One of the key problems faced by the automobile industry today is that there is an imminent need for sustainable fuel options. To that end, Thorium may be the perfect answer. Being the most dense material in the world, a mere 8 grams of Thorium can let a standard car run for nearly 100 years!
Not only do we need a good, sustainable source of fuel today but we also need to make sure that such a source is clean and not detrimental to our environment. Thorium fits the bill perfectly! Laser Power Systems (LPS) is a company based in Connecticut, USA which has been working on devising a method to use Thorium in an automobile.
To that end, LPS has devised a number of prototype engines which can consume Thorium as fuel. The current models which are successfully able to do so weigh nearly 500 pounds and are about the size of the engine in a standard car.
Since Thorium is incredibly dense, only a very small amount of the material is needed to generate immense amounts of energy. According to the CEO of LPS, Charles Stevens, one gram of Thorium is able to deliver as much energy as is provided by some 7396 gallons of gasoline.
Thorium is also hailed by many as the perfect alternative to Uranium. The material itself is a lot safer than Uranium, is far less reactive and is able to produce clean energy without having any adverse affects on the environment. With such traits, it is no wonder that many consider Thorium the future of automobile fuel.
Courtesy: Industry Tap
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THORRRRRR–IUM…
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A similiar and very interesting concept is the use of Molten-Salt nuclear reactors, which would even use current nuclear waste (from uranium reactors) as a catalyst, partly solving the problem of final storage for this waste. Because of the chemistry involved, the decay products are also a lot more manageable, and safety is further increased due to the fact that a thorium-based nuclear reactor doesn’t have to operate at such an immensely high pressure nor temperature as a traditional uranium one.
This concept is not a modern discovery at all. Thorium based reactors have been considered since the Cold War, but were not as well funded because research into uranium was much more interesting for the militaristic purposes that mainly funded the research in the first place. It’s really sad that having this knowledge, this has not been advanced to further human progress.
Please see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI
Nowadays, of course, no western government pursue this or meaningfully fund research relating to it, since most of their voters wouldn’t back them. A clear example is the recent 180-degree turn by Germany’s chancellor
Merkel. suddenly damning “nuclear energy” (meaning the 70-year old concept of the uranium and plutonium reactors currently in use), only months after agreeing to extend the contracts with the operators for at least another decade. Politically, it was a smart move since Fukushima had the public scared shitless. Economically, it has led to a great increase in energy costs, and will continue to as long as the really viable, large-scale alternative energies like Thorium Reactors don’t get the subsidizing and atttention the “green energy” gets because they’re not “green” and “safe” enough in the (erroneous) public perception.
This distorted public view has been caused by the years of demonizing of “nuclear” energy because it’s “not natural” (as if it wasn’t just another chemical reaction like combustion), “dangerous” (when statistically speaking, a lot more deaths and pollution have been caused by oil rig explosions, tanker spills, etc. than nuclear power plants) and a general misunderstanding of how radiation works and how dangerous it is.
China is currently pursuing this technology aggresively, and hopes to be able to patent a lot of the (still necesary) technological advancements on the way to a functioning thorium reactor.
Democracy, once again, fails because of the tyranny of a largely uninformed, uneducated and uncritical majority.
The cost for the thorium and the vehicle?