Nuclear road car can be powered by 8 grams of thorium for the rest of its life - Polidicks

Reserve estimates puts the global Thorium yield at anywhere between 1.9 to 2.8 million tons - that would comfortably suit for over one billion cars, which is roughly how many we have at this moment.

I had an idea like this once. Except the idea was that a starter battery heated a coil inserted into fuel area that was filled with water. The water changed to steam, turned the turbine, and powered the battery. Dunno the practicality of it though.

[QUOTE=SweetSwifter;42555970]Isn't Thorium about ten times as common in the Earth than uranium? We don't need to synthesize it, unless you mean the enrichment process.[/QUOTE] The isotope thorium-232 is more common than Uranium in the Earth, but that alone isn't enough, you would need a more radioactive isotope, which isn't more common, and in most cases is synthesised (with great difficulty).

[QUOTE=Bradyns;42556337]The isotope thorium-232 is more common than Uranium in the Earth, but that alone isn't enough, you would need a more radioactive isotope, which isn't more common, and in most cases is synthesised (with great difficulty).[/QUOTE] Ah, that would explain it.

This car will give you cancer :v: But seriously, The entire point of a reactor is a fancy way of boiling water. Not worth the risk Imo

[QUOTE=Alxnotorious;42555830]That is the dumbest looking futuristic concept car render I have ever seen.[/QUOTE] People driving Model T's 100 years ago would have said the same thing about today's cars.

[QUOTE=Stiffy360;42556375]This car will give you cancer :v: But seriously, The entire point of a reactor is a fancy way of boiling water. Not worth the risk Imo[/QUOTE] Thorium is pretty dense. 8g really isn't a lot. I feel like you could easily contain it, and it's unlikely to blow up because of both its size and because the container would be designed to prevent that.

I smell bullshit.

Keep dreaming. No way in hell that the NHTSA, EPA, or NTSB would ever approve one of these driving on any type of road.

According to Wikipedia's data on Thorium reserves and assuming the OP is true, you could make 55,000,000,000 vehicles gas-free for life with the U.S. Thorium reserves alone.

[QUOTE=Stiffy360;42556375]This car will give you cancer :v: But seriously, The entire point of a reactor is a fancy way of boiling water. Not worth the risk Imo[/QUOTE] Thorium is remarkably stable and generates little in the way of gamma and beta radiation. Meanwhile instead of driving a car around with 8 grams of stuff that might hurt you if you were to literally inhale it, you drive around with 10+ gallons of ridiculously flammable and carcinogenic liquid pumping through your car, which in turn uses controlled explosions to generate forward momentum. Oh, and it is slowly killing the environment in the process, even when operating as intended. Remind me again why a thorium laser based propulsion is a bad thing?

[QUOTE=Johnny Guitar;42555557]What happens when you crash?[/QUOTE] FISSION MAILED!

Do you get a healthy glow after the first year?

[QUOTE=GunFox;42557093]Thorium is remarkably stable and generates little in the way of gamma and beta radiation. Meanwhile instead of driving a car around with 8 grams of stuff that might hurt you if you were to literally inhale it, you drive around with 10+ gallons of ridiculously flammable and carcinogenic liquid pumping through your car, which in turn uses controlled explosions to generate forward momentum. Oh, and it is slowly killing the environment in the process, even when operating as intended. Remind me again why a thorium laser based propulsion is a bad thing?[/QUOTE] B-B-But it's nuclear!!!

[QUOTE=Turnips5;42555675]think for half a second: exactly how are you going to have a steam turbine in a car? this is such obvious nonsense[/QUOTE] The steam turbine isn't the problem... Steam engines were used to power road vehicles as early as 1880. They just weren't very efficient. Actually, a lot of the early coal-burning velocipedes are really interesting, because their engines parallel the systems proposed for nuclear vehicles. At its basest, a nuclear-powered car is just a steam-powered car with a nuclear heating element. And we already know how to do half that. It's still a silly idea, though, since the smallest available Thorium reactors are the size of minivans. Remarkably portable, all things considering, but not portable enough for a consumer vehicle.

So how hard would it be to remove the thorium and create a nuclear ied?

Steampunk could actually become a reality. Woah.

[QUOTE=woolio1;42557293]The steam turbine isn't the problem... Steam engines were used to power road vehicles as early as 1880. They just weren't very efficient. Actually, a lot of the early coal-burning velocipedes are really interesting, because their engines parallel the systems proposed for nuclear vehicles. At its basest, a nuclear-powered car is just a steam-powered car with a nuclear heating element. And we already know how to do half that. It's still a silly idea, though, since the smallest available Thorium reactors are the size of minivans. Remarkably portable, all things considering, but not portable enough for a consumer vehicle.[/QUOTE] How much has been put into miniaturising thorium reactors, out of interest? I assume Nasa, ESA and the like have done research into it, but it might be one of the things that just needs some people actually attempting to do to decrease the size requirements. Or we could all just have fuckhuge thorium powered monstertrucks.

[QUOTE=a-cookie;42555567][img_thumb]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Operation_Upshot-Knothole_-_Badger_001.jpg[/img_thumb][/QUOTE] Hollywood is going to like this.

