It seems like they have many advantages over conventional water-based reactors and are much, much safer to boot. Also the waste products decay quickly so storing the waste for long periods of time is less of an issue. But I guess anything nuclear is pretty much out of fashion today.
A complete wild-ass guess -- those concerns are most important in small-scale reactors, and the primary driving force behind small reactors is Navy submarine use. At sea you are surrounded by water, so there is no reason not to use it as your fluid. Adding salt would add another complication to the supply chain.
I guess you could theoretically pull salt out of the water, but there is no telling what impurities may be left. Reverse-osmotic water filtering makes water so pure that it supposedly extracts minerals back out of your bones and teeth, so impurities are no concern when it used as an exchange fluid.
I am a very infrequent commenter on HN. I have one page, total, of comments since I signed up. Two of those comments give a reasonable run-down on MSR technology, if you're interested.
The "die hard" MSR guy in the US is Kirk Sorensen of Flibe (Flih bee) energy: flibe-energy.com He's easy to find from a Google search, and is incredibly dedicated to MSR. He's the evangelist, for sure.
Bram Cohen of BitTorrent fame is on Flibe's advisory board.
Research in this direction could provide us cleaner air in the cities and more health.
Just one small change like this, nuclear instead of gasoline in the cars could make a tremendous impact on our lives.
I think adding a new variable to the existing capitalist system along with existing one and only, profit, something that takes into account health or the ecosystem could change our lives dramatically.
Entrepeuners competing not only on cost and profit but also on health and ecosystem impact could make a big difference to us and our planet.
It will be great that we finally realize how important stuff like this is and focus more on research instead of using 100 year old polluting technologies because there is no obvious pressure to move forward.
Hardly. First, there's a lot of research into cleaner cars. A modern car produces very little emissions that count towards unclean air. Of course, there's carbon, but that doesn't cause unclean or unhealthy air.
Second, the new variable you're thinking of is called "externalities" and isn't all that new. A common way to offset it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax - a such is leveraged on gasoline in most countries, including the US, although to a much steeper degree in Europe. Expensive gas is a major driver towards more fuel efficient cars, hybrids and electric cars. All brought to you (mostly) by a profit driven capitalist system.
The reason gasoline hasn't disappeared in favour of more environmentally friendly alternatives is that it's an insanely effective way of storing and transporting vast quantities of energy. Even with the steep taxes in Europe, no-one has been able to come up with a better alternative -- yet. I am certain this will change soon.
Running cars on nuclear energy instead of oil is a great idea, but putting reactors in the cars is neither necessary nor desirable. Keep the reactors in big central power stations where they can be properly shielded and use grid power to charge electric cars.
It's easy to forget that for a cleaner air in a city you can choose between rendering half a city inhabitable because two cars collided (if they are nuclear cars) or rendering a far away country inhabitable because of the byproducts the clean car's components produced (lithium extraction, neodymium magnets production, aluminium extraction and so on).
Assuming the it was stable, I don't think it would be noticeable while driving. I suspect moving the rear wheel placement would be far more noticeable especially when backing up.
Ignoring the hazardous nature of something like this - how economically viable would this be today? Let's say over a 10-year span driving 10,000 miles/year.. how much would I spend on gasoline at 30 mi/gal vs. plutonium?
This thread suggests that a small power plant at 1.5 GW takes about 1500 kg of uranium a year[1]. That's 13,140 GWh, or 0.114 kg uranium pr. GWh.
A regular car motor produces up to 90kW[2].
10000 miles at 40 mph average is 250 hours, or 2,500 hours over the 10 year. It's low speed, so let's assume the engine runs at half the rated output on average, 45kW, for a total of 112 GWh or 12.8 kg uranium.
The classroom stuff is $90/kg[3], or $1,152 total fuel costs for ten years.
What bothers me most about that car is what way round it is. It says the engine is at the back but if that end were actually the front, it'd look pretty stylish, like an SLR McLaren Stirling Moss.
