Even in a simpler system that exchanges a steam turbine for a simple heat engine, excess thermal energy still has to be given off, which an internal combustion engine does as part of its normal operation.
“With an ICE, a large part of the waste heat is dissipated via the exhaust gas and the rest via the cooler,” says Dr. Thomas continue. “Since the working fluid of the nuclear reactor is not exhausted but recycled (think of your home or car air conditioning system), the waste heat has to be dissipated via one or more radiators.”
“All these other elements of the system for energy conversion and disposal of waste heat represent the challenges when using a nuclear reactor in a car.”
For these reasons, nuclear power on the scale of a personal vehicle was simply not possible back then, and at every production size Ford maintains today, it still isn’t.
“Mobile nuclear power on such a small scale was not feasible in the 1950s,” concluded Dr. Thomas. “And not because of the small reactor itself, the construction and control of which we understand today – see NASA’s KRUSTY project – but rather the thermal conversion into mechanical energy and the disposal of waste heat within the geometric shell of a personal vehicle found out how to mass-produce nuclear reactors with the Department of Energy’s Small Modular Reactor Program. “
“[Ford] probably optimistic that energy conversion technology would improve significantly (we are still hunting for energy conversion breakthroughs today), and the geometry of the concept car makes me speculate that it is [would have] had many coolers hidden under this sheet metal. “
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