Thorium powered car

http://www.adguk-blog.com/2013/10/car-r ... -fuel.html

While i strongly suspect the government is already using this type of engine, i dont see this type of car being used except by the super rich because it would ruin big oil in a heartbeat.

The trick is not to suppress functional technology. There are too many people in the know for that to work effectively. The trick is to buy up the rights to promising patents when they are years away from leading to something useful. Since 99.9% of those things would fail under any circumstances, no one is surprised when any particular idea fails to achieve its hoped for promise.

biochem wrote:The trick is not to suppress functional technology. There are too many people in the know for that to work effectively. The trick is to buy up the rights to promising patents when they are years away from leading to something useful. Since 99.9% of those things would fail under any circumstances, no one is surprised when any particular idea fails to achieve its hoped for promise.

In this case only time will see if it materializes or not

viciokie wrote:http://www.adguk-blog.com/2013/10/car-runs-1-million-miles-with-new-fuel.html

While i strongly suspect the government is already using this type of engine, i dont see this type of car being used except by the super rich because it would ruin big oil in a heartbeat.

Where to start. Oh boy. Ignorance still astounds me in its comprehensive ability to make people say stupid things and do stupid things out of ones innate laziness to even think for a few moments about the consequences of ones statements.

Lets not even address the first moronic tin foil hat statement, or the oil is evil statement, lets just keep it very simple, Try buying Thorium...

Lets assume you can actually buy said thorium and make this engine work, you can't buy thorium so its a non starter, but lets assume you can. Where would the first application for thorium, "magic" energy source be used? To power a car? Or to power nations? Hmm. Hmm.

Thorium has long been positioned to power non proliferating nuclear reactors for power generation. Problem is its efficiency stinks and one can still make "dirty bombs" with it just fine thank you very much. Not like "giant mushroom in thy sky bombs". Like seeding bombs in water sources, fields, cities, etc.

So great, buy a few hundred cars, remove the thorium, and create dirty radiation contamination bombs. Yup, that energy source is going to fuel the worlds cars... In someones utopian universe that is where no one litters or jay walks, let alone covets or kills.

Brilliant deductive reasoning. But deductive reasoning would require not being ignorant, lazy, or both.(Simple research on what Thorium is)

Dont forget car crashes.... one crash, and theres thorium spread around. if the dust is inhaled by bystanders and passengers, instant radiation poisoning from inside.

Choosing my words carefully because I respect all here and don't want to start any flaming, but please forget all such conspiracy theories. We here had our then ultra conservative State Premier years ago putting state money into a hydrogen car that derived its energy from tap water (actually a hidden gas tank), despite any high school student knowing the Laws of Thermodynamics made such impossible. A little thought would show that it is impossible to hide efficient new energy production or storage technology. Anyone involved who knew the secret could become the richest individual on the planet. Very little research happens in a vacuum so if a new angle is found then repressed (why anyway?), it will surface soon on another continent.
You could probably make a mobile artefact using any number of nuclear fission processes, but it would have no road going application due to safety and power to weight practicalities.

Spacekiwi wrote:Dont forget car crashes.... one crash, and theres thorium spread around. if the dust is inhaled by bystanders and passengers, instant radiation poisoning from inside.

Actually, such a reactor would be VERY safe in a car crash. At worst you would have thorium bits laying around, it melts at 1750C, so it won't be slagging anytime soon like Uranium... assuming one somehow managed to crack open a 1/2"-2" thick pressure vessel which I find beyond implausible beyond bad engineering fail safes outside of a cutting torch that is. Note: Car fires would not come even close to 1750C. Could there be special cases... Uhm well, erm, can't think of any. 1750C is damned close to melting IRON and well, that simply never happens outside of a furnace or the center of an oil well fire, or some very specialized chemical plant fires.

Dust? If inhaled in large doses you are correct, except in your fundamental concept of what would actually be inside said reactor. Is lead dangerous? No, not unless ingested. Can lead be turned into a dust? Yes(belt sander, grinder), in a car crash? No.

It is a METAL in its finished form. Metals do not become powders unless abraded continuously big time, exposed to tremendous pressure(explosions). Once again this is a car crash, not a 2000lb TNT bomb detonation! We are not shooting these pellets at 3000ft/s(1000m/s) creating localized pressure and temperatures far in excess of its metallic bond strength. Only time dust would be a problem would be in the manufacturing of said Thorium,"nuggets" from its raw materials containing particulates.

Now Thoriums by products I am not conversant enough to answer if THOSE could become airborne. The answer is probably YES.

Radiation is not a problem except in monstrous doses. Of which Thorium will not give unless ingested. You can hold it in your hands just fine without problems. Now if you do it 24-7-365 obviously this would be a problem. You can hold U-238 in your hands as well just fine, same goes for plutonium, it is HOW long you hold it that is the problem. Radiation contamination of the environment is. Radiation does not contaminate! Radiation by-products that remain in contact for long periods of time contaminate.

