Nuclear Powered Automobile

Well, it's been designed, but not built:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

I figure the problem would be an accident could contaminate a city.

Very interesting link, I never knew that Ford or anyone else for that matter had designed anything like it.

I have learned my new thing for the day.

Thanks Bricktop!

Another interesting link on the Nucleon:

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

There's a lot of things that have been designed.

You read a scienc fiction novel. Chances are the ideas that the writer came up with came from observations they made at places like JPL laboratories, or reading the notes of scientists.

Things like one David Niven novel where the earth is attacked by these elephant looking aliens and earth hasn't done anything in space exploration yet.

The poeple on earth make a space craft that they launch into space by exploding a series of nuclear bombs under a huge iron plate.

Sounds far fetched but the fact is the idea came for Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena California. JPL even has a room set aside for SciFi writers to observe and get material for their next novels.

All those far fetched ideas that you see on Scifi have been at one time theorized and worked out on paper by scientists, some were even going to be produced but later scrapped to give way to someone with a more popular idea.

"This will reduce emissions"

So what you have suggested is to swap one environmental poison for another that is more hazardous.

Then who would be able to afford the liability insurance?

I know it sounds weird, as there are lot more limitations & hazards.

However, there must be some way to deal with them.

As I already mentioned someday we will find some solution. I am here to enquire about that only.

hehe, Dare to image, but to do it carefully.

Half centure, people wish to build a tiny reactor fo r cilve use. but havnt implemented yet. take advantage of atomic energy peacefully have been wishing in our humanbeen.

We can build the car what we need now is to find a way to get rid of the waste. Which we have stock piles of.

Would time not be better spent to find a renewable resource to provide energy? Earths resources are not unlimited. Future generations would face the same problems with a nuclear car.

Researchers have been trying for more than 40 years to come up with a safe way to encapsulate less-than-critical-mass spent nuclear material which still may be used for generation of heat or steam without irradiating people or stuff around it. So far, no dice. One of the main problems is the degrading effects which radiation has on encapsulating materials, including lead glass, concrete, lead, etc. Some work well for a while but break down eventually.

Governments and societies don't like the idea of people having easy access to nuclear fuel either. Great pains are taken to control and keep inventories of fissionable materials.

Good idea though . . .

I really think that we need to do away with the oil-fuel as early as possible. They are a very good fuel source so we need to preserve it for any future emergency situations & needless to say their harmful emission should also be avoided.

Hybrid cars, battery operated cars are there, but a lot of efficiency, cost, usage factors are there. Why I thought of nuclear power is its efficiency. Waste products can be thrown in space.

I don't know, why the hell we produced the first application of nuclear energy as a bomb. It has created terror in the minds of people, but we need to look at it from different point of view, again keeping safe practices in mind.

"Why I thought of nuclear power is its efficiency. Waste products can be thrown in space."

Not a good idea. Just imagine what would happen if the launcher blows up in mid-air.

I believe our government all ready has several things that operate off nuclear power. When building the Super Tankers back in the 1970's at the Newport News Shipyard several of us watched a small hover unit come off the James River in front of a Liquidified Natural Gas Tanker that was being finished at the north dock. We were about 600 yards away of a night with a full moon. This hoover craft moved up by the bow and slowly moved to the super structire and then up and over it and down to the aft hoovering about 20 ft above the deck.

We watched as this device moved to the front of the dry dock and then came over the bow and deck of the ship we stood on. We got a good look at it from the top when it came near the super structure of our ship and it moved up the outside till it was over our heads on top of the super structure. It made a sound I related to a fan on steriods. Shaped like the number 8 with a flat back end and a elongated front end.

It was obvious it had cameras in it with the small panes on each side. We debated as to if it was USA or Russian at the time. Then Roger hit it with a full can of Pepsi and it flew away.

What else could have powered a device like that back in the 70's but Nuclear?

Hi dadw5boys,

You are quite right!

Way back in the 1970s the Americans had a nuclear powered tanker that was designed to break through the ice in the north-west passage, at the time I was working as an engineer at a Nowegian shipyard and we followed this project in trepidation.

But can can you imagine what would happen if we had nuclear powered road vehicles?

