Why not have Nuclear cars like the Navys ships and subs?

Question

The Nuclear rod would only be the size of a pin head in the very center of the car this could be possible

Answer 1

Current technology is unable to manufacture a nuclear device small enough for current vehicles. Unless you'd like to be driving around a car the size of a Navy sub or ship?

Answer 2

Let see, couple of reasons why we don't have any....

First of all, we have to ask the Iranian for Plutonium and Uranium - which of course, they will deny that they have any and argued perfusely that they only have nuclear powered chocolate factories.

Secondly, Plutonium and Uranium doesn't come in mini-me size Big Mac that we can make a nuclear-reactored Yugo. The thought of having a mini earth quake at every nuclear powered car accident is not my idea or safe driving.

Thirdly, thanks to the N.Korean, now we can never ever build that nuclear-powered car. Did I mentioned everyone in the world were scared shitless?

Unless you are ready for a trade embargo and economic sanctions from the Chinese and Japanese. Which means you'll have no G3 phones/fresh sushi and Wal-Mart will go bankrupt due to no Made-in-China products.

To summarize - rather a tricky questions to answer, but I can definitely borrow you my phaser gun which is nuclear powered that you can use to zap all the cars that pollute the environment.

Answer 3

I don't know, I think if a person could make a viable fission reactor that could power a vehicle at a price reasonable enough for Joe / Jane car buyer to still buy I don't see why it wouldn't be a solution.

I don't think a sustainable nuclear can exist without a certain mass of fuel. So I don't think the pinhead analogy would work.

I think the issue of spent fuel may mean spent vehicle unless someone could so some serious engineering in the end product.

I think if we could get to the point of "fusion" this may be the most viable outcome. Perhaps you people in a younger generation then me can use your brains to come up with the solution to the fusion question.

Answer 4

I think you need to understand the concept of critical mass a little better.

How about this: Your car would first need to convert the heat of the nuclear reaction into electricity and then run electric motors, right?

Why not build nuclear power plants and electric cars and have a point source for the risk (very little), emissions (tiny compared to fossil fuels), security, and use existing infrastructure (electric wires)?

Answer 5

If you think that every nuclear reactor is situated next to a large body of water, used for cooling and steam power, a car would constantly need to tow a tanker in order to be viable.

Answer 6

Tooooooooo dangerous. Veryyyyyy expensive. Can you imagine if you crashed? Even if it was safe you will have wast. You can get rid of the wast by reusing it, but then you have weapons grade plutonium. This is bad because anyone could buy a car and make a bomb that blows up a city.

Answer 7

Nuclear reactors cannot be made small enough to fit in a car, the anti-radiation shielding itself would weight more than a large truck.

Answer 8

OK

Lets start with the fact that the shielding needed would make the ars too big for the roads.

Add to that the fact that any accident would almost certainly lead to radioactive leakage.

Do I need to say any more

Answer 9

And what happens if you put off maintenance? You could kill your entire city.

You'd also be giving terrorists easy access to dirty bomb materials.

But as Centurian reminds us, that's too "liberal" an approach. Let's follow the Con lead: just do it, and don't worry about the consequences until it's too late.

Answer 10

Do you want a nuclear reactor in front of the driver? case closed.