Atomic powered cars at last?

from the article

Because thorium is so dense, similar to uranium, it stores considerable potential energy: 1 gm of thorium equals the energy of 7,500 gallons (28,391 L) of gasoline Stevens says. So, using just 8 gm of thorium in a car should mean it would never need refueling.

The nice this about this, should this get past the vaporware stage, would be that performance wouldn't be an issue.

Ward's article said: The key to the system developed by inventor Charles Stevens, CEO and chairman of Connecticut-based Laser Power Systems, is that when silvery metal thorium is heated by an external source, it becomes so dense its molecules give off considerable heat.

So, it's going to put out more heat than it takes to get it to heat up in the first place? If it was this easy we'd have thorium fueled power plants instead of nuclear - just substitue a thorium laser for that pesky highly radioactive nuclear fuel, right?

could be a step in the right direction.. but I think it would show up in powerplants first

that's better than a lot of the atomic elements

this sounds like bogus vaporware....but I would love to drive a car that looked like the ford nucleon

pigeon wrote: So, it's going to put out more heat than it takes to get it to heat up in the first place? If it was this easy we'd have thorium fueled power plants instead of nuclear - just substitue a thorium laser for that pesky highly radioactive nuclear fuel, right?

There was a great article in Wired magazine a couple years ago about Thorium as reactor fuel. The basic gist is that Thorium was significantly better suited to our energy goals, but didn't create the sharable infrastructure for creating nuclear weapons.

I'd love to ask my great uncle about some of this as he was a physicist at Oak Ridge, but I imagine much of it is still classified.

JoeyM wrote: this sounds like bogus vaporware....but I would love to drive a car that looked like the ford nucleon

It appears that the Ford Nucleon is a Ranchero with wings and a tonneau cover made from a large blender lid.

BAMF wrote:

pigeon wrote: So, it's going to put out more heat than it takes to get it to heat up in the first place? If it was this easy we'd have thorium fueled power plants instead of nuclear - just substitue a thorium laser for that pesky highly radioactive nuclear fuel, right?

There was a great article in Wired magazine a couple years ago about Thorium as reactor fuel. The basic gist is that Thorium was significantly better suited to our energy goals, but didn't create the sharable infrastructure for creating nuclear weapons. I'd love to ask my great uncle about some of this as he was a physicist at Oak Ridge, but I imagine much of it is still classified.

Richard Martin has a nasty tendency toward sensationalism, if I remember my Wired correctly.

Thorium does have some advantages....at least on paper. Bill Gates is using some of his cash to try to crack that nut with one of his Intellectual Ventures companies. Nuclear power development in this country was hand in hand with nuclear weapon development.

Osterkraut wrote: Wired has a nasty tendency toward sensationalism, if I remember my magazines correctly.

FTFY

China is getting ready to, or already building Thorium fueled reactors.

The advantage is that the reaction is not self-sustaining, like traditional reactors.

EDIT: Quick story http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html

that's a big advantage.

SVreX wrote:

JoeyM wrote: this sounds like bogus vaporware....but I would love to drive a car that looked like the ford nucleon

It appears that the Ford Nucleon is a Ranchero with wings and a tonneau cover made from a large blender lid.

That's exactly why it is awesome!

So is thorium as plentiful as uranium?

that is a good question. As it seems to be more stable (does not self-sustain a reaction) it might be

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: So is thorium as plentiful as uranium?

If I remember correctly, Thorium is WAY more common then Uranium.

Wikipedia says:

Thorium is found in small amounts in most rocks and soils; it is three times more abundant than tin in the Earth's crust and is about as common as lead.[48] Soil commonly contains an average of around 12 parts per million (ppm) of thorium.

JoeyM wrote: this sounds like bogus vaporware....but I would love to drive a car that looked like the ford nucleon

Awesome.

I want the future to look like 1950s retro future.

If this is real it'll solve electric car range problems (and a lot of environmental problems) overnight.

This is either pure BS or the article is full of mistakes. 250MW is a lot of energy ( 335 255.522 hp worth), there is no way it can be produced by something that weighs 500 pounds and fits under a car hood.

A modern submarine powered by a pressurized water reactor does not produce 250MW.

If I assume that the 250MW is a typo, then what is exactly going on here? They say it is not a nuclear reaction then what is it? This sounds like utter nonsense to me. I'll look to see if there is more info out there and hope that the writer of the article is just another clueless dimwit with a journalism degree.

Definitely an error. I think that must be 250 megawatt hours. 250 megawatt hours is about the equivalent of 7000 gallons of gas, which is enough to power an efficient car for a couple hundred thousand miles.

You'd have a LOT of trouble putting 250 megawatts to the ground through two tires. :)

In reply to ppddppdd:

That must be what they meant. I have an ever increasingly low opinion of journalists. I read more and more articles that don't make any sense and seem to be written by a 6th grader or worse. I know they must have a brain, but why are they not using them? I understand that the concept of a megawatt may not be something they are familiar with, but reallym it takes all of 3 seconds with google to convert MW to hp or anything else. Heck, they should be familiar with a 100 W light buld. Did they even think what a 250 million watt light buld might be like?

I still don't get the basic science supposedly at work here. Unless it is a nuclear reaction I do not see how it could produce energy as claimed. Probally another error on the article writer's part.