Theyre talking ten years to the first workable generation of nuclear fusion technology. If they can make this work, in ten years well be able to power a small city from a fusion reactor the size of a semi truck, using fuel of practically unlimited abundance. Third-world villages will be able to consume power like New York does, and New York will be able to generate all the power it can consume from a single small island in the Hudson. Forever. With almost no waste by-products. --- The early reactors will be designed to generate around 100 MW and fit into transportable units measuring 23 X 43 ft. “That’s the size we are thinking of now. You could put it on a semi-trailer, similar to a small gas turbine, put it on a pad, hook it up and can be running in a few weeks,” McGuire says. The concept makes use of the existing power infrastructures to enable the CFR to be easily adapted into the current grid. The 100-MW unit would provide sufficient power for up to 80,000 homes in a power-hungry U.S. city and is also “enough to run a ship,” he notes. Lockheed estimates that less than 25 kg (55 lb.) of fuel would be required to run an entire year of operations. The fuel itself is also plentiful. Deuterium is produced from sea water and is therefore considered unlimited, while tritium is “bred” from lithium. “We already mine enough lithium to supply a worldwide fleet of reactors, so with tritium you never have too much built up, and that’s what keeps it safe. Tritium would be a health risk if there were enough released, but it is safe enough in small quantities. You don’t need very much to run a reactor because it is a million times more powerful than a chemical reaction,” McGuire notes. --- Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details | Technology content from Aviation Week m.aviationweek/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compact-fusion-reactor-details
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 10:50:09 +0000
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