Much like “flying cars”, atomic powered cars were a campy futuristic meme of the 50’s, for example, there was the Ford Nucleon concept:
From Wikipedia: The Ford Nucleon was a scale model concept car developed by Ford Motor Company in 1958 as a design on how a nuclear-powered car might look. The design did not include an internal-combustion engine, rather, the vehicle was to be powered by a small nuclear reactor in the rear of the vehicle, based on the assumption that this would one day be possible based on shrinking sizes. The car was to use a steam engine powered by uranium fission.
It looks a little bit like the Bat mobile from the rear:
Now it looks like we might actually see a real one, using Thorium rather than Uranium, which not only is safer to manage, you don’t have to worry about some terrorist car-jacking your ride for fissile materials.
Here’s the new concept. Thorium could be used in conjunction with a laser and mini turbines to easily produce enough electricity to power a vehicle. When thorium is heated, it generates further heat surges, allowing it to be coupled with mini turbines to produce steam that can then be used to generate electricity. It is said that 1 gram of thorium produces the equivalent energy of 7,500 gallons of gasoline.
Here’s the headline from Ward’s Auto:
U.S. Researcher Preparing Prototype Cars Powered by Heavy-Metal Thorium
By Keith Nuthall
A U.S. company says it is getting closer to putting prototype electric cars on the road that will be powered by the heavy-metal thorium.
Thorium is a naturally occurring, slightly radioactive rare-earth element discovered in 1828 by the Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius, who named it after Thor, the Norse god of thunder. It is found in small amounts in most rocks and soils, where it is about three times more abundant than uranium.
…
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.
Small blocks of thorium generate heat surges that are configured as a thorium-based laser, Stevens tells Ward’s. These create steam from water within mini-turbines, generating electricity to drive a car.
A 250 MW (I think this is a typo, they probably mean KW – Anthony) unit weighing about 500 lbs. (227 kg) would be small and light enough to drop under the hood of a car, he says.
Jim Hedrick, a specialist on industrial minerals – and until last year the U.S. Geological Survey’s senior advisor on rare earths – tells Ward’s the idea is “both plausible and sensible.”
…
Stevens says his company should be able to place a prototype on the road within two years. The firm has 40 employees and operates out of an in-house research workshop.
 View Chart Larger |
Hedrick, the industrial minerals expert, says 7,500 gallons is “way more gasoline than an average person uses in a year. Switching to thorium-driven cars would make the U.S. energy self-sufficient, and carbon emissions would plummet.
“It would eliminate the major need for oil,” he says. “The main (remaining) demand would be for asphalt for roadways, natural gas, plastics and lubricants.”
Full story here.
=============================================================
I want one. 8 grams of Thorium in a V shaped reactor block. The new atomic V-8. The only downside is that I won’t be able to overhaul the engine myself as I would imagine the Thorium would be in a sealed power module. I might add, that this endeavor sounds a little bit like a Tucker, long on promise, short on delivery.
=============================================================
ADDENDUM:
I published this story late Friday night at 1AM and then went on a trip the next day, I was surprised to learn that people missed my cues and thought I took the Ward’s article seriously. I thought the headline and first sentence set the tone with “flying cars” and “campy”.
Few seemed to understand the Tucker comment at the end either:
“I might add, that this endeavor sounds a little bit like a Tucker, long on promise, short on delivery.”
The Tucker was a car sold on futuristic promises in the mind of a man that hadn’t actually designed or built the car. Preston Tucker floated the concept in Science Illustrated magazine in December 1946 followed by a full page advertisement in March 1947 in many national newspapers claiming “How 15 years of testing produced the car of the year”. He was immediately overwhelmed with pre-orders for a car that didn’t even exist on paper. Hence my comment: “I want one”.
Tucker then got a bunch of investors together to try to fill orders, and got some government help with loan of a WWII supply factory that had been idled after the war. The factory eventually produced 50 cars, but it was too late, as many had lost confidence and he was embroiled in an SEC investigation and court trial over investor funds.
