Atomic Car Revisited: Thorium Could Power A Vehicle for 100 Years
2014 Mar 14, 2:58am 1,436 views 15 comments
by zzyzzx follow (9)
Comments 1 - 15 of 15 Search these comments
justme
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2014 Mar 14, 3:09am
A much more likely scenario would be that of a commercial thorium nuclear reactors producing electricity to run cars.
But please, no-one assume this will happen anytime soon. In the meanwhile electric cars will still produce more CO2/mile than the best-of-breed hybrids, such as a plain old Toyota Prius.
Tesla model S, BMW i8 and Nissan Leaf all expel more CO2/mile than a Prius at the present CO2/kWh of the US electricty grid mix. Deal with it. And please no-one start arguing with me on this point. it is solid fact that I have explained at length before.
And no, it does not make a difference if you have solar panels on your roof. If you do, that electrical energy should be used to displace coal in the electrical grid mix, for lower overall CO2 emissions. Solar panels and a non-plugin Prius leads to overall lower CO2 emissions than solar panels and a Tesla model S. End of story.
justme
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2014 Mar 14, 3:11am
APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says
As long as it pops 0-100 MPH in under 3 seconds, we don't care if it's running on bat shit.
I know, and I wish it did.
Ceffer
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2014 Mar 14, 5:29am
Gives new meaning to the term "car bomb".
Car Weapon of Mass Destruction?
The fertilizer industry will start lodging protests.
Tenpoundbass
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2014 Mar 14, 1:05pm
Yeah but what about the lazy asses, that would drive it dry of water, and have a full nuclear melt down in rush hour traffic?
Head on collisions couldn't be good for the fuel cell encasement.
This concept would require a world where every thing went as expected, and the Society wasn't a bunch of lazy stupid asses.
Tenpoundbass
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2014 Mar 14, 1:07pm
Nuclear powered bullet trains and vacuum tubes perhaps, or maybe someday when fully automated car travel has reduced accident car into car collisions into almost zero incidents.
Thorium reaction needs U-235 to get started. Where would you buy U-235 for the "starter" of the car? How would you prevent shipping companies putting too many U-235 "starter blocks" together in one box truck during shipping and have a criticality accident? as in spontaneous uncontrolled chain reaction and mushroom cloud rising in the middle of the street quickly engulfing the entire city!
Yes, U-235 is really that dangerous: you can have one playdough clump of it in one hand, and another small clump in the other, then when you put your two hands together, the entire city vaporizes along with you!
Shaman
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2014 Mar 15, 12:59am
This car was just to prove a concept. I doubt they will even make it. It's a promo stunt for their micro turbine business using thorium laser reactors to produce on-site electricity. Good idea for a stable power source. Bad idea for anything mobile that could crash. Thorium isn't the explodey sort of isotope, but it is radioactive, so if the core became exposed, everyone could get a good dose of charged particles.
as in spontaneous uncontrolled chain reaction and mushroom cloud rising in the middle of the street quickly engulfing the entire city!
Yes, U-235 is really that dangerous: you can have one playdough clump of it in one hand, and another small clump in the other, then when you put your two hands together, the entire city vaporizes along with you!
No you would not create a mushroom cloud. You would create a critical mass. That would cause a chain reaction that may or may not lead to a low order explosion called a fizzle. In order to get a nuclear explosion you need to have a tamper, aka high explosives very carefully engineered, to bring the two subcritical parts together quickly enough. On the other hand you would die from the radiation very quickly. This actually happened to Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin working at Los Alamos in WWII. There was no explosion in either case.
New Renter
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2014 Mar 15, 3:49am
That Young Turks video was painful to watch! Seriously who has never heard of thorium?
The companies website provides little useful information on their technology. The Young Turk reporter who had never even hears of thorium up to that point mentioned the thorium powers a laser which heats water which powers a generator which powers the car's motors.
Thorium powering a laser powerful enough to power a car? In a portable package small enough to fit into the engine bay of a car?
I think there is another class of customer for that technology: So AF, how much DO you have in your M134 piggy bank?.
Laser Power Systems also has a side business - Thoriumcoin
http://www.laserpowersystems.com/go-thorium/thoriumcoin
IMO something is fishy about this company.
Bellingham Bill
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2014 Mar 15, 3:56am
My house consumes more energy than my car.
"In the meanwhile electric cars will still produce more CO2/mile"
* if powered by coal-burning utilities.
"The California part of the story is upbeat: a hypothetical Los Angeles Leaf would be accountable for the release of an admirably low level of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, about the same as a gasoline car getting 79 miles per gallon. "
Bellingham Bill
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2014 Mar 15, 4:05am
"And no, it does not make a difference if you have solar panels on your roof"
Sure it does. The problem of collective action requires everyone do their part; nobody should be required to do more than the average.
By raising the average, we get ourselves out of the hole we're in. No matter how many panels my millionaire friend puts up on his property, "justme" will argue it's not enough, he's not supporting the coalburners in the midwest's lifestyle choices enough.
