The US uses nuclear power aircraft carriers. Is this efficient? What are the drawbacks? Could the same systems theoretically be used in cars?
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The benefits of nuclear power on a large naval vessel are numerous, both in terms of how much energy can be generated and the removal of a refueling requirement. Well technically it needs to be refueled every 25 years, but that beats the need for diesel tenders or nearby ports. It’s also not very polluting, which is a nice side-benefit, but not the primary military focus. For an aircraft carrier the ability to be free from fuel requirements means that shore leave and food stores are the limiting factor on a deployment, and the latter can be served by mid-mission supplies by helicopter or a specialized rope system between two boats. For a submarine nuclear power means that they can stay submerged for as long as food and crew morale holds out.
The downsides are the cost, the technical complexity and the need for highly trained staff to maintain the onboard plant. For a sub the downside is also that some noise can’t be entirely eliminated; you can shut down a diesel plant, but you can’t shut down the cooling pumps to a nuclear pile.
As for cars yes it can THEORETICALLY be used and there was an attempt a long time ago, but it’s a bad idea and was scrapped. The weight of a properly shielded reactor is not trivial, accidents happen and that would add cost and complexity to the cleanup, and it would be a terrible proliferation risk. It’s also inefficient to have millions of small reactors rather than large power plants which can energize a grid and charge battery-powered EV’s.
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