[HN Gopher] The impossible dream of the nuclear-powered 1958 For...
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The impossible dream of the nuclear-powered 1958 Ford Nucleon
Author : kjhughes
Score : 76 points
Date : 2021-07-06 15:30 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
| Animats wrote:
| There were plans in 1954 for an atomic powered locomotive.[1]
|
| [1]
| https://books.google.com/books?id=bVMEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA78&ots=...
| Maxburn wrote:
| At least they covered the energy conversion problem. I've always
| thought it would be easier to skip the electric step and drive a
| steam engine to drive vehicle wheels directly. But of course
| capturing the expended steam to condense back down to water to
| feed the loop would be a huge problem. And if you don't do that
| all you did was trade your fuel source and still have a range
| problem with water tanks.
|
| A nuclear jet engine might be more interesting, directly heating
| / expanding the air for propulsion with only that single stage of
| energy conversion. Admittedly whatever is conducting the heat
| from the core to the air would have to be pretty exotic.
|
| Obviously I'm not an engineer and probably reading a little too
| much scifi.
| spijdar wrote:
| Not sure if you're already aware, but attempts at making
| nuclear jet engines (for the purposes of putting on a jet
| aircraft) _were_ attempted in the 50s.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion
|
| Allegedly, Russia finally managed to get this working in 2018,
| with a nuclear powered missile having "infinite range",
| although there appears to be no real open information besides
| Russia saying "we have it"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik
| mikro2nd wrote:
| There is no such thing as "too much scifi"...
| dang wrote:
| Past related threads:
|
| _The Nucleon, Ford 's 1958 nuclear-powered concept car that
| never was_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22836272 -
| April 2020 (93 comments)
|
| _Ford Nucleon - a nuclear-powered concept car from 1958_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4745123 - Nov 2012 (47
| comments)
| belorn wrote:
| Radioisotope thermoelectric generators are used to build car
| sized rovers, so the idea did have some practical application.
| eloff wrote:
| So a typical nuclear reactor in a car is a terrible and
| unworkable idea. But what about an EV powered by nuclear
| batteries?
|
| Could that be economical or safe? You'd have pretty much
| unlimited range.
|
| http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2016/november/diamond-power.ht...
|
| My gut feeling is it can't compete with lithium ion batteries in
| terms of rate of discharge or economics. But if money was no
| object, I think it may be possible.
| duskwuff wrote:
| "Nuclear batteries" aren't, strictly speaking, batteries.
| They're RTGs, and they have very low (and constant) power
| output relative to other energy sources.
| moftz wrote:
| It would take days to fully charge an EV from a typical RTG
| and there's no way an RTG could put out enough power to even
| keep an EV rolling on a flat highway at highway speeds. They
| are good for remote, unmanned stations but not much else.
| jandrese wrote:
| An RTG powered electric car may not be able to drive cross
| country at highway speed, but most cars spend the vast
| majority of their time parked. Having a RTG constantly top
| off the battery of an electric car would probably work
| quite well, assuming you worked out the many, many issues
| surrounding the RTG itself first.
| stickfigure wrote:
| A "large" RTG puts out a few hundred watts of electrical.
| A very efficient electric car might consume 25 kWh/100
| miles, so about 250 watt-hours per mile. If your car sits
| parked 6 days per week, it might work.
|
| Also: RTGs are typically 3-7% efficient, so your trunk
| will put out thousands of watts of waste heat
| continuously. Hope you live in a cold climate.
| eloff wrote:
| > Also: RTGs are typically 3-7% efficient, so your trunk
| will put out thousands of watts of waste heat
| continuously. Hope you live in a cold climate.
|
| Ouch. It might be possible to harness some of that with
| e.g. Thermal to electric circuits to improve the
| efficiency.
| duskwuff wrote:
| The RTG _is_ a thermoelectric generator -- it 's already
| doing all it can with that thermal energy.
| jandrese wrote:
| So if you're charging at a rate of 2 miles per hour you
| can drive 48 miles a day on average, which is a fair bit
| more than most cars do. Even a 1 mile per hour charge
| rate would be enough for some people, although at that
| point you'll probably supplement with solar panels or
| something.
|
| One advantage over solar charging is that this won't be
| affected by the weather and works all night long. The
| excess waste heat is a problem, but it is way down the
| list of problems with running a RTG.
| stickfigure wrote:
| That still sounds incredibly optimistic. The most modern
| RTG:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-
| mission_radioisotope_the...
|
| Puts out 125W electrical, 2KW thermal, and costs $109M
| each (!)
|
| Most cars could support 600w of solar panels. Even in bad
| weather you'd still come out ahead.
| duskwuff wrote:
| The price is almost meaningless. We don't have enough
| refined plutonium available to build more than three
| MMRTGs right now.
