Lockheed thinks it can do fusion

[FluffyMcDeath]

While ITER chugs along building their massive tokamak, Lockheed thinks they have a way to fit fusion on the back of a truck (Mr Fusion? Does that mean time travelling DeLoreans are around the corner?)

As we've seen here from time to time there have been other players in the small fusion reactor field but this is by far the largest company to make an announcement like this that I know of.

 

[Karlos]

You should see the late Robert Bussard's Google presentation on his magnetically confined variation on the classic Farnsworth fusor.

Like all known functional fusion reactors in the universe it has a spherical rather than toroidal symmetry. Ions are accelerated towards the centre where their fusion cross section is greatest. Toroids tend to lose energy through the spiralling outwards of ions as they circle around (see Bremstrallung radiation).

Instead of using an electric field maintained by conductive grids at high potential (into which ions collide and lose energy, the Achilles heel of Farnsworth's design) he traps electrons at the centre of a polyhedral magnetic field arrangement to produce a virtual electrode into which fuel atoms are ionised and accelerated.

It showed great promise.