Nuclear option

Nuclear fusion could provide virtually unlimited amounts of energy for the world. But the problem of harnessing fusion reactions for practical applications has been an elusive one for decades, never progressing beyond the experimental stage—until now.

Last month, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported on a nuclear fusion concept being developed at Lockheed Martin’s famous “Skunk Works” R&D lab. The device, called the Compact Fusion Reactor (CFR), is reported to be conceptually “small and practical enough for applications ranging from interplanetary spacecraft and commercial ships to city power stations.”

The current state of the art in fusion reactors, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), now under construction, is not expected to be online until the late 2020s. Aviation Week’s report states that the ITER, with a power output of 500 megawatts, will cost an estimated $50 billion, will measure around 100 feet high, and weigh 23,000 tons.

Lockheed’s CFR, by comparison, will generate around 100 megawatts, but fit into a transportable unit measuring 23 x 43 feet.

“That’s the size we are thinking of now,” said Thomas McGuire, an aeronautical engineer in the Skunk Work’s Revolutionary Technology Programs unit in an interview with Aviation Week. “You could put it on a semi-trailer, similar to a small gas turbine, put it on a pad, hook it up and can be running in a few weeks.”

Fuel for the CFR is plentiful. It runs on deuterium and tritium. Deuterium is derived from seawater, and tritium is obtained from lithium in a breeding reactor. Although the tritium is radioactive, you don’t need much of it to run the reactor, which means there’s no risk of a nuclear meltdown.

Unlike current nuclear reactors that operate using nuclear fission, fusion reactors don’t generate radioactive waste. Once a CFR fusion reactor reaches the end of its useful life, users can dispose of its radioactive parts much as they dispose of medical waste today.

“There is no long-lived radiation,” says McGuire. “Fission reactors’ stuff will be there forever, but with fusion materials, after 100 years then you are good.”

Lockheed Martin plans to have a working CFR prototype in five years, and a full production unit in 10.

Tech support

Many Christians struggle with prayer, so it makes sense that Christian software developers would create prayer apps to help organize prayers. Search “Christian Prayer” on the iTunes app store and scores of free apps show up. Many are devotionals, some allow users to share requests, and some help users organize their private prayers. PrayerMate is one such app. Englishman Andy Geers developed it after reading D.A. Carson’s A Call to Spiritual Reformation, a book on prayer, and wanting an upgrade from his paper list. PrayerMate has default categories—biblical prayers and prayers for personal holiness, for instance—but users can customize it to meet their own needs. —M.C.

Blue light special

Bright, white LED lights are everywhere now, from car headlamps to home lighting—thanks to three Japanese scientists who invented their immediate predecessor, the bright blue LED. Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura (left to right) will share the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for their 1990s discovery that gallium nitride (GaN) was capable of creating efficient, bright blue LEDs. —M.C.