how's that for alternative fuel?

[GuitarBilly]

pretty cool and impressive, if it can be commercially produced..

http://www.industrytap.com/thorium-fuel ... tury/15649

[nakedzen]

Yup, thorium has been known to work as fuel for nuclear reactors as long as uranium. Its development was shut down in the 70's because it doesn't produce usable materials for nuclear weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

[Lloyd Blankfein]

IB4 Exxon buys the patent/technology/souls of all involved and the process is buried out of existence.

[Gunslinger]

That would be sweet, but what about radiation?

Edit: I guess my real questions are

1. How much radiation would one of these engines produce?
2. How toxic/lethal would this radiation be? One of the byproducts is radon afterall
3. If safe, given that the auto industry pumps out cars by the millions every year, is it even feasible to consider thorium on a global level as a source of fuel for the next century? How much ore would we need, and is there even enough?
4. Cost???? I could see this being a vehicle for only the super rich.

[nakedzen]

Well it's a concept car, meaning it'll never reach production anyway, it's just something fancy to show off at car shows.

But then again, they actually put the Veyron into production so who knows.

[Steveijobzz]

Curious to see how this works.

I know Thorium transmutes to a Uranium isotope when it gets bombarded with neutrons but I didn't know it could be used for reactors because I didn't think it was unstable enough.

Time to do some research.

[izzy]

IB4 Exxon buys the patent/technology/souls of all involved and the process is buried out of existence.

GTFO of my brain.

[neilrocks25]

Interesting article, it looks it may be adopted further.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24638816