The Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] Skunk Works team says it is developing a compact fusion reactor (CFR) that can be deployed in ten years.
The Skunk Works team plans on producing a prototype in five years, and will search for partners to help further the technology. The reactor will be 90 percent smaller than previous concepts, which leads to the ability to design, build and test the reactor in less than a year. There are currently several patents pending for the reactor.
The company said in Reuters that the reactor is expected to generate 100 MW of capacity and measure seven feet by 10 feet. The reactors could be small enough to fit in the back of a truck. Compact nuclear fusion would use deuterium-tritium fuel, which can reportedly generate nearly 10 million times more energy than the same amount of fossil fuels but without the radioactive waste produced by nuclear fission, the article said.