The cars finally produced didn’t have many of the futuristic features that had been promised early on. Some were there, and Tucker was credited with inspiring improved auto safety as a result.
I thought my reference to a Tucker automobile was about as strong a label as anyone could make as the promises of this thorium car being hyped. The parallel seemed obvious.
I guess next time I’ll have to be more explicit. with a /sarc tag – Anthony
Dave says:
“Could it be that the thorium is compressed via a shock wave induced when its surface ablates in response to the laser? Such phenomenon is being commercially exploited on other materials…”
All we have to do is figure out how to ‘lase’ the atoms of some element – say iron – and then we could ‘cold’ weld two rods together by simply intersecting one rod with the other while they are mutually out of phase with each other, and then discontinue their ‘lasing’ so that the atoms return to their normal random states.
I believe the carnot efficiency limits the performance of an automobile based on a heat source, rather than a battery or an internal combustion engine. The temperature of a nuclear reaction with a purely thermal output must be limited to the thermal properties of the coolant, which means that for any mechanical power output, a lot of waste heat is generated, which needs to be disposed of. Nuclear cars based on a heat source with a working fluid would seem to be extremely limited in potential.
I sometimes contemplate this as I do my gym treadmill exercise. Assuming I am 30 percent efficient, and my temperature is 38 degrees C, then somewhere in my body there is a process whose peak temperature is 170 degrees C generating that power.
Assuming that 250 megawatts in a 500 pound power plant is a typo and it’s supposed to be 250 kilowatts that’s still a very respectable power to weight ratio of 0.66 horsepower per pound.
The venerable Lycoming O-360 family of aircraft power plants, probably the most common piston aircraft engine in the world, has a power-to-weight ratio of 0.60-0.64 horsepower per pound. Given the “thorium” motor would practically never need refueling it would be able to stay aloft indefinitely. It could circle the globe many times without ever landing.
Ya think that’s more than a wild fantasy? Really?
Anthony, I appreciate your posting something different from the normal routine.
For those who dismiss the idea that “heating” a fissionable source can’t give off energy, we should be reminded that this is basically how a nuclear bomb works. When external explosives compress fissile material through shock waves, it sustains a chain reaction because the material becomes denser. Maybe their idea is to use a laser to both generate neutrons and created a pressure shock wave to create a subcritical mass, which produces large pulses of heat though conventional neutron-generated fission.
This engine will kind of make you think twice before stomping on the gas.
Just for reference, One of the later proposed methods of accomplishing Fusion Power is called “Inertial Confinement” which sounds similar to what was proposed here with thorium. This is from the Wikepedia:
“Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) is a process where nuclear fusion reactions are initiated by heating and compressing a fuel target, typically in the form of a pellet that most often contains a mixture of deuterium and tritium.
“To compress and heat the fuel, energy is delivered to the outer layer of the target using high-energy beams of laser light, electrons or ions, although for a variety of reasons, almost all ICF devices to date have used lasers.”
It is my understanding that this method has yet to produce more energy than that required to compress the pellets.
Thanks kadaka (KD Knoebel) says: August 13, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Eloquently stated.
This is quoting the words (as Willis requests) Hey-how much thorium you got under your hood
I thoroughly enjoyed this book recently, John Frawley, ‘A Surgical Life- dreaming things that never were‘
The attention Dr Frawley in his life career, of building on previous research, possibly early galvinism and as so beautifully described in his book, followed upon one remarkable scientist.
Reading A Surgical Life is an illuminating example of good science and celebration of exactly the opposite of _Jim says: August 13, 2011 at 9:16 am
• The failure to thoroughly research what has gone before and then to carefully build upon it.
http://www.copyright.net.au/details.php?id=128
Thank you for posting the article Anthony, I learned much reading this. As always 🙂
for John Barrett says: August 13, 2011 at 4:41 am and John in NZ says:
August 13, 2011 at 12:03 pm pinched from Pajamas Media link, below with reference to hood
LoL “Wikipedia”….
