Experts were skeptical of Lockheed Martin Corp.‘s claims this week that it plans to build a fusion reactor small enough to fit on the back of a truck over the next decade.
The Bethesda, Maryland-based company — the world’s largest defense contractor, known for its stealth fighter jets and guided missiles — on Wednesday announced that it would test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year, build a prototype in five years and deploy the system in 10 years.
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“I’m surprised that a company like this would release something that doesn’t have much context,” said Steven Cowley, a professor in plasma physics at the Imperial College London, director of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, and a leading expert in magnetic fusion energy.
“Normally, if someone says they’re doing well in fusion, they would quote some data, ‘We got a temperature of x and a confinement of y,’” he said, referring to how long a reactor can hold the heat of a reaction before it escapes. “There’s no such information.”
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