Now, crash criteria keeping its elements apart could be a conundrum as its cooling systems would malfunction and it could melt through its protective vessel slagging the reactor, at which time it will be throwing off radiation like crazy. Of course a simple wedge driven through it by someone in a lead suit would drop its nuclear decay exponentially very quickly. Heat from such a small reactor won't be a problem in that it won't keep someone away from it in order to divide it. Assuming it hadn't already done so during the container vessel breach.

Small reactors major problem is they do not have enough nuclear bombardation to keep the fission process going. Makes for very low temperature and inefficient reactors and therefore easily stopped as well. In major multi MW reactors the mass of the reactor core keeps the process going requiring much more attenuation of nuclear bombardment from surround material to stop it. This is frankly one reason I find a car running on Thorium so implausible. Creating such a small reactor that would actually fission in a meaningful way is well...

NRC data already shows that reactors like MASLWR or NuScale with reactor cores of cross sections of a mere foot in diameter using Uranium/Thorium mixture barely work as is and now we are going to go to an all Thorium reactor? Last I checked, to replace even 3-5% Uranium in fuel rods with Thorium, required somewhere in the neighborhood of, old memory here don't hang me, ok do hang me, twice 100% Thorium rods. So what 5% Uranium rods could do, required 100% Thorium, except twice the volume to keep a nuclear decay rate viable. I could be wrong on the 100% Thor rods. Old Oregon State Nuclear talks info. Oregon state is one of ??? 3 schools, maybe 5, I believe where you can get Nuclear Engineering degree from. The others are New Mexico State and Navy School as I recall.

Anywhoo. Namelessfly would probably have better particulars. Not my area of expertise. But been around a couple who do know. As I recall what they really wanted was Thorium/Uranium/Plutonium breeder reactors. We have enough to power the entire worlds civilization at American power consumption needs for the entire worlds population for the next 10,000 years at a minimum if we built them. Just that "enriched Plutonium, Uranium" "problem".

In other words for the next 10k years we could completely get rid of nearly all use of coal, ng, oil, if we wanted to. We have chosen NOT to.

The tesla S had a quarter inch plate beneath it, and that didnt stop the piece of metal in that publicised incident from putting a 3 inch hole through it. it only needs to put a tiny hole in the chamber to count as a breach, let alone a 3inch one. Besides, i'm talking worst case scenario, as that is what you should always be planning for. If not radioactive dust, then radioactive coolant and radioactive engine parts. The FAA when testing lithium batteries for the new Boeings apparently found the temp got over 1100 celsius, so the temps are getting up there.


I know you can hold uranium. I do it a couple of times a year.

As for the rest, no clue on all that. cant be bothered searching and reading up on it at the moment either.

on a lighter note, if we were to go to nuclear cars, that would mean your mechanic would be a nuke tech, and therefore hold a degree in nuke power, making the mechanic the smart guy in the room.....

Relax wrote:
Actually, such a reactor would be VERY safe in a car crash. At worst you would have thorium bits laying around, it melts at 1750C, so it won't be slagging anytime soon like Uranium... assuming one somehow managed to crack open a 1/2"-2" thick pressure vessel which I find beyond implausible beyond bad engineering fail safes outside of a cutting torch that is. Note: Car fires would not come even close to 1750C. Could there be special cases... Uhm well, erm, can't think of any. 1750C is damned close to melting IRON and well, that simply never happens outside of a furnace or the center of an oil well fire, or some very specialized chemical plant fires.

Dust? If inhaled in large doses you are correct, except in your fundamental concept of what would actually be inside said reactor. Is lead dangerous? No, not unless ingested. Can lead be turned into a dust? Yes(belt sander, grinder), in a car crash? No.

It is a METAL in its finished form. Metals do not become powders unless abraded continuously big time, exposed to tremendous pressure(explosions). Once again this is a car crash, not a 2000lb TNT bomb detonation! We are not shooting these pellets at 3000ft/s(1000m/s) creating localized pressure and temperatures far in excess of its metallic bond strength. Only time dust would be a problem would be in the manufacturing of said Thorium,"nuggets" from its raw materials containing particulates.

Now Thoriums by products I am not conversant enough to answer if THOSE could become airborne. The answer is probably YES.

Radiation is not a problem except in monstrous doses. Of which Thorium will not give unless ingested. You can hold it in your hands just fine without problems. Now if you do it 24-7-365 obviously this would be a problem. You can hold U-238 in your hands as well just fine, same goes for plutonium, it is HOW long you hold it that is the problem. Radiation contamination of the environment is. Radiation does not contaminate! Radiation by-products that remain in contact for long periods of time contaminate.

