The Navy's Patent for a Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Is Wild
The designs seemingly stretch the limits of science.
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- A patent filed by the U.S. Navy last month claims to have developed a compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor.
- Nuclear fusion has been touted as the ultimate energy source, generating enormous amounts of power with little to no harmful byproducts.
- No one has yet been able to mass produce or control large quantities of fusion energy, so designs for the reactor seemingly stretch the limits of science.
Scientists have longed to create the perfect energy source. Ideally, that source would eventually replace greenhouse gas-spewing fossil fuels, power cars, boats, and planes, and send spacecraft to remote parts of the universe. So far, nuclear fusion energy has seemed like the most likely option to help us reach those goals.The big problem? It’s difficult to harness, and we’re nowhere near producing it at the scales we need in order to cause a seismic shift in energy policy. That's why teams of researchers across the world are racing to improve our understanding of this reaction.
Now, the U.S. Navy has jumped into the game by filing a patent for a compact fusion reactor, according to exclusive reporting by The War Zone.Developing a viable source of nuclear fusion energy—the same reaction that powers the sun—has long been seemingly unattainable. The patent for the device was reportedly filed on March 22, 2019, and published late last month. This technology, by all accounts, is a long shot. But it would completely revolutionize how we power our world.In order to create fusion energy on Earth, scientists and engineers must build instruments that can contain gases that will reach temperatures of hundreds of millions of degrees in order to compel atomic nuclei to slam together at high speeds and create a superheated plasma.But that’s not an easy task, and there a several technical challenges associated with creating fusion energy. For example, the plasma can’t touch the walls of the chamber in which it’s created, so scientists must use powerful magnetic fields to isolate the substance. This is one of the most critical challenges researchers aim to overcome. And then there’s the issue of actually storing the energy that’s created in the reaction. No small feat....