[QUOTE=ReFreshe;42557388]So how hard would it be to remove the thorium and create a nuclear ied?[/QUOTE] AFAIK, thorium cannot be used at all to create an uncontrolled reaction, as it can't sustain a nuclear chain reaction without being primed - it stops splitting at a rapid rate if it's not primed, so it just decays normally. I think you can get U-233 (which could be used for weapons, like U-235 and Pu-239) from it, but it's very, very hard to do that from a thorium reactor, and you'd need a substantial amount, whilst being about as subtle as a bull in a china shop due to the size of the setup. You might get the worlds shittiest dirty bomb if you broke it up and strapped it to a brick of explosives but you've only got 8 grammes of it, so the risk is minimal, especially since the box would be locked up tight. I'm going to be a bit off on details, but I'm sure JoMo will come around and fix us up with details.

What makes me wonder is why they would use a laser to heat up the water. Why not just the heat from the reaction?

[QUOTE=Alxnotorious;42555830]That is the dumbest looking futuristic concept car render I have ever seen.[/QUOTE] Someone has never played a Bethesda Fallout game.

These ultra-sleek and Deus-Ex designs kill the whole, "Atomic Age" feel of nuclear powered cars. [t]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6i7gBwBSmhI/TW1esjfanVI/AAAAAAAAH3Y/gP3ViKmd3os/s1600/1955%2BFord%2BMystere%2BConcept%2BCar.jpg[/t] That's a sexy car. If someone told me that I could have a nuclear powered car that resembled most cars between the Late 1940's and Mid 1960's, I would start throwing money in an instant.

[QUOTE=Chryseus;42556739]I smell bullshit.[/QUOTE] It is, from the reddit post: [quote] And sadly, this isn't even remotely real. I found myself asking "the fuck is a thorium laser?" and the answer is, well... [url=http://granades.com/2011/09/16/in-which-i-use-scientific-reasoning-to-doubt-the-thorium-powered-car/]extensive writeup on why this is bullshit[/url] [url=http://www.laserpowersystems.com/]crappy, sparkly website of creator[/url] [/quote]

I just looked at how much it really is. [B]$1640[/B] USD for 25mmx25mmx0.0125mm. With the volume of that being 7.81mm^3 or 0.00781cm^3. The density is 11.72g per 1cm^3. So that little 25mmx25mm sheet is 0.09g. Going off of Shorties "7,500 gal Gas to 1g" that means that our little sheet is equivalent to 675 gallons of gas. In hindsight if we take 675 gallons of gas at $3.70 per gallon that's [B]$2497[/B]. This makes it actually really cheap for use. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw more of this stuff in the future.

thorium doesn't have an energy density high enough to replace 7,500 gallons of fuel [editline]17th October 2013[/editline] this shit was debunked 2 years ago [url]http://granades.com/2011/09/16/in-which-i-use-scientific-reasoning-to-doubt-the-thorium-powered-car/[/url]

[QUOTE=Alxnotorious;42555830]That is the dumbest looking futuristic concept car render I have ever seen.[/QUOTE] [IMG]http://static.neatorama.com/images/2009-01/world-thorium-fuel-cadillac-concept.jpg[/IMG] What is this monstrosity.

i was doing my thermodynamics homework when i saw this and laughed... i know its nuclear, and nuclear decay does kinda seem cheaty in the ways of thermodynamics, but still 8 grams of fuel to replace 7500 gallons of gas.....the curiosity rover (i know its RTG) uses like 8 lbs of a more heat productive fuel to generate a few hundred watts a day, the casini space probe used 80 lbs of a better fuel to generate a larger amount of power, but not nearly enough to run your average car for decades [editline]17th October 2013[/editline] also you can only get about 35-40% efficiencies in any steam engine (which this is) which i think his numbers are like calculated based on a 100% efficiency.

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[QUOTE=ReFreshe;42557388]So how hard would it be to remove the thorium and create a nuclear ied?[/QUOTE] Thorium cannot sustain the fission required for a thermonuclear weapon. You'd typically use U235, U238, or P239 for that. [editline]17th October 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Terminutter;42557438]How much has been put into miniaturising thorium reactors, out of interest? I assume Nasa, ESA and the like have done research into it, but it might be one of the things that just needs some people actually attempting to do to decrease the size requirements. Or we could all just have fuckhuge thorium powered monstertrucks.[/QUOTE] DARPA is currently concepting a field-deployable thorium reactor for military installations. It's still ten to fifteen years out, though, so they're probably in-use today. [editline]17th October 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Morcam;42558273]This is why I only ever inject myself with 8 grams of cyanide at a time. It's only 8 grams anyways. I'm not saying thorium is a bad or unsafe energy source, but really? "It's only 8 grams anyways"???[/QUOTE] Well, eight grams of thorium is a lot safer than, say, eight grams of plutonium, or cesium, or any of the heavy elements. Actually, I think you can buy thorium from Fisher Scientific for laboratory experimentation. EDIT: Yes, you can! [url]http://www.fishersci.com/ecomm/servlet/Search?keyWord=Thorium&store=Scientific&nav=0&offSet=0&storeId=10652&langId=-1&fromSearchPage=1&searchType=PROD[/url]