The American Skunk Works laboratory in 2024 is preparing to present a serial version of a thermonuclear reactor, which theoretically could change the face of all modern energy in the world. It is reported that the new 100 MW truck-sized fusion reactor will be useful both on our planet and in space. The American company Lockheed Martin has recently revealed the details of its new T4 project to develop a powerful and compact fusion reactor CFR (Dubbed the compact fusion reactor). It is reported that this breakthrough technology is being created at the Skunk Works laboratory, which specializes in secret military developments. Therefore, it is not surprising that nothing was known about the project for so long.
Only in 2013, the company opened the veil of secrecy over its T4 project, telling about its existence. Now the public has become aware of some of the details concerning the new energy system. Lockheed Martin promises that the finished prototype of the new reactor will be manufactured by them in 5 years, and the first production samples will start working in a decade. It is reported that, unlike modern prototypes of fusion reactors, the CFR reactor will be 20 times more powerful and 10 times more compact.
Lockheed Martin Corp. has experimented with nuclear technology behind closed doors for the past 60 years, but has now decided to publicize them in order to attract public and private partners. It is worth noting that experts associate this "hobby" of one of the largest suppliers of the Pentagon with alternative energy with the fact that the United States is engaged in reducing military spending.
Currently, Lockheed Martin Corporation is one of the largest companies in the world that specializes in the production of a variety of military and aerospace equipment. The company employs over 113 thousand people, and its sales in 2013 alone were estimated at $ 45.4 billion. Since the mid-2000s, Lockheed Martin has been working on the development of the Orion reusable spacecraft, which would carry people and cargo to the ISS, the Moon, and possibly the Red Planet in the future.
Equipping a spacecraft with a compact thermonuclear installation is a rather tempting idea. At the same time, modern nuclear reactors are quite expensive and bulky in size. For example, the most famous project in this area, the ITER research and development project, with a projected capacity of 500 MW, costs about $ 50 billion. At the same time, it has a height of more than 30 meters and after the completion of construction it will weigh 23,000 tons. At the same time, the serial reactor from the Lockheed Martin corporation can be transported by road.
Until now, most of the designs of fusion reactors are based on the principles of a tokamak, which was developed by Soviet physicists in the 1950s. In reactors of this type, the plasma ring is held together by a powerful magnetic field generated by superconducting magnets. Another set of magnets is responsible for inducing current inside the plasma itself and for maintaining a thermonuclear reaction. The problem with tokomaks is that they do not produce much more energy than is spent on powering the magnets used, their profitability tends to zero.
In the CFR reactor proposed by Lockheed Martin, the plasma is contained by means of a special geometric shape throughout the entire volume of the reactor chamber. Superconducting magnets are also used in CFR, but they generate a magnetic field around the outer edge of the chamber, so there is no need to position the magnetic field lines with respect to the plasma accurately enough, and these magnets themselves are outside the boundaries of the core. In this case, the volume of the plasma increases (hence the energy output). And the more the plasma tries to get out, the more the magnetic field tries to bring it back.
It is reported that the reactor should combine the best solutions that have been created for different projects of fusion reactors. For example, at the ends of a cylindrical reactor core are special magnetic mirrors that can reflect a significant portion of the plasma particles. In addition, a recirculation system was created that is similar to that used in the Polywell pilot reactor. This system, using a magnetic field, captures electrons and creates zones into which positive ions rush. Here they collide with each other and maintain a continuous thermonuclear reaction. All this significantly increases the efficiency of the reactor.
Simplified schematic of the Skunk Works reactor
As fuel in the reactor from Lockheed Martin, it is planned to use tritium and deuterium, which are placed in the reactor core in the form of gas. During the course of the thermonuclear fusion reaction, helium-4 is formed and electrons are released, which are responsible for heating the walls of the reactor. Further, the traditional scheme of steam pipes and heat exchangers comes into operation.