New Renter
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2014 Mar 15, 4:35am
My house consumes more energy than my car.
"In the meanwhile electric cars will still produce more CO2/mile"
* if powered by coal-burning utilities.
"The California part of the story is upbeat: a hypothetical Los Angeles Leaf would be accountable for the release of an admirably low level of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, about the same as a gasoline car getting 79 miles per gallon. "
When you realize electric cars are not necessarily emissions free CNG powered cars start to look a lot more attractive. They have far cleaner emissions, use a fuel we have in abundance which can be derived either from fossil or renewable sources, can be refilled in a timeframe comparable to today's gasoline powered cars.
The biggest problems facing CNG vehicles are range, power, trunk space and infrastructure. I believe most of these problems are very fixable.
Most CNG vehicles are not purpose designed as is the Prius but are adapted from existing gasoline powered models. This means the CNG tanks must fit in a space not really designed to fit them. That limits their capacity as well as where they can go. Potential solutions to this are liquid natural gas tanks (which do have their own issues) and zeolite storage tanks which store an equal amount of gas under far lower pressures.
Taking this a bit further if the car uses a diesel engine the efficiency can be further increased. A micropilot diesel/NG engine offers all the power and reliability advantages of a diesel engine as well as almost all the lowered emissions of NG fuel.
This technology does require a bit more user input than standard cars as it uses both natural gas and some diesel but its still evolving. One engine I read about even used the diesel fuel as the engine's lubricant and just sipped the diesel from the oil pan. I wonder if it wouldn't be possible to design such an engine with a large enough reservoir so as to require a fill up every 7500 miles or so. Then your user input remains about the same since this step would replace the oil change.
tatupu70
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2014 Mar 15, 7:29am
But please, no-one assume this will happen anytime soon. In the meanwhile electric cars will still produce more CO2/mile than the best-of-breed hybrids, such as a plain old Toyota Prius.
Depends on where you live, I think.
justme
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2014 Mar 16, 4:18am
Sigh. Those who refuse to understand will continue to refuse to understand. Can I please ask everyone (I am talking to you, Bellingham Bill) to read complete paragraphs and not take one sentence out of context. I said:
And no, it does not make a difference if you have solar panels on your roof. If you do, that electrical energy should be used to displace coal in the electrical grid mix, for lower overall CO2 emissions. Solar panels and a non-plugin Prius leads to overall lower CO2 emissions than solar panels and a Tesla model S. End of story.
Is it not clear what I say here? Is it not clear that the first sentence is not a stand-alone statement? Must I now rewrite the paragraph so that even Bellingham Bill cannot misconstrue it? Okay, I will try.
Even if you have solar panels on your roof, it is still lower CO2 overall if you drive a plain Prius and use the solar electricity to displace fossile electricty on the grid, THAN if you use all or part of your solar electricity to charge a Tesla Model S and burn no gasoline.
This statement is true, and ought to be very simple to understand. Some people nevertheless will not accept it and insist on misconstruing it.
No matter how many panels my millionaire friend puts up on his property, "justme" will argue it's not enough, he's not supporting the coalburners in the midwest's lifestyle choices enough.
WTF? I'm not supporting any midwestern coalburners. I want them to shut down!! And the best way to make them shut down is to drive a Prius and NOT drive a Tesla, and to feed the solar out on the grid to DISPLACE THE COAL.
WTF-part2: I'm not against your "millionaire friend" placing as many solar panels as he wants on his property. Why are you making such inane and false statements about me?
Comments 1 - 15 of 15 Search these comments
http://autos.yahoo.com/news/atomic-car-revisited-thorium-could-power-vehicle-100-140052713.html
A car that could run for 100 years on one tank of fuel? It sounds like a far-fetched idea, but it is just what a company is apparently claiming possible with the use of an atomic fuel that was abandoned during the Nixon administration. We're talking about the sounds-too-good-to-be-true substance called “Thorium.”
Thorium is a naturally occurring radioactive element. It was discovered in 1828 by a Norwegian mineralogist and identified by a Swedish chemist, who then named it after the Norse god, Thor.
If put to use properly, would be low pressure and have lower chances of danger to the environment and humans than a uranium-based reactor. The thorium reactors can be much smaller too. Like a conventional reactor, the heat produced would create steam that would power a turbine.
The report claims that small amount of the dense thorium could produce tremendous amounts of heat. A company called Laser Power Systems is attempting to employ this power source in a vehicle. The company claims that: “1 gram [of thorium] yields more energy than 7,396 gallons of gas.” By their math, 8 grams of the substance could power a thorium turbine car for a century. This is not the first time this fuel has been suggested for cars. The concept of an automobile use was brought up in the 2011 documentary “The Thorium Dream”
Could this be a viable fuel for car? The testing in the 1960s found that the Thorium tetrafluoride used in a molten salt reactor was easier to process and quicker to stop a chain reaction, but light water reactors are far more common. In the LWR, thorium produces the same levels of toxic waste as our good ole' uranium reactor. So there still may be a long way to go before we're driving atomic cars.
#environment