Is there any possibilities to use nuclear energy for domestic use such as transportation or stuff we use dail?

Question

Say if we can compact the process of converting the nuclear power (reactor), it will be better source for domestic use such as metro transports or else can replace the electrical and petroleum energy sources. Wat is the possible ways to do the fission reaction instead of doin it wit large reactors?

Answer 1

The answer is yes but not in the way you are thinking.

First of all most houses and all commercial buildings and industry already use a little nuclear energy. All smoke detectors contain an alpha source, usually americium. Don't be alarmed 3 cm's air is enough to stop alpha particles and you are not being harmed by the radiation produced by this source.

As for building nuclear reactors to power cars, it is just not economical. You may have heard of the term critical mass, this means that you need a certain amount of fissionable material before you can sustain a critical reaction. On top of that there is all the secondary equipment and material needed for shielding and conversion of heat to mechanical energy.
The current idea is to fuel future cars with hydrogen. When people think of hydrogen cars they usually don't think about where that hydrogen is coming from. It takes energy to separate hydrogen from other elements. Nuclear power is ideal for doing just this. If you think about the demand for power at different times of the day it peaks during midday and is at a low in the middle of the night. Power plants will adjust their production to match this demand, but Nuclear power plants operate best under steady state conditions. They also can operate at max power all day no problem. From these two facts, an ideal solution is as demand on the grid drops some of the nuclear power plants excess power could be diverted to hydrogen production. In this way nuclear power will be used in the transportation industry, but there will have to be the intermediate step of hydrogen production.

Answer 2

Because of the weight and bulk of the shielding needed for a nuclear power plant alone, nuclear power for transportation is just not practical.

Making it safe from radiation leaks in the event of an accident is another large negative to further development.

The only practical way at this time to do this would to use electricity from nuclear power plants to power buses, trains and charge batteries for automobiles.

This type of application could be started today if there was not the stigma attached to nuclear power by many uninformed people. France gets all or most of its electric power from nuclear power plants and you never hear a peep about that!!

Answer 3

Even if you could make a small nuclear reactor, you would still need a way to convert the hear into useful energy. This almost always means a boiler package to produce steam to do shaftwork. Once you have all these components together, they are just too big and too heavy to be of any real use on a small scale.

Answer 4

at this point, technology and culture prevent small nuclear reactors

meaning, we are nowhere close to knowing how to make one

and current society would not tolerate the prolification if we could

HOWEVER, we use nuclear power all the time for things like metro transports, home hvac, etc

Nuclear power plants make electricity. The electricity is easily sent through the grid to power whatever, and by using the nuclear generated electricity to recharge batteries, we have portable "nuclear" or at least "from nuclear" power

Answer 5

It's very possible.

The only problem is public sentiment. People are so affraid of nuclear power that the technology has been supressed. It's not advancing much anymore.

There is some logic to public concerns, though. After all, it only takes one "oops" with a nuclear reactor to cause catastrophic consequences.

Answer 6

Technology is not the problem. Since they build reactors that run, submarines and air craft carriers it seems to me they would be useful and economically feasible for factories, large buildings, hospitals, malls and the like.

The problem is nuclear phobia.