In the 1980s the British coast regulators (Trinity House) decided that they should carry out experiments with nuclear powered signal bhoys in main sea channels, this worked very well but was cancelled because of the threat of terrorists getting hold of enough fissable material!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spencer.

pc,

Your neighborhood nuclear plant has dealt with the hazards of nuclear fuel. Expensively to be sure, but with economies of scale, available to you via the power grid quite reasonably. So plug in your electric vehicle for a recharge, or generate some hydrogen for your ic engine, and let them worry about the radiation safety.

LG_DAVE

The main problem I see is not technical. Almost all technical problems can be solved one or other way (radiation shielding, waste disposal....).

The problem is "human factors". How to design a stupid proof nuclear reactor?

Driving such a car would need (more than the usual driving license) a Reactor Operator License issued by the National Regulatory Body? (NRC in the US, UKAEA in the UK, STUK in Finland, CSN in Spain).

And even if we forget stupids ones, what about fundamentalists? (well I admit they are also stupids, but a specifically dangerous type)

We should solve those problems before thinking introducing such a car in the global market. Someone disagree?

Kind regards

Do a google on a CANDU Reactor - it runs on unenriched fuel and can even use waste from other reactors. Big Ed

No need of google on CANDU nor any other reactor type after 35 years of nuclear field experience.

Or do you think the Chernobyl's accident was due to the high enrichment of fuel? There are no big differences regarding fuel between Candu and RBMK type reactors

The problem isn't the enrichment level of fuel. Even fourth generation of PWR and BWR uses slightly enriched fuel, not directly useful for other "misuse" as experiments on quick sublimation of human beings. While using U-235 as fissile material it's necessary big plants for enrichment the fuel to military levels. A different thing is the "byproduct" of any U-235 fed plant (regardless the enrichment level): Pu-239. And plutonium is quite easy to separate by chemical methods and critical mass is really low.

Don't we have violence enough with present weapons available to common people?

Do we need to allow them to use nukes?

Nuclear power is really dangerous if allowed to use by non well trained people (even forgetting stupidity and fundamentalism).

Just read the contributions of Admiral Rickover to the Kemmeny Commission during investigation of TMI-2 accident.

Kind regards

Easy. Generate the juice safely elsewhere and connect the vehicle to a power grid in the road, like this.

Didn't Sylvester Stallone and Sandra Bullock drive something along these lines in 2037 in Demolition Man?

VG idea!!! Just unplug the reactor from the old body and plug it in the new one.

Back in the '50's many options were considered. Some, like nuclear power generating stations, were at least partially successful. Others, like using atomic bombs to excavate canals, were dismal failures. The Nucleon fell into this latter group.

I worked with an engineer in the '80's who, about 20 years before then, was in the US Air Force as a navigator on B52's. He was involved with a project to power a bomber using a nuclear reactor. The Air Force invested quite a lot into the project, but it never got off the ground (is there a pun in here?) because of two things: First, the safety issue if the plane would crash and spread nuclear fuel into the enviornment. Second, the weight of the nuclear reactor significantly reduced the payload the plane could hold.

The only safe use of nuclear reaction in an automobile was "Mr. Fusion" in the movie series "Back to the Future!" And that didn't even run the wheels!

Didn't a couple of test planes get produced?

As i recall i think it was a version of the B-63.

I saw a show on Discovery about this:

http://www.aviation-history.com/articles/nuke-american.htm

Then, an attempt was made for a nuclear powered potato:

Lovely - and informative! I note the concept was "made irrelevant by advances in conventional" powerplants. Maybe...

Well I never went away on a Steam Powered Aero plane.
Well I went and stayed and damn near didn't come back again.
Didn't go very fast on a steam powered aero plane,
Oh the wheel went around, up and down, and inside and then back again.

Sittin' in a 747 just watching them clouds roll by,
Can't tell if it's sunshine or if it's rain.
Rather be sittin' in a deck chair high above Kansas City,
On a genuine old fashioned steam powered aero plane.

Well I'd like to be a pilot on a steam powered aero plane.
Well I'd pull that pilot wheel around and then back again.
Well, I'll wear a blue hat, yeah, that says Steam Powered Aero plane
With letters that go around the rim and then back again.

Very early in my career, I worked with some of the engineers and scientists who had participated in the NB-36 program. They were an interesting and brilliant lot, though at least one still comes to mind when I hear the term "mad scientist". He was a wonderful person, and a tremendously gifted physicist, but looked the part to perfection. I learned much that I use today, 25 years later, from that man.

You mean as far back as the 60s when those experiments took place?

