PALMDALE, Calif., Oct. 15, 2014 – The Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] Skunk Works® team is working on a new compact fusion reactor (CFR) that can be developed and deployed in as little as ten years. Currently, there are several patents pending that cover their approach.[1]
In 1994, the Princeton Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor set a record, producing 10.7 million watts of power. It worked for one second.[2] 20 years later Lockheed Martin says that they can develop a reactor within another 10 years.
Many decades ago I first heard it said that power from nuclear fusion was a technology that was 50 years in the future and would forever remain 50 years in the future. I was in graduate school studying under a professor who was a consultant during construction of the Princeton Tokamak. I had the opportunity to do the math behind magnetic confinement in a fusion reactor. The equations can’t lie, the conclusion was inescapable, magnetic confinement is inherently unstable.
What does inherently unstable mean?
To make it easier to understand think about an aircraft.
Inherent stability is the tendency of an aircraft to return to straight and level flight, when the controls are released by the pilot. Most aircraft are designed with this in mind and are said to be “inherently stable.”[3]
An aircraft that falls out of the sky as a result of a slight perturbation is usually undesirable, but not always. In World War I Manfred von Richthofen “the Red Baron” was highly successful in his Fokker Dr I triplane. Its instability meant a firm hand on the controls was required at all times but it also meant that the aircraft was highly maneuverable, a good thing in a dogfight. General Dynamics designed its F-16 Fighting Falcon to be unstable. The computers in its fly-by-wire system make hundreds of flight adjustments per second. Without the computers it falls out of the sky, with them you have a highly maneuverable very potent fighting machine.
Getting back to the point, a commercial power plant needs to operate reliably, day after day, year after year. Inherently unstable is not a good thing, unlike the F-16 there is no upside to instability. This is the reason decades have gone by with massive expenditures on fusion power and no operating power plants. Has Lockheed Martin found a way to reliably control the instability? Don’t bet your retirement fund on it.
[1] Lockheed Martin, Press Release, October 15, 2014
[2] The New York Times, Princeton Fusion Reactor Sets a Power Record, November 8, 1994
[3] Aviation History Online Museum, Inherent Stability, December 13, 2009