Lockheed Might Just Have Solved Climate Change

Did Lockheed Martin just promise a Carbon Emission Free World in 50 Years?

Lockheed Martin announced the development of a Compact Fusion Reactor on the 15^th October 2014.

What is a Compact Fusion Reactor?

Fusion Reactors are a completely different technology to the Fission Reactors we are all familiar with. Fission Reactors requires Uranium for Fuel, which is of course a finite resource, creates a terrible Nuclear Waste Problem, and the Nuclear Power industry almost inevitably leads to Nuclear Proliferation. Fusion on the other hand requires hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. It's the H in H20. There is quite a lot of water on Planet Earth, therefore a great deal of hydrogen. The problem with Nuclear Fusion(which is what is powering the sun right now) is that to fuse hydrogen into Helium you need massive amounts of heat. So far all fusion reactors have been quite large and more electricity is required to heat up the fuel than the system produces. This is where Lockheed Martin say they have made the breakthrough.

Lockheed Martin are promising a prototype small scale reactor that fits on the back of a truck that could power 1000 homes in 12 months. That's quite a promise.

Compact Fusion Reactor

Who's Making this Promise?

Lockheed Martin is one of the largest Defence Contractors in the world. Their pedigree goes all the way back to the early days of aviation. The built the aircraft that made Amelia Earhart famous.

The Lockheed Vega

And they built this. The F22 Raptor:

The division of Lockheed Martin making this claim is of interest as well because it is the Skunkworks. The Skunkworks is the Black Budget Top Secret area of Lockheed Martin. It seems they were working on something.....interesting.

What Are They Working On

The Skunkworks develops hi tech aviation equipment. It's pretty clear from the press release that they are working on Fusion powered aircraft. Fusion powered aircraft provides theoretically almost unlimited endurance over a target.

It seems they have developed something revolutionary in the miniaturisation process. In the short term you can imagine a drone loitering over a target for weeks at a time. In the medium term imagine airliners capable of flying point to point anywhere on the planet. Long Term who knows, Spacecraft, Submarines, all powered by fusion reactors.

Any Non Lethal Opportunities?

The good thing is that this breakthrough has other less Militaristic Applications. This technology scales up well in theory. Lockheed Martin are calling for partners in the power industry. They want to roll out fusion reactors everywhere in the world producing ZERO carbon emissions. Their own press release states that they want to do this in a 20 year timeframe. This technology as far as we know is pretty harmless. There's no risk of meltdown, no risk of contamination, because in essence they use Hydrogen as fuel, so there's no issue with Nuclear proliferation. Within 50 Years all electricity in the world could be generated with this Nuclear Fusion Technology. This technology could solve the problem we have with climate change.

Are there any Caveats?

Hell Yes. Lockheed have failed to publish any scientific papers on their new work. This is to be expected, they are a very secretive organisation, careful of propriety developments, however Dr. Swadesh M. Mahajan, a thermonuclear plasma physicist at the University of Texas told Mother Jones magazine that "We know of no materials that would be able to handle anywhere near that amount of heat."

To Sum Up

Have Lockheed Martin promised a Carbon Emission Free future. No. Not really. The Media have spun it that way, but nowhere in the press release is a promise of that. However there is the potential, even if it wasn't spelt out by Lockheed Martin.

The other issue is that many scientists are extremely sceptical of the claims made by the team at the Lockheed Skunkworks. They say that we've seen a press release and a Youtube video, but not much else.

I hope they can do all they claim, but I seriously doubt it.