Relax everybody!!! Sixties was a crazy period when everything started to turn upside down and the world never seem to recovered eversince.

Do you honestly think a reactor can be treated so carelessly?

Even on board of an aircraft carrier a reactor is guarded at all times, despite the people on board are trusted members of their farther-land.

It may be alright for some trusted members of the KGB to carry nuclear-spices around the world to put in people's food they hold the grudges against, like Alexander Litvinenko in London.

Also remember 2 years ago, at 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl's disaster, how still all the vehicles used in the clean up operation cannot be approached due to excessive radiation in Ukraine.

I am only saying this because I even used to know people whose relative died as one of those truck drivers who just happened to be passing through the former Sovijetunion at the time, when the Chernobyl accident happened and for years were kept in the dark over their illness.

I saw an exclusive report with Edward Teller, shortly before his death, and he himself said this is a type of invention that could be further improved to make it safer and build smaller more efficient reactors and nothing else.

Talking about using nuclear powered whicles on dry land would give terrorist an immediate opportunity, sooner than you think.

Have you thought about that, all of you?

This is a thought for sci-fie writers or people who have nothing better to do.

It is down right studip to go into it to such length as you have done it.

"It is down right studip to go into it to such length as you have done it."

I might be studip, but it's still fun to talk about anyway.

The problem is that no matter how safely sealed, how able to withstand impact or how shielded to prevent any danger from radiation, the general public would never accept it. The Chicken Littles would run around in panic because of the dread words "Nuclear radiation". Look how they react to cell phones, microwaves, TV screens and irradiated foods [sterilized, no germs]. They think everything from atomic radiation and X-rays up to radio [electromagnetic radiation] is all basically dangerous, because of the word radiation.

Could one be built that would be safe to drive? Yes. Would the public allow it oin the roads? No!! It is the same with steam power, people have been propagandized and indoctrinated with the idea that steam is old fashioned, not worth research and dangerous, so they will not even consider it or even listen to the facts since their minds are made up. Good luck pushing your idea.

The rate at which the conventional fuel resources are being consumed is far greater than the rate of development of an efficient non-conventional resource.

As I have already mentioned we need to preserve them for any future emergency. So, during that transition period (conventional to non-conventional) we must have nuclear fuel as an alternative.

May be more research is needed in the field for better control over the process & highest safety.

Once people are confident about the safety, the fear will lessen.

You could contact the Dept of Homeland Security. They probably have lots of info available to people who want to drive around the country on the back of a nuclear reactor.

There are several problems and possibilities as I see them:

1. Nuclear reactors must be monitored continuously I humbly suggest a nuclear battery instead.

2. Nuclear waste has not truly been dealt with, it has been relocated.

3. Since the supply of petro-chemicals is finite, instead of using the same old inefficient methods of use for them (ICE's, coal fired power plants using Pelton-Curtis steam turbines, etc.) develop and use a more efficient prime mover.

4. Nuclear fusion using HE³ as a fuel source.

Just a thought, Dragon

"Nuclear fusion using HE³ as a fuel source." Likely to be very large and heavy and like the Sun it is still going to be radioactive.

Oil and coal are both finite, but for a time they need to be used. Renewable fuel made from green plants that use the energy from the sun can be used for a very long time.

To use the greatest source of free fusion energy, solar energy, we need a way of storing elecricity that is inexpensive, small, light and safe, a sort of super battery or supercapacitor. We really need a small portable storage device for vehicles and one larger, suitable for power stations.

I still think that a steam-elecric plug-in hybrid would be cleaner, more efficient and less expensive during the period between the present and the invention of the electric storage device needed.

1. Nuclear reactors must be monitored continuously I humbly suggest a nuclear battery instead.

What is nuclear battery?

A funny thing happened last week, I had a dream where I was driving a small car driven by battery, when the battery was done I went to some station to charge it & the person said that it can be charged wirelessly. Though I was in dream I couldn't believe & kept wondering how that was possible? When I was going to ask him, damn! some beautiful lady came & I kept talking to her till I woke up.

I think what he was referring to was solar battery, as it can be charged on solar power, it's wireless charging, isn't it?

My buddy Tesla would have an answer to your question; but alas, he bit the bullet long ago.

There are several designs for nuclear batteries.

The basic design is to enclose a radioactive isotope in a particle reflector and use a silicon cell to absorb the high energy photons given off by the decay.

You can find several designs out on the web.

Regards Dragon