrip even Lockheed's facilities that they have to rope in partners.

I'm all for being skeptical, but at least have a modicum of sense when you're doing it.

Fusion power is like the perpetual motion machine of the 21st century, people should know better by now.

The ITER project has been delayed for literally two decades due to various problems and is going to cost about five times as much as Lockheed's annual operating income, and now I'm expected to believe that a "small team" in a secret lab made the whole thing completely and utterly superfluous?

So it's your contention that since ITER hasn't achieved fusion with their reactor idea, it isn't possible? What if their idea is just shitty and the people at Lockheed have a better one? Some of the greatest scientific discoveries were made by individuals with unique ideas, not big teams with too much money and bad ideas.

I'm skeptical because it does not seem possible that a "small team" created not only a working fusion reactor that already has practical applications, but also apparently managed to miniaturize it as well, while literally no one else anywhere has ever even come close to building one that produces more power than it consumes, or can sustain the fusion reaction for more than a few milliseconds.

The ITER project has been delayed for literally two decades due to various problems and is going to cost about five times as much as Lockheed's annual operating income, and their theoretical DEMO plant that they're planning to build after ITER is shown to work would be less of a breakthrough than this thing is. I'm expected to believe that a "small team" in a secret lab made the whole thing completely and utterly superfluous?

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

I know you have deep philosophical problems with the concept, but I do not find it at all unseemly that a private research effort can make a breakthrough that a bureaucratic white elephant can't.

Also, you seem to think that "small team" means something like "3 people with a couple of laptops and twine". I suspect that "small team" means something wildly different to Lockheed.

I tend to agree with Xeq on this one, if only from a physics perspective. I certainly hope it's true though. I don't care where it comes from or who develops it.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

There's a whole lot of information in the article about what Lockheed is doing for anyone who knows enough about fusion to actually comment on the viability of their project. I'm not one of those people, but I know enough about fusion to suspect they have come up with a hybrid device of some time, but I wouldn't even begin to know exactly what they're doing. Lockheed is Lockheed. The Skunk Works is the Skunk Works. These are the people who brought you the SR-71 Blackbird and the U-2 Dragon Lady. Individuals like Clarence "Kelly" Johnson worked for Lockheed's Skunk Works. They are incredibly good at solving problems most people don't ever consider.

Lockheed is one of exactly 3 companies I'll give credibility to on fusion breakthroughs. General Electric and IBM are the other two.