Thorium – 100 years without refuelling
Things that were created to simplify our lives are gradually killing us. More than one billion vehicles existing in the world consume trillions of dollars for maintenance and produce toxic emissions that slowly destroy us – isn’t that a problem?
“The car will wear out before the engine. There is no oil, no emissions – nothing.” This is an assertion of scientists of the American company Laser Power Systems (Connecticut). How can this be possible? They claim that have found a solution to the problem of excess emissions of harmful substances from the combustion of gasoline or diesel fuel. The scientists work on developing a new engine system that uses one of the densest material in nature known as thorium.
Because of its density, thorium can produce an incredible amount of heat. According to experts, just one gram of thorium comprises more energy than 28 thousand liters of gasoline. Just imagine for a second – 8 grams of this substance can fuel an ordinary car for a century!
All of this is under development, and of course, tomorrow we won’t drive these vehicles. However, Charles Stevens, researcher of Laser Power Systems, believes that this time will come much sooner than we think. The foundation was laid in 2009, when the company Cadillac introduced the concept of such a vehicle. The car was equipped with fuel cells with thorium. The concept was called Cadillac World Thorium Fuel (Cadillac WTF).
But Stevens is working on a project with a laser of high efficiency MaxFelaser, functioning of which is based on the same radioactive substance. The studies show that small pieces of thorium are able to create the laser beam. This beam heats water, generates steam and rotates the mini-turbine. Such a system is capable to produce 250 kW of energy, which is equivalent to 355 hp. The prototype of such an engine weighing about 200 kilograms freely fit under the hood of a conventional car.
The laser MaxFelaser was constructed in 1985. Now the scientist works on its connection with a modified turbine of Tesla and a generator of his own production. The author doesn’t provide any photos and the end date of the project is unknown.
The scientists assure that thorium is a very weak radioactive element – it produces 10 to 10 thousand times less long-lived radioactive waste. And besides, thorium will cost many times less than uranium and is much more qualitative source of energy.