At the moment, the project of the American aerospace corporation is at the stage of work on the creation of a prototype, and a full-fledged prototype should be ready in 5 years. Lockheed Martin aeronautical engineer Thomas McGwire said a working prototype would need to prove the proposed design works. Among other things, it must ensure the ignition of the plasma and the maintenance of the thermonuclear reaction process for 10 seconds. Another 5 years after the creation of a working prototype, that is, by 2024, American engineers expect to produce the first series of CFR thermonuclear reactors that can be used in industry.
It is reported that the early series reactors will have small dimensions so that they can be placed in transportable containers of 7x13 meters. With such dimensions, which are quite modest for fusion reactors, they will be able to produce a record amount of energy: about 100 MW. Taking into account the parameters of the first series of CFR reactors, it is not difficult to understand that the Pentagon is interested in work in this direction. The US military needs compact and very powerful energy sources to develop and improve advanced laser and microwave weapons.
At the same time, in the civilian market, such fusion reactors are able to bring about a real revolution. A compact and safe fusion reactor of similar power will be able to provide energy to 80 thousand homes. At the same time, it will be very easy to integrate it into modern electrical networks (unlike such energy sources as solar panels and wind turbines). In addition to all of the above, CFR is an almost ideal power plant for promising spacecraft. With the help of new engines based on CFR, manned spacecraft will be able to reach Mars much faster.
Russian scientists do not believe in the breakthrough of the Lockheed Martin company
In addition to Lockheed Martin, a team of scientists from an international project under the abbreviation ITER / ITER - International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is currently actively engaged in research in the field of thermonuclear fusion. The results of their activities are currently far from the announced successes that have been made by the aerospace corporation. For this reason, the veracity of the information released by Lockheed Martin is being questioned, and has already caused a lot of controversy in the scientific community. Russian scientists do not really believe the published materials.
For example, the head of the Russian ITER agency, Anatoly Krasilnikov, has publicly stated that the scientific breakthrough announced by Lockheed Martin specialists is in fact empty words that have nothing to do with real life. The fact that the United States is preparing to start creating a prototype of a thermonuclear reactor with the declared dimensions seems to Mr. Krasilnikov as ordinary PR. According to Anatoly Krasilnikov, science at the present stage of development is not able to design a safe and fully functioning thermonuclear reactor of such a small size.
As an argument, he cited the fact that today honored nuclear physicists from the USA, China, the EU countries, Russia, Japan, India and South Korea are working on the ITER international project, but even the best minds of modern science, brought together, hope to get the first plasma from ITER in best case by 2023. At the same time, there is even no talk of any compactness of the prototype of the reactor.
Naturally, in the future, the possibility of developing a small-sized plant will become evident, but this will not happen in the next few years. Whereas Lockheed Martin says it will be able to show a real model of the reactor in a year. And of course, this is hard to believe, given that the company's engineers are working on a project of this level in isolation from other scientists. Anatoly Krasilnikov is confident that the promises of Lockheed Martin representatives to show a prototype will remain just promises.
He notes that leading engineers have been working on the creation of the first thermonuclear reactor for more than a dozen years, and this process involves an obligatory exchange of experience. At the same time, promising developments and developments become available to other scientists. The breakthrough of the specialists, about the details of which no one knew anything, seems to be greatly exaggerated. Most likely, it is not pursuing scientific goals, but commercial ones. They want to attract attention, attract additional financial resources, and their statements are an advertising campaign.
Evgeny Velikhov, president of the Kurchatov Institute, spoke about the American project even more sharply, commenting on the news that appeared with the words “Lockheed Martin's fantasy”. He does not have information about any real success in the creation of a compact thermonuclear reactor by the specialists of the American corporation, which would be supported by facts. According to Evgeny Velikhov, no one in the world is informed about the American invention, except for the American company itself, significant technical details of the project have not been disclosed, but the wave of discussion in the media has already risen.
