Lockheed Martin mini nuclear fusion reactor

Defence and aerospace supplier Lockheed Martin Corp said yesterday its first reactor based on nuclear fusion would be ready in a decade, .

It is believed that nuclear fusion would be able to deliver 10 million times more energy than a fossil fuel plant.

The company which claimed to have made a technological breakthrough, said it would be able to roll out the first reactor, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, in the coming decade.

The initial work had proven the feasibility of building a 100-MW reactor measuring seven feet by 10 feet, about 10 times smaller than current reactors, according to Reuters.

According to the company, its 60 years of research on fusion had shown that the energy source was safer and more efficient than fission reactors.

Global energy consumption would be expected to rise by 41 per cent from 2012 to 2035 and 95 per cent of that growth in demand would be expected to come from the emerging economies like China and India.

However, with pressures of climate change that warranted shifting from fossil fuels, the search had been on for a green source that met the demand without compromising the future of the planet.

Meanwhile, the company said in a release, "The Lockheed Martin Skunk Works team is working on a new compact fusion reactor (CFR) that can be developed and deployed in as little as 10 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.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 113,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation's net sales for 2013 were $45.4 billion.