What I don't understand is why nobody has tried to put together a nuclear reactor + stirling engine in cars yet.
An engineering buddy and I tried doing the math for getting cars up on the same configuration, but quickly realized that albeit each vehicle would contain miniscule amounts of uranium, someone could buy up a bunch of them and aggregate a large amount of uranium (bad).
For trains or large hauling vehicles it would be perfect, but most of the new trains/rail receive their electricity via some track delivery mechanism anyways.
Freight trains in America have no way of getting electric power from the rails in a safe manner. If you could actually build a train-sized power plant, it would work wonderfully.
Interesting fact: For engineering reasons, the engines in the trains do not directly connect to the wheels. Instead, they operate generators that power electric motors attached to the wheels. Installing a nuclear power plant would be as simple as adding another car to the train and changing around some wires.
Could you imagine the impact it would have on traffic if every car accident had to involve radiation containment? Why would you support this? It could take hours, or perhaps millennia, to clear the road.
ah, the second i read that title fallout 3 came to mind..
always wondered about its feasibility; interesting to see it was based on a real-world concept (though a very unrealistic one at that).
though i wonder how life would be different if nuclear really had gained traction and supplanted fossil-fuels as our primary energy source.. today a concept like this seems laughable (to me anyway), but i'm thinking given the atmosphere back then and considering all the promise nuclear held, it wouldn't have been that ridiculous to imagine a time when mini-reactors could be powering passenger vehicles. i know the science behind it is far more complex, but just like computing devices have evolved and gotten increasingly smaller/safer/more-reliable over time, so too could nuclear reactors i imagine..
On a slightly related note - Russia tested and flew a nuclear-powered plane. It had hardly any shielding and all pilots that flew it have already died from cancer. US also flew a plane with a working reactor on board,but it wasn't powering the plane.
The design was finally abandoned not because it was impossible to do - quite the contrary. Both US and Russia had working nuclear-powered engines. But it was deemed too dangerous to actually use. In case of a crash a large area would be contaminated.
So the only possible application for a nuclear engine is on a intercontinental missile carrying nukes, because you don't care about the fallout and it would have unlimited range.
Even there, I guess the risk is deemed too high. ICBM silos typically are not built on the border of your country, and even if they were, those rockets could still crash in your country or in a friendly or neutral country they pass over en route to their target. That unlimited range isn't worth much, either, as conventional rockets already have sufficient range (as long as we are targeting things on earth) Finally, I suspect it is cheaper and easier to build and maintain a conventionally powered ICBM than to build a nuclear powered one.
[+] [-] iyulaev|13 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
It seems like they have many advantages over conventional water-based reactors and are much, much safer to boot. Also the waste products decay quickly so storing the waste for long periods of time is less of an issue. But I guess anything nuclear is pretty much out of fashion today.
[+] [-] stewartbutler|13 years ago|reply
I guess you could theoretically pull salt out of the water, but there is no telling what impurities may be left. Reverse-osmotic water filtering makes water so pure that it supposedly extracts minerals back out of your bones and teeth, so impurities are no concern when it used as an exchange fluid.
[+] [-] phasetransition|13 years ago|reply
The "die hard" MSR guy in the US is Kirk Sorensen of Flibe (Flih bee) energy: flibe-energy.com He's easy to find from a Google search, and is incredibly dedicated to MSR. He's the evangelist, for sure.
Bram Cohen of BitTorrent fame is on Flibe's advisory board.
[+] [-] BrianPetro|13 years ago|reply
I suppose Ford realized that having fissile material in every garage can prove to be a bit of a hazard.
[+] [-] jobu|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aardwolf|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] majormajor|13 years ago|reply
And as far as cars go, I'd rather have a self-driving car than a nuclear car.
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] SuperChihuahua|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryangallen|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterwiese|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] givan|13 years ago|reply
Just one small change like this, nuclear instead of gasoline in the cars could make a tremendous impact on our lives.
I think adding a new variable to the existing capitalist system along with existing one and only, profit, something that takes into account health or the ecosystem could change our lives dramatically.
