“If you had a thorium-powered car, you would never have to refuel.” You might’ve seen a statement like this, often accompanied by the image of the Cadillac World Thorium Fuel (WTF), a concept vehicle that was never officially produced.
The Cadillac World Thorium Fuel. While visually appealing and still circulating on the Internet, the Cadillac WTF is simply a concept created by designer Loren Kulesus during Cadillac’s centennial 15 years ago. It’s an artistic design without any technical support, but some still share it and present it as a serious project.
According to the description of the concept car, “The vehicle is designed to last 100 years without a fuel-up.” Moreover, it states, “The surplus power generated from its Thorium reactor can be used to give back to the grid, power a neighborhood, or recharge other electric battery-equipped devices.”
How does it work? The heart of a hydrogen car is a fuel cell that generates electricity to power the in-wheel electric motors. Similarly, the heart of a thorium car is a thorium-based nuclear reactor. Thorium is a slightly radioactive heavy metal with a high energy density, meaning that a small amount of thorium can store a large amount of energy.
Thorium is particularly appealing because it’s three to four times more abundant than natural uranium, from which the fissile isotopes of nuclear reactors are extracted. As a result, scientists are studying it as a possible substitute for uranium. However, only China has started using it as a nuclear fuel.
Laser Power Systems. Kulesus isn’t solely responsible for popularizing the concept of a thorium car. In 2011, a U.S. company called Laser Power Systems introduced a system to power electric vehicles using thorium lasers.
The idea was to direct the heat from thorium into a water tank with laser pulses to form steam, which would then drive mini-turbines. These mini-turbines, connected to a generator, would charge the car’s batteries with electricity to power the vehicle’s motors.
Impressive data. Although it never moved forward, the Laser Power Systems project provided some impressive figures that are often cited to promote the idea of thorium cars, which are said to be powered by the “most powerful fuel in history.”
- One gram of thorium purportedly holds the energy equivalent of 7,400 gallons (28,000 liters) of conventional fuel.
- Eight grams of thorium could enable a vehicle to travel 1 million miles.
Laser Power Systems claimed that a 250 KW reactor would weigh only 500 pounds and could be easily installed under the hood of a car. According to the creators, it would be enclosed in a 3-inch-thick stainless-steel box to block the radiation emitted by the thorium and its isotopes. In theory, thorium wouldn’t produce radioactive waste as dangerous as that of uranium.
Fake news. The credibility of the Laser Power Systems project was brought into question due to the questionable background of its CEO, Charles Stevens, and the company’s lack of real presence beyond a website (now non-functional).
Furthermore, some also challenged the feasibility of the project’s figures. While thorium does contain a significant amount of energy, it releases it over a very long period, making the power available within a useful time negligible.
Why aren’t there any thorium cars? First, the thorium industry isn’t as developed or established as that of other heavy metals. It’s strictly controlled and regulated due to its radioactive properties and potential use in nuclear applications.
While thorium has the potential to produce more energy per unit mass than traditional fuels, its radioactive nature poses significant technological and safety challenges when implemented in a vehicle.
As such, manufacturers would have to miniaturize a nuclear reactor or the turbines needed to generate electricity with its heat. Moreover, they would have to develop radiation shielding that can withstand the shocks of a traffic accident.
Space propulsion as an alternative. Currently, the best application for thorium is spacecraft. NASA has investigated nuclear propulsion concepts, which could theoretically use nuclear reactions to generate thrust.
However, these studies mainly focus on systems based on enriched uranium, not thorium, and are intended for deep space missions rather than rockets due to safety concerns.
Image | Loren Kulesus
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