Last night I had a conversation with "doctor" Charles Stevens about
his invention the thorium laser powered car. In our discussion we talked
about my invention, and how his invention was completely different from
mine and he went on to tell me how his invention might work in the
future. Here is how the conversation when along.
He started out
the conversation by saying that his invention does not use a laser in
the traditional sense of a focused beam of light. He said that this was a
misconception by the reporters who had published articles about his
invention on the internet. Instead, he thinks that if one was able to
heat the element thorium enough it would become sub critical and start
releasing electrons in the form of heat. Thorium would then start
decaying into an isotope of lead. During this decaying process thorium
produces heat and when placed in water it creates steam. The steam could
then be pressurized like in a pressure cooker. From this point the
pressurized steam could be released to directly power anything you could
think of. His idea would be to power a turbine that is connected to a
generator to power say a car. He claimed his current system would be
about the size of a small refrigerator and could produce 10 kilowatts of
electricity. He said this would be enough to power a small home but
there is possibility to connect multiple systems together or to make a
larger system to power larger buildings. I stopped him here to ask him
about some pretty obvious problems with this type of system if it was to
be implemented.
I first asked about the spent thorium we will
have after it has finished decaying to a radio active isotope of lead.
He responded by saying that this isotope of lead is much more valuable
then its thorium counter part because it can be used by the medical
community to test for and treat cancer. He also mentioned the
probability of the lead being recycled in other ways like recharging it
back to uranium or thorium again but the technology to do such a thing
does not exist yet. I then proceeded to ask him about the problem of
excess heat that this type of reactor would give off. He then told me
then he would channel this heat with what I presume would be some sort
of heat sinks into a type of dehumidifier. This dehumidifier would then
produce condensation and create cool drinking water by sucking out the
moister from the air around it. He also stated that this dehumidifier
could act as a type of air scrubber that could clean the air " thus
solving all of modern mans problems of having clean air, clean water,
and energy".
I then asked him why his product has not been put out
into the world yet. He replied "there was too much red tape to cut
through and too many laws to follow. " he went on to say that the
lobbyists and the president would rather turn a blind eye to this
technology in favor of other EV's and solar energy. he went on to say he
would like to market his technology to third world countries that have
much larger problems with clean water, air and energy but for now his
dream of a laser power car has been put on the back burner.
I then
asked him about my laser project that I have been tinkering with. He
has taken a look at it and did not think it would work for two reasons.
The first being the solar collector laser would not produce the same
power as the solid state laser in the video. He also went on to say that
he helped review that project with the laser propulsion craft and even
with a solid state laser the craft was not capable of lifting anything
other than itself off the ground and it was very unstable. Thus, the
cones could not power a crank shaft directly.
Our conversation
then ended here and he finished by saying that he "appreciated my ideas
and if more people would get their head in the game the world would be a
better place."
Though after researching more about Dr. Charles
Stevens I could not find any reliable credentials to confirm he was in
fact a doctor at all. I do believe he has some amazing ideas that he has
shared with the world and I think that if more people would just think
out side of the box and "get their head in the game" so to speak I think
we would be living in our imagined future sooner rather than later.
References:
My laser power car idea can be scene at the following link http://www.juliansportfolio.com/My_Projects.html
Charels Stevens website can be found here http://laserpowersystems.com/
Here is an example of the decay of thorium to lead wich any chemist can say is true
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thorium_decay_chain_from_lead-212_to_lead-208.svg
Here is an article from a reliable source explaining the potential for thorium based fuel
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/te_1349_web.pdf
International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) website http://www.iaea.org/About/index.html
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