There have already been many thorium prototype reactors built over the past 50 years.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_reactor#List_of_thorium-fueled_reactors)
In almost all cases the reactors tested were safer than uranium reactors, cheaper to build and operate (thorium being 400 times more abundant than uranium) than uranium based reactors, feasible at smaller scales, and without melt down risks of uranium reactors. We don't need more R&D, we need commercial deployment and optimization. The only thing that has kept thorium reactors from replacing nuclear reactors - is an the influence (ownership) by the uranium industry and the military industrial complex of our governmental decisions making bodies. Thorium reactors are long past the R&D stage and it's time to hold the US Congress and the Executive Branch responsible for the uranium liabilities it has created - not only in the US, but globally.
