Ridiculous puff piece. The key component for any of this is a working accelerator driven thorium reactor which we don't have. Once we have such a thing, energy ceases to be scarce (at least by current standards). Such reactors are like fusion, except instead of being perpetually 25 years away they seem to be 10-15 years away.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerator-driven_sub-critical_reactor" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerator-driven_sub-critical...</a>
Thunderf00t explains why this is BS:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=568iDYn8pjc" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=568iDYn8pjc</a>
I will just repeat my comment from an article about the same car two years ago ( <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2879219" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2879219</a> ):<p>This is fake or a scam!<p>There are same interesting quotes in the original article: <a href="http://wardsauto.com/ar/thorium_power_car_110811/" rel="nofollow">http://wardsauto.com/ar/thorium_power_car_110811/</a><p>First, this is not a nuclear reactor: (at the end of the article)<p>> <i>This means no nuclear reaction occurs within the thorium. It remains in the same state and is not turned into uranium 233, which happens only if thorium is sufficiently super-heated to generate a fission reaction.</i><p>It says that thorium has a lot of energy, not that they can extract it: (in the middle of the article)<p>> <i>Because thorium is so dense, similar to uranium, it stores considerable potential energy: 1 gm of thorium equals the energy of 7,500 gallons (28,391 L) of gasoline Stevens says.</i><p>And the explanation of how it works doesn't make any sense: (at the beginning of the article)<p>> <i>The key to the system developed by inventor Charles Stevens, CEO and chairman of Connecticut-based Laser Power Systems, is that when silvery metal thorium is heated by an external source, it becomes so dense its molecules give off considerable heat.</i><p>The entire story sounds very similar to the presentations of the perpetual moving machines, or the cold fusion: a promise of a lot of cheap energy, but not a working prototype that produce more energy that it consumes.
One look at the website for LPS and you know it's pure BS: <a href="http://www.laserpowersystems.com/links/thorium-car/lps-car" rel="nofollow">http://www.laserpowersystems.com/links/thorium-car/lps-car</a>
What are security implications of Thorium fueled automobiles?<p>What if someone places an explosive device in it? Or two thorium fueled cars crash? What happens to reactor in these cases?<p>Is there mini Chernobyl everytime (let's say food/water is poisoned for a month or so) this car collides with something?<p>I think things like thorium fueled cars would be way more useful for inter solar travels than as cars (Less chances of causing environmental disaster).