Nuclear Powered Cars

[losthills]

I think it's time to stop beating around the bush and get rid of the internal combustion engine forever. Sure, we have plug in hybrids on the road now that get a hundred miles per gallon, and roof top photo-voltaic charging systems for all electric vehicles that are getting increasingly extended ranges-- but those are for yuppies and hippies and ignorant, uneducated brandy drinking brats. It's high time to bring on the all-nuclear automobile. Because nuclear power is the ONLY dependable zero emission carbon free non-polluting power source.

And hey, they've already been invented back in the day when folks had their heads wired correctly-- before ignorant folk singers and hollywood yuppies ruined everything. Let's bring back the nucleon-- the only car for anyone who gives a rats ass about science to drive.

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=656

[ben_meyers]

1. Nader would have killed it too. n/t

[skepticscott]

2. You're kidding, right?

A nuclear reaction cannot generate 1.21 Gigawatts of electricity. And what about the spread of radioactive material everywhere in the event of crashes (which happen every day)? And who wants to drive around with an atomic pile 6 feet away from them? And what happens to all of the depleted power plants?

[RC]

4. Other than that are there any negatives?

BTY a nuclear reaction most certainly generate 1.21 Gigawatts of electricity, given the right facilities.

[losthills]

5. Don't be a fear monger.....

I've been told that concerns such as you have raised are irrational....

(Of course I'm joking.)

I think the plan was that when the fuel was depleted you would just pull into a service station and swap out the entire reactor for a new one. They probably didn't have any better plan for disposing of the waste than what they do today.....

[NNadir]

7. Actually many thousands of people have lived with in 6 feet of nuclear power plants.

In fact, back in the days when there was an icecap on the North Pole, some of these people went under the North Pole in a machine that was called the "Nautilus."

It did so in 1957.

That was, for the record, three years after the invention of the solar cell.

It was some forty years before Amory Lovins - Walmart subsidiary - promised "hydrogen hypercars" in showrooms "by 2005."

Many tens of thousands of people have lived and worked for many thousands of hours within a few meters of nuclear reactors. This point is generally missed by the sorely uneducated anti-nuke cult.

Albert Einstein gave a wonderful radio speech to the American public about the potential for nuclear cars. He said, essentially, "don't hold your breath."

Alvin Weinberg - who incidentally was quoted by the Walmart subsidiary Amory Lovins in the only correct statement in the pathetic drivel represented by the 1976 paper "The Road Not Taken" - set out to develop the Molten Salt Reactor to power nuclear aircraft. Previously, Weinberg invented the Pressurized Water Reactor, a device that has produced hundreds of exajoules of energy without a single loss of life. The effort to build nuclear powered aircraft failed, but the idea of the molten salt reactor is the best unexploited idea in energy ever abandoned.

Basically though, it's only pathetic assholes - poorly educated assholes I might add - who sit around all day musing about how they are going to save their cars and whether they can keep their cars and slow climate change. They cannot.

The dangerous fossil fuel waste released by automobiles has killed many millions of people, almost certainly tens of millions of people since the end of the 19th century. The fact that the yuppie brat crowd couldn't care less about these deaths does not and will not bring one of these dead people back to life.

In fact, the number of deaths from dangerous fossil fuel powered propulsion device accidents represents - in the United States alone - a Hiroshima per year. The number of people killed each year around the world from dangerous fossil fuel wastes from cars each year represents several thousand Chernobyls per year.

[skepticscott]

9. I have no problem with the safety of nuclear plants

either as power stations or on ships or submarines. But let's not forget, those plants are monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by highly sophisticated equipment and highly trained technicians and nuclear engineers operating under strict and extensive regulations. None of these would exist if your 17 year old asks to borrow the keys to go to the mall in your atomic-powered Taurus. And we don't have hundreds of nuclear submarines racing around at 70 mph within a few feet of each other. How many crashes involving nuclear sub or power plants happened last year and how many are likely to happen this year? Zero.

And your crash number are a red herring. They have NOTHING to do with the fact that the vehicles involved were propelled by fossil fuels. Even if automobiles were powered by nuclear engines (or by hamsters, for that matter), you would still see people killed in crashes in similar numbers, except you'd have radiation sprayed all over in many of them. Lots of little Chernobyls happening every single day all over the country. Can't wait.

[wtmusic]

10. Don't kid yourself -- they're coming

"Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses, neighborhoods and billionaires who want more control over their energy needs."

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/12/a-pn-on-every-b.html

Not every reactor needs plutonium; they need not be massive; technology which could guarantee containment at any energies generated in a collision is already here.

[losthills]

11. Brave New World....

[bananas]

12. LOL - "Don't kid yourself" - oops!

You were kidded!

Toshiba micro-reactor a "hoax"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=128003

and don't miss post #16 in that thread:
16. I are a nucular engineer!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=128003&mesg_id=128237

[wtmusic]

16. No, not really

http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/122604/loc_20041226003.shtml

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/stories/s352244.htm

There is no physical reason why a microreactor could not power a car. Miniature nuclear reactors have been powering spacecraft since the sixties, and in 1987 the Russian reactor Topaz-1 delivered 5 kWe of electricity with a total weight equivalent to the battery pack of an EV1.

http://www.videocosmos.com/magazine/nk0699.html

[bananas]

20. Yes, really

1) The "micro-nuke" in the other post was an outright hoax.

2) The "micro-nuke" hoax was partly based on the Toshiba 4S "mini-nuke",
which is not a hoax but only exists on paper and is much larger than the "micro-nuke" hoax reactor.

