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Nuclear powered cars

Yes, they're called battery-electric vehicles. If you mean directly it's neither practical(many tonnes of concrete, highly enriched uranium) or particularly safe.
 
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Even the smallest reactors out there (the sort used in nuclear submarines) are way too big. Unless someone miraculously gets cold fusion to work (not holding out for that one personally), there's no reason to suspect that this will change in the foreseeable future.
 
Along with size and safety issues, there's needing your mechanic to be a nuclear physicist.
 
Scary. I first read the title as "Nuclear powered cats". That seems like a cooler and more destructive idea.
 
Spud1k said:
Even the smallest reactors out there (the sort used in nuclear submarines) are way too big. Unless someone miraculously gets cold fusion to work (not holding out for that one personally), there's no reason to suspect that this will change in the foreseeable future.
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Well the did put a reactor on an airplane once. So nuclear powered planes where planed, until someone realized how massively stupid it was.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Well the did put a reactor on an airplane once. So nuclear powered planes where planed, until someone realized how massively stupid it was.
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That hasn't historicaly stopped people in the aviation world. I know Dornier had a vauge look at it at one point.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Well the did put a reactor on an airplane once. So nuclear powered planes where planed, until someone realized how massively stupid it was.
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I suppose a massively huge plane that could stay airborne indefinitely would be sweet. Or maybe I've just been watching too much Dr. Who...
 
From wikipedia:
The Ford Nucleon was a nuclear-powered concept car developed by Ford Motor Company in 1958. No operational models were built. The design did not include an internal-combustion engine, rather, a vehicle was to be powered by a small nuclear reactor in the rear of the vehicle. The vehicle featured a power capsule suspended between twin booms at the rear. The capsule, which would contain radioactive core for motive power, was designed to be easily interchangeable, according to performance needs and the distances to be traveled.

The passenger compartment of the Nucleon featured a one-piece, pillar-less windshield and compound rear window, and was topped by a cantilever roof. There were air intakes at the leading edge of the roof and at the base of its supports. An extreme cab-forward style provided more protection to the driver and passengers from the reactor in the rear. Some pictures show the car with tailfins sweeping up from the rear fenders.

The drive train would be integral to the power module, and electronic torque converters would take the place of the drive-train used at the time. It was said that cars like the Nucleon would be able to travel 8000 km (5,000 miles) or more, depending on the size of the core, without recharging. Instead, at the end of the core's life they would be taken to a charging station, which research designers envisioned as largely replacing gas stations. The car was never built and never went into production, but it remains an icon of the Atomic Age of the 1950s.

The mock-up of the car can be viewed at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

According to Bob Gale, producer of the film Back to the Future, the Nucleon's rear nuclear reactor was one of the design inspirations for the De Lorean time machine.
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Appearently not such a far fetched idea after all.
 
You could do it with a core of radioactive material and thermocouples like the plutonium "batteries" used in some space probes. To refuel just swap out the core every few months. Very inefficient, but possible. Great for spacecraft that have to work for years far from the sun. Very stupid for cars on earth, but you could build one today...
 
patnray said:
You could do it with a core of radioactive material and thermocouples like the plutonium "batteries" used in some space probes. To refuel just swap out the core every few months. Very inefficient, but possible. Great for spacecraft that have to work for years far from the sun. Very stupid for cars on earth, but you could build one today...
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And the waste heat would be enough to use the car as an oven.
 
aquitaine said:
Appearently not such a far fetched idea after all.
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Well, maybe not by 1950s standards:

But the Nucleon's design hinged on the assumption that smaller nuclear reactors would soon be developed, as well as lighter shielding materials. When those innovations failed to appear, the project was scrapped due to conspicuous impracticality; the bulky apparatus and heavy lead shielding didn't allow for a safe and efficient car-sized package. Moreover, as the general public became increasingly aware of the dangers of atomic energy and the problem of nuclear waste, the thought of radioactive atomobiles zipping around town lost much of its appeal.
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patnray said:
You could do it with a core of radioactive material and thermocouples like the plutonium "batteries" used in some space probes. To refuel just swap out the core every few months. Very inefficient, but possible. Great for spacecraft that have to work for years far from the sun. Very stupid for cars on earth, but you could build one today...
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actually, you pretty much could not. Political liabilities aside, the energy density for that set-up just isn't there. A much better solution is for a vast array of nuke plants to manufacturer syn-fuel. That also has its own political liabilities but at least they are politically solved. Nuclear energy is cheap, cheap, cheap but for political concerns. Just make the nuke plant subscribe to the same safety regs as a coal plant and we could produce it for less than a penny per kwh. Figure a 30% efficiency in the syn-fuel production and we're still well ahead of the game. It's not that hard.
 
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