| Clean Car of the Past: The Ford Nucleon |
| Written by Hank Green | ||
| Tuesday, 09 October 2007 | ||
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The Ford Nucleon's passenger cabin was designed to be pushed far forward, to protect the drivers from the nuclear material in the event of a fender bender. Of course, in a real high-speed crash, the placement of the passenger cabin wouldn't matter much...unless you could get it several city blocks away. It's good to keep an eye on visions from the past so we can keep our own visions for the future in check. Yes, nuclear power enabled us to do some amazing things, but problems in safety kept it from realizing the potential that the world envisioned for it in the late '50s. There are real, insurmountable problems that halt the progress of some technologies...or at least, they halt the progress of technologies toward the trunk of your car.
Comments
(5)
Nuke powered cars
written by Robert , October 09, 2007
Nuclear Insider tells stories / beware o
written by James Aach , October 09, 2007
In the first glorious days of nuclear energy there was also a nuclear plane (theoretically it could fly for months) and a nuclear train, as well as talk of using bombs in the dam-building process. A point to be made here is not so much that these were not good ideas (duh!) but that there is a difference between futuristic promises and practical, liveable results. I suspect much the same applies today.
If you'd like an entertaining insider's look at nuclear power, see my novel "Rad Decision", available at no cost to readers at http://RadDecision.blogspot.com and in paperback. Endorsed by Stewart Brand, noted environmentalist and founder of The Whole Earth Catalog.
Critical mass
written by Joel , October 09, 2007
There's a world of difference between radiothermal and nuclear: the first one uses spontaneous decay, the second one runs on a chain-reaction.
If you can get the critical mass of the fuel down to the point that it fits in a passenger car, you have bomb-making material. Plain and simple. That's probably the real reason we'll never see nuclear reactors in cars. It would be interesting to see a series hybrid with a (decay-powered) electric generator to charge the batteries. Shielding might be workable in that case, and it could use an isotope that's easy to get anyway, like Thorium. A reaction that produces high-energy neutrons would basically mean irradiating any tailgaters and/or people stuck in traffic beside you, but if you don't need a chain-reaction, you're free to choose isotopes with easier-to-shield radiation.
Holy Crap Indeed
written by weee recycling , October 10, 2007
and that's a reaction to the other comments that infer that it might be a good idea!
Think of the timing that Ford were at... it would have conspired to give us the Nuclear Powered Pinto - Now that would have changed America!
...
written by Joe , November 12, 2007
good,thank you
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Seems, with today's high density metals and ceramics, someone could take a 'soup sized can' and make a decent power system -- and still fall within the 'standard' weight limitations without tons of shielding to sustain 120-200 mile an hour impacts.