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

[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 [B]size of minivans. [/B]Remarkably portable, all things considering, but not portable enough for a consumer vehicle.[/QUOTE] well minivans are the size of minivans so just slap some wheels on it and we're golden

All of them better fucking come pre-loaded with this on the stereo: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jxn1sqAQ-c[/media] (this is actually my ringtone, i love it so much.)

[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] yeah, I looked at some stuff on wikipedia after posting and discovered that steam cars were actually a thing at one point and are still the subjects of projects and stuff. I was mainly concerned with how cooling/recondensing is supposed to work, and the article confirmed that this is the main problem: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_car[/url] [quote]The single largest restriction is the need to supply feedwater to the boiler. This must either be carried and frequently replenished, or the car must also be fitted with a condenser, a further weight and inconvenience.[/quote]

[QUOTE=bdd458;42557629]Someone has never played a Bethesda Fallout game.[/QUOTE] I don't see fins on that shit in the OP.

I don't think the energy of this works out. The energy you get from 8g of thorium-232 decaying *completely* is 3.78 megawatt-hours. Thorium-232 decays into Radium-228, which decays into Actinium-228 (giving off negligible energy in the process, since it's just beta decay). Actinium-228 beta-decays into Thorium-228, which decays into Radium-224 netting you another 5.11MWh. This decays into Radon-220 for another 5.36MWh, which decays into Polonium-216 for another 5MWh or so (can't find the exact figures), which decays into Lead-212. Lead-212 beta-decays into Bismuth-212 (again, not much energy). Bismuth-212 either beta-decays into Polonium-212 (2/3rds of the time) or alpha-decays into Thallium-208 (1/3rd of the time, giving around 1MWh). Thallium-208 beta-decays into Lead-208 which is stable. Polonium-212 alpha-decays into the same Lead-208, but gives you something like another 2MWh (the math gets fuzzy around here). That's the complete, 100% theoretical efficiency of this fuel, and it totals up to about 22MWh, which Wolfram Alpha helpfully notes is "1.1 × energy consumed by an average automobile in the United States in 2000". That's at 100% efficiency (*no* mechanical device will run at anything resembling full efficiency), and some of these elements take hundreds of thousands of years to decay. I don't think you'd be able to power a car off 8g of Thorium. It simply doesn't emit that much energy. And even if you did cause it to release more energy, the path still ends at lead, so your total energy release is still 22MWh, which is not a "lifetime" supply of power for a car by any stretch of the imagination.

[QUOTE=GunFox;42557093]Remind me again why a thorium laser based propulsion is a bad thing?[/QUOTE] Because a ten-car pileup on the DC beltway is bad enough without it also becoming an ecological disaster and nuclear incident when a car leaks?

This will go great with the schematics for free energy generator that I can build in home that I found in that tiny advertisement next to the one about Amish built fireplaces at the back of a PopSci magazine.

[QUOTE=woolio1;42558332]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] 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] 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][/QUOTE] 8g of plutonium oxide or uranium is not going to do anything either..... you need like a couple kilos of it to do anything [editline]17th October 2013[/editline] 8g of any heavy element isn't going to do anything except for pu-239 which is an unstable isotobe , as long as you aren't eating it anyways [editline]17th October 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Mingebox;42560385]This will go great with the schematics for free energy generator that I can build in home that I found in that tiny advertisement next to the one about Amish built fireplaces at the back of a PopSci magazine.[/QUOTE] ikr, i didn't know amish built [B]electric faux fire [/b] fireplaces..... at least i've never seen them in actual amish furniture stores

[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] But the possibilities open up by using Thorium since you have a variety of flavors when it comes to the catalyst(?). My memory might be a bit flaky, but if I remember correctly, you just need the catalyst to essentially jump start the reaction process, from there on, Thorium, when set up correctly, can react mostly on its own. But how I think about it, is even if you use Uranium as the key to get Thorium reacting, you'd still end up expanding the supply of usable radioactive material since you wouldn't be solely using Uranium, you're now adding Thorium to the energy-producing materials. But again, a lot of the details leave me, it's been years since I read up about it. [editline]18th October 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=acds;42557606]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] I wondered that too at first, but I think it has something to do with keeping the radiation isolated. I think if they used heat from the reaction to boil the water, to turn the turbine, you'd be dousing everything in radiation. I guess somehow by using a laser, you're avoiding more of that.

no the point is, thorium people always say thorium is this amazing fuel that does all this stuff without any of the problems associated with radioactivity BUT they always are quick to forget that its unable to do any of those things on its own.... it always needs to be combined with some more dangerous fuel to run, and basically you're better off just using a straight single fuel also uranium is way more plentiful than anyone really likes to talk about. in the U.S. there has been uranium in comercial deposits found in 21 states, in the nuclear stockpile alone, we have more than enough fuel to power all new generations of reactors for a century if we really wanted to, this is why i'm sort of against thorium from the get go, because its still not really needed and it usually adds another level of complexity to any reactor design.

That concept car is so beautiful.

[QUOTE=Sableye;42560776]no the point is, thorium people always say thorium is this amazing fuel that does all this stuff without any of the problems associated with radioactivity BUT they always are quick to forget that its unable to do any of those things on its own.... it always needs to be combined with some more dangerous fuel to run, and basically you're better off just using a straight single fuel also uranium is way more plentiful than anyone really likes to talk about. in the U.S. there has been uranium in comercial deposits found in 21 states, in the nuclear stockpile alone, we have more than enough fuel to power all new generations of reactors for a century if we really wanted to, this is why i'm sort of against thorium from the get go, because its still not really needed and it usually adds another level of complexity to any reactor design.[/QUOTE] This is true, for commercial-scale reactors. The thing about Thorium, and Molten Salt in general, is that it allows you to drastically shrink the size of the reactors. A Uranium-Fission unit can be, reliably, the size of a city block. That's after you factor in cooling units, the reactor itself, and everything you would need to drive it. A Molten Salt-Thorium reactor can be much, much smaller. The theoretical minimum is something around three or four cubic feet. DARPA's miniaturization experiments have produced models that can be lugged around in a truck. I forget why... I think it's because, in a molten salt reactor, you're not dealing with ridiculous vapor pressures associated with the steam, so you don't have to have the huge cooling units that you would with a fission reactor. As for the "not being able to do any of these things on its own", it can. It's just difficult. But Uranium's no different, in that regard. With uranium, you have a very specific set of isotopes that can sustain fission. Outside of that, the stuff's practically inert. That's why you have uranium enrichment facilities, to produce fissile material. Thorium works a lot more like a breeder reactor, though, in that once some of it decays to U-233, it keeps going. There's also the bit where it doesn't decay into arms-capable plutonium and uranium, which is useful for military installations.

'Imagine a NEW power generation systems' Yeah no.

[QUOTE=Arsonist;42555599]If they keep the setup inside a box like the black-box on an aeroplane, then not a lot It's only 8 grams anyway[/QUOTE] Generally thorium isn't fissionable, thus no kaboom. However it can be pretty hot so as far as this article is telling us (Unless they're converting thorium into u-233), it'll essentially be like one of those RTG power sources they use on space probes.

Arhg that car render made me gag, whoever made that should be beaten they should just make something like this [img]http://trollscience.com/image/f/full/f7cf80c877c6cbca6bd4149a56a3256f.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=Sableye;42558215]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.[/QUOTE] Don't forget they also want to convert the energy into a laser to shoot it into the water instead of just using the damn heat. Probably thought efficiency was too high and needed to add another process to it.

Well, i'm off mining in Searing Gorge then i guess ([sp]terrible WoW reference joke[/sp]).