The US Navy received a patent for a compact fusion reactor. According to an investigation by The War Zone, this document is just one of many strange inventions of dubious scientific significance entered by the Navy.
The development of a compact source of nuclear fusion energy (the same reaction that powers the sun) is an old dream of scientists. A fusion reactor is the dream of many. As it turns out, the US Navy filed for a patent for a similar device on March 22, 2019, and received it at the end of last month.
To create thermonuclear energy on Earth, scientists and engineers must create devices that can trap gases that reach hundreds of millions of degrees. Light atoms will collide, turning into heavier ones. This will release a colossal amount of energy.
This is not an easy task, and there are several technical challenges associated with building a fusion reactor. For example, plasma cannot touch the walls of the chamber in which it is created, so scientists must use powerful magnetic fields to isolate matter. In addition, there is the problem of actual energy storage, which is created during the nuclear fusion process.
If scientists could harness the energy of thermonuclear fusion, it would completely change the course of human history. According to the Science Museum in London, one kilogram of fusion fuel produces as much energy as 10 million kilograms of fossil fuel. It is an ideal source of energy; it does not emit greenhouse gases and does not leave harmful by-products such as nuclear waste, unlike nuclear fission. In fact, its only by-product is helium: an inert and useful gas.
Work in progress on a fusion reactor
Existing nuclear reactors are extremely bulky. A relatively small fusion reactor that could potentially fit on a boat or plane would be a game changer. Therefore, now several serious teams are working on the research of such technologies.
The prototype is being built by the Skunk Works at Lockheed Martin Laboratories. Several private firms have been developing their own compact fusion reactors in recent years, and China's National Academy of Sciences says it has made significant progress in fine-tuning the system.
Currently, there are several thermonuclear devices in a small compact package (with a diameter of 0.3 to 2 meters). As a rule, they use different versions of a magnetic trap for plasma confinement. All of them are capable of supporting the process from a few seconds to several minutes. Recent patents from the US Navy note that Navy researchers seem to have solved the problem.
Perhaps a solution has been found?
As a solution, what is called a dynamic fuser is proposed. According to the patent, a plasma chamber contains multiple pairs of dynamic "ingots" that rapidly rotate and vibrate within the chamber to create a "concentrated magnetic energy flow" that can press gases together. Tapered condensers inject gases such as deuterium or deuterium-xenon into the chamber, which are then subjected to intense heating and pressure to create a nuclear fusion reaction.
It is believed that the device described in the patent can generate more terawatts of energy, while consuming power in the range from kilowatts to megawatts. Currently, humanity does not have a source of energy that could produce more of it than is necessary for creation.
By comparison, America's largest nuclear power plant at Palo Verde in Arizona generates about 4,000 megawatts (4 gigawatts) of electricity, while A1B nuclear reactors designed for the Navy's Gerald R. Ford class aircraft generate about 700 megawatts. The patent also claims that the device "can lead to self-sustaining plasma combustion without the need for an external power source."
All weird U. S. Navy patents are the work of one man
The problem is that this project (as well as a number of other devices for which patents have recently been granted) are the brainchild of Salvatore Caesar Pais, an active and highly dubious figure. Most of the technologies in patents are closely intertwined with each other, confirming the existence of one through the other, but not through third parties.
At the moment, the US Navy has not answered where the patents came from and whether they are based on real technologies. There are no comments from Pais either.
At the same time, almost every physicist we spoke with believes that all these solutions are beyond the scope of known physics and are almost ridiculous in terms of viability.
- notes The War Zone.
