New Buzzword of the Decade: THORIUM
As in: "I'm so thorium, I can hardly pithium."
If you remember the old Batman television show from the 60's, whenever they climbed into the Batmobile (coolest car ever), Robin would call out "atomic batteries to power,turbines to speed" before they set out. As it so happens, maybe Batman was just 50 years or so ahead of its time. How's that? Atomic powered cars might actually be practical. The key is, you can't use uranium or plutonium, rather, the best bet is the (mildly radioactive) common, rare-earth metal, thorium. Thorium is fairly common in the United States, but right now there isn't enough demand for there to be much active mining. Thorium has enough atomic energy stored within so that 8 grams of thorium could power a typical car for its life time. Back in the bad old days of the carpocolypse, in January 2009, Cadillac came out with a concept car (right) to be fueled by a thorium/laser powerplant. (see pic from ubergizmo.com)
For a detailed layperson's article on thorium reactor technology, check out this article at Wired.com.
A marginally relevant video perhaps? Of course
A very interesting post, I love the car of batman too, because it's really cool and very unique!
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