Lockheed Martin Compact Fusion: It's closer than you think.

It’s no secret that our Skunk Works® team often finds itself on the cutting edge of technology. As they work to develop a source of infinite energy, our engineers are looking to the biggest natural fusion reactor for inspiration – the sun. By containing the power of the sun in a small magnetic bottle, we are on the fast track to developing nuclear fusion reactors to serve the world’s ever-growing energy needs.

Lockheed Martin
Compact Fusion: It's closer than you think.
ht Ed Rombach, The Rombach Report, in the comments

RT — Russia develops hybrid fusion-fission reactor, offers China role

A hybrid nuclear reactor is a sort of stepping stone to building a true nuclear fusion reactor. It uses a fusion reaction as a source of neutrons to initiate a fission reaction in a ‘blanket’ of traditional nuclear fuel.

The approach has a number of potential benefits in terms of safety, non-proliferation and cost of generated energy, and Russia is developing such a hybrid reactor, according to Mikhail Kovalchuk, director of the Kurchatov Research Center.

“Today we have started the realization of a distinctively new project. We are trying to combine a schematically operational nuclear plant reactor with a ‘tokamak’ to create a hybrid reactor,” he told RIA Novosti, referring to a type of fusion reactor design.

“This project is open for our colleagues, the Chinese in the first place. It's being discussed,” he added.

RT

Russia develops hybrid fusion-fission reactor, offers China role

Lockheed Martin — Lockheed Martin Pursuing Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Concept

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.
While fusion itself is not new, the Skunk Works has built on more than 60 years of fusion research and investment to develop an approach that offers a significant reduction in size compared to mainstream efforts. 

“Our compact fusion concept combines several alternative magnetic confinement approaches, taking the best parts of each, and offers a 90 percent size reduction over previous concepts,” said Tom McGuire, compact fusion lead for the Skunk Works’ Revolutionary Technology Programs. “The smaller size will allow us to design, build and test the CFR in less than a year.” 

After completing several of these design-build-test cycles, the team anticipates being able to produce a prototype in five years. As they gain confidence and progress technically with each experiment, they will also be searching for partners to help further the technology.

Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin Pursuing Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Concept

Sebastian Anthony — Clean, limitless fusion power could arrive sooner than expected

Good news, denizens of Earth: If the findings from two premier research labs are to be believed, commercial nuclear fusion is feasible — and could arrive sooner than expected.

Extreme Tech
Clean, limitless fusion power could arrive sooner than expected
Sebastian Anthony