Lockheed's compact fusion reactor question

In summary, Lockheed has come up with a cusp confinement device for fusion power that uses magnetic coils to create a magnetic mirror effect. This design combines the stability of cusp magnetic fields with the potential for improved confinement at high pressure. However, it is not clear what changes Lockheed has made to the traditional magnetic mirror design to make it a viable solution. There is also no experimental evidence or detailed analysis to support the effectiveness of this design. The project was expected to have a major design cycle per year, but there has been no public update since the initial announcement several years ago. This lack of news may indicate that the project is not progressing as initially expected.
  • #1
chandrahas
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Magnetic mirrors were thought to be a viable solution for fusion power. But then, we found out that most of the plasma would simply escape. Is this right? So, then we realized that this method might not work. So after many years, Lockheed has come up with a similar model.

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  • Lockheeds model is basically a cusp confinement device. It creates null points and the field lines get denser as we move out radially. But along the axis, we have open field lines and plasma can escape along those lines. Now, according to what I read, lockheed uses magnetic coils to create a magnetic mirror effect. Hence, the particles would just get reflected.
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But what I don't understand is, didn't we try magnetic mirrors before and learn that they are not the best? Lockheed just added cusps which in my opinion just makes it worse because the plasma can also leak through the cusps and not just through the sides.

  • My question is, what changes in the model did lockheed bring into make a working model. Did they introduce any other aspects that aid in plasma confinement that I am not aware of? Or is it just this? But wouldn't it most likely fail if there are no new ideas other that the cusps and mirrors involved?
Thanks
 
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  • #2
There's a video about half way down this web page:
http://www.pppl.gov/events/colloquium-lockheed-martin-compact-fusion-reactor
Dr. Thomas McGuire answers this question about 20 minutes into the presentation (at 20:30).
Briefly, "It is cusp confinement inside a magnetic mirror".
 
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  • #3
chandrahas said:
But what I don't understand is, didn't we try magnetic mirrors before and learn that they are not the best?

Depending on who you ask this isn't an accurate account of history. It is true that tokamaks showed better confinement than mirrors. But the decision to abandon the mirror program was mostly due to massive budget cuts to the fusion program. We didn't abandon the mirror because it was a failed confinement concept. We abandoned the mirror because we didn't have the funds to support two parallel paths of research. We picked the concept that was performing better at that time.

In fact when the mirror program was cut, we had just completed building an new experiment the Mirror Fusion Test Facility, which among other things had a novel set of magnets designed to help address problems associated with end losses. The mirror program was cut the day the construction of the experiment was completed. We never had a chance to run the experiment.
 
  • #4
So magnetic mirror confinement has not been completely explored? Got it, but then why don't we simply use mirror confinement instead of combining it with cusp confinement? Would there be any advantages?
 
  • #5
chandrahas said:
So magnetic mirror confinement has not been completely explored? Got it, but then why don't we simply use mirror confinement instead of combining it with cusp confinement? Would there be any advantages?

We are not building this experiment. Lockheed is building this experiment. I honestly don't know why Lockheed went with this design. I haven't seen anything that convinces me that Lockheed's design is an improvement over traditional cusps or traditional mirrors. There's no experimental evidences that their design is an improvement, and I haven't seen any sort of detailed analysis of the design. But it's Lockheed's money, so they can do with it as they please.

Cusp's have a couple of interesting properties. Cusp magnetic fields have good curvature which is stabilizing and reduces turbulence. The confinement of a cusp improves at high pressure. However cusps have problems with end losses, and they haven't yet experimentally demonstrated "good" confinement.
 
  • #6
chandrahas said:
So magnetic mirror confinement has not been completely explored? Got it, but then why don't we simply use mirror confinement instead of combining it with cusp confinement? Would there be any advantages?
If you listen to that video, they are using computer modelling and they seem to be pretty confident about the basic design. They described some of the issues, like the back side of those interior coils and the supports for those coils - they seem to be as much engineering as science.

It's also interesting that that video was presented 2 years ago - and they were expecting 1 major design cycle per year.
 
  • #7
.Scott said:
It's also interesting that that video was presented 2 years ago - and they were expecting 1 major design cycle per year.
The announcement of that cycle is even older (3 years? 4?). And nothing public since then. By their original schedule, they should have a MW-scale reactor and at least think about DT operation close to break-even already. I would expect that they show such a success.
 
