The Atomic Automobile

DAMN INTERESTING ^ | 27 AUGUST 2006 | ALAN BELLOWS

[thackney]

Who needs gas or diesel?

ping for your entertainment

[Swiss]

This may be a stupid idea but what about using liquid nitrogen to cool the steam? Instead of stopping at a gas station to refuel they could stop and recharge the liquid nitrogen tanks.

[Erasmus]

Well, obviously! I was talking about the external appearance.

[Hillarys nightmare]

Hey man, at least they were considering something different than gas.

I still can't figure out why they haven't come up with anything else besides gas since that time?

[HangThemHigh]

"I want an nuclear car too. An electric one I can plug into my local Nuclear power plant."

Too Cool!

You could drive in the day and let it generate power to sell to the grid at night.

[dr_lew]

Nitrogen has a very low heat of vaporization, so it doesn’t take much heat energy at all to vaporize it. It’s low temperature of condensation is no special help for this engineering problem. If you wanted to use a bulk object at a low temperature as a heat sink, you could choose steel or stone, for example, and just cool it to liquid nitrogen temperature, and it would perform much better for this purpose, but still not very well at all.

[Red Badger]

Actually an “atomic” automobile could be made with existing technology. Using a small PEBBLE BED REACTOR to generate the electricity to drive the electric motor. It would not be practical except for large vehicles like tractor-trailers and delivery vehicles. One problem though, you cannot shut the reactor “off”................

[martin_fierro]

How do you get into one of these? I do not see any doors.

You teleport in.

Duh.

[stevio]

One problem though, you cannot shut the reactor “off”................

Just plug it into your house at night.

[Red Badger]

Yes. But there would already be one at your house running your house. They would have to make some sort of allowances to add these to the main grid while parked at the house or work or malls..................

[stevio]

Good point.

[Lx]

Funny you should mention Lear. I read his biography and when he was marketing his steam idea, he said he had a magic fluid which turned out to be water. The guy was a genius and a little loopy.