[Ace Pace]

1. My profesor works at CEARN where they produce antimatter...he's one of the lead scientists there, so I know what I'm talking about. You spend MORE energy to create antimatter then you get from a mater-antimatter reaction. Why do you think they only produce small ammounts of it for study purposes if it ralyl is such a efficient energy source...

Obviously right now it's not efficient, for the matter, so is Fusion right now. But theorectically it can work. In universe with Star wars, we assume it functions and use theorectical calculations to get power numbers.

2. You're perfectly OK with a concept of society where every citizen has the means to blow up the city? And you really think a society like that could exist? Just Bob tinkering in his garage and making a mistake could level the block, let alone if people would activly try to make things go boom.

What made you think that this level of power is available to a common person? In no peice of data from the SW-verse have we seen that the average person has the ability to acess hypermatter reactors, or a ship such as Slave-1. The ship numbers I am quoting from are from military ships, not civilians, or highly and illegally modified ones(slave-1).
You're moving the goalposts by the way. 

[Cobra]

*slaps forehead* For god's sake people, stop arguing with Mars and Ace Pace. They're both right on every account.

Freespace ships move in meters per second. Star Wars ships move in equivalent to kilometers per second.

Really? That's in the books? From the moves, they aren't that fast... Just look at them chasing the MF in the asteroid field...when they nearly chrash...you call that fast?

In the games, dude.

Also, in the movies, the asteroids in ESB moved pretty fast.

[jr2]

About the reactors in every car bit:

A properly designed reactor almost can't meltdown, and certainly can't go supercritical.  The worst you'd get is a scattering of radioactive materials, not a sustained nuclear reaction.  The reason they won't have nuclear power in cars:

The lead is quite heavy

[Locutus of Borg]

That's true

the SD Lucifer is motionles compared to a ship like Voyager that can go several lightyears in a few hours.

[S-99]

1. My profesor works at CEARN where they produce antimatter...he's one of the lead scientists there, so I know what I'm talking about. You spend MORE energy to create antimatter then you get from a mater-antimatter reaction. Why do you think they only produce small ammounts of it for study purposes if it ralyl is such a efficient energy source...

2. You're perfectly OK with a concept of society where every citizen has the means to blow up the city? And you really think a society like that could exist? Just Bob tinkering in his garage and making a mistake could level the block, let alone if people would activly try to make things go boom.

First thing's first, a nuclear reactor is not a nuclear bomb(this would be the third time told). One releases energy all at once, another doesn't. Now if nuclear powered cars is such a bad thing then i guess the nuclear power plant would be attacked next. Nuclear power plants, great way to produce energy with the only waste being steam. Now if i could have that for my car that'd be kickass. But, nuclear power for cars is highly over kill for the energy source of a car in the first place. If it did happen, then that be one crazy car, that probably doesn't have plans on being fueled in the next 10 years or so (wouldn't be good for the economy either).

Plus, i'm not thinking a nuclear reactor for a car would need to be that big. Nuclear reactors can pump out a lot of power, so that means you could probably make a tiny reactor that could spit out a lot of energy as well. I don't see why a nuclear reactor couldn't be something small enough to fit in a car, or even a motorcycle.

[Gamma_Draconis]

Well, would it be possible to make a nanosize nuclear reactor? I think the biggest problem with that is the amount of radiation released when you change the uranium. It'll be 1 hell of an oil change. I think they actually did tried to make a nuclear powered car. I also doubt terrorists will be able to use the car to make an atomic bomb, maybe a dirty bomb though. The Uranium used for nuclear power is not of weapons grade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

[jr2]

Two words:
Lead shielding

It would be impractically heavy.  Now, having a nuclear reactor powering your home, and having electric motorcycles / cars would be an idea.

Wikipedia:

[Gamma_Draconis]

Well, maybe they would figure out a way to develop a super light weight material capable of containing the radiation and yet be light enough for transportation. Nuclear power isn't as bad as people make it. There has probably been more damage done to the environment and economy from oil, coal, and natural gas then nuclear radiation has done.

[jr2]

Most absolutely right... but what's wrong with the electric cars & motorcycles?  All you'd need is access to a place with a reactor.

[Gamma_Draconis]

I think with nanotechnology we may one day create... "Nuclear Batteries." Never have to change the batteries for that remote control again... Now if we can just figure out a way to stop losing them. I think it would be more efficient to have a Mini Nuclear Power plant at every block. Save the expense of having to build one for every home. Actually, I think the current method of nuclear power distribution is perfectly fine, we just need to convert to it.

[jr2]

Problem is the reaction has to be self-sustaining... if you don't have enough fissionable material, the reaction goes kaput.

[Stormkeeper]

Amazing how a deathmatch topic can lead to discussion on fissionables.

For the record, in that deathmatch, I would like to vote for Lucy to win cuz Lucy has haxx0rz invincible~

[Ace Pace]

Just to go over the nuclear cars bit... A possible solution is what we currently use to power long range sattalites which obviously can't run on solar power.
We implant radioactive material(sometimes thorium I think, sometimes uranium). These release off radiation, which causes heat. Enabling electronics to function. I'm not so clear on the specifics. However, a similar technology could be used for cars.

One problem there is that this releases off energy VERY slowly and corrodes the material over time. Therfor, not very usful for day to day items which are to be used by humans. A normal electric battery would serve better.

[Turey]

The Tesla Roadster is one of my favorite cars ever.

[Locutus of Borg]

there's a new DeathMatch up