| eloff wrote:
| You wouldn't use a plutonium based RTG in civilian use
| for obvious reasons.
| coolspot wrote:
| Any fission material in a consumer vehicle is unacceptable due
| to drastic consequences of a crash.
| eloff wrote:
| That's not how nuclear batteries work.
|
| The one I linked is radioactive carbon 14 formed into
| diamonds. That'd be fine in a crash.
| duskwuff wrote:
| It also has power density on the order of 1 uW/cm^3 (= 1
| W/m^3), which is incredibly low. An entire truckload of
| those batteries wouldn't even be able to power the truck's
| headlights.
| eloff wrote:
| That's a good point.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| I seem to recall the Soviets and US thinking about nuclear
| powered bombers during the cold war.
|
| Sanity prevailed as they realized how to deal with crashes and
| protecting the flight and ground crew from getting irradiated.
|
| Ballistic missiles soon made use of bombers a moot point.
| cainxinth wrote:
| How did they plan on preventing core exposure in the event of a
| high speed collision?
| ergot_vacation wrote:
| One of the things I wonder every time this car gets brought up
| is what the fallout (heh) of an accident would actually be. I'm
| sure it would be bad, yes, but HOW bad exactly? The dose makes
| the poison after all, and a car-sized reactor is a lot smaller
| than a Chernobyl-sized one.
| hugg wrote:
| They didn't. They just made a model
| cainxinth wrote:
| I know, but surely they had to consider the possibility.
| There's no mention of it in this article or the car's
| Wikipedia article.
| SigmundA wrote:
| If only we had thermocouples with solar panel like efficiency...
| lr1970 wrote:
| > If only we had thermocouples with solar panel like
| efficiency...
|
| Thermocuples are still heat engines converting thermal energy
| (heat) into zero-entropy energy (electricity in this case).
| Second Law of Thermodynamics limits efficiency of all heat
| engines as per Carnot theorem [0]. No free lunch (aka perpetual
| motion machine of the second kind)
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot%27s_theorem_(thermodyna...
| SigmundA wrote:
| Not looking for perpetual motion only a compact solid state
| heat engine on par with others in effciency that would allow
| a small nuclear battery to work without the steam engine
| complexity issues.
|
| The mars rover uses a RTG that puts out 2000 watts of heat
| and only 100 watts of electricity. Get it to 20% efficiency
| like solar panel and you're talking 400 watts, 40% like a
| steam engine would be 800 watts.
| toss1 wrote:
| Exactly - and for about a million other purposes also!
|
| This [0] seems like a good survey - some progress is being made
| raising the efficiency into the mid-teens...
|
| [0] https://www.intechopen.com/books/green-energy-
| advances/therm...
| watersb wrote:
| Today, I am re-reading "Tom Swift and His Triphibian Atomicar".
|
| http://www.tomswift.info/homepage/atomicar.html
|
| It's my favorite of the Fabulous Swifties. Keeping the dream
| alive.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| What I like about that era is that companies were brave to think
| wild. Even if the car and it's workings are close to science
| fiction,I'm sure it generated absurd amount of press coverage +
| got lots of people really excited about the future. Look at Ford
| now: super boring company making ever bigger pickups.. Hardly any
| excitement could come out of it now.
| jimsparkman wrote:
| While certainly focused on larger vehicles, by all appearances
| Ford is much more exciting and innovative than its traditional
| domestic counterparts. The new electric F150, electric mustang,
| the Bronco series, etc. have all seemed to drum up quite the
| fanfare. I can't say the same for GM.
| Animats wrote:
| Yes, things are picking up at Ford. Electric pickup trucks
| are going to be a very big thing. Ford's real innovation is
| that the "commercial" model, without all the interior luxury,
| is priced at not much more than the gas version. That price
| will probably drop as battery prices go down.
| Maxburn wrote:
| You mean you aren't excited by the cheap pushrod v8 GM STILL
| has in production? /s
| jakogut wrote:
| I mean, non-sarcastically, lots of people are excited about
| it, including me.
|
| They're a dime a dozen in junkyards. They all have high
| flowing aluminum heads, and coil per cylinder ignition. The
| pushrod design keeps the engine compact. Aluminum blocks
| are light, not much heavier than cast iron I4/V6 long
| blocks. All LSes have six bolt mains. The stock bottom end
| on every LS engine will survive four digit HP. Gen V LT
| series engines come with direct injection.
| markzzerella wrote:
| That's probably the most exciting thing in the automotive
| world right now.
| deviledeggs wrote:
| I am. Cars are a big hobby for me, a big part of my life.
| Chevy is the only company not going out of their way to
| make things too complex and locked down to repair yourself.