Ha ha ha HaH
HoH Ho Ho Ho Ha Ha heeeEE HE!
I don’t think fission fuel heats up because it becomes denser. Rather the neutrons emitted by natural decay tend to strike other nucleii causing more neutrons to be emitted, and if a particular geometric arrangement occurs so that each neutron generates more than one neutron a positive feedback chain reaction results. This positive feedback for a bomb is so rapid that explosives must be used to generate the required geometric arrangement, otherwise the fuel will fly apart and only a whimper will result.
However it is easy to envisage nuclear energy generating enough power for a car. The problems lie in the transmission of that power to the wheels.
“Is this accurate? I’ve never known heat to increase density.”
Off topic: I remember reading in a science mag about how scientists had invented a complex molecule that did just that. Normally cold makes matter shrink and heat makes matter expand. But they way they laid it out used hinge-type motion to force it smaller.
More on subcritical Thorium reactors and commentary thereon:
http://energy2050.se/uploads/files/rubbia2.pdf
http://helian.net/blog/2010/09/01/nuclear-weapons/subcritical-thorium-reactors-dr-rubbias-really-bad-idea/
Yes, a consistency … good science builds on prior work … correct (just to be clear)?
(IOW, it is the pseudo-scien that ‘fail to research’, unlike Dr. Frawley as per your post who did ‘build on previous research’. Note, too, I excerpted those words from a work by author Don Lancaster; I am ‘building on the previous work of another’ …)
.
I just got back from my survey trip. I guess nobody got the satire in my last sentence. Even Lubos missed it.
_Jim says: August 13, 2011 at 8:05 pm
Correct, a consistency … good science builds on prior work … correct (just to be clear)?
Yes, that statement is correct _Jim, and in relation to Dr Frawley’ work in vascular surgery and transplants.
Though serendipiditious moments can occur which may lead to new discoveries in science? Presumably when the person is schooled in the scientific method and can check that serendipitious observation [moment] step by step? And then disseminate or publish such. Madame Curie being one eg I expect.
Anthony
Brian Haskell says: August 13, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Didn’t Brian with unobtainium get your satire?
I think the primary argument against using nuclear power in transport is that every major collision becomes a mini-Fukushima event with a full Hazmat response required. A better option would be to use fixed power station sites that would either produce electricity for electric vehicles or provide power for the production of an artificial gasoline equivalent in one form or another. The latter would be required for aircraft.
MW/KW It is interesting to note that when you hear a radio station announce that they are broadcasting 50,000 watts of clear power they are saying, in effect, that they have a 67 horsepower signal.
Even though they cant make a fissile weapon I think thorium could be used by terrorists. If this whole idea isnt some venture capitalist honey trap, surely terrorists could make a radiation problem in a public place with the engine from this unlikely vehicle by just removing any radiation shielding and turning the key to start the reaction?
G. Karst said:
August 13, 2011 at 10:40 am
“OR a 1kw room heater which outputs for 25000 hrs.
Why does everyone assume a instantaneous power output? Even though, the time unit was dropped from the rating, why does everyone jump to the more ridiculous interpretation of instantaneous power??”
I agree, as I write this, your reply seemed to be the only one that mentioned this possible source of confusion
When I read Anthony’s original post and saw the 250 MW claim, I knew instantly that this was either a typo, miscalculation, or possibly confusion created by incomplete expression of engineering units.
After considering the possibility of KW verses MW, I dismissed that, because it would still put the vehicle at the higher end of the range of conventional vehicle power units. Since no time units were given, I wondered if it might be an annual, or life of plant estimate, as is often presented in press releases by wind, solar or “green”[sic] technology promoters.
