They already have nuclear power cars in other countries, just as we have turf power cars here.
It's the only viable form of green energy. The impact of coal powered electricity generation on the environment is the equivalent of a Chernobyl sized event every 4 years.I fear for the future of Tesla, once Sellafield starts rolling out cars
Personally, I don't like the risk that comes with Nuclear power, small as that risk may be.
When it comes to Nuclear reactors I'm a fan of the Travelling Wave Reactor design as it is intrinsically safe and can use existing nuclear waste as fuel. Using that technology there is enough existing waste to power the world for a thousand years. The waste in the USA alone would generate $100 trillion worth of electricity. From an energy generation revolution point of view it is close to Nuclear Fusion in how big a step it would represent.
Bill Gate's supported Terrapower seem to be working on a TWR reactor, but they also had an announcement this week that they've been given go ahead to develop one of their reactor designs (not TWR), not sure what that means for their TWR plans...
www.geekwire.com
They were ready to build a TWR in China but Trump's trade war scuppered their plans.Bill Gate's supported Terrapower seem to be working on a TWR reactor, but they also had an announcement this week that they've been given go ahead to develop one of their reactor designs (not TWR), not sure what that means for their TWR plans...
TerraPower advances plans for next-gen nuclear plants, earning Bill Gates’ praise
TerraPower, the nuclear venture backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, gets a boost on two fronts in its campaign to pioneer a new generation of reactors.
Lots happening in nuclear at the moment, maybe Ireland having a smaller nuclear station or two is not as unrealistic as it once seemed, which would be fantastic!
For trucks/trains maybe, but for passenger cars hydrogen is a dead duck. It’s slow to pressurise for refills, dangerous/difficult&expensive to store, is mostly made from oil releasing large quantities of GHGs in the process, cannot refill at home like an electric car. Mostly importantly though, car manufacturers are in the process of spending billions to develop their electric car production lines, putting many close to bankruptcy, there’s not a chance they’re decide to repeat that for hydrogen when electrics are going from strength to strength, the incentives to do so are zilch.
Yes sorry, filling the car doesn't take long. The challenge is that refilling needs to take place at up to 15000PSI (yes you should be concerned about the number of zeros in that figure of an incredibly flammable substance being pumped by Joe Public), which takes quite a bit of time to build each time a car refills. So a 5 minute car fill sounds great, but if the pump isn't useable for 30/60/90 minutes (I cannot find the number at the moment sorry) the throughput of the station will be badly affected.
Except that if we all ran electric cars we'd need to double our overall electricity generation capacity.
It'll be a 20 year transition to EV's with cleaner electricity generation. It won't make a big difference to the problem of climate change though.