|
| Chevy is the only manufacturer with viable aftermarket
| parts for many varieties of auto and boat racing. Like
| yeah, you see supras and Hondas and stuff at the strip on
| weekends. But serious racing is running Chevy Small Block
| derivatives.
|
| Tech bros lament the death of open platforms for their
| hobbies, like the continuing lockdown of phones. The same
| thing is happening with cars.
|
| Thankfully Chevy has proved you can have a modern
| competitive car that meets emissions standards using 60's
| engine layouts that are easy to modify and repair.
|
| And pushrod engines aren't that bad. Overhead cam adds a
| huge amount of weight and bulk to the engine. This is the
| only reason Chevy is still able to fit 6 liter engines into
| their small sports cars. Everyone else has transitioned to
| small turbo engines because DOHC takes up so much space.
|
| And the modern Chevy V8's shut off half their cylinders
| when you're not using them so they don't waste tons of fuel
| either
| leesalminen wrote:
| Agreed. Ford has been making some moves over the past year or
| two that actually made me consider buying one (the Bronco,
| specifically). I didn't end up buying one, but I'd never even
| thought about buying any Ford product in my life. I consider
| that impressive.
| hugg wrote:
| Not sure this is an example a company thinking wild.. I mean
| all they did was create a model of how something could _look_.
| serf wrote:
| >What I like about that era is that companies were brave to
| think wild.
|
| i'm not usually an advocate for such technologies, but self-
| driving cars are pretty wild -- at the very least they're a
| pretty large legal risk for those that are playing in that
| field.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Self-driving cars were already 'pretty wild' tech in 1950s.
| The tech might be a little more practical today, but it is a
| very old concept.
|
| "In the 1950s, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA)
| believed it had the self-driving car buckled up and locked
| down. The company's quarterly magazine, Electronic Age ,
| featured its vision of the "highway of the future" in its
| January 1958 issue."
|
| "About two and a half years later, reporters experienced the
| highway themselves on a test track located in Princeton, NJ.
| The cars drove themselves around the track, using sensors on
| their front bumpers to detect an electrical cable embedded in
| the road. The cable was equipped with signals warning of
| obstructions ahead, such as a stalled vehicle or road work,
| and the cars would autonomously brake or switch lanes,
| depending on what was up the road. A receiver on the
| dashboard would also interrupt the vehicle's radio to
| announce information about upcoming exits."
|
| https://www.electronicproducts.com/throwback-tech-self-
| drivi...
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| I wish there'd be more initiatives to make roads "legible"
| by self-driving cars: distinctive computer-readable
| markings, machine-readable codes on signs, etc.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| What happens when someone graffitis over the special
| sign? Or steals it? Or knocks it over?
| [deleted]
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| You fall back to in-car autopilot. I'm sure there's a
| "progressive enhancement" way to do this.
|
| For one thing, we already have this issue with the
| current road signs: if the right sign is defaced, a human
| driver is likely to make a mistake
| rbanffy wrote:
| Signage could be embedded in the asphalt. It'd probably
| be easier to read by the car this way, and much harder to
| remove.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Travel route 66. They had such trouble with people
| pulling down those signs that they instead painted them
| onto the road. But that doesn't work so well in bad
| weather as rain/snow makes such signs difficult to read.
| Painted road is also more slippery.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I suggested something like embedding RFID tags in the
| road, not paint signs over it.
|
| If you also embed trackers in the signs themselves, the
| depredation issue is easier to deal with.
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| I wonder if you could embed little iron strips in the
| road in a specific pattern and then put some sort of
| sensor inside the tires to read the pattern. And then
| have a warning system to alert people about the
| transition from "upgraded" to "normal" roads.
| Animats wrote:
| There's some interest in that in China. The US has
| assumed that self-driving cars get no support from the
| highway. With some minimal support, it's easier. Volvo
| wanted to drive magnetized nails into roads to mark them
| under snow.
| avs733 wrote:
| this is an interesting and prescient comment for a couple
| reasons...
|
| 1) road sign standardization does exist, it is called the
| MUTCD [0] and SHOULD be highly usable for this type of
| training of image systems. I would be shocked (really
| shocked) if there are people working on this who have not
| loaded the full size EPS graphics into their software in
| some way [1]. However, when you install billions (I'm
| WAGing there are probably billions of road signs in the
| US?) of signs - variance is problematic. The signs
| themselves can age, wear, or be wrongly printed. They can
| also be effected by situational variables such as blocked
| by a tree limb, installed incorrectly (misaligned), or be
| temporary, or be affected by weather (snow, ice, rain).
| Standardizing is very much done but has its limits.
|
| 2) Your examples of 'legibility' is really interesting
| because it presumes human sense - e.g., primarily relying
| on sight. There are lots of ways to make roads signs
| legible that rely on senses humans do not possess but
| computers can. Rather than putting code on signs that
| relies on vision, it would make much more sense to
| satisfice other sensing methods for
| communicating/broadcasting information about roadways.
