I am a regular at this NetForum - The Why Files and if you are literate and have expertise, or the beginnings of it, in some area, I hope you'll drop by.

You obviously can't power a car with burning metal, right? You need something that's easy to light and can be sprayed into a combustion chamber. If the truck delivering it can't crash and make a huge fireball, it's not fuel. (Actually it should say "power a car by burning a diamond-like solid", since boron isn't a metal.)

Recently read and remarked

• 6 Jul 1999 http://powerweb.lerc.nasa.gov/pvsee/publications/mars/marspower.html
  Geoffrey A. Landis and Joseph Appelbaum say, at October 1996,

  ...The conversion efficiency of standard-technology silicon cells currently flown is about 14.5% under standard space conditions ...

  GaAs cells have higher efficiency than silicon cells. GaAs cells currently available on the market have an average conversion efficiency of 18.5%. Efficiency of 21.5% has been achieved in the laboratory...

  Actually October 1996 is when they put it on the web. On paper it came out in Space Power, Volume 10 Number 2, pp 225-237 (1991).

• 3 Jul 1999 http://www.silversmithing.com/1fire.htm
  Oxygen travels in silver.

• 27 Jun 1999 http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/Data_Docs/index.html
  Persons dealing at less than arm's length with the hydrocarbon industry often claim to be uneasy about our exposure to ionizing radiation due to artificial nuclear fission. (There may be people who share this unease and who have no access to hydrocarbon revenue, but I've never heard anyone claim to be such a person.)

  Here is a compilation of references, with summaries, to actual research on the effects of small exposures. It is sometimes claimed that evidence to really nail down these effects is lacking, but that is a lie. There is much evidence that small exposures are better than no exposure. Since hydrocarbon energy generally involves much larger public irradiation than nuclear methods, this could interpreted as yet another reason for phasing out nuclear energy, but they don't seem to have thought of that yet.