Now, crash criteria keeping its elements apart could be a conundrum as its cooling systems would malfunction and it could melt through its protective vessel slagging the reactor, at which time it will be throwing off radiation like crazy. Of course a simple wedge driven through it by someone in a lead suit would drop its nuclear decay exponentially very quickly. Heat from such a small reactor won't be a problem in that it won't keep someone away from it in order to divide it. Assuming it hadn't already done so during the container vessel breach.

Small reactors major problem is they do not have enough nuclear bombardation to keep the fission process going. Makes for very low temperature and inefficient reactors and therefore easily stopped as well. In major multi MW reactors the mass of the reactor core keeps the process going requiring much more attenuation of nuclear bombardment from surround material to stop it. This is frankly one reason I find a car running on Thorium so implausible. Creating such a small reactor that would actually fission in a meaningful way is well...

NRC data already shows that reactors like MASLWR or NuScale with reactor cores of cross sections of a mere foot in diameter using Uranium/Thorium mixture barely work as is and now we are going to go to an all Thorium reactor? Last I checked, to replace even 3-5% Uranium in fuel rods with Thorium, required somewhere in the neighborhood of, old memory here don't hang me, ok do hang me, twice 100% Thorium rods. So what 5% Uranium rods could do, required 100% Thorium, except twice the volume to keep a nuclear decay rate viable. I could be wrong on the 100% Thor rods. Old Oregon State Nuclear talks info. Oregon state is one of ??? 3 schools, maybe 5, I believe where you can get Nuclear Engineering degree from. The others are New Mexico State and Navy School as I recall.

Anywhoo. Namelessfly would probably have better particulars. Not my area of expertise. But been around a couple who do know. As I recall what they really wanted was Thorium/Uranium/Plutonium breeder reactors. We have enough to power the entire worlds civilization at American power consumption needs for the entire worlds population for the next 10,000 years at a minimum if we built them. Just that "enriched Plutonium, Uranium" "problem".

In other words for the next 10k years we could completely get rid of nearly all use of coal, ng, oil, if we wanted to. We have chosen NOT to.

Thank you but no. Mechanics already cost too much.

Much less to give a mechanic that much bragging power.

Good laugh though,
T2M

PS: Though to be fair. I don't pay a mechanic, do my own work. And am glad of it everytime I see the labor rate sign when I pick up parts.

Spacekiwi wrote:...snip...

on a lighter note, if we were to go to nuclear cars, that would mean your mechanic would be a nuke tech, and therefore hold a degree in nuke power, making the mechanic the smart guy in the room.....

Spacekiwi wrote:The tesla S had a quarter inch plate beneath it, and that didnt stop the piece of metal in that publicised incident from putting a 3 inch hole through it. it only needs to put a tiny hole in the chamber to count as a breach, let alone a 3inch one. Besides, i'm talking worst case scenario, as that is what you should always be planning for. If not radioactive dust, then radioactive coolant and radioactive engine parts. The FAA when testing lithium batteries for the new Boeings apparently found the temp got over 1100 celsius, so the temps are getting up there.


I know you can hold uranium. I do it a couple of times a year.

As for the rest, no clue on all that. cant be bothered searching and reading up on it at the moment either.

on a lighter note, if we were to go to nuclear cars, that would mean your mechanic would be a nuke tech, and therefore hold a degree in nuke power, making the mechanic the smart guy in the room.....

Having gone through car mechanic school, I can say I'd be quite nervous about 80% of my fellow graduates being allowed to work on anything even remotely nuclear.

Currently, about 3000 people die in car accidents a day, globally. That's a fatal accident every thirty seconds. The non-fatal accident rate is much higher, partly thanks to improved vehicle safety.

However, those safety systems have done something inadvertently. They have made it very expensive to repair an accident-damaged vehicle, mainly because each airbag has to be replaced and some vehicles carry as many as thirteen. It has got to a situation where most insurers will write off even mildly damaged cars because it's cheaper to replace like-for-like than it is to replace all the damaged components, once the other considerations - courtesy car hire for two or three weeks! - are taken into account. I'm not saying safety systems are a bad idea - they do save lives. If the thorium reactor and electric motors pushes the cost of vehicle up, then it may reverse the write-off trend, but in relative terms would still be very expensive.

The auto industry is worth a massive amount. Replacing internal combustion engines with thorium reactors would eventually gut the industry. They could produce thorium cars in the volume they currently do - then watch as demand drops off in ten to twenty years after they penetrate the used market. When everyone has one, production will drop off. One way to get around this is to make the engines transferable and simply build new vehicles to put the engine into. Buy an engine for life? Hmm...

In the very long run this could be a good thing. However, in the medium term, it would end up with a downsizing automotive industry. Gotta figure out what to do with that workforce or they'll be sitting around on the dole.