  • #8
No news is rarely good news in a project funded by a government contractor.
The contractor needs a steady flow of exciting news to keep the money flowing. Elon Musk has written the textbook on the technique and it has allowed SpaceX to emerge as a serious competitor. Here there is only silence. The only other explanation for silence is if the project has been adopted by the black world.
In this case, that is deeply implausible, so we assume there have been unexpected glitches slowing progress. Hope their funding is still good.
 
  • #9
etudiant said:
The only other explanation for silence is if the project has been adopted by the black world.
In this case, that is deeply implausible, so we assume there have been unexpected glitches slowing progress. Hope their funding is still good.
It's not that implausible. They may have caught the attention of the Navy. China has a major campaign to gather as mush US Nuclear Carrier technology as it can. They have an aggressive carrier-building campaign to put teeth into their universally disputed China Sea claims. So I am sure the US Navy wants first dibs on any nuclear power-plant technology.
 
  • #10
.Scott said:
It's not that implausible. They may have caught the attention of the Navy.
Attention of the Navy doesn't make the Lockheed project plausible for commercial power. The US Navy keeps tabs on cold fusion for instance. Also, the miltary's interest diverges from the net power production required for commercial success, as they could make use of a propulsion system that used a fuel made by great consumption of energy elsewhere, e.g. tritium or He-3.

It wouldn't surprise me if the US military had a guy assigned to following the speculative research on FTL travel.
 
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  • #11
.Scott said:
So I am sure the US Navy wants first dibs on any nuclear power-plant technology.
The US Navy doesn't need first dibs on new nuclear power. It already has a nuclear Navy, the only nuclear Navy. What the US Navy wants is to keep the nuclear Navy status quo. So should everyone else in the west.
 
  • #12
QUOTE="chandrahas, post: 5730695, member: 617909" My question is, what changes in the model did lockheed bring into make a working model. Did they introduce any other aspects that aid in plasma confinement that I am not aware of? Or is it just this? But wouldn't it most likely fail if there are no new ideas other that the cusps and mirrors involved?

To answer your question: The feature that Lockheed has added to salvage discredited mirrors and cusps is a heavy dose of the material emitted daily by the male of the cattle species.

None of the commenters above seem to realize that the Lockheed fusion reactor claim is nothing but a blatant fraud. it is the modern equivalent of the original fusion fraud by Ronald Richter ca. 1950. As Lockheed is a publicly held company, its fraudulent claims ought to be investigated by the S.E.C.
 
  • #13
  • #14
mfb said:

I know, but a dozen nuclear submarines does not make a nuclear Navy that can deploy force across the world. No country outside NATO has any nuclear carriers.

Fusion could be interesting, but it is not something so revolutionary new that you absolutely have to make it a secret. If it works, the overall benefit from widespread use is just too large.

Im not sure the theoretical fusion benefit is so much greater than fission in place today, but my main point is that some technological advances have negative consequences that come with the positive. I don't want to see a cheaply made large nuclear Navy in the hands of China*, N Korea, Iran.

*Xi Jinping said of the collapse of the USSR: "nobody was man enough to stand up and resist."
 
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  • #15
Is there any obvious advantage to using the Lockheed fusion reactor concept to power a ship?
I don't know of any, so doubt that a successful design would revolutionize ship building. Building warships is painfully expensive mostly because they are stuffed with high tech gear. The propulsion component is a relatively cheap segment compared to the sensor suite, the armament and the damage control elements.
So I'm skeptical of the idea that the project has suddenly gone quiet because it has revolutionary military uses. Occam's razor says it is on the back burner, probably because there were unexpected glitches.
 
  • #16
etudiant said:
Is there any obvious advantage to using the Lockheed fusion reactor concept to power a ship?
Primarily the expense and the hazard. According to that video, Lockheed believes that this will be small enough and economic enough to place into other warships and perhaps some military aircraft.
There are no hazardous substances involved. And, from a safety standpoint, it is impossible for the fusion reactor to run away. If something goes wrong, it just stops.

When I said that the US Navy would want first dibs, I was referring to this as a potential logistical game-changer for Naval expeditionary deployment - enough to be considered a strategic advantage. So the purpose of the secrecy would simply be to delay it's appearance in the Chinese Navy.

But I agree, if this technology is developed, it needs to be introduced into the civilian market. It's immediate effect would be to reduce the financial power of the oil exporting nations. In my estimation, that would likely be more effective at promoting US security than a 10-year head-start on the military side.
 
