[Wonder Warthog]

"We have 6,000 hours of continuous full power use that proves it is viable."

There is much more to "proof of viability" than a mere 6000 hours of operation. Beryllium is hugely toxic on a chemical basis, and the fluodide salts are highly corrosive.

"Why is India pursuing this and we aren't?"

Because, like Indonesia, they have a pot-full of monazite sands.

The above said, the US "should" have continuing research going on such plants....but until the public's attitude about fission power changes, there is no chance of funding bills passing Congress, and no company will invest in it without such assurances.

[RC one]

Fluoride salts are corrosive and beryllium is dangerous but we use uranium fluoride salts all the time to enrich uranium for uranium based reactors and there's a beryllium processing plant within 50 miles of where I now sit. So, it can be done and it has been done. One of the Thorcom team members, Dane Wilson has a PhD in metallurgy corrosion and surface science incidentally. Also, interestingly and pertinently, "he recently retired from Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he worked on materials and systems for use in molten fluoride salts, high temperature gaseous environments, and other pernicious working fluids of interest to energy and hydrogen production".

Why is India pursuing this and we aren't?" Because, like Indonesia, they have a pot-full of monazite sands.

I was actually reading about India's large thorium deposits when I typed that. I meant to say Indonesia, not India. I read China is pursuing thorium reactors because they have large stockpiles of Thorium from refining rare earth metals for the battery market. I'm pretty sure we're sitting on a LOT of thorium ourselves however.

I think the day is coming soon when more Americans will be asking their government, why the hell aren't we building thorium reactors?