Thorium Lasers Bring Nuclear Cars Back on the Table

The automotive industry is making efforts to reduce the impact that the cars we drive have on the environment, but, ever since the automobile was invented patented, some 125 years ago, progress has meant small steps. However, there have been multiple attempts of making the ca leap forwards, but most of them only happened inside the imagination's border.

One of the aforementioned ideas was to use nuclear power in cars. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that this would be wrong in so many ways. You can just think about the consequences that an accident could have. A pile-up on the interstate and the whole population will grow a third arm...

However, it seems that scientists at research and development company Laser Power Systems have found a way around the problem, as Txchnologist writes. They are working on a turbine electric generator that would be powered by thorium-based laser. Where the radioactivity? Well, thorium is a radioactive metal.

We have to mention that we are not dealing with the "usual" nuclear fission here, but with other form of nuclear activity that are not as dangerous, but thing become a little but less clear when reaching the "details" area (maybe we shouldn't have skipped the science class).

So, Thorium would be used to create heat, which would help generate steam that would then be used to power a generator, with electricity being the latest step in this scheme.

This isn't the first time when this idea is considered, as Cadillac used the 2009 Chicago Auto Show to introduce the World Thorium Fuel Concept.

It seems that we could be dealing with a perpetuum mobile here, as scientist claim that you could cover around 300,000 miles with as little as eight grams of thorium. Usually, when thins sound so good, they're not true, so we'll just have to wait and see.