It was kinda thought of in the '50s. Ford’s concept the Nucleon was to use a fission reaction to heat water, which was used in a steam turbine engine. One of the issues folks worried about was, what happens in a crash? No, no one with a clue worried about a nuclear explosion, but the release of radioactive material would have been a real concern.
Some of this might change with the use of fusion. But, it’s going to be a long time before a fusion reactor would be small/light enough to slap in a car. At the moment, we haven’t really demonstrated a reactor which can commercially produce a net output of power. There has been some small scale experiments which technically produce more power than is used to initiate the fusion; but, that also relied a bit on an accounting trick (they only counted the energy of the lasers themselves, not the total energy used).
Also, when you get down to it, this is the ultimate goal of electric vehicles. Maybe someday, most of our electricity will come from grid scale fusion reactors. Those will charge the batteries which drive EVs. Moving the reactor into the car itself could happen some day. On the other hand, considering how poorly some folks maintain their cars now, would your really trust them to maintain a reactor? Again, not worried about explosions or anything silly. But, the release of radioactive material might still be a concern. It’s probably safe to just use batteries and keep the reactors locked up in large facilities.
Back in my late 20’s, I was obese (~80-100 lbs more than I should be) and finally made the decision to do something about it. Nothing fancy, I started tracking calories. I had a weekly food spreadsheet which listed each food item, how much I ate and the calories. Some foods were harder to figure out than others; but, there are a lot of resources on the internet for finding the calories of random foods. And it’s important not to overthink it. Sure, one website may list butternut squash as 80 calories per cup, another might have 90, just find one or two sites which have comprehensive lists and go with their numbers. You just need to be in the right ballpark, your measurements aren’t going to be that exact, and a few calories one way or the other isn’t a big deal. For me, it was important that this was as easy as possible. I know that, were this some complicated exercise in data entry, I’d stop doing it. Always remember: KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Once I had a handle on what I was eating, I worked to change how I ate. This wasn’t “a diet”. Diets are things you do for a while, but eventually you go back to eating normally and the pounds will come back, often with new friends. I needed to make a fundamental change to how I ate and what “normal” was. Eventually the new “normal” became a habit and the tracking fell off. These days, I can look at most meals and get a sense of the caloric content. I also still look at labels regularly. It’s a good habit to be in and can be really eye opening on what gets advertised as “healthy” and how it’s actually just sugar coated sugar floating in a bowl of sugar sauce.
Step one was figuring out portions. I got a food scale and started weighing what I was eating. And boy howdy was I eating way too much. Even to this day (a couple decades later), I don’t really understand that whole “I’m full” feeling people talk about. I tended to eat until either the food was gone, or I felt so overstuffed it made me kinda nauseous. There is no “this is just enough, I should stop” feeling. And this results in me being a bottomless pit, if I let myself go. For example, I can pack away an entire medium Dominos pizza in one sitting. Yup, the whole thing. That’s somewhere around 2,500 calories, in one sitting. And that even after having eaten normal meals all day. So now, I make a conscious decision to eat one or two slices and stop. Yes it sucks, and yes my stupid lizard brain is screaming at me to eat more, but that’s what’s normal. The upshot of understanding what portions are normal, is that I could start to seek our foods which are higher volume and lower calorie. It’s easier to fight off the lizard brain, if it thinks I did just eat a big meal, even when it’s much less calorie dense.
And that leads me to the second step, picking less calorie dense foods. Unsurprisingly, this often means less meat and more vegetables. Up above, I mentioned butternut squash, because that’s something I eat regularly. It’s tasty and you can eat a lot for not too many calories. Even better is when you can make a meal with a ton of leafy greens, as they add a lot of bulk, without adding a lot of calories. Sure, I hate salads as much as any other brainwashed American. But, lots of greens mixed into a budda bowl, with roasted chickpeas, and butternut squash; now that’s yummy. I’m not saying “go vegetarian”. While my BBQ can churn out some wonderful grilled asparagus, I’m still a product of American culture. I will shoot the motherfucker who tries to stop me smoking a pork butt on said BBQ (and dammit, now I want ribs). But, you will want to find different meals, which are both tasty and have less calories. Experiment, have some fun with it and understand that you will fuck up and will have a few meals which get tossed in favor of something else.
Speaking of ribs, look some days I just really want a rack of pork ribs, slathered in BBQ sauce and sitting next to a heaping pile of mashed potatoes with some token vegetable next to it, pretending to make the whole thing a “balanced meal” (grilled asparagus anyone? The grill is already hot). While that “balance” is complete and total bullshit, I’m still gonna want to eat said meal, push back from the table and drink a beer or six while I watch football. And that’s ok. I just do it less often. Again, this wasn’t about “going on a diet”, it’s about the new normal. And the new normal still involves having a decadent meal from time to time. Sure, it blows my calorie budget for the week. Fuck it. The important thing is to keep this to an uncommon treat and not a regular occurrence. If I have a blow out meal once a month and keep things reasonable the rest of the time, it still works out ok.
And that brings me to my last step, learning to cook. I didn’t become a five star chef, or even a really good one. But, I can cook an omelette, know how to make and use a roux, and can follow a recipe and make changes to accommodate my tastes. I spent a lot of time on YouTube learning to do things, read and tried (and fucked up) a lot of recipes. And I’ve sorted out a lot of what works for me and what doesn’t. I am also not afraid to try new things, and can accept that sometimes that means I order a pizza. Though, I’ve had to do that a lot less over the years. Like damned near everything else in life, it’s all about practice. And no one practices without failure. The upshot is that you can start to find some really tasty foods which don’t come from a box. It’s also easier to track a meal’s calories, when you know exactly what you put into the meal. Also, many of those terrible vegetables are actually really good, when cooked right. I used to HATE brussel sprouts. Just Christ on a pogo stick, why did anyone eat these slimy balls of mush? Turns out, that my mother had no idea how to cook them, so they got steamed in the microwave. When properly sauteed or roasted, they’re awesome.
And that’s really it. I started tracking calories and learned to eat differently. Smaller portions, less calorie dense foods and finding new foods that I actually enjoyed. I changed up what “normal” eating was for me and dropped that extra weight. Eventually, I did stop tracking (I hate data entry), but I still have a good sense of what my portions should be and I still weigh foods, it’s just habit now. It also helped that my wife started on the journey at the same time I did (we were both “fluffy”). Having that support and keeping the bad foods out of the house helped, a lot. I also stand by the idea of going “off script” from time to time. Some folks do well with the aesthetic lifestyle, most don’t. If you try to live a live of privation, it’s going to be hard for that to be “normal”, as you’ll always be wanting something else. So, don’t beat yourself up when you have that cheat day, just try to keep it to one or two cheat days a month. 'Cause ya, you can take my ribs when you pry them from my cold, dead, BBQ sauce covered hands. Or just ask nicely, I can make you your own rack.