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Once again my time crunch has left me(my post) inappropriately dressed.
What I meant was, it's interesting to sit and watch and see ideas come from places that have long since been condemned. As someone else said on another post, "All things are made new again in Japan."
I'm not saying I have any intention of sitting sidelined. I'm actually. . .quite the opposite. For my car I'm working on some CAD models to implement stirling engines to double my FE and HP, and at the same time doing some research with my advisor about the viability of small nuclear reactors in large vehicles. By large vehicle I mean tanks.
To that end it actually looks highly likely it would propel a future MBT. Another department had been working on "portable" nuclear reactors and there CAD design specifications were 15x3 meters(length, diameter) for 100 MW reactor. Design specifications indicate it would weigh in the neighborhood of 500 tonnes. The proposal was to minituarize the reactor to 1/100 scale power. a tank only needs 1,300 HP ish. The power pack would be 2X1.5meters(length, diameter) and could potentially drop 3+ MW(~4,000 HP). The bonus of dropping one in a tank is the armor would already be thick enough to contain the radiation on three sides(beneath, above and rear glacies). It would be a monster of a vehicle, because it would have to be larger but on the same token you could gain HP/ton over the Abrams as well as gain the ability to mount the Avenger's weapon system with unlimited uses.
Keep in mind Oil tankers in the US military are the biggest target in convoys. You could deploy a tank without supply train and avoid substantial numbers in vehicle losses and expenses.
That said, even hot-swapping precharged batteries(and avoiding the charging fuel-station problem) you still have to have large stores of batteries at the stations and they still would have a lower power/weight ratio.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying its stupid or we shouldn't research it. Just saying I don't think its likely at the present moment.
I agree with the 20 year clean energy. But if I low-ball it and say 10. . .not many people are likely to come out and say "I think it will happen sooner."
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