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Boeing Patents an Engine Run By Laser-Generated Fusion Explosions

Posted by timothy on from the gilding-the-lily dept.

MarkWhittington writes: Boeing has had a patent approved for an aircraft engine that uses laser-generated nuclear fusion as a power source, according to a story in Business Insider. The idea is already generating a great deal of controversy, according to the website Counter Punch. The patent has generated fears of what might happen if an aircraft containing radioactive material as fuel were to crash, spreading such fuel across the crash site.

6 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. WHAT radioactive materials? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Fusion doesn't use any.

    1. Re:WHAT radioactive materials? by beelsebob · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Go and read the article - the fusion is only a source of neutrons that then impact U-238 and cause fission to generate heat.

    2. Re:WHAT radioactive materials? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Go and read the article.

      You made me cry. "The concept is just in the patent stage and is a long way from even being a design, not to speak of a prototype". Once upon a time patents were meant to protect inventors who had come up with actual inventions.

  2. absolute BS by frovingslosh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Once again we have a patent issued for something that wasn't built, can't be built and likely will never be built. Boeing has no idea how to build a fusion engine, and if they could then they could and should build a ground based fusion power plant based on their magic technology. About the only thing that can ever happen with this patent is to be used by a troll in case anyone does really manage to build a fusion power plant that uses some of the same terms used in this science fiction document, such as lasers.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  3. Re:Even U238 isn't radioactive. by beelsebob · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But the plutonium produced by firing neutrons into it is.

  4. The Fictional Radioactive Materials by Crashmarik · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From a fictional engine that doesn't exist and won't exist until we actually have practical fusion.

    Really this is what is wrong with the patent system. Now anyone developing engines using any kind of fusion is going to have a visit from Boeings lawyers over something they have done nothing to make work.