It's Friday: radioactive headlights, nuclear powered cars
The company MPK has created Litrospheres, a new material that's inexpensive and stays lit, with the power equivalent to a 20 watt incandescent bulb, for 12 years without any energy input. As you can see in the above photo, this could be the perfect solution for lighting vehicles, maybe even car head lights. The only problem? It's radioactive. Still, it's just "soft" radiation and the radioactive gases are in tiny sphere so it won't kill you.
This is not the first time the power of the atom was considered for transport. The Ford Nucleon concept had a small nuclear reactor with a easily interchangeable nuclear core. The Nucleon could travel 5,000 miles, much further than any existing battery today.I think it's time we take a second look at nuclear power.
[Source: Treehugger via Gizmodo]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
pq 4:59PM (1/23/2008)
Sorry guys... not trying to bring down the party, but it'll never happen.
Any ringing bells when the words "radioactive" and "cheap or publicly available" are in the same sentence?
Yep... security issues; it would give anyone (hum hum terrorists) a great opportunity right beneath the trunk of their brand-new ecologic transport.
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Kardax 2:17PM (12/14/2007)
Radioactive things are always an interesting source of energy. The Voyager II spacecraft that's been in the news lately is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator with plutonium-238 used as the power source, and it's projected to keep working through 2020.
Radiation exposure can really mess you up, though, and you might not even know it for a long time. Makes it rather hazardous to work with...
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Snowboy 3:07PM (12/14/2007)
The Voyager, Pioneer, & Cassini space craft all use a type of nuclear power plant known as an Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG). They are a rather amazing way to generate power. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator )
As to the crash and oops factor, a SNAP27 located in the lander on Apollo 13 survived re-entry, crashing into the surface of the Pacific Ocean, and now sits quietly on the sea floor of the Tonga trench, and no leakage of the Pu-238 has been detected. Because the Pu-238 emits alpha radiation, to be a danger to living beings, direct contact or ingestion is required. Alpha particles are large enough a sheet of metal is all the shielding you need. Build the RTG and the car right and release will not be a problem.
A modern RTG would fit quite nicely in the fuel cell tunnel of the Honda FCX/Clarity... Just sayin'.
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Chris M 6:54PM (12/14/2007)
I don't think this stuff is bright enough to work as headlights, though it might serve for markers and dashborad illumination.
It is apparently using radioactive tritium and a phosphor contained in microspheres. Tritium emits beta radiation, easily blocked by the glass of the microspheres. Tritium has a half life of 12 years, so the light intensity would drop by 50% after 12 years, and drop 50% every 12 years thereafter.
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MikeW 8:54PM (12/14/2007)
Glad we move away from this
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=660
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rgseidl 4:28AM (12/15/2007)
IFF you want to protect or run road vehicles on nuclear power at all, electricity is still the safest option. Geothermal power plants run on the heat provided by natural radioactive decay in the earth's crust. Unfortunately, there are very few locations where the resulting temperatures are high enough for economical extraction. No-one knows if oil prices will stay high indefinitely, history suggests they probably won't.
Fission reactors produce highly radioactive waste that must be safely stored for extremely long periods. Reprocessing sharply reduces the volume of waste but what remains is even more hazardous. Waste transportation, terrorist threats and weapons proliferation risks all mitigate against using this technology as a means to reduce CO2 emissions. TIMHO, all other reasonable measures (conservation, efficiency, gas instead of oil, renewable energy etc.) should be advanced in favor of building a new generation of reactors.
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Bill 12:03PM (12/15/2007)
Sorry, rgseidl, but that argument's already been lost.
Since the current administration has been busily rubber-stamping applications, you can count on several new nuclear facilities starting construction (at existing nuclear plants) in the very near future.
Waste storage?
Well, I wouldn't want to own any land near those new plants.
Odds are it'll be seized under eminent domain for dry-cask storage of the waste, as it's clear by now that we'll never see any agreement on a national storage facility.
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Ross 4:31PM (12/23/2007)
Why couldn't you use an improved Strontium 90 RTG to charge bateries in a Prius? If properly shielded, an RTG would not be dangerous and could charge batteries for 20 or 30 years.
China is the largest producer of Strontium and if they had RTG powered cars, Arab terrorists would have a hard time getting into China to blow them up.
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