Well the history of fusion has always been ‘ten or so years away’.
I was interviewed and selected by Admiral Rickover in 1980 and served in his nuclear program as an engineer before going back to graduate school and earning a PhD. I also worked for Martin Marietta before they merged with Lockheed but I was on a DOD Engineering Tiger Team that reviewed all the major DOD contractors including Lockheed.
I will have a look at the this writeup and get back to you with an assessment. I do know that a lot of advanced technologies are bottled up in political considerations and are timed for release based on political considerations. In other words this development of Lockheed’s Skunkworks has likely been available for quite sometime and has only waited for release approval.
I am more optimistic about a release late last year from the Office of Naval Research that described an efficient economic process of recovering hydrocarbon fuels direct from seawater allowing vessels to sail without ever needing refueling. I suspected that release was timed to inform the Russians and other belligerents that the game was up if the USA decided it was up.
the lockheed announcement didn’t happen in a vacuum. Last week the university of washington announced a fusion reactor program
http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/10/08/uw-fusion-reactor-concept-could-be-cheaper-than-coal/
if you do a google search under “fusion reactor” you’ll find that there are about 7-8 US fusion start ups.
Bump. In 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, etc. My reaction now:
Yawn. Like the LENR projects. Wake me up when you are in production.