I don’t have a ready reference for heating value of the gasoline and corn squeezin’ mix (gasoshine?) we put in our cars, but I was able to estimate that it should have in the range of 100,000 to 130,000 Btu/gal. So, using a heating value of 115,000 Btu/gal, 7,500 gallons of gasoshine releases about 863 million Btu.
Now the question is; how many megawatts is that. By definition, a Btu is about 1054.8 Joules, and a Watt is 1 Joule per second. So if we release 8.63 E8 Btu’s, we would release about 910 gigaoules. If we were to do that in one second, we would be releasing 910 GW. Perhaps sensationalism wasn’t the goal, since the claim is only 250 MW. But, if we were to release the 910 GJ over the course of an hour, we would release about 253 MW. So, I think the 250 MW should have been expressed in either joules, or as 250 MWht (megawatt-hours, thermal), over the life of the gram of thorium. The power output of the nukemobile’s motor is unknown.
Still, if there is a way to induce and control slow fission of the atoms in a gram thorium with a laser, so as to supply enough useful heat to drive a Carnot cycle, or any other heat-to-power cycle, on a scale adequate to power a car we;; enough to keep up with traffic; that would be cool. Imagine pulling up next to to a Prius, in one of those.
And, even if the heat to power conversion were only 20% as efficient as an internal combustion engine, and only 25% of the gram of thorium were useful, there will probably be a demand for new public restrooms, since fill-ups will be more than 10 K miles apart.
Hopefully China or India will be building them soon, so we can get on a waiting list for a used one, because here in the US, we just won’t have the energy..
Correction: well, not we;;
Still, if there is a way to induce and control slow fission of the atoms in a gram thorium with a laser, so as to supply enough useful heat to drive a Carnot cycle, or any other heat-to-power cycle, on a scale adequate to power a car well enough to keep up with traffic; that would be cool. Imagine pulling up next to to a Prius, in one of those.
Anthony;
And you’re so insistent that commenters use sarc/ /sarc tags to avoid unnecessary flame wars! (As opposed, of course, to necessary ones …)
Share the sauce, gander. 😉
REPLY: I suppose that is what I get for posting at 1AM. – Anthony
Anthony Watts says:
August 13, 2011 at 8:30 pm
I just got back from my survey trip. I guess nobody got the satire in my last sentence. Even Lubos missed it.
I wondered why nobody snipped my cheeky remark. 😉
I assume he is refering to 250MW(th), i.e. thermal output. No way the system he describes includes a radiator big enough to get rid of that much heat, it would be the size of a house.
Scorn not those who dream of creating the impossible, for without them we would be in a quagmire of eternal sameness, those inventive minds of new thought are all we have for a future.
On the very day that Wilber and Orville
flew, science declared heavier than air flight impossible.
They forgot to look outside and see birds doing the impossible, even some dinosaurs learned how to fly. I think that not one scientist weighed a bird to see if they were heavier than air.
Oft times the impossible becomes the improbable only to become that is so obvious we should have all seen that coming.
Diss not everything different for many things may prove to be immutable.
peter_ga says:
August 13, 2011 at 4:50 pm
“I sometimes contemplate this as I do my gym treadmill exercise. Assuming I am 30 percent efficient, and my temperature is 38 degrees C, then somewhere in my body there is a process whose peak temperature is 170 degrees C generating that power.”
Muscle cells are ion engines not heat engines so Carnot Efficiency doesn’t apply.
But if they were heat engines you’d be correct. A minimum of 170C. Higher depending on parasitic losses.
Anthony Watts says:
August 13, 2011 at 8:30 pm
Vaguely rings a bell, but being a skier, I think of Tucker Snow-cat first.
How about
http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/showroom/1948/tucker.html
http://www.crawfordsworld.com/rob/apmicro/tucker/TheBigThree.htm
Sorry, before my time (/needle), and I didn’t see the movie. The “250 MW” puzzle was the main challenge that caught my eye.
The Wright Brother were not successful in their heavier than air flight
because of the turgidity of their prose, but
because, unlike others, they got their physics and engineering right.