Does this really make sense? Nuclear processes are used to generate power to drive a process which produces gasoline from CO2 in the air. That gasoline is then used... to generate power. Why not just cut out the middle step?
I don't think fully-electric cars are too far off, and when that is the case, the nuclear energy will be able to power the cars directly (or at least their batteries), along with solar power or whatever else.
Electricity is simply much more flexible since it can be produced and used in so many ways and distributed relatively cheaply. Gasoline only works for combustion engines, and it has to be manually transported. Our current infatuation with gasoline is going to look pretty stupid when we finally get to the point that it's hardly used anymore.
Agreed. Electric cars need the high performance Li-Ion batteries, the 3 minutes charge = 3 hour play kind that you get in MP3 players. I mean, if they merely got it to the point where you could go to a fuel station, plug it in to charge and go in to grab a coke and by the time you get to the cashier your car is charged.
I mean, combine this with regenative braking and thin-film solar cells (so as not to add unnecessary weight and lower mileage), you could greatly improve over most current full-electric cars.
What I'm hearing from them is that the critical feature that is holding electric cars back is the power system. This field is pretty experimental but someone who could come up with the magic battery that charges in 5 minutes would probably have a valuable system on their hands.
Another angle would be to have cars that run on batteries that can be swapped out at gas stations as needed. There are a bunch of issues that need to be considered for this approach but it's still a neat idea.
Yeah I've seen the Tesla Roadster, and all electric cars need to be manufactured like that. I have a Li-Ion drill, it takes 30 minutes to get a full charge yet it takes me over 4 hours to run it down with constant use, so I don't get how some electric cars can barely get you around town and take 8 hours to charge on a night.
I'd accept 2 hour charge time for in city driving, but most of my driving with work isn't in a city, and thus electrics are useless until they're as fast to charge as a petrol is to fill.
Gasoline is still way higher energy density than any electric car, and fuel cells are not currently based on a technology that would scale in production.
If they can make gasoline cheaply it's carbon neutral by definition. It's actually quite a promising avenue; one of many.
I don't think fully-electric cars are too far off, and when that is the case, the nuclear energy will be able to power the cars directly (or at least their batteries), along with solar power or whatever else.
Electricity is simply much more flexible since it can be produced and used in so many ways and distributed relatively cheaply. Gasoline only works for combustion engines, and it has to be manually transported. Our current infatuation with gasoline is going to look pretty stupid when we finally get to the point that it's hardly used anymore.