Vehicle Transportation without GASOLINE !!!

Originally posted by Student X
Given your lack of expertise in the relevant fields, I recommend this book. One of the best sci-fi books ever written.
en.wikipedia.org...

no offense to you
but are you saying that science fiction
holds the answers to real scientific
problems ???

And this writer Beston also writes comic books.
Is he to be taken seriously in this thread?

And plus, I have seen no evidence of anybody
jaunting from location to location around the globe
except for OBE's and that is in your mind only.
Good luck getting ur groceries home with this
technique.

Do you have any evidence of people jaunting
around the globe ???

reply to post by boondock-saint

I want one of those vehicles like on Back to the Future where you can put almost anything in it as a fuel source.

Then you want a micro nuclear power source. I am not kidding.

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos...

The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal..

The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. 'Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a kilowatt hour anywhere in the world,' said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. 'They will cost approximately $25m [£16m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $2,500 per home.' [Runs for 30 to 40 years without refueling or mantainance ~ CV]

Deal claims to have more than 100 firm orders, largely from the oil and electricity industries, but says the company is also targeting developing countries and isolated communities. 'It's leapfrog technology,' he said.

The company plans to set up three factories to produce 4,000 plants between 2013 and 2023. 'We already have a pipeline for 100 reactors, and we are taking our time to tool up to mass-produce this reactor.'... www.guardian.co.uk...

My small community has a power co-op. I am thinking of putting together as much info as I can about this for them.

We need to get our order in NOW before prices go up

Also think about it. A mini thorium power plant could be used to power ships or possibly trains and perhaps other transportation.

Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Argonne national laboratories are designing a self-contained nuclear reactor with tamper-resistant features. Called SSTAR (small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor), this next-generation reactor will produce 10 to 100 megawatts electric and can be safely transported on ship or by a heavy-haul transport truck.

Thorium reactors would be cheap. The primary cost in nuclear reactors traditionally is the huge safety requirements. Regarding meltdown in a thorium reactor, Rubbia writes, “Both the EA and MF can be effectively protected against military diversions and exhibit an extreme robustness against any conceivable accident, always with benign consequences. In particular the [beta]-decay heat is comparable in both cases and such that it can be passively dissipated in the environment, thus eliminating the risks of “melt-down”. Thorium reactors can breed uranium-233, which can theoretically be used for nuclear weapons. However, denaturing thorium with its isotope, ionium, eliminates the proliferation threat.

Like any nuclear reactor, thorium reactors will be hot and radioactive, necessitating shielding. The amount of radioactivity scales with the size of the plant. It so happens that thorium itself is an excellent radiation shield, but lead and depleted uranium are also suitable. Smaller plants (100 megawatts), such as the Department of Energy’s small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor (SSTAR) will be 15 meters tall, 3 meters wide and weigh 500 tonnes, using only a few cm of shielding.....

A thorium reactor does not, in fact, need a containment wall. Putting the reactor vessel in a standard industrial building is sufficient.

Because thorium reactors will make nuclear reactors more decentralized. Because of no risk of proliferation or meltdown, thorium reactors can be made of almost any size. A 500 ton, 100MW SSTAR-sized thorium reactor could fit in a large industrial room, require little maintenance, and only cost $25 million. A hypothetical 5 ton, truck-sized 1 MW thorium reactor might run for only $250,000 but would generate enough electricity for 1,000 people for the duration of its operating lifetime, using only 20 kg of thorium fuel per year, running almost automatically, and requiring safety checks as infrequently as once a year. That would be as little as $200/year after capital costs are paid off, for a thousand-persons worth of electricity!

