8 Grams of Thorium Could Replace Gasoline In Cars

This is fake or a scam!

There are same interesting quotes in the original article: http://wardsauto.com/ar/thorium_power_car_110811/

First, this is not a nuclear reactor: (at the end of the article)

   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.  

It says that thorium has a lot of energy, not that they can extract it: (in the middle of the article)

  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. 

And the explanation of how it works doesn't make any sense: (at the beginning of the article)

  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. 

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.

Actually, there's a great reason why large, resource-constrained countries like China have declared that they will begin developing thorium-based nuclear energy - the technology has the potential to be clean and safe.

Thorium is great because to generate a reaction, you also need that energy input (a laser). There's no chance for a meltdown because if the power turns off, you lose the laser and the reaction stops dead in it's tracks.

Thorium was abandoned mostly in the 60s because governments wanted uranium-based technology with it's nasty by-products (namely, plutonium for bomb production!). So, arguably the better, cleaner thorium technology was abandoned. Such goes geo-politics during the Cold War!

Don't discount the small-scale applications in a car or other vehicle either. It's 50 years away, but a thorium-based small-scale reactor is possible.

Radioactive cars? What could possibly go wrong?

Joking aside, it's a neat idea, but from the article it sounds like the kicker is this:

"Stevens admits that his biggest hurdle isn’t the thorium and laser aspects of the system, but the mini turbines which have to be made small enough to fit inside a vehicle while generating enough electricity"