[wolf78]

We could, but the dumbed down left opposes it because it would be good for the capitalist United States. It is ok for France to have nuclear power. It is ok for Japan to have nuclear power, but the United States must be crippled because ... well, because it has been the most successful idea on the face of the earth.

The thing is: France has a lot of nuclear power because a.) France wanted the bomb and b.) it therefore socialized the energy sector. The "secret" behind France's nuclear power success is socialism.

In short, LFTR's address most of the issues and concerns from the environmentalists about nuclear reactor designs. So what are we waiting for?

AFAIK most of the problems with molten salt and high-temperature reactors are engineering challenges rather than the basic physics, e.g. corrosion. So trying to commercialize LFTR is a big financial risk (albeit one that promises great rewards). Few are willing to bet the firm, so what you'd need to get the ball rolling would be huge government loan guarantees. After Solyndra I don't see that happen.

[RayChuang88]

The biggest advantage of France's nuclear power program is this: they standardized the design of the complete nuclear power plant--reactor building, control center and even the cooling towers--and essentially built "cookie cutter" nuclear powerplants all over that country. As such, a nuclear engineer trained to operate one reactor plant could operate almost any reactor plant in that country.

This is why I want the American liquid fluoride thorium reactor program to standardize on a single 750 to 1,000 MW reactor design with standardized reactor building and control center designs, and build several hundred "cookie cutter" reactor plants all over the USA.

As for the engineering challenges, when Oak Ridge National Laboratories built their test reactor back in the 1960's, the test unit--which is not much different than the modern LFTR proposed designs--successfully ran for five years straight with no undue engineering problems. As such, we know the engineering needed to scale up a LFTR to a 750 to 1,000 MW design.