The main disadvantages are the result of the product being underdeveloped. If we looked at the first cell phone and the company said, "Oh, it's expensive, it's huge, it gets terrible reception, and landlines work so much better," and completely dropped the technology, therefore preventing advancements that led to the smartphones we have today, we would look back and say, "yeah, cell phones have huge disadvantages; why would we use those?" The parts are expensive to replace not because of the material, but because they are not as common, in the same way it is more expensive to repair an uncommon vehicle at a shop.

You may not like it, but most companies are out for profit. If the oil industry found a revolutionary way to make cars run on 400mpg, they wouldn't release that data unless they felt they could profit more by doing so. If the technology was already released but was in a primitive stage, they would want to discredit and eliminate the technology from being used to protect their business.

I'm not saying they're "evil corporations." I'm saying that when presented a choice, the company will generally go in the direction which will lead to the most profitability, which is not necessarily the direction that most benefits the rest of society.

If you don't like wikipedia, there are plenty of other websites that say the same. Wikipedia information also has to be sourced from authorities, so you can go read the source and get the same info as well.

The point about modern reactor designs is that they can be made completely passive, whereby if the plant losing operating power the reaction is automatically shut down and *cannot* start back up again. Fukushima lost power because of the tsunami and ended up with 3x core meltdowns because of it. That can't happen in the newest designs.

Most profitable in the short-term with the least risk.

And oil rigs and wars are free?

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html

Our nuclear technology is at about the equivalent of lighting a fire by rubbing two sticks. The prices still aren't even close.

^ Quote for truth.


You can't just say oh 'cheap' or oh 'expensive'. These words are meaningless without context - and therefore I'm just going to avoid the 'price' argument entirely. What is a major factor in the reluctance to adopt civil nuclear power is that it relies on a finite resource (which, for all extensive purposes is just another Fossil Fuel). You need Nuclear Fuel to run Nuclear power plants, Uranium and Plutonium being the two most commonly used. Uranium and Plutonium are extremely dense (and therefore heavy) elements. This poses a rather troubling logistic problem in 'how do we get tonnes of this stuff to where our nuclear plants are?'... Of course, you load it into trucks, trains and boats... which all run on fossil fuels... This problem is compounded when you consider where the majority of Uranium is mined. As of 2009: Kazakhstan, Australia and Canada were the top three producers, accounting for 63% of total world production. Other notable countries are Namibia, Niger, Uzbekistan and Russia and the US. We can largely discount the last two due to the sheer geographic size of the countries and the fact that they most likely wouldn't export nuclear fuel due to their sheer current energy dependence.

Nuclear Energy is inefficiently because it relies on a 'fission reaction'. A lot of potential energy from the radioactive fuel is lost.
Whereas, Nuclear 'fusion reactions' cause a non-equilibrium system. This results in too much energy being released (ie: Nuclear Bombs or what happens at the centre of the sun).

It would be folly to invest in large scale nuclear power when the current technology is inefficient, and a vastly more efficient technique is within our grasp. Sort of like investing in MiniDisks when I-Pods are around the corner. And what happens when we have large scale nuclear power? We'll simply face the exact same problem 100 to 200 years down the line except with Uranium instead of Oil.

Current 'renewable' energy sources are also highly inefficient. Creating photovoltaic cells (solar panels) is extremely polluting. Building wind farms inherently requires heavy manufacturing industries (steel, aluminium etc).

The world is facing an energy crisis, but only when oil is ridiculously expensive will the new technology be magically realised. It's the sick sad way of multi-billion dollar global corporations who fund research and control prices and markets.

I also want to say that Nuclear technology has been developed for quite a while now to where it is actually impossible to have a nuclear meltdown. A meltdown occurs when the nuclear contents within a plant melt away their container and fall into the open. If you just use small bits of nuclear material, it can become impossible for a meltdown to occur, as the maximum temperature achievable can be limited by the size of your fuel bits. In theory, you could have nuclear powered cars in the US with it being impossible for any of them to have a meltdown (as long as the fuel isn't taken from one cell and put in another, or the cells are not tampered with).

While I agree with current health and safety concerns and technology has vastly mitigated the overall chance for nuclear meltdown to occur. Your point lacks the inevitable element of 'human error'.

And furthermore, nuclear cars would be absolute fail. Fossil fuels combust into gaseous particles. Nuclear cars would have heavy chunks of radioactive 'spent' fuel rods in their tanks. Where would you dump that?

You don't require fuel rods because of the size of the nuclear fuel. Fuel rods are conventionally just lead bars that prevent a meltdown from occurring by sticking them into things like Plutonium. Therefor the core will last as long as the fuel sustains the car, which is determined by the half-life. Uranium's half life is very, very long. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium

I also said in theory, not realistically, concerning placing nuclear power in cars.

No. Fuel Rods are cylindrically shaped rods of radioactive material used as nuclear fuel. These are raised or lowered within a nuclear reactor to alter the given surface area of radioactive element which in turn controls the interior temperature and reaction. A meltdown occurs when the rods are not monitored or controlled properly, or the systems doing the controlling and monitoring fail. The reaction goes super critical and a meltdown occurs. Nuclear cars are simply not viable, bro. Sorry. Not even in theory.

edit: Read this, . It is particularly relevant to the current discussion in this thread.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jul 16 2011, 12:07 am by Cardinal.

