8 grams of thorium could replace gasoline in cars

Re:8 grams of thorium could replace gasoline in cars by Jabbles on Friday August 12, 2011 @10:29AM (#2877377)

I think the biggest hurdle will be containing the thorium so that a head-on collision between two cars at 100mph each doesn't leak radioactive material all over the road.

I can't comment on the difficulty of building a nuclear engine weighing 227kg (I assume he means 250kW), but I would have thought the space industry would be the first to utilise such a breakthrough, and I'm not aware of the widespread adoption of those engines over solar panels.

If these challenges are met then such an engine could be a viable alternative to the batteries in electric cars.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:8 grams of thorium could replace gasoline in cars by uvdiv on Friday August 12, 2011 @10:44AM (#2877448)

For an auto engine it is beyond hopeless (economics, safety). This particular case is a crackpot/scammer with no substance at all.

Very small nuclear-powered engines are possible. There were several launched on space satellites by the US and USSR, i.e.

http://www.etec.energy.gov/history/Major-Operations/SNAP-Ove...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954

SNAP weighed under 430 kg for the entire power system (note this is a real fission reactor, not a radioisotope heat source like many space probes). These use highly-enriched uranium (weapons grade) to get very small cores.

Nuclear reactors have been proposed for interplanetary probes, such as the (recently cancelled) Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, which would have used a nuclear reactor powering an ion thruster. It's completely viable.

http://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/miscellaneous/jupiter/JIMO_Bac...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:8 grams of thorium could replace gasoline in cars by ahi on Friday August 12, 2011 @11:34AM (#2877680)

Also tested for aircraft propulsion.

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

tl;dr They discovered it was a bad idea.

[ Parent | on HN ]