Cadillac World Thorium Fuel Concept Car

That's the World Thorium Fuel concept car by Cadillac. The Cadillac WTF (yes, I know), designed by Loren Kulesus, is supposed to be powered by the nuclear fuel thorium and therefore last 100 years (Whaaa? Nuclear fuel in a car? What a great idea!):

Elsewhere, every major system is redundant in case of a failure. And the wheels don't have individual tires - in fact, what's located at each corner is one combined unit made up of six individual wheels. That gives you 24 wheels in total, and each wheel has its own induction motor. Said Kulesus, "The vehicle would require the tires to be adjusted every five years, but no material would need to be added or subtracted."

Link | Loren's portfolio at Coroflot - via TechEBlog

Previously on Neatorama: Curly Skateboard by Loren Kulesus


How about the Ford Nucleon?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

Personally I think it is a great idea. The containers they can put the fuel source in can be practically impenetrable, just like the containers they move power waste in.
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Nice thats is great for the environment: radioactive fuel. Not only will it cost too much money, and use too much energy to refine and package the fuel, but it will also pose a hazard in accidents in fires. The fuel can not be put in a very thick container if it uses the RTG method: it has to be close enough to a cooling surface or the air to function well.

Great idea. Maybe for the moon or mars, but not earth.
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@iamevovled - Yeah, I can't wait to see the flux capacitor in cars, then we really will have cars that last forever, or at least that can visit forever...

Again, should GM really be wasting time on this instead of a viable business plan? TARP money won't last forever...
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If it really lasted 100 years, I'd be interested. It's nice to know that engineers are getting closer to that point. Wouldn't it be great if everyone only had to buy one car for their entire life rather than owning multiple cars? I'd think it would be better on the environment to produce less cars.
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A druk driver driving a Cadillac WTF caused a minor atomic accident on the A1, so the road will be closed for the next 30 YEARS - we advise all drivers to use side roads for the time being...
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This is what we could have if we could only embrace technology. Cars that run for one hundred years without the need for refueling. Terrorists would have no interest in blowing us up anymore because we wouldn't be so involved in the middle east.

Unfortunately we'd rather spend our time figuring out new ways of killing each other in an effort to clutch to our century old infernal combustion technology which causes more problems on this earth that it seems to solve.

And for those who said that storing radioactive material is too dangerous, youtube "nuclear waste container tests." They ram rocket powered trains into nuclear waste containers to see if they can break them or cause a hazard.

Anyway, the problems with the technology are small compared to the benefits. If we spent half our defense budget on technology we wouldn't NEED a defense budget.
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An Unemployment rise is heralding in the early arrival of the (GRD) great republican depression in my country. My government is planning for huge deficits and GM in Oshawa ON Canada is closing its doors. Stores are shutting daily, foreclosure notices litter the front yards, suicides are up, joblessness is leading to wife beatings and petty thievery around towns, food banks are running on empty and the car lots are filled to the brim with very large, impractical machinery suffering planned obsolescence, with paint hardening, getting ready to chip, rust showing here and there, and rubber parts curing, cracking and hardening each day. We need whimsy like this prototype vaporware to enchant us while we drink sorrows away and drug ourselves to sleep. It give us hope to see that somewhere in this terrible world, some asshole still has a sense of humor, and laughs hysterically every time he thinks of the crap he actually got paid money for! I love it too! It makes me think of the Volt, another cruel joke on the coupon clippers of the world.
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I doubt the engineers of this future would be foolish enough to make and sell a car to the public unless its safe. And if this wth car is not practical enough,
i think scientist could still use thorium as a more stable fuel for nuclear reactors.

from (wikipedia.org/thorium/)
"Thorium as a nuclear fuel
Main article: Thorium fuel cycle
Thorium, as well as uranium and plutonium, can be used as fuel in a nuclear reactor. Although not fissile itself, 232Th will absorb slow neutrons to produce 233U, which is fissile. Hence, like 238U, it is fertile. Theoretically thorium is more suitable fuel source than uranium: thorium is about 550 times more abundant in nature than uranium-235, potentially all of thorium fuel can be usefully burned in nuclear fission (current state of the art uranium based reactors burn only about 1-2% of fuel), thorium is fairly evenly spread around Earth with a lot of countries having huge supplies of it, thorium fuel cycle creates mainly Uranium-233 contaminated with Uranium-232 which makes it ill suited to weapons proliferation.

Problems include the high cost of fuel fabrication due partly to the high radioactivity of 233U which is a result of its contamination with traces of the short-lived 232U; the similar problems in recycling thorium due to highly radioactive 228Th; some weapons proliferation risk of 233U; and the technical problems (not yet satisfactorily solved) in reprocessing. Much development work is still required before the thorium fuel cycle can be commercialised, and the effort required seems unlikely while (or where) abundant uranium is available.

Nevertheless, the thorium fuel cycle, with its potential for breeding fuel without fast neutron reactors, holds considerable potential long-term benefits. Thorium is significantly more abundant than uranium, and is a key factor in sustainable nuclear energy. ^^Perhaps more importantly, thorium produces several orders of magnitude less long-lived radioactive waste.^^...."
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hey,this is a brilliant looking car,but talking abt its possibilities it can only be a concept car.ya we can say wow as for its concept model but its really not practical,its a high fuel consumpting car and even at accidents it will evolve high radiation as it's running from thorium.
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governments wont even allow it, who'd buy fuel with a car that needs basicly no maintenance, noone would need power becouse they have their own powersupply. besides, no maintenance on the powersupply? before i even consider buying a car like that i'd like to know for damn sure the thing wont explode on the middle of the road

anyways, governments will miss a lot of money if this hits the market, so they wont allow it.
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Here you would have a car that is capable of powering your house...no transmission lines from the Utility company, no outages from storms, no utility bill.

\no trips to the gas station, no batteries to replace, no greenhouse gas emissions.

The stationary plants can be used to safely consume our current stockpile of nuclear waste.

lets work out the bugs on this.....
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Sure, many things can be adopted from it !except that nuclear fuel based thing. its disaster for daily use on streets. may be we can use it on some Independance day parades!
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