Well in my old text book it referred to the rods as the lead that controls the surface area of which the radiation would generate heat. Either way, you don't need a control of surface area exposure due to the small surface area of the fuel itself. Although cars themselves might not be able to have the fuel within them, you could have super safe plants that generate power for cars (perhaps have recharging stations which are centralized to nuclear plants). I don't really get why you'd say nuclear powered cars wouldn't be viable in theory, since you can set the parameters of your theory to be ideal (i.e. no humans tampering with stuff). Of course they're viable in theory. Nuclear power plants are currently used and have been for a long time, so there's no reason why making a miniature version in a car in a theoretical scenario wouldn't work.

Your old text book was wrong

And,



Good luck putting a system like that in your car. There's a reason we have Petrol cars, Diesel cars, Biofuel cars, Hybrid cars and electric cars (and solar cars to a certain degree). It's the same reason we don't have nuclear cars.

Big power plant = lots of power for a city. Small power plant = less power for small car. It's not impossible to miniaturize, if that's what you're saying.

I think solar and wind power are wonderful alternatives to nuclear energy. Sunny days are pretty common and wind blows fairly often. A third energy source would probably be necessary for a backup, if there were a bunch of cloudy days with no wind in a row, but nuclear isn't even really necessary if we improve these two sources. I can tell you we know nothing about wind energy right now -- its not as simple as sticking a couple blades on a generator and waiting for the wind to do its thing. Point is, these sources of energy don't make waste, or consume any kind of fuel.

The real technology we need to develop to solve our energy problems is not nuclear or solar or wind or anything related -- it's battery power. We need to develop batteries powerful enough to run our products like cars, and to store hours upon hours of energy. Say solar and wind does become the new standard, if you don't use all the energy it provides, that energy shouldn't go to waste, it should be stored for later when you need it. Current batteries are terribly inefficient.

There are nuclear submarines by the way. It's not entirely unreasonable to consider the idea of a nuclear car.

From what I see, Nuclear is more expensive, per watt, than fossil fuels. So no, it's not "Very cheap and clean".

The oil industry doesn't develop cars. The car industry does. If Toyota found a way to make cars run on 400 mpg, it would patent it, and catapult itself into #1 position while reaping billions by licensing it to other car companies. You're not being deep, wise, or realistic; you're ignoring that in the vast majority of cases, it is far more profitable to exploit an invention than to smother it and hope no one else discovers the same thing. This is what the patent system is for; to encourage corporations and individuals to bring their inventions to the market.

It's the same with this engine you're obsessed about. Major car corporations spend hundreds of millions on R&D, and if they had a reason to think that they'd have a leg up on competitors if they developed this engine technology, they'd work on it. And I find it hilarious how you think you know more about motors, thanks to Wikipedia, than Toyota. Very cute, really.

Wikipedia wasn't the point. The point was that you know next to nothing about designing a nuclear reactor, and as such, are in absolutely no position to say that it's "Very cheap and clean" when the entire industry says otherwise. Historically, there's always something new that could go wrong with a nuclear reactor. I consider them to be a fantastic source of energy, but neither of us knows enough to say crap like "I know better, the industry's doing it wrong." or "Germany is 100% wrong because there's no chance of anything bad ever happening in a new nuclear reactor".

I'm not wasting my time reading that entire article. If you want to make a point, quote the portion(s) that directly respond to my criticisms.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 16 2011, 2:25 am by Centreri.

Who said the car was the thing that has to be modified to increase mileage? I will admit it was a poor example, but it was more to try to illustrate the idea that if something would hurt a company, the company would fight against it, even if it was more beneficial to the whole of society.

Also, a point of mine that you seemed to just disregard is that the technology was abandoned for being inferior when it was underdeveloped. The motion of the rotary engine design, from a physics standpoint, more efficiently uses its energy compared to the piston. The problem is that research and development for the technology would cost money, and there is no quick benefit for a company to invest into it. As the gap grows between these two technologies, it becomes less and less beneficial to invest in the rotary system. There are several discussions on the rotary vs piston designs from car enthusiasts, and the main disadvantages for the rotary are things like "expensive to replace," "wears out faster," etc.

You did mention that car companies spend a lot of money on R&D, but none of that money is going to researching and developing the rotary engine (with the exception of Mazda, which has drawn reasonable success with the design, despite it not being around as long as the piston).


It's not like patent systems cannot be abused. Companies can put competitors out of business over such things.

Cheap? No. Clean? Well, it doesn't produce any greenhouse gases, as opposed to fossil fuels. It does produce nuclear waste, which has to be dealt with. Breeder reactors can re-use a good portion of nuclear waste, making the whole process more efficient (but these reactors are outlawed because of the fear of nuclear weapons proliferation).
You are ignoring the limited supply we have on fossil fuels. How long will it last? 50 years? 100 years? I have not found an optimistic source for this question. Nuclear technology's estimates, however, are somewhere around being able to supply the world's power for millions of years (supposedly billions with breeders). We would have to deal with handling the byproduct way before being concerned with running out of energy. Interestingly enough, not only does nuclear power produce less waste than coal over time, it is also actually less radioactive.

