I've asked a few people who really oughtta know about thorium reactors (benefits of growing up in Los Alamos - you end up knowing a lot of particle physicists) and I've yet to get a straight, comprehensive answer out of anyone. I ask "so what's the thing everyone's missing with thorium? 'cuz to hear the popular press talk it's a magic bullet." They come back with "thorium.... eh." I think the real problem is getting any new nuclear reactor off the ground is essentially impossible: World Nuclear Association When you're talking about applying for a permit in 2007 to build a reactor in 2020, you're talking about fundamentally proven designs. India might build one... but if I were to name one country with a driving need for a shit ton of plutonium, it'd be Pakistan. If I were to name two, the other one would be India. China has made its choice - it's going hard into hydro, solar and wind because the latter two can be exported and the former dovetails nicely with its urbanization initiatives. So what I've been able to determine is that thorium reactors should work, but that level of confidence hasn't cut it in the nuclear industry since the late '60s, and the guys who actually have the know-how and incentive to build nuclear reactors are A-OK with uranium, thanks. Thorium tends to get bandied about by the armchair guys.Following a 30-year period in which few new reactors were built, it is expected that six new units may come on line by 2020, four of those resulting from 16 licence applications made since mid-2007 to build 24 new nuclear reactors.