Navy files for patent on compact fusion reactor to power ships

Forbes:

President Donald Trump’s energy dominance narrative – fueled by the prolific production of oil and gas from America’s Shale Gale – recently got a boost from the United States Navy. The US Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division filed a patent for a compact fusion reactor (CFR) last month, one that claims to improve upon the shortcomings of the Lockheed Martin Skunkworks CFR that uses similar “plasma confinement” technology.

The man behind the state-of-the-art design is US Navy researcher Salvatore Cezar Pais, who received major publicity for patenting room-temperature superconductors and a suspiciously UFO-like aircraft that uses “anti-gravity” technology.

If it sounds like science fiction, that’s because it sort of is.

Nuclear fusion, the reaction that powers the sun, has been the elusive dream of the scientific community for decades. Theoretically, a fusion power plant would be able to produce near-limitless amounts of clean, safe energy from a small amount of electricity and a handful of hydrogen isotopes.

A fusion reaction is impossible to replicate in its perfect form because laboratory conditions cannot recreate the gravitational force of a star, but that hasn’t stopped scientists from trying. The US Navy patent claims that it can achieve these enormous amounts of energy in a compact device through the use of spinning dynamic fusors – plasma containment devices – which keep nuclear plasma stable in a way that mimics the mass of the sun.

The patent also states that the resulting fusion reaction would produce a net energy gain (more energy emitted than enters the system), which would be an unprecedented first for manmade fusion reactors.
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If it works, the Navy patented CFR could replace the fission nuclear reactors used in almost 150 naval vessels – most of which operate under the 100 MW range. In fact, a CFR the size of a small car could be utilized in any peaceful or wartime scenario where energy is needed, from ships to jets to tanks to remote military bases.
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This has enormous potential not just for the navy but for energy production for the US as a whole.  It would certainly be better than any current alternative energy source at this time.