

8 Grams of Thorium Could Replace Gasoline In Cars - pwg
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/08/12/172229/8-Grams-of-Thorium-Could-Replace-Gasoline-In-Cars

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gus_massa
This is fake or a scam!

There are same interesting quotes in the original article:
<http://wardsauto.com/ar/thorium_power_car_110811/>

First, this is not a nuclear reactor: (at the end of the article)

    
    
       This means no nuclear reaction occurs within the thorium. 
      It remains in the same state and is not turned into uranium 233, 
      which happens only if thorium is sufficiently super-heated
      to generate a fission reaction.  
    
    

It says that thorium has a lot of energy, not that they can extract it: (in
the middle of the article)

    
    
      Because thorium is so dense, similar to uranium, it stores
      considerable potential energy: 1 gm of thorium equals the energy
      of 7,500 gallons (28,391 L) of gasoline Stevens says. 
    
    

And the explanation of how it works doesn't make any sense: (at the beginning
of the article)

    
    
      The key to the system developed by inventor Charles Stevens,
      CEO and chairman of Connecticut-based Laser Power Systems,
      is that when silvery metal thorium is heated by an external
      source, it becomes so dense its molecules give off considerable heat. 
    
    

The entire story sounds very similar to the presentations of the perpetual
moving machines, or the cold fusion: a promise of a lot of cheap energy, but
not a working prototype that produce more energy that it consumes.

------
egiva
Actually, there's a great reason why large, resource-constrained countries
like China have declared that they will begin developing thorium-based nuclear
energy - the technology has the potential to be clean and safe.

Thorium is great because to generate a reaction, you also need that energy
input (a laser). There's no chance for a meltdown because if the power turns
off, you lose the laser and the reaction stops dead in it's tracks.

Thorium was abandoned mostly in the 60s because governments wanted uranium-
based technology with it's nasty by-products (namely, plutonium for bomb
production!). So, arguably the better, cleaner thorium technology was
abandoned. Such goes geo-politics during the Cold War!

Don't discount the small-scale applications in a car or other vehicle either.
It's 50 years away, but a thorium-based small-scale reactor is possible.

~~~
gus_massa
There is some research in thorium reactors, but they work in a very different
way.

The thorium reactors are _fission_ reactors. The process is a little more
complex, but eventually the atom split and gives a lot of energy. It doesn't
need any heat to produce the nuclear reactions. (Some projects uses molten
thorium salts, but it is for _mechanical_ reasons, not for _nuclear_ reasons.)

There is also research in _fusion_ reactors, for example with deuterium or
tritium. It is a very different process. They need a lot of heat to make the
atoms collide and produce the nuclear reactions. (Some models use laser to
heat and contain the atoms.)

The two types of reactors are very different, and the fuels can't be
interchanged. So it's very strange that they use lasers to heat the thorium.

------
nobody_nowhere
Radioactive cars? What could possibly go wrong?

Joking aside, it's a neat idea, but from the article it sounds like the kicker
is this:

"Stevens admits that his biggest hurdle isn’t the thorium and laser aspects of
the system, but the mini turbines which have to be made small enough to fit
inside a vehicle while generating enough electricity"

~~~
clavalle
Mini turbines are going to be expensive. High rpm turbines have to be pretty
damn close to perfect not to fly apart. Not only that, they are very noisy. I
hope they can engineer their way out of the hurdles they are going to come
across.

If they can put these in cars, maybe they can be put in homes too.