Entrepeuners competing not only on cost and profit but also on health and ecosystem impact could make a big difference to us and our planet.
It will be great that we finally realize how important stuff like this is and focus more on research instead of using 100 year old polluting technologies because there is no obvious pressure to move forward.
[+] [-] mseebach|13 years ago|reply
Second, the new variable you're thinking of is called "externalities" and isn't all that new. A common way to offset it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax - a such is leveraged on gasoline in most countries, including the US, although to a much steeper degree in Europe. Expensive gas is a major driver towards more fuel efficient cars, hybrids and electric cars. All brought to you (mostly) by a profit driven capitalist system.
The reason gasoline hasn't disappeared in favour of more environmentally friendly alternatives is that it's an insanely effective way of storing and transporting vast quantities of energy. Even with the steep taxes in Europe, no-one has been able to come up with a better alternative -- yet. I am certain this will change soon.
[+] [-] rwallace|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] miahi|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbreese|13 years ago|reply
I hardly think that this would qualify as a small change.
[+] [-] bhousel|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geon|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Retric|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rjv|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mseebach|13 years ago|reply
A regular car motor produces up to 90kW[2].
10000 miles at 40 mph average is 250 hours, or 2,500 hours over the 10 year. It's low speed, so let's assume the engine runs at half the rated output on average, 45kW, for a total of 112 GWh or 12.8 kg uranium.
The classroom stuff is $90/kg[3], or $1,152 total fuel costs for ten years.
1: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=360052
2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_SR_engine
3: http://www.chemicool.com/elements/uranium.html
Edit: more importantly, though: nuclear reactors are very poor at variable power output, so they are a bad fit for cars. Perhaps long haul trucks.
[+] [-] petercooper|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stewartbutler|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bduerst|13 years ago|reply
An engineering buddy and I tried doing the math for getting cars up on the same configuration, but quickly realized that albeit each vehicle would contain miniscule amounts of uranium, someone could buy up a bunch of them and aggregate a large amount of uranium (bad).
For trains or large hauling vehicles it would be perfect, but most of the new trains/rail receive their electricity via some track delivery mechanism anyways.
[+] [-] whatshisface|13 years ago|reply
Interesting fact: For engineering reasons, the engines in the trains do not directly connect to the wheels. Instead, they operate generators that power electric motors attached to the wheels. Installing a nuclear power plant would be as simple as adding another car to the train and changing around some wires.
[+] [-] guscost|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] btipling|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simba-hiiipower|13 years ago|reply
always wondered about its feasibility; interesting to see it was based on a real-world concept (though a very unrealistic one at that).
though i wonder how life would be different if nuclear really had gained traction and supplanted fossil-fuels as our primary energy source.. today a concept like this seems laughable (to me anyway), but i'm thinking given the atmosphere back then and considering all the promise nuclear held, it wouldn't have been that ridiculous to imagine a time when mini-reactors could be powering passenger vehicles. i know the science behind it is far more complex, but just like computing devices have evolved and gotten increasingly smaller/safer/more-reliable over time, so too could nuclear reactors i imagine..
[+] [-] zerostar07|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gambiting|13 years ago|reply
The design was finally abandoned not because it was impossible to do - quite the contrary. Both US and Russia had working nuclear-powered engines. But it was deemed too dangerous to actually use. In case of a crash a large area would be contaminated.
So the only possible application for a nuclear engine is on a intercontinental missile carrying nukes, because you don't care about the fallout and it would have unlimited range.
[+] [-] Someone|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Create|13 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_rover#Specifications
[+] [-] jnsaff2|13 years ago|reply
Post something mildly interesting or controversial from wikipedia. Mind you does not have to be new or newsworthy.
People click on it and fall into the wikipedia loop, reading about related topics clicking around wikipedia semi-aimlessly.
Wastes a ton of time and kills a man-month or so of productivity (or more at HN scale). No good comes of it except people feel entertained.
[+] [-] drcube|13 years ago|reply