Even smaller reactors might be built. The molten salt may have a temperature of around 1,400°F, but as long as it can be contained by the best alloys, it is not really a threat. The small gasoline explosions in your automobile today are of a similar temperature. In the future, personal vehicles may be powered by the slow burning of thorium, or at least, hydrogen produced by a thorium reactor. Project Pluto, a nuclear-powered ramjet missile, produced 513 megawatts of power for only $50 million. At that price ratio, a 10 kW reactor might cost $1,000 and provide enough electricity for 10 persons/year while consuming only 1 kg of thorium every 5 years, itself only weighing 1000kg - similar to the weight of a refrigerator. I’m not sure if miniaturization to that degree is possible, or if the scaling laws really hold. But it seems consistent with what I’ve heard about nuclear power in the past.... www.thorium.tv...

reply to post by crimvelvet

not a good idea in my opinion,
one small act of vandalism and
10,000 homes are without power
indefinitely. Each home having it's
own individual power source would
be more stable and secure.

Plus, how many small communities
have a spare $25M lying around ???
As these people want their money
up front.

Even then the only way this transfers
power to vehicles is through electricity.
So you're gonna have to buy an electric
car which aren't even mass produced
at the moment.

reply to post by boondock-saint


Well as some have said the oil/banking families run the USA so we will be the LAST country to get the benefits of the nuclear power plants we are designing.


This from Physics.ORG

Update (November 12, 2008):

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) contacted PhysOrg.com to state that the NRC has no plans to review the Hyperion design in the near future, although the NRC and Hyperion have had preliminary talks. Because the Hyperion design is unique, the NRC expects that it will take significant time to ensure safety requirements. In a response to a letter from October 2008, the NRC stated:

“Hyperion Power Generation is in the early stages of development of this design, and very little testing information is available for this design concept. Hyperion Power Generation has indicated that it will submit technical reports to support a pre-application review in late FY 2009. The NRC cannot engage in any meaningful, formal technical interaction with the potential applicant until we receive those reports. Because of the very limited amount of test data and lack of operating experience available for a uranium hydride reactor, the NRC staff anticipates that a licensing review would involve significant technical, safety, and licensing policy issues.”

Because these power plants have not been run in the USA they can't be run in the USA. Nice circular reasoning there folks ESPECIALLY since the technology comes from a Federal Laboratory!

And yes this technology is taxpayer paid:

The Hyperion Power Module has received the 2010 Award of Excellence in Technology Transfer from the Federal Laboratory Consortium. The annual awards recognize successful efforts by federal laboratory employees to transfer government-developed technology to commercial industry.

An Update two years later:

May 17, 2010 (Bloomberg) -- Manufacturers of refrigerator-sized nuclear reactors will seek approval from U.S. authorities within a year to help supply the world’s growing electricity demand.

John Deal, chief executive officer of Hyperion Power Generation Inc., intends to apply for a license “within a year” for plants that would power a small factory or town too remote for traditional utility grid connections...

Certifying and building small reactors will require the same multi-year licensing procedure necessary for bigger plants. And since no small-scale systems are operating, there’s no track record to know how well they will work.

‘Pandora’s Box’

“Whether it’s a small or large reactor, the hoops you have to jump through are the same,” said Hans-Holger Rogner, head of economic planning at the International Atomic Energy Agency. “You open up a Pandora’s Box of intervention from society every time you try to build any kind of nuclear plant.”

..So far, no manufacturer has sought certification for any small reactor, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Formal approvals would probably take three to five years, the same as for bigger reactors, said Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the commission.

Small reactors have been used in U.S. submarines since the USS Nautilus was commissioned in 1954. Russia’s Rosatom Corp. is using its experience on submarines and icebreakers to develop atomic plants for floating barges...

Environmentalists are concerned the small reactors would pose the same risk of leaking radioactive materials as their larger counterparts, said Jan Beranek, nuclear energy project leader at Greenpeace International in Amsterdam.

“Terrorists could hijack a reactor and directly use it to cause a meltdown or use it to fabricate fissile materials for later use in a weapon,” Beranek said.... www.businessweek.com...

Beranek just displayed his utter ignorance of this technology. It is THORIUM not URANIUM. It is as different as salt and sugar.

