thorium "laser" car?

[ivymike]

http://www.slatesenergy.com/cadillac_thorium_laser.htm

 

[IRstuff]

huh?? they're using English, but it's not understandable. What's being described sounds like perpetual motion.

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[ivymike]

at least this one is in english ... ish ... the first article I saw seemed like it had been written as a book report by a 5th grader

 

[Pud]

It will never replace those dilithium cystals and antimatter drive...

www.tynevalleyplastics.co.uk

It's ok to soar like an eagle, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

 

[handleman]

The thorium laser does not produce a beam of coherent light like conventional lasers, but instead merely heats up and gives off energy.

For most people, the word "laser" is synonymous with "science-y magic". A laser that doesn't emit light is not a laser at all.

-handleman, CSWP (The new, easy test)

 

[IRstuff]

Yeah, I read that, but where does the laser get the power to heat up the thorium to generate power to power the laser? This bit sounds like classic perpetual motion. The typical thorium reactor is quite simple; you simply allow the thorium to get hot from the radioactive decay, and the heat goes into a thermopile that generates electricity. This is basically the power source configuration for all the deep space satellite missions flown by NASA.

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[JStephen]

Pretty good critique here (I haven't fact-checked the critique, it could be as hokie as the original article!):

http://granades.com/2011/09/16/in-which-i-use-scientific-reasoning-to-doubt-the-thorium-powered-car/

 

[IRstuff]

Thanks, I hadn't noticed the date originally. This is a lot like the Moller Skycar, which has been sucking up investment money for more than a decade with no driveable results yet.

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[dpc]

Well, Slate is such a reputable source - it must all be true....

 

[VEBill]

...for more than a FOUR decades...

There, I fixed it for you.

 

[VEBill]

I'm not by any means an expert in nuclear physics, but the Thermal Electric Generators used in spacecraft are (I think) plutonium powered. (At this point we should greet our NSA monitors, them having been triggered off by the word "plutonium".) There have been articles about how NASA is having problems sourcing plutonium for their next few deep space missions.

Thorium is of course plentiful.

Next, thorium reactors are (at least sometimes, the ones I happen to have read about in the popular press) fed a stream of neutrons to trigger off a higher rate of fission. This makes them quite safe because the operators can explicitly control the reaction, as opposed to praying that the control rods will go back into a uranium fueled core when required.

The website of this thorium laser company is simply awful. Plenty of all uppercase "UNLIMITED POWER", and similar nonsense. Just horrible.

If such thorium powered technology works, then why not start with 5kw heaters for my basement? Trivial technology (just dumb heat) and gives "UNLIMITED POWER" to heat house all winter without spending money for electricity.

 

[IRstuff]

The Slate article is actually two years old:

http://web.archive.org/web/20111101...he-completely-plausible-idea-for-nuclear-cars

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