Fairchild ESV (Experimental Safety Vehicle)

[Hammer Birchgrove]

I thought the development of fast breeder reactors have been slowed down due to low uranium prices...

That was certainly an important part of it. But if your goal is to get rid of "radioactive waste," then isn't burning it up and generating electricity and ending the reliance upon fossil fuel thus plunging the Middle East into a nightmarish permanent economic depression, leaving the starving denizens of the former oil-producing nations with no choice but to go on a genocidal rampage into Europe, Russia and India in order to find new homes for their teeming millions worth the extra cost?

For The Children.

If that happens... THEN THE VIKINGS ARE COMING, YOU HEAR ME!?

Seriously though, the smarter of the oil-producing countries are already planning to build solar power stations in order to export electricity. And China and India will be more than happy to buy oil at a reduced price.

it will just shorten the time the waste needs to be stored (for several hundreds of years), but geological disposal will still be needed.

Bah. Short-sighted. The reason it needs to be "stored" is because it's radioactive. What is radiation? It's energy. *Use* *it.*

Something like nuclear batteries? Could work, I suppose. I dunno why no one has suggested it before.

 

[Hammer Birchgrove]

Similarly, contract law - you could get really weird contracts - it's just simpler if you make general guidelines into a law that makes some things like slavery illegal.

Ah, but slavery *isn't* illegal. Not in the US... and I'd bet not pretty much everywhere else, too.

Nuclear powered safety slave cars! Topicalness!

How do you define slavery? ???

 

[Orionblamblam]

Ah, but slavery *isn't* illegal. Not in the US... and I'd bet not pretty much everywhere else, too.
How do you define slavery? ???

Involuntary servitude. Forced labor. That sort of thing.

 

[Orionblamblam]

If that happens... THEN THE VIKINGS ARE COMING, YOU HEAR ME!?

'bout damned time.

Seriously though, the smarter of the oil-producing countries are already planning to build solar power stations in order to export electricity.

A pity for them that there are better places to get electricity from.

And China and India will be more than happy to buy oil at a reduced price.

For a while. Then their tech bases will catch up. In a likely "magical sudden replacement for oil" scenario, their tech bases will *have* to catch up. If the west suddenly stops buying middle eastern oil, even if India and China re willing to buy lots of oil for dirt cheap, there will be some big economies collapsing pretty much overnight. As, say, Saudi Arabia devloves into economic chaos, rest assured that political chaos will soon follow... and in the Middle East, that tends to involve people blowing up their own resources to make some sort of dumbass point. And when that happens, Arabia's future will very quickly vanish.

Something like nuclear batteries? Could work, I suppose. I dunno why no one has suggested it before.

I'm sure some have.

If you take "nuclear waste" and simply encase it (in metal, concrete, water, whatever), assuming the casing material is the right thickness, the casing will absorb the radiation and convert it into heat. For a lot of waste products (steel pipes, work rags, filters, etc) the heat generated would be pretty minimal, difficult to extract useful electricity from. However, the casing will nevertheless be warmer than it otherwise would have been. Hell, cast giant concrete blocks with nuke-waste cores and use them as the foundations for large facilities in the arctic. Build roads with beds of nuclear waste... automatic de-icing.If the Gorebots are right, then build giant self-heated nuclear walls to help hold back the ice sheets sure to form the moment mankind wisely stops using fossil fuels, the climate changes and the wonderful glaciers start marching down from the poles to cover the Earth.

 

[Hammer Birchgrove]

Ah, but slavery *isn't* illegal. Not in the US... and I'd bet not pretty much everywhere else, too.

How do you define slavery? ???

Involuntary servitude. Forced labor. That sort of thing.

OK.

 

[Hammer Birchgrove]

Something like nuclear batteries? Could work, I suppose. I dunno why no one has suggested it before.

I'm sure some have.

If you take "nuclear waste" and simply encase it (in metal, concrete, water, whatever), assuming the casing material is the right thickness, the casing will absorb the radiation and convert it into heat. For a lot of waste products (steel pipes, work rags, filters, etc) the heat generated would be pretty minimal, difficult to extract useful electricity from. However, the casing will nevertheless be warmer than it otherwise would have been. Hell, cast giant concrete blocks with nuke-waste cores and use them as the foundations for large facilities in the arctic. Build roads with beds of nuclear waste... automatic de-icing.If the Gorebots are right, then build giant self-heated nuclear walls to help hold back the ice sheets sure to form the moment mankind wisely stops using fossil fuels, the climate changes and the wonderful glaciers start marching down from the poles to cover the Earth.

Using heat pumps should probably be the easiest way to extract the heat. (Could perhaps be used as refrigerators to keep the glaciers intact, if the "Gorebots" = the majority of the world's climate researchers indeed are right.) The de-icing road blocks seems like a wonderful idea (sounds like something that A.E. van Vogt or Isaac Asimov could have come up with during the 50's ) but I think experts and then people would start shouting about *background radiation* no matter how well insulated the actual ionizing radiation is. (BTW Al Gore did approve of nuclear power in that pop documentary/slide show he did.)

Now, if only I could convince the politicians here of the soundness of this... :

 

[Grey Havoc]

A. Department of Transportation Experimental Safety Vehicle Program

The National Highway Safety Administration of the Department of
Transportation has awarded four contracts for the development of prototype
Experimental Safety Vehicles (ISV). By the end of 1971, contractors are
to deliver one prototype and a backup vehicle to NHSA. The prototypes will
be tested against each other, and the winning company will be awarded a
contract for twelve additional vehicles for further testing. Effectively,
the competition is between Fairchild Hiller's Republic Aviation Division
(contract $4.5 M) and AMF, Inc. ($3.2 M). The other contractors, General
Motors Corporation and Ford Motor Company, each submitted bids of one
dollar, but do not expect to have prototypes available until mid-1972 or
later. It is reported that Volkswagen is also developing an experimental
vehicle to meet NHSA specifications. In addition, Chrysler Corporation is
a major subcontractor to Fairchild Hiller. The Fairchild Hiller proposed
design is essentially that of the Safety Sedan developed for the New York
State Department of Motor Vehicles in 1967, while AMF is working with a
group of companies including the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, which has
conducted considerable research into vehicle crash performance.

Among the specifications set for the ESV by NHSA are requirements that
under conditions of 50 m/h frontal barrier crash, 30 m/h side impact, or
70 m/h rollover without collision, the passenger compartment shall suffer
no loss of integrity sufficient to allow any part of an occupant to
protrude from it, and moreover a properly restrained occupant shall
sustain relatively minor injuries. No damage to the ESV body is to result
from 10 m/h frontal barrier collision, and the ESV is to have dimensions
typicel of conventional 5-passenger sedans with a weight no more than
4200 lb. It is hoped that the last restrictions would hold the cost of
the production vehicle to something comparable to today's larger sedans

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD0743449&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

 

[Grey Havoc]

FAIRCHILD REPUBLIC'S ESV - How Jet-Age Safety Technology Revolutionized Automotive Design

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FDG8sd-UYM

 

[Duneroad]

Photographs of Fairchild ESV (Experimental Safety Vehicle).

Source: From the Archives at Grumman Memorial Park Calverton, Long Island, New York or The Cradle of Aviation Museum, Garden City, Long Island via Warbird Information Exchange forum.
http://warbirdinformationexchange.o...id=e177db591145400868f4796c686cb7c3&start=780

I found the Model in the Attic..

 

[Grey Havoc]

Nice find!