I was doing some research on different renewable energy sources for an electric car as I was considering this project for my final year, when I came across the energy source I could have never thought to be used in a car, the “Atomic Car” . Of course we have nuclear weapons, submarines, ships, power plants, but who has heard about nuclear cars? Like Project Pluto and Tu-119 Nuclear powered aircrafts, it was a project destined to be doomed.
The concept of Nuclear car dates back to 1957-58 when Ford Motor Company unveiled its project of an atomic car named as Ford Nucleon. Once fuelled with enriched uranium this car didn’t require refueling for years. It will require only uranium and water to power it on the same mechanism as that of a nuclear power plant. It would have been one of the most environment friendly cars , until the hazards of radioactivity interfered and put this Ford Nucleon project to a stand still, never to be realised again.
One of the major concerns of this project was the shielding of the nuclear reactor with lead , which is itself very heavy. The weight can be imagined from the weight of a car battery which consists of lead plates. Another concern was about the disposal of nuclear wastes once it is utilized. And the most important concern was about the access of uranium to general public. if not an atomic bomb a small amount of it can make other powerful bomb.
Designers anticipated that the would be able to travel about 5,000 miles per charge. For service stations they had the idea of centres where they could swap the old reactor wwith a new one.
During that time America had just won the war due to atomic weaponry and people were eager to adopt nuclear powered cars. Unlike today, most people didn’t understand the hazards of nuclear power, and every minor accident could become a nuclear disaster. Due to these reasons the Nucleon concept did generate excitement. Some even say that the U.S. government backed this project.
The engineers at Ford imagined that this sleek and futuristic car was going to be a hit with the american public. They imagined that the internal combustion engine would die and be replaced by a nuclear engine. But the idea rested on light nuclear power plant with lighter shielding materials. These innovations failed to appear (even today) and the project was dumped due to its impracticality.
The designers sure deserve a pat for their ingenuity and vision.