Nuclear Powered Automobiles?

[Coito ergo sum]

A solution to our energy problem? Or, just a pipe dream?

Ford’s engineers imagined a world in which full-service recharging stations would one day supplant petroleum fuel stations, where depleted reactors could be swapped out for fresh ones lickety-split. The car’s reactor setup was essentially the same as a nuclear submarine’s, but miniaturized for automobile use. It was designed to use uranium fission to heat a steam generator, rapidly converting stored water into high-pressure steam which could then be used to drive a set of turbines. One steam turbine would provide the torque to propel the car while another would drive an electrical generator. Steam would then be condensed back into water in a cooling loop, and sent back to the steam generator to be reused. Such a closed system would allow the reactor to produce power as long as fissile material remained.

Using this system, designers anticipated that a typical Nucleon would travel about 5,000 miles per charge. Because the powerplant was an interchangeable component, owners would have the freedom to select a reactor configuration based on their personal needs, ranging anywhere from a souped-up uranium guzzler to a low-torque, high-mileage version. And without the noisy internal combustion and exhaust of conventional cars, the Nucleon would be relatively quiet, emitting little more than a turbine whine.

http://philosophyofscienceportal.blogsp ... tomic.html and http://davidszondy.com/future/atomic/ford.htm

I say we revisit the Nucleon. Let's get ourselves off of fossil fuels!

[Jason]

A solution to our energy problem? Or, just a pipe dream?

Ford’s engineers imagined a world in which full-service recharging stations would one day supplant petroleum fuel stations, where depleted reactors could be swapped out for fresh ones lickety-split. The car’s reactor setup was essentially the same as a nuclear submarine’s, but miniaturized for automobile use. It was designed to use uranium fission to heat a steam generator, rapidly converting stored water into high-pressure steam which could then be used to drive a set of turbines. One steam turbine would provide the torque to propel the car while another would drive an electrical generator. Steam would then be condensed back into water in a cooling loop, and sent back to the steam generator to be reused. Such a closed system would allow the reactor to produce power as long as fissile material remained.

Using this system, designers anticipated that a typical Nucleon would travel about 5,000 miles per charge. Because the powerplant was an interchangeable component, owners would have the freedom to select a reactor configuration based on their personal needs, ranging anywhere from a souped-up uranium guzzler to a low-torque, high-mileage version. And without the noisy internal combustion and exhaust of conventional cars, the Nucleon would be relatively quiet, emitting little more than a turbine whine.

http://philosophyofscienceportal.blogsp ... tomic.html and http://davidszondy.com/future/atomic/ford.htm

I say we revisit the Nucleon. Let's get ourselves off of fossil fuels!

Or the Chrysler turbine concept. Less fallout.

[klr]

The car of the future:

[Tyrannical]

Don't forget Project Orion.
It was a giant space ship that shot small nukes out the back and road the blast wave.

[klr]

Don't forget Project Orion.
It was a giant space ship that shot small nukes out the back and road the blast wave.

Project Orion! Now we're talking serious transport.

[Don't Panic]

If we could develop more efficient thermocouple technology, RTGs could be a viable option, although lots of fissionable(but not fissile, like in a reactor) material being available may not be a good thing.

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

Pipe dream, I hope.
I don't like the idea of nuclear powered cars running around. What happens when there is pile-up on the motorway or one gets hit by a train at a level crossing?

[Coito ergo sum]

Pipe dream, I hope.
I don't like the idea of nuclear powered cars running around. What happens when there is pile-up on the motorway or one gets hit by a train at a level crossing?

Probably would be safer than with 20 gallons of gasoline in the back...

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

I'll stick with diesel if I ever get another car, that is.

Seriously though, you don't see potential problems with contamination, etc?

[Schneibster]

Actually, there are a couple "small fusion" projects going on, more or less the "Mr. Fusion" of the movies, that might pan out to something like this, or anyway on this order of magnitude. They don't blow up or spew radioactivity in a crash, either, and they don't make much if any radioactive waste, particularly not compared to fission. Because of the waste problem doing this with fission is ludicrous. Far better and more efficient to make electric cars and use fission reactors to generate the electricity, in that case.

[Warren Dew]

Every auto accident could become a miniature Chernobyl!

[Horwood Beer-Master]

The car of the future:

...Or indeed the past.


Seriously though, I seem to remember on an episode of Coast (I think), it was mentioned that some people once had the idea of giant nuclear-powered hovercraft crossing the Atlantic one day.

[Schneibster]

Fission (and the fusion tried so far) requires a large physical plant and generates dangerous waste. If we had a solution for the waste problem, we could deal with having to make and maintain a physical plant. Both have the major advantage that they don't generate carbon directly. I suspect we'll see a fair bit of this, once we get things figured out so we can do it more safely than we do now. A lot of that has to do with greed undermining safety, and that's a general problem we're working on right now as a race. One in seven to one in twenty of us is a sociopath, and until we figure out how to stop them they will rip us off and fuck things up on a regular basis. Deal with that and things become much easier with nuclear energy, because we only have to deal with the inherent dangers, not the ones manufactured by idiots being too cheap to maintain the physical plants.

[Tero]

Here is the solution: wood chips engine

[Schneibster]

What are you, a member of the US Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 19th Century Energy?