  • #17
.Scott said:
But I agree, if this technology is developed, it needs to be introduced into the civilian market. It's immediate effect would be to reduce the financial power of the oil exporting nations. In my estimation, that would likely be more effective at promoting US security than a 10-year head-start on the military side.
We don't know. Even if they manage to make it work, it could cost 30 cent/kWh (random number). No one would want it in the civilian market if it is too expensive.
 
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  • #18
mfb said:
We don't know. Even if they manage to make it work, it could cost 30 cent/kWh (random number). No one would want it in the civilian market if it is too expensive.
I just working with the information provided - mostly in that video presentation. They are avoiding the use of exotic materials. Because of the geometry, the devices can be built in modular sections. The devices are small and portable enough that they can be positioned close to the consumers. The presenter himself described scenarios bearing directly on what he though the costs would be.
 
  • #19
.Scott said:
The devices are small

You should be very skeptical of anyone making this claim. Most of the people making this claim are basing the claim off of very crude back of the envelope calculations. But we have 50+ years of experience that shows that these back of the envelope calculations simply don't cut it.

ITER proves there is a real economic need to shrink the size of a burning fusion reactor. I believe that this has to happen in order for fusion to be viable. I argue that we should explore ways to shrink modern confinement concepts, and we should also reconsider innovative confinement concepts. But this does not mean that we should accept everyones claim that they can build a small fusion reactor. Instead we should force people to back up their extraordinary claims with solid evidence.
 
  • #20
And... is cusp confinement better than magnetic mirror confinement in any way? And approximately how fast does plasma escape confinement?
 
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  • #21
the_wolfman said:
ITER proves there is a real economic need to shrink the size of a burning fusion reactor. I believe that this has to happen in order for fusion to be viable. I argue that we should explore ways to shrink modern confinement concepts, and we should also reconsider innovative confinement concepts. But this does not mean that we should accept everyones claim that they can build a small fusion reactor. Instead we should force people to back up their extraordinary claims with solid evidence.
What is wrong with the size of ITER? ITER itself is too expensive to be interesting as commercial reactor, of course, but it is a research reactor - it is not designed to have the cheapest possible design, it is designed to maximize the research output. In addition, the first reactor of a given size will always be more expensive than subsequent reactors.
 
  • #22
mfb said:
What is wrong with the size of ITER? ITER itself is too expensive to be interesting as commercial reactor, of course, but it is a research reactor - it is not designed to have the cheapest possible design, it is designed to maximize the research output. In addition, the first reactor of a given size will always be more expensive than subsequent reactors.

ITER is not designed to maximize research output. ITER was designed to demonstrate Q=10. ITER has paper thin engineering margins. One unmitigated disruption at full power has the potential to damage the device beyond repair. As a result every experiment on ITER will have to be meticulously planned out, and ITER is going to have to march up to full power at a snails pace. This is not an operational paradigm for maximizing research out. In hindsight a reactor built to operator with Q~3 would be ideal for maximizing research output based on our current understanding.

But you're correct that ITER is not a power plant, it is a research reactor. And it is an apples to oranges comparison to use ITER's cost as a basis for the cost of a power plant. But I'm not sure that a power plant will be any cheeper than ITER under the current paradigm. A fusion power plant will be bigger than ITER. A fusion power plant will need to be able to sustainably breed tritium. A fusion power plant will need to convert the waste heat to electricity. And a fusion power plant will need to have engineering safety margins. Each of these things has a significant cost which offsets the costs associated with the fact that ITER is a one of a kind experiment.

In the end I don't know which will be cheeper. But I have a hard time believing that a fusion power plant is going to be significantly cheeper than ITER. Even if I'm
there is a very real economic and scientific incentive to shrinking the size of a fusion power plant. Smaller reactors are cheeper to build, they are easier to build, and they are faster to build.
 
  • #23
Don't forget that the navy is heavily influenced by politics or we would have LFTR powered aircraft carriers and battleships
 
  • #24
the_wolfman said:
ITER was designed to demonstrate Q=10
At the design stage, people fixing the design thought that would be the best option. Using hindsight to criticize that decision is unfair.

A power plant will have elements ITER has not, but tritium breeding will be tested at ITER. And I guess unlike a power plant they won't use a single concept: They will test several approaches. Which drives up costs as well (although they don't have to produce as much tritium as they use, that makes it cheaper again).
the_wolfman said:
there is a very real economic and scientific incentive to shrinking the size of a fusion power plant. Smaller reactors are cheeper to build, they are easier to build, and they are faster to build.
Well, currently larger devices get better Q-values. A smaller device with a good Q-value would be great, but how to build that?
 
