Loading ...And am still a great fan of ‘passive’ nuclear power for electrical generation . Passive nuclear means that the fission reaction is shut down automatically in case of earthquake , attack , tsunami , runaway power surge , etc. , without human interaction , basically , making Chernobyl and Three Mile Island errors impossible. However , for automotive power it is not practical . Shielding the small reactor , and protecting the radioactive components in case of a massive collision would make a vehicle even heavier than these battery powered cars.
The problem I see with battery power is getting rid of the rather toxic metals after the batteries have reached end of life . It would be worse finding repositories for the radioactive fuel from millions of small automotive reactors . It is bad enough finding repositories for the spent fuel of nuclear generating stations ( Yucca Mountain has cost billions and will likely never be used ).
Westinghouse was developing a feasible nuclear rocket design back in the 60’s and 70’s ( AstroNuclear Division ) , but that was cancelled by international agreements not to put large radioactive packages into space . Otherwise , the Sun would be a great repository for nuclear waste IMHO.
I spent most of my career in Nuclear Power
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