| You could put long distance RFID in the signs, hell this
| seems like an actually good use of IoT. It would help
| solve the visibility, weather, aging, and temporary
| signage problems. Prior to the current age of self
| driving cars, this type of non-vision, non-self contained
| approach, roads designed for self driving cars was
| considered the most viable [2, see pages 18-19]. Good
| maps loaded into your onboard systems make a road more
| legible - even if they can't be seen. There are already
| ways to hack non-visible ways of making the road system
| 'legible' [3]
|
| 3) The last piece is that there is a huge difference
| between making the road signs themselves legible and
| making roads legible. [2, section 5.1, pg. 107] talks
| about this extensively and our perception of how we think
| about sensing as people and how we ontologically
| categorize vehicles as independent of the road...Its why
| you some people have laughed at the idea of working to
| better prepare roads for self driving cars [4], even in
| ways that were used throughout later 1900's attempts at
| self driving cars. for purposes of the current US road
| network that is probably a good assumption. Somewhere
| like Japan, you can probably assume the roads are much
| more consistently designed, signed, and implemented.
| Unsurprisingly, the first actual for sale level 3 car is
| in Japan [5].
|
| [0] https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/ser-shs_millennium.htm
|
| [1] https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/shsm_interim/index.htm#sas
|
| [2] https://cmsw.mit.edu/wp/wp-
| content/uploads/2016/06/268475427... footnote 28: In her
| book Magnetic Appeal, Joyce argues that "seeing does not
| equal truth or unmediated access to the human body," but
| that practices equating these are so common that images
| are often used to stand for truth despite doctors'
| awareness of how social practices shape this evidence
| [Joyce, 2008,p. 76]. Popular narratives are particularly
| prone to fall prey to the "myth of photographic truth"
| [Joyce, 2008, p. 75]. These tendencies are of great
| relevance when considering other complex, technological
| projects dependent on imaging and which use images
| rhetorically, to stand for the "truth" of their ability
| to perform a task--such as detect a pedestrian in a
| crosswalk.
|
| [3] https://www.wired.com/story/99-phones-fake-google-
| maps-traff...
|
| [4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/20
| 14/03/1...
|
| [5] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35729591/honda-
| legend-lev...
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Forget signs. An auto-drive car needs to respond to hand
| signals from people like crossing guards and road crews.
|
| Ultimate test: a self-driving capable of loading itself
| on/off a car ferry. It will have to actively disregard
| signages/road lines to obey hand signals and
| announcements from the ship's crew. Will a tesla park
| itself within 6" the car ahead?
| avs733 wrote:
| yup! signs are one component of information that a self
| driving car needs to operate in an uncontrolled space.
|
| Even for a human, city/uncontrolled driving is hard mode.
|
| A self-driving car needs to read human body
| language...people do it all the time while driving. Is
| that driver looking at their phone? is that homeless
| person going to do something aggressive or are they just
| pan handling?
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| I sort of intend a more general sense of "legible" here:
| something like the sense used in Seeing like a State.
|
| But, in general, I think the sorts of in-road things
| you're suggesting are really valuable: "upgrading" our
| roads this way should pay dividends in terms of the
| amount of capital it takes to get a new self-driving-car
| system off the ground: embedding such tech into the roads
| seems like a public good that would benefit anyone trying
| to make a public car by lowering the R&D cost and
| centralizing some of the intelligence necessary for such
| a system.
| avs733 wrote:
| ha! one of my favorite books...just made a slide for a
| workshop to help engineering academics understand the
| difference between legible and legitimate.
| andrewljohnson wrote:
| Ah yes, those wildly innovative do-gooder car companies of the
| 50s:
|
| "The "smog conspiracy" was revealed in 1968 when the US
| Department of Justice filed an anti-trust case against the Big
| Three. They were accused of colluding to withhold the
| installation of catalytic converters and other technologies to
| reduce pollution. "Beginning at least as early as 1953, and
| continuing thereafter," alleged the Department of Justice, "the
| defendants and co-conspirators have been engaged in a
| combination and conspiracy in unreasonable restraint of the
| aforesaid interstate trade and commerce in motor vehicle air
| pollution control equipment."
|
| https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/28/automakers-and-their...
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| Now I know where the old Fallout games borrowed their car
| aesthetics from:
|
| https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Chryslus_Motors_Corporation#...
| ergot_vacation wrote:
| It's always fun seeing younger (or just less experienced)
| people come off the Fallout games and go "Wait, that was real?
| That actually happened?"
|
| Indeed it did. That's the fun of Fallout: it's only about 25%
| satire, and that's bananas.
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| I wish the new Fallout games got that right so well!
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