  • #25
mfb said:
At the design stage, people fixing the design thought that would be the best option. Using hindsight to criticize that decision is unfair.

I wasn't around at the snowmass conferences when the US decided to rejoin ITER. But I've talked with many senior scientists who were there, and from what I understand there was a lot of concern back then that Q=10 was too big of a jump. As I understand it at the time the debate was to rejoin ITER or to try to build our own experiment with Q around 3 to 5. I understand that hindsight is 20/20, but I don't think the criticism is completely unfair.

mfb said:
A power plant will have elements ITER has not, but tritium breeding will be tested at ITER

ITER will have a couple test blanket modules to do tritium breeding experiments. But in terms of costs that's a far cry from breeding Tritium self-sustainably.

mfb said:
Well, currently larger devices get better Q-values. A smaller device with a good Q-value would be great, but how to build that?

There's a really good paper by J. Freidberg [Physics of Plasmas 22(070901), 2015] that discusses the engineering challenges in designing a tokamak reactor. The paper uses a simple model of a tokamak to illustrate how various physics and engineering constraints limit the design of a tokamak reactor.

As J. Freidberg points out one of the ways to shrink the reactor is to go to high magnetic field. This is path that MIT has been advocating.

Another point that Freidberg makes is that one of things that really limits the size of a tokamak reactor is the need to drive the toroidal current. So optimized stellarators, which are current free, may provide another path towards a small fusion reactor.

There are other options, but I agree that shrinking a reactor is not an easy problem. That's why it's called research. Ultimately some sort of innovation is going to be needed. That innovation could be technological like advances in high field magnets or the development of more robust materials. That innovation could be the discovery of new physics like an improved confinement regime or the development of an alternative confinement concept.
 
  • #26
Higher magnetic fields are challenging. ITER has up to 13.5 T at its coils, which is the maximum Freidberg considers in his paper for current coil materials. YBCO can handle 20 T, fine - but that is just a 50% increase, and making coils out of high-temperature superconductors is a huge mess. It was considered for an LHC upgrade, but they chose to keep using Nb3Sn. It is still planned to go to 20 T in the dipole magnets if a larger ring will ever be built, but that is a field over a few centimeters, not a few meters. Cable links (but not coils) use HTS in some places (article).
Freidberg's paper predicts costs that increase substantially with increasing magnetic field strength (figure 7b). It also predicts lower costs/MW for larger power plants (8b).

Stellarators could be an answer. We'll see what Wendelstein 7-X does.
 
  • #27
One of my few criticism of Freidberg's papers is the cost function that he uses. I think it's a very good paper, and I know that he chose to use simple models clarity. But there are costs and economic risks associated with large scale projects, like ITER, that his cost function does not account for.

For example 4 of the poloidal field coils at ITER are so big that the have to be manufactured on site. You simply cannot transport 500 ton magnets across the world. So not only do they have to build the magnets on site, but they have to build the magnet winding facility on site. There is a significant savings to be had if you can shrink the size of the reactor, such that the magnets can be made at a preexisting factory and then shipped to the construction site. Freidberg's cost function does not account for this.

Another simple cost is interest on a loan. If a company has to take out a loan to build the power plant, then the amount of interest they accrue depends, in part, on how long it takes to build the power plant. Large power plants simply take longer to build, and thus they'll proportionally accrue more interest. Additionally there is a large economic risk associated with taking out a large loan that takes a long time to pay off. Freidberg's cost function does not account for these costs or risks.

In terms of a research reactor there are costs incurred when you do build an international experiment. The would be a significant savings if we could shrink the size of an experimental rector to one where the USA would be completely willing to fund it on it's own. Freidberg's cost function does not account for this either.

You're correct that going to high fields means that we need more structural materials which have an additional cost. So going to high field is not a magic bullet.
Superconducting magnets are not my field of expertise, but the engineers at MIT are very excited about REBCO superconducting tapes. The way they talk about these tapes its sounds like they are very easy to work with. Maybe you've had other experiences?
 
  • #28
Well, I only see it for the LHC magnets. The general feeling is "we can probably do it, but it will be very complicated and not cheap". The current design uses conventional superconductors outside and HTS only in the core for the highest field strengths.
The tapes don't seem to scale well to larger coils and have problems with quenches. Here is a presentation discussing this, slide 25 has the planned design for 20 Tesla dipole magnets with an aperture of 2 centimeters.
 