You can not build bombs using thorium and it does not have the radiation headaches of uranium either. See Chemical & Engineering News from the ACS for the why I said this. (Yes I am a chemist and a member of ACS for over 30 years))

On second thought Beranek is just showing that he is a Rockefeller puppet. Greenpeace gets a lot of funding from the Rockefellers. Just check out how many hits you get for Rockefeller funding HERE

At least Change.org has the science right Thorium: Nuclear Energy's Clean Little Secret | Change.org News

reply to post by boondock-saint


haha sea weeds then I just have to get to the sea.

ok short term maybe but what about this

A car powered by urine

Urine powered car

or this a car run on coffee (could do with a bit more work tho)

Coffee powered car

I've been a fan of woodgas for a long time. I have a design for a 20 hp steam plant that uses woodgas as the heat source for a monotube flash boiler. It could power three suburban homes on about a pound and half of wood per hour. Also for a thermal dirigible, or hot-air airship, that uses woodgas for both the lift-burners and 64 hp propulsion engine which, if constructed, would be the largest airship operating in the world right now at 243' in length. For comparison, the LZ-127 Hindenburg was almost 900' long.

Here's the current largest:
www.techjournalsouth.com...

www.e-greentechnologies.com...

Using woodgas can cut the operating costs for running an airship as small as my design so exponentially I won't even mention them here.

If you get the right design going, then it is the most economical means of engine combustion I've been able to find considering the amount of trash wood (think about all the wood pallets sitting around all over the place) to be scavenged across the country. You just have to put up with this "big ol' thing" hanging off the back of your car.

Originally posted by crimvelvet
reply to post by boondock-saint

 

If you have to say good bye to gasoline, there are other options.

I know a local farmer whose pick up runs on chicken manure (Methane gas)



This is what the USA SHOULD be pursuing NOW!

I think this may be the perfect solution. The country may well be broke but we are rich in natural resources. Just the virtually infinite amount of manure coming out of Washington would allow us to be completely independent of foreign oil. Plus there will be enough left after serving our domestic needs that we can export our manure to every other country. Imagine the "warm fuzzy" feeling they will enjoy with each incoming boatload of top quality American manure.

Ok, guys, I think I have the ultimate answer...www.wired.com... I have never posted a link before, so if this doesn't work, blame my inexperience.

This would be killing two birds with one stone. Eliminating the absolute abundance of human waste, and producing usable energy.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/87d80ae74505.jpg[/atsimg]
photo credit to: www.lowtechmagazine.com...

now that is a punny picture. A 79 pinto with a bomb on the back of it. Well, maybe not a bomb, but a boiler used incorrectly will be just that, and anyone who is older than 40 knows about the volatility that is the 1979 Ford Pinto.
At least the put the ignition source close to the gas tank so the end would be quick and painless.

I agree with the idea, things that do NOT employ gasoline and I'll save the blueprints.

But its well worth mods that convert vehicles to diesel and consequently biofuel, and learning how to make this.

A family member said the very best mod for survival would be alcohol, and building distilleries. Alcohol burns clean, is enviro friendly, and you can make all sorts of debris, even rotting logs in the forests or piles of leaves/grasses and even compost into it.

This while of course, you're attempting to turn out free energy or create better batteries.

Just a heads up, there are a few threads that slow right down and you know some kind of spyware is at work, your got so honored, must be the key words employed that trigger the bots.

Notice this works for heat, and probably could run electricity to your home. I do think having a few different generators and being ready to build some for your neighbors, ie. alchohol, biofuel, wood and other burnables, wind/solar/earth itself, and water. Electro magnetic varieties that are more exotic as well, some torus coils and a few other experiments thrown in maybe.

Well I have seen a boat load of threads lately about this topic. They talk of all kinds of topics about gas alternatives, even one thread gave blueprints on how to make your backyard into an oil refinery.

I am going to comment on the thread you linked (because burning trees as fuel is not worth commenting on).

A backyard refinery eh?

