Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tobyhinloopen 3113 days ago
put it in a car
2 comments

1kW isn't driving you anywhere though(even if we ignore all the dangers of having a nuclear reactor in a car). A typical automotive engine produces 100-300kW.
Highway speed power draw is closer to 25 kW, so a small scale up (they also discuss 10 kW) and you have a self charging battery.

But apparently the 10 kW is modeled to weigh about 1800 kg, so no need to worry about one in a car any time soon.

But it would be perfect for a well isolated home wouldn't it?
Hmmmm a normal boiler for a 4-person family home is about 8-10kW so again, probably not. At least not for heating. But for normal power consumption should be ok, especially if paired with some storage device to account of periods of higher consumption(running a 3kW kettle for couple minutes for example).
Well yeah not the average household obviously but if you really wanted to get rid of your dependency on the grid it would be somewhat possible. As opposed to say drive a at least 70 HP ~ 50 KW car. Not a proposal for everybody of course but for lets say political idealists.

As far as the 3kW kettle is concerned having a battery to provide for these surges is entirely viable.

Like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

Also, you need more than a few kilowatts to power a car. 10kW = 13.4 hp. It may work, but you won't break speed records...