[ RadSafe ] Atomic Car Revisited: Thorium Could Power A Vehicle for 100 Years?

[Brennan, Mike (DOH)]

I am a fan of looking at different ways of getting useful power out of radioactive materials.  I am intrigued by molten salt reactors, and acknowledge some real advantages (while noting some difficulties the proponents tend to gloss over).  I like the idea of small reactors dealing with very local loads, as this is more robust than centralized gigawatt power generation.  

All that being said, the idea of cars of any sort with reactors on board strikes me as fairly silly.  I decline to believe that weight of the reactor/shielding/crash resistant frame vs power output work out to give a useful vehicle.  I am leery of handing maintenance of a bunch of reactors to a driving public that can't consistently remember to get the oil changed regularly, even with TV adds reminding them.     

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of ROY HERREN
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2014 9:26 PM
To: Radsafe
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Atomic Car Revisited: Thorium Could Power A Vehicle for 100 Years?

I think that despite the rather fanciful headline below it's more likely that we will all be driving Lithium Ion battery powered cars in the future rather than thorium powered cars.
Roy Herren

http://autos.yahoo.com/news/atomic-car-revisited-thorium-could-power-vehicle-100-140052713.html


Atomic Car Revisited: Thorium Could Power A Vehicle for 100 Years?
Roy Herren
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