How could fusion power automobiles

[Venom]

Someone said fusion would be the answer to all of our energy needs, including fuel for cars, if it could be self-sustaining.

Would we need to do away with the combustion chamber and all the entrails? Is it going to be some kind of battery that we charge with electricity FROM some fusion reactor somewhere?

 

[phunk]

Yes, fusion will be used in power plants to make cheap electricity, which can be used elsewhere to charge batteries or generate hydrogen for fuel cells. For fusion to replace fuel for cars, we need to use electric cars.

 

[ben m]

Someone said fusion would be the answer to all of our energy needs, including fuel for cars, if it could be self-sustaining.

Would we need to do away with the combustion chamber and all the entrails? Is it going to be some kind of battery that we charge with electricity FROM some fusion reactor somewhere?

Yep. A nuclear/wind/solar/renewable-powered future means renewable energy powering the electric grid, the electric grid charging up batteries (or manufacturing hydrogen or methane or something), and the batteries (or the hydrogen fuel cells) powering your electric car.

 

[Ziggurat]

Yes, fusion will be used in power plants to make cheap electricity, which can be used elsewhere to charge batteries or generate hydrogen for fuel cells. For fusion to replace fuel for cars, we need to use electric cars.

Not necessarily. You can make synthetic fossil fuels fairly easily, if you have enough energy. It's not currently worth doing because there are inefficiencies in the process, you still need some other source of energy, and energy just isn't cheap enough right now. But if energy became cheap enough, then creating synthetic fossil fuels would absolutely be a possibility. Which we might end up doing anyways for at least some applications: even if we get electric cars working, we're unlikely to get electric airplanes flying. Hell, you wouldn't even want a hydrogen fuel cell airplane

 

[Crossbow]

Someone said fusion would be the answer to all of our energy needs, including fuel for cars, if it could be self-sustaining.

Would we need to do away with the combustion chamber and all the entrails? Is it going to be some kind of battery that we charge with electricity FROM some fusion reactor somewhere?

Well, first we will have to develop a fusion reactor that is small enough and light enough to use in a car; and we are still a very, very, very, very loooong way from that point.

 

[catsmate]

Yes, fusion will be used in power plants to make cheap electricity, which can be used elsewhere to charge batteries or generate hydrogen for fuel cells. For fusion to replace fuel for cars, we need to use electric cars.

Yep. Use fusion to charge batteries (or other storage systems), crack hydrogen from water, spin up flywheels or (in conjunction with biotech) produce fuels such as butanol.
Of course in cities direct power supply to vehicles, using a road mounted induction loop system is possible.

 

[Venom]

Well, first we will have to develop a fusion reactor that is small enough and light enough to use in a car; and we are still a very, very, very, very loooong way from that point.

Are you being serious? You mean like a mini-reactor heating things to millions of degrees under your hood?

 

[phunk]

We should have Mr. Fusion by 2015, right?

 

[aggle-rithm]

We already have a fusion reactor: the sun. If only there was some way to harness the energy...

 

[casebro]

Fusion is just another "nuclear reactor".

The problem with the fission type as we use today is that is that cars that use them need batteries.

We need to use a system of using the cheap nuclear energy to convert some common material into a fuel that is as easily handled as oil products today. Breaking water down to hydrogen and oxygen, or maybe some catalytic process of making oil out of CO2 + water.

 

[Crossbow]

Are you being serious? You mean like a mini-reactor heating things to millions of degrees under your hood?

Yes, I am serious.

However, I may be misunderstanding your posting ... So please rephrase it when you get a chance.

Thanks!

 

[Venom]

Yes, I am serious.

However, I may be misunderstanding your posting ... So please rephrase it when you get a chance.

Thanks!

I don't know if I could be any more straight-forward, but will the combustion chamber be obsolete because of this? If so, how will fusion power the car.

I wasn't expecting an answer like yours though, so it threw me off.

 

[MRC_Hans]

I don't know if I could be any more straight-forward, but will the combustion chamber be obsolete because of this? If so, how will fusion power the car.

As already explained: A fusion plant will produce electricity, which will be used to charge a battery in the car, which will power an electric motor. No combustion.

Now, as also said, we can already do this with the power plants we have, so what could be new with fusion is that power from fusion power plants could be cheap, safe, and abundant, so we could synthesize combustible fuel in various ways, so we could still have smelly old internal combustion engines, if we really, really wanted.

Hans

 

[Crossbow]

I don't know if I could be any more straight-forward, but will the combustion chamber be obsolete because of this? If so, how will fusion power the car.

I wasn't expecting an answer like yours though, so it threw me off.

Well, I can think of how you can be more clear ...

When you refer to cars using fusion power, are you referring to the car itself having a fusion reactor?

Or are you referring to the car using the electrical power that is produced by a fixed fusion reactor?

Or are you referring to something else?

 

[luchog]

Not necessarily. You can make synthetic fossil fuels fairly easily, if you have enough energy. It's not currently worth doing because there are inefficiencies in the process, you still need some other source of energy, and energy just isn't cheap enough right now.

Not true. In fact, TDP petrol made from organic or plastic feedstock is a net positive energy economy; demonstrated by pilot plants (the energy required to run the plant is derived from the feedstock, so it is ultimately solar in origin, just like fossil fuels, or crude organic fuels). The plants are effectively powered by waste natural gas generated by the TDP process. Economy of scale would make a full-scale plant easily competitive with crude oil at current prices.

The biggest problem with TDP right now is feedstock and somewhat justified NIMBYism. The plants need to be located close to the sources of the feedstock, so that transportation costs do not become prohibitive; and the cheapest feedstock is organic waste from the meatpacking industry. The sheer smell generated by TDP plants has been a key factor in keeping them from being built anywhere near ideal locations; and as big a factor as fuel and wear costs for transporting the feedstock to remote locations (imagine having a lorry-load of week-old cattle guts driving anywhere near and upwind of your town). Water usage can also be an issue in the sort of remote locations where large industrial installations would typically be allowed. There are also concerns about industrial pollution.