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  • #29
If it was possible to produce enough ultracooled material in the Bose-Einstein condensate state,
that might help to reduce the size of some reactor parameters.
The trouble with that is you probably need a massive and dangerous industrial plant to make enough of it.
 
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  • #30
mfb said:
Well, I only see it for the LHC magnets. The general feeling is "we can probably do it, but it will be very complicated and not cheap". The current design uses conventional superconductors outside and HTS only in the core for the highest field strengths.
The tapes don't seem to scale well to larger coils and have problems with quenches. Here is a presentation discussing this, slide 25 has the planned design for 20 Tesla dipole magnets with an aperture of 2 centimeters.
Thank you, mfb, for this excellent link.
It is the kind of summary that reflects real work done by serious and dedicated researchers, stuff that is rarely seen any more.
I'm glad that there is an active focus on managing failures (quenches) gracefully, but given CERN's past experiences that welcome focus is probably natural.
In this context, I've heard nothing at all about the magnets proposed for the Lockheed design. Do they not see it as an issue?
 
  • #31
rootone said:
If it was possible to produce enough ultracooled material in the Bose-Einstein condensate state,
that might help to reduce the size of some reactor parameters.
The trouble with that is you probably need a massive and dangerous industrial plant to make enough of it.
Where do you expect Bose-Einstein condensates to be useful, and where do you see a danger from them?
etudiant said:
It is the kind of summary that reflects real work done by serious and dedicated researchers, stuff that is rarely seen any more.
Every publication, every conference, every other meeting has that.

Quenches are a necessary part of the commissioning - you need them to improve the maximal field strength of coils.

I don't the field strength Lockheed wants to use.
 
  • #32
mfb said:
Where do you expect Bose-Einstein condensates to be useful, and where do you see a danger from them?Every publication, every conference, every other meeting has that.

Quenches are a necessary part of the commissioning - you need them to improve the maximal field strength of coils.

I don't the field strength Lockheed wants to use.
It is good that these summaries are produced. What is missing is wider dissemination of the results.
I do routinely skim the various journals such as Science News or Technology Review, there has not been such a document referenced, much less actually linked.
It is as if the field were operating under a security blanket or the leaders were ashamed of what they were doing. There is no effort to celebrate gains or to create some sense of the potential. Given that fusion seems a lot greener than covering the Earth with windmills and solar panels, that reticence is incomprehensible to me.
 
  • #33
mfb said:
Where do you expect Bose-Einstein condensates to be useful, and where do you see a danger from them?
I'll try dig out a reference, but I do know that I read somewhere that Bose-Einstein condensates are a form of matter that can only exist near to absolute zero.
Matter in that state so I gathered can undergo fusion without the need of extreme pressure, (containment).
If that is actually true then you don't need the megawatts of power needed just to get the reactor started up, everything can be downsized.
However the industrial scale production of such material is definitely not feasible with present technology.

I think if that was feasible, the careful handling and application of the resulting material would be risky.
If for some reason there was a problem in transporting it very quickly, could it explosively undergo a phase transition to 'normal' helium or whatever.
 
  • #34
rootone said:
I'll try dig out a reference, but I do know that I read somewhere that Bose-Einstein condensates are a form of matter that can only exist near to absolute zero.
That is clear and doesn't need a reference.
rootone said:
Matter in that state so I gathered can undergo fusion without the need of extreme pressure, (containment).
Who claims that?
 

1. What is Lockheed's compact fusion reactor?

Lockheed's compact fusion reactor is a proposed fusion reactor design that aims to create clean and sustainable energy by mimicking the process that powers the sun.

2. How does Lockheed's compact fusion reactor work?

The reactor uses a combination of magnetic fields and superheated plasma to fuse hydrogen atoms together, releasing large amounts of energy.

3. What makes Lockheed's compact fusion reactor different from other fusion reactors?

Lockheed's compact fusion reactor is designed to be much smaller and more portable than traditional fusion reactors, making it easier to transport and potentially more cost-effective.

4. Is Lockheed's compact fusion reactor a feasible solution for clean energy?

While the concept of compact fusion reactors is promising, Lockheed's design is still in the early stages of development and it has not yet been proven to be a feasible solution for clean energy on a large scale.

5. When will Lockheed's compact fusion reactor be available for use?

There is no set timeline for when Lockheed's compact fusion reactor will be available for use as it is still in the research and development phase. It could potentially take several more years before it is ready for commercial use.

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