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Lockheed Martin's Patent for a Fusion Reactor the Size of a Shipping Container

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday March 28 2018, @01:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the mr.-fusion dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Lockheed Martin has quietly obtained a patent associated with its design for a potentially revolutionary compact fusion reactor, or CFR. If this project has been progressing on schedule, the company could debut a prototype system that size of shipping container, but capable of powering a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier or 80,000 homes, sometime in the next year or so.

The patent, for a portion of the confinement system, or embodiment, is dated Feb. 15, 2018. The Maryland-headquartered defense contractor had filed a provisional claim on April 3, 2013 and a formal application nearly a year later. Our good friend Stephen Trimble, chief of Flightglobal's Americas Bureau, subsequently spotted it and Tweeted out its basic details.

In 2014, the company also made a splash by announcing they were working on the device at all and that it was the responsibility of its Skunk Works advanced projects office in Palmdale, California. At the time, Dr. Thomas McGuire, head of the Skunk Works’ Compact Fusion Project, said the goal was to have a working reactor in five years and production worthy design within 10.

[...] Considering the five year timeline Dr. McGuire put out in 2014 for achieving a workable prototype, maybe we’re due for another big announcement from Lockheed Martin in the near future.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @04:53AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @04:53AM (#659347)

    You aren't supposed to be able to patent something that can't be demonstrated to actually work.

    This patent appears to describe some form of magnetic confinement device. I am not an expert in the subject of magnetic confinement so I am not sure if the invention is reasonable, or worthy of a patent. That being said, magnetic confinement is very popular in fusion research and several well-known designs use it, such as the tokamak and the stellarator.

    What makes you think this new invention "can't be demonstrated to actually work"?