It can only come from gasoline right? Wrong, gasoline can be made synthetically via a process called the "methanol to gasoline"

Methanol, as in methyl alcohol, as in methyl hydrate, as in methyl hydroxide. I mentioning the alternative names so you can check out the price of methanol the next time you are at the hardware store. You will see the cost of it which makes this whole idea nonsense.

The equation on the other thread is incomplete. And the fractional distillation diagram shows that there is no way anyone should be attempting to do this at home.

Backyard refinery my ass. It shows in the diagram the distillation of an ether by-product. For anyone that doesn't know what ether is, it likes to go boom. It likes to go boom so much that there are dozens of safety constraints when working with it. Not only does it like to go boom, it is so volatile that is boils below the freezing point of water.

That is probably why there are professional distilling our energy products. Forgive me but I'll stick to buying Shell's gas.

reply to post by crimvelvet

In the 1950s and 1960s, U.S. scientists ignored thorium, and went with uranium because uranium produces plutonium the key ingredient in nuclear bombs.

Is Ur-233 not a by-product of a nuclear Thorium reaction and did they not build a bomb out of Ur-233?

Or am I just misinformed?

reply to post by boncho



Yep, looks like an explosion?


India is using thorium and I bet one of the reasons is because they have a large reserve.

The US has a large amount of Uranium reserves, but not to be trumped by Canada, which has the largest in the world. I wonder if that has anything to do with the west using Uranium in their reactors?

Originally posted by BearTruth
Ok, guys, I think I have the ultimate answer...www.wired.com... I have never posted a link before, so if this doesn't work, blame my inexperience.

This would be killing two birds with one stone. Eliminating the absolute abundance of human waste, and producing usable energy.

I suggest everyone read the article linked above. It is about the only good idea in this thread (or at least the only idea not misrepresented)

This if anything, deserves its own thread to be discussed.

reply to post by crimvelvet

Beranek just displayed his utter ignorance of this technology. It is THORIUM not URANIUM. It is as different as salt and sugar.

Yes, unless you turn your salt into sugar. Than you no longer have salt, you have sugar.

You can not build bombs using thorium and it does not have the radiation headaches of uranium either.

1. Not true, 2. Until you turn it into Uranium

reply to post by boondock-saint

not a good idea in my opinion, one small act of vandalism and 10,000 homes are without power indefinitely. Each home having it's own individual power source would be more stable and secure.

Actually it is a better alternative than the large power stations we have now. It is much smaller, it is buried in the ground and therefore it is MUCH MUCH easier to guard.

I have a friend who worked on the barricades around a nuclear power plant and vandalism is not as easy as some would think especially for a self contained unit that needs no mantainance. Those power plants are made to withstand attack from an enemy army!

Plus, how many small communities have a spare $25M lying around ??? As these people want their money up front.

Actually it comes out to $2,500/ household. That is a six month electric bill for me. I would GLADLY find a way to come up with that money if I did not have to pay $300 to $400 a month for energy any more! Heck now a days you can charge that amount to a credit card or get a personal loan from a bank. Actually all that is needed is to come up with part of the money up front and take out a loan for the rest. The loan does not even have to be from a bank. It can be from people in the community "buying shares" in the Co-op just like in any other business.

There are electric cars:

Nissan LEAF Electric Car

Nissan LEAF ™the new car.™ 100% electric, no-gas. *as low as $25280 net value, after tax savings. MSRP $32780, with federal tax savings from 0 to $7500... www.nissanusa.com...

reply to post by boondock-saint


Cool stuff thanks. I suggest everyone start saving pdf's like these to their hd and a cd in case net ever goes down.

Deebo

reply to post by hope4better


I do not have any plans but I found this:

Bio-Bug: Car run on human waste is launched
A car that runs on methane gas produced by human waste has been launched and its makers claim drivers cannot tell the difference.
www.telegraph.co.uk...

So no I was not kidding about that truck! Just have to figure out how to make your Septic tank into a methane plant and separate and compress the gas....