The town of Galena AK was hoaxed into thinking Toshiba was going to give them the 4S reactor free.
That hoax was perpetrated for several years.
It was only last year that Toshiba told them they had been hoaxed.
The 4S reactor is expensive and Galena can't afford it.

In addition, earlier reports stated that Toshiba would install the reactor at no cost to the city, but a statement from the company to the News-Miner seemed to reverse that claim.

“We are aiming to realize the 4S system on a conventional business basis, and we do not have any plans to propose the system free of charge,” it states.

The idea of footing the bill for the multi-million dollar reactor doesn’t sit well with Wilcox.

“This is a small community that doesn’t even have an extra $1,000,” he said.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=111744

"The City...can't come close to meeting the financial requirements for owning a nuclear facility"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=106160&mesg_id=106189


3) Yes, technically you could power a car with a microreactor, and maybe someday we will, but for the near future the logistical hurdles for nuclear-powered cars are much greater than for electric, algal biodiesel, or hydrogen cars.

[wtmusic]

23. The logistical hurdles are far less than those of hydrogen cars

You could drive your car around for decades using a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) like the ones used on Apollo, Pioneer, and Viking missions. They are safe, have no moving parts whatsoever, and a 1,000 lb version would provide 150 horsepower (about twice that of a Toyota Prius).

For decades.

Meanwhile, experts estimate hydrogen powered cars are thirty years away, if they are ever viable for consumer transportation.

Reasons:

1) No feasible way to store enough hydrogen on board.
2) Proton-exchange membranes don't last, with no solution in sight.
3) Generation, transportation, and storage of hydrogen create as much or more atmospheric CO2 than gasoline.

The hurdles aren't logistical but those of public perception.

[losthills]

24. Now, you're joking...

Right?

[bananas]

25. One of the hurdles is building a functioning prototype

Nobody's even bothered trying to build a functioning prototype of a nuclear car.

But we've been building hydrogen, electric, and biofuel cars for decades.

Here's a video of Jack Nicholson showing off a hydrogen car back in 1978:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=65224

Here's a recent video of Joe Romm test driving a plug-in hybrid SUV:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x129482

The Apollo dune buggies were powered by batteries, not RTG's.
The Martian Rovers are powered by solar PV, not RTG's.

[wtmusic]

27. Yes, that's true

and the reason is secondarily one of expense (nuclear fuel) but primarily one of public perception. As for Apollo dune buggies and the Martian rovers, their energy requirements were far less than an earthbound car.

An RTG-powered car should be on the list of options and should get federal research funding. Here's how it might work: it's powered by a radioisotope of a less virulent strain than P-238, and its energy cell is certified and sealed at the DOE. The seal, if ever compromised, transmits a radio signal which alerts DOE to its location. Voluntarily compromising the seal is punished by prison time; accidentally compromising it is rendered (virtually) impossible by shielding which has been extensively crash-tested to protect it from any energies encountered in a crash situation.

That's the hard part. The easy part is that this car now runs for years with no added fuel and no emissions. The energy cell could even be transferred from car to car as the chassis around it wore out.

I'm with you on electric cars and I think Joe Romm has it right in the near term. If President Obama/Clinton has his/her priorities straight he will be Secretary of Energy next January. He is also one of the energy gurus who doesn't see a chance in hell for hydrogen.

[Systematic Chaos]

3. Can I apply for some sort of refund

for clicking on this complete waste of bandwidth?

kthxbai

:eyes:

[baldguy]

6. If George Jetson had a car...

[Dogmudgeon]

8. Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to 1957

"LSD will be legal by 1980"
(Some Harvard psych professor, circa 1968.)

--p!

[phantom power]

13. Is it me, or does that car have no doors?

[GliderGuider]

14. You wouldn't want people riding inside it, would you?

That would be dangerous!

[phantom power]

15. I forgot again.

Teh radiation!11!!1

[losthills]

17. Wouldn't it be great to have these little reactors

humming day and night in everyone's garage? It may seem ridiculous today, but Ford spent a lot of "energy" designing the Nucleon and was preparing to sell it to the American public. The only thing that stopped them was that they couldn't develope a small enough reactor. These are the same minds that envisioned hundreds of reactors scattered all over our country in major metropolitan areas churning out "cheap," "clean" electricity for civilian use. The Nucleon wasn't one bit more ridiculous than that. The same advertising minds working on their sales pitches for the nuclear car successfully sold us an equally defective product, and you can see the heartbreaking results in nuclear power downwind cancer studies, ravaged communities in the Navajo Nation and in the gear-up to destroy the entire front range of the Rockies for the last crumbs of usable uranium.

Brave new world, indeed.....

[losthills]

18. Would you by a used car from this man?

I wouldn't.....

[orangefire]

19. Nuclear cars sound dangerous

won't they explode in the middle of the road?

[diane in sf]

21. Can I get one with ermine mud flaps?

[sabbat hunter]

22. Hey Doc

You mean to tell me this sucker is nuclear?"
"Hey, hey, hey. Keep rolling. Keep rolling, there. This sucker's electrical, but I need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity I need."

"1.21 Gigawats? 1.21 Gigawatts? Great Scott!"


Sorry, when I saw the post about a nuclear powered car I couldn't resist.

But yes we need to use nuclear power to get off of oil, other fossil fuels.

[Ordr]

26. Hey Doc, pt 2

"Doc, you don't just walk into a store and buy plutonium! Did you rip that off?"

"Of course! From a group of Libyan nationalists. They wanted me to build them a bomb, so I took their plutonium and instead gave them a shoddy bomb casing filled with used pinball machine parts!"