[/quote]
Utter nonsense. Did some background checking,

"Our source for this statistic is Dana Christensen, an associate lab director for energy and engineering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as well as 1978 paper in Science authored by J.P. McBride and colleagues, also of ORNL.

As a general clarification, ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage."

If a coal plant produces 3 tons of fly ash and a nuclear plant produces 3 lbs of nuclear waste, of COURSE the coal plant would put more radioactivity into the environment. You need to compare them by mass, and though the citation claims "ounce for ounce", this is after the nuclear waste has been properly shielded. Complete bullshit.

Edit: I'm not saying the source or anyone at ORNL is wrong. I'm saying the passage you picked out is completely misleading.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 16 2011, 5:11 am by Vrael.

So you're saying that unless I'm an expert in nuclear energy, I'm not allowed to say anything? I guess this means you are an expert in nuclear energy, and that's why you get to say that it isn't cheap and clean?

As for "the entire industry", I'm not sure what industry you're referring to. I'm talking about the latest nuclear plant designs designed by the nuclear energy industry, which says they are very cheap and clean compared to fossil fuels. I pointed out that a lot of the cost involved with current nuclear reactor designs comes down to excessive regulation from governments and having to fight off endless lawsuits and barriers put up by people misguidedly trying to protect the environment.

Now, the environmentalists have a damn good point when it comes to existing reactor designs that are widely used, because those types of reactors actually aren't particularly safe (see Fukushima) and have big problems with nuclear waste. But 'advanced' nuclear reactors are considerably safer and have much less of an issue with nuclear waste.

The problem you have here is that actually the industry does say it is cheap and clean. I'm not sure where you get the idea that the industry says it isn't cheap and clean.

Also whoever was talking about uranium and plutonium being nuclear fuels - some advanced reactors can use thorium, of which there is considerably more available. Also the problem with fusion isn't that it is uncontrollable and puts out "too much energy", it's that it's very difficult to make it happen in a cheap cost-effective way. Farnsworth fusors are very simple and have been around for decades - a high-school kid was in the news a couple of years ago for having built one in his basement. The problem is making a reactor that can create more energy than what it requires to create the reaction in the first place.

Finally, putting nuclear reactors in cars isn't workable, even in "theory". Existing fission reactor designs require things to be nice and stable and not move - they get pretty fucked up by earthquakes for example. Cars move a lot. More modern reactor designs still need significant shielding for the radiation, which is typically lead, again not very useful when you're actually trying to make a car that can move somewhere under it's own power. Finally, nuclear plants are essentially just boilers with steam turbines - the reactor creates heat, which boils water into steam that drives a turbine to create electricity - in a car you'd need to either store this power in a battery or somehow get rid of unwanted electricity (eg when you're stopped at traffic lights and don't want your car to be moving forward). Sorry, but it's just a completely boneheaded statement to say that nuclear power is feasible for cars.

Not right now, definitely. Just to treat the idea as boneheaded or ridiculous isn't reasonable, considering we have vehicles running on nuclear power already.

if by 'vehicles' you mean 'submarines'...

I don't know why you're so confident about the design despite not being any sort of engineer. If Mazda's the only one researching it, they'll be the only one benefitting from it, and if it's as good as you'll claim, their engines will overtake the competition. I don't see a problem here, either way.

Didn't read those. But... what, you think if Toyota could take Mazda out of the business, they wouldn't?

I'm not arguing against nuclear energy. I'm all for it. I'm arguing against Lathanide claiming, specifically, that it's "Cheap and Clean".


Lathanide, of course the industry says it's cheap and clean. They want more government contracts. Additionally, you said "Very cheap", which to me, at least, implies "cheaper than the competition", which is simply not true. As for me saying something without being a nuclear engineer - what I'm saying, that it is not very clean and cheap, is not controversial, and I at no point implied that I know more than the industry; simply that I know more than you. I'd also take what the industry says about itself with a grain of salt; obviously, they want to reduce regulation. But without this regulation, nuclear energy would not be as safe as it is. Though it dampens how competitive nuclear is, that's just the nature of it.

As for nuclear-powered vehicles, there's submarines, ships, and I believe there was experimentation with having it aboard the plane, but the main problem was shielding the crew from radiation. I think it was some Soviet experiment, but the problem, at least from what I recall, was not "cuz they need to be still".

Y u trol cent

I don't know about cheapness, but nuclear power is cleaner and safer than any other power source we have that uses non renewable resources, and happily nuclear material is not likely to run out for a very long time, by which time I would hope a)the world has ended, and b)other power sources have been found.

Vrael, wind and solar power are unfortunately not practical enough to replace other power sources. They can alleviate some of the pressure as it were but it's doubtful that we'll see cars in general use that are, say, entirely solar powered.