Nuclear Fusion Powered Cars…it will happen.

[thewarlock]

Jag_NE said:

Will farmers be able to jet wash the interior if this technology is under the bonnet?

It won't have a live axle so farmers won't want it.

[RazerSauber]

HustleRussell said:

OP how do you propose to drive the wheels from the Fusion reaction?

Because if it's

• Use the thermal energy from the fusion reaction to convert deionised water into superheated steam
• Use the superheated steam to drive a steam turbine
• Use the steam turbine through a gearbox to drive a generator
• Use the electrical power to drive a motor
• Use the motor via a transmission system to drive the wheels
• Capture the LP steam, condense it back into water and recycle into the beginning of the process

...then I don't see what the appeal is at all.

So it's a super high tech steam engine..?

[thewarlock]

Dr Jekyll said:

I was thinking in terms of a thermionic converter as with a Topaz fusion reactor. But how big and heavy it would be I've no idea.

I hope they're a lot better and more efficient than they used to be. Topaz made half a horsepower and weighed 320kg.

[thewarlock]

RazerSauber said:

So it's a super high tech steam engine..?

That's all nuclear reactors are.

Must have been depressing, back in the day, as a nuclear scientist.

Scientist - "We've developed this amazing new way of releasing energy from these materials, it's going to revolutionise the world"

Engineer - "Kettle"

Scientist - "What?! We're breaking atoms here, this is next level st"

Engineer - "Yeah, we'll use it to boil water. Kettle."

[anonymous-user]

Olivergt said:

gottans said:

Can't see it myself, few kg of semtex equals instant dirty bomb but even without that it would only take a few tinkerers or the I can fix anything types and the only safe to live will be the Falkland Islands.

Don't get your fission and fusion mixed up, fusion is much safer than fission.

Fusion is fantastic in that in theory it produces more energy than it consumes, but it consumes a huge amount of energy to start and control the fusion process, for that reason it will never scale to something that can fit in a car.

It is but it still leaves irridated materials so yes cleaner but not completely clean. As for the idea of using it in cars, I doubt it because the current 'small' JET reactor consumes more power than it produces and according to scientists the only way to change this is to scale up. Have actually seen the JET reactor a few years back and that is huge itself will the support equipment, etc.

The new facility being built in France is 10 times the size of JET and is anticipated to be energy break even so anything useable will be massive. Fit in a car, no hope and Bob Hope spring to mind.

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 9th February 16:04

[Catatafish]

If you have a reasonably compact fusion reactor, you aren't going to bother milling around on the ground with the plebs.

[cookie1600]

Great Scott!!!!! 88mph!!

[Arnold Cunningham]

Will never happen

[Chris32345]

Maybe in 100+ years we can't even manage fusion at massive scale. Making it small enough to fit into a car would be impossible

[anonymous-user]

I bet Audi will have a soft-touch reactor casing with incremental warning lights , but the core will be made of cheap plastic...

[Toltec]

A bit pointless when in 125 years we will have zero point energy.

[Dr Jekyll]

Zero point energy makes car sized fusion plants sound positively straightforward.

[Caddyshack]

Neighbour: ‘nice new company car you have there’
Neighbour 2: ‘yes, it’s the one with the zero point energy and in top I can use the black hole accelerator"

[Alias218]

take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

thewarlock said:

Not an idea I've really seen before. How will these cars be propelled? Electric motors? Steam turbines? Something new?

JET powered

Be careful not to Stellarate too hard!

[Plymo]

Dr Jekyll said:

I wasn't suggesting putting a diesel generator in a road car. Just making the point that generating electricity in a vehicle isn't necessarily worse than generating it elsewhere and using batteries.

As for the space required for a fission reactor, the whole point of the thread is about what might happen if and when such reactors become small enough to put in a car. IE, if it was possible to fit a reactor in a car, would it be have any advantages compared with fossil fuelled ICE, batteries, hydrogen ETC ETC,

There could be some mileage in doing just that though, surely?

Like an EV with a 20 mile range, and a generator sized to the average power demand of a car over a typical drive cycle - the generator only running at its most efficient RPM and load (which would make emissions control easier, it wouldn't have to accelerate hard or idle often). Being sized for the average load rather than for acceleration it would be much smaller than a typical car engine, maybe 20-30hp?
So when accelerating - draws power from batteries.
Motorway driving - roughly equal in/out
Deceleration/slow driving - recharges battery or shuts off.

Would also have the advantage that for very short journeys it could be completely electric, and with an engine failure it could still get to a garage.

[take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey]

Alias218 said:

take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

thewarlock said:

Not an idea I've really seen before. How will these cars be propelled? Electric motors? Steam turbines? Something new?

JET powered

Be careful not to Stellarate too hard!

Mitsubishi are planning to fit one into an Evo VI. The Toka Makinen edition.

[TTmonkey]

Toltec said:

A bit pointless when in 125 years we will have zero point energy.

[dvs_dave]

Plymo said:

Dr Jekyll said:

I wasn't suggesting putting a diesel generator in a road car. Just making the point that generating electricity in a vehicle isn't necessarily worse than generating it elsewhere and using batteries.

As for the space required for a fission reactor, the whole point of the thread is about what might happen if and when such reactors become small enough to put in a car. IE, if it was possible to fit a reactor in a car, would it be have any advantages compared with fossil fuelled ICE, batteries, hydrogen ETC ETC,

There could be some mileage in doing just that though, surely?

Like an EV with a 20 mile range, and a generator sized to the average power demand of a car over a typical drive cycle - the generator only running at its most efficient RPM and load (which would make emissions control easier, it wouldn't have to accelerate hard or idle often). Being sized for the average load rather than for acceleration it would be much smaller than a typical car engine, maybe 20-30hp?
So when accelerating - draws power from batteries.
Motorway driving - roughly equal in/out
Deceleration/slow driving - recharges battery or shuts off.

Would also have the advantage that for very short journeys it could be completely electric, and with an engine failure it could still get to a garage.

What you’ve described is called a series hybrid and has been done before (eg Fisker Karma, Vauxhall Ampera), and they’re not very efficient, particularly at cruising speeds. Its much more efficient for the engine to drive the wheels directly rather than via the generator and electric motor (and why the Ampera had a generator/motor bypass mode). This is why todays hybrid cars are all parallel hybrids rather than series hybrids. They’re much more efficient.

[sherman]

Plymo said:

There could be some mileage in doing just that though, surely?

Like an EV with a 20 mile range, and a generator sized to the average power demand of a car over a typical drive cycle - the generator only running at its most efficient RPM and load (which would make emissions control easier, it wouldn't have to accelerate hard or idle often). Being sized for the average load rather than for acceleration it would be much smaller than a typical car engine, maybe 20-30hp?
So when accelerating - draws power from batteries.
Motorway driving - roughly equal in/out
Deceleration/slow driving - recharges battery or shuts off.

Would also have the advantage that for very short journeys it could be completely electric, and with an engine failure it could still get to a garage.

Mazda were trying to get a rotary engine to work like that. They were going to spin it at a constant 2000rpm and that would power the battery. All drive comes from the electric motors conected to the batteries.

The rotary engine supposedly works well at constant load. Its just when you put it in a car and have variable loads it breaks.

[whp1983]

Surprised Tesla haven’t already announced one and started an order book…. Due 2025 (and a bit)