I would be extremely happy, if instead of paying for war we would bet on that technology, but unfortunately it is rather unlikely that it will became commercial available soon. Still looks more promising than fusion reactor - ITER.
More so, fission power in the developed world has been in a bit of political trouble for the last 3 decades or so, no one is building new fission reactors of any sort. Maybe the developing world can trailblaze the technology and prove that it's an order of magnitude or more superior to fission power, which might re-ignite interest for fission power in the US, Europe, and Japan.
So thorium reactors will still have some problems similar to uranium reactors.
LFTR designs breed U233 (as opposed to the U235 used in conventional "thermal" reactors). The people trying to revive liquid-fueled reactor development say that U233 is by far the most practical "starter" to provide the neutrons to start a reactor going. The US has a stockpile of U233, which would provide a significant advantage for in the US any race to develop the technology.
Sadly, the US has a program costing hundreds of millions of dollars to destroy its stock of U233, thus throwing away that advantage, for dubious gain. Last I heard, they were due to have started by now. Video on the subject from the guy who did the excellent Thorium remix 2011 video (on skimming it seems it doesn't really explain why U233 is better than alternative neutron sources as a way to start the reaction):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p49Sq7mbpE
I don't think they're done destroying it: if you're a US citizen, I guess there's still time to write to your member of congress.
"some problems similar to uranium reactors": I think you need to be much more specific for the comment to be useful.
The short version is that the typical thorium reaction still requires/produces U-232, which is weapons grade uranium, so you have all the same problems as before regarding proliferation concerns; and more seriously, the product U-233 produces a lot of gamma radiation, which is really deadly at a distance and terribly difficult/expensive to shield against by comparison to the radioactive products of U-235/238 fission reactors.
Also, there's a general engineering issue that lots of work and research has been done on current reactor designs, while little has been done on thorium reactors, comparatively. Thorium looks good on paper, but there are bound to be a bunch of practical issues that come up that raise the expense and mitigate the advantages. Basically, uranium fission is far more advanced, practically speaking, so a better bet for commercial applications.
ETA: And on reading the article linked above, I find that Mr. Reinhart addresses neither of these two issues.
To address your specific point about U 232: First, you have 232 and 233 reversed: it's the U 232 and not the U 233 that causes significant gamma emission [1], and the U 233 that is bred from the Th for use as fissile nuclear fuel. U 233 production from Th 232 also unavoidably produces a small amount of U 232. The gamma emissions from the U 232 are a problem for handling of U 233. However, the gamma rays (easy to spot from space) and the tricky handling are both unattractive properties for U 233 as a weapons material. The pro-Th argument goes that this means that it is much easier to enrich U 235 than it is to work with U 233. If that is the case, the proliferation properties of U 233 are arguably not relevant to the LFTR debate (I'm personally not yet convinced that it is the case).
You say that the gamma rays are "really deadly at a distance". Can you cite a reference please? I don't think it is necessary to fully shield the gamma rays, unless you are building a nuclear weapon and don't want it to be seen by a monitoring satellite. Certainly the gamma emitters here don't constitute a nuclear waste issue, because the reaction takes place quickly.
[1] http://www.princeton.edu/sgs/publications/sgs/pdf/9_1kang.pd...
I agree that engineering inexperience with thorium isn't a reason to dismiss it. I just find it a bit telling that thorium boosters like Reinhold don't address that discrepancy, in the same way they tend to be silent on the issues with U-232/233.
Regarding gamma radiation, by "deadly at a distance" I mean that they're a coherent threat to health at a much greater distance because gamma radiation travels further than alpha or beta radiation because it's much higher energy. Likewise, that greater energy imposes a much higher cost on shielding: a sheet of paper blocks alpha, heavy clothing blocks beta, but you need significant amounts of dense material like lead or packed earth or granite to block gamma radiation. Presumably, this imposes a significant extra expense on a thorium reactor that's breeding U-232. My source to back up my vaguely recalled knowledge is this: http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/understand/protection_basics.htm....
Materials such as a sheet of paper or piece of cloth have a higher stopping power (loss of energy per unit distance) for alpha particles (helium nuclei of charge +2) and beta particles (electrons of charge -1) than for gamma rays (photons - uncharged particles).
This is why an alpha emitter is much less significant if it's outside your body, but much more significant if it's in your lungs - because it dumps all its energy inside you where it can cause damage.
Edit: Yes I am. Your talking about alpha versus gamma, not low energy damage versus high energy damage.
Though it's missing a few key elements. Note that a lot of the advantages of LFTR designs rely on technology that hasn't been invented let alone demoed or proven yet. For example, in-situ fuel reprocessing.
The biggest thing is that nearly every aspect of building and operating a LFTR is completely new. From how to keep the reactor humming along and avoid having a criticality excursion or avoid accidentally quenching the reaction to how you get power out of the heat from the reaction to how you refuel it. Damned near everything is untried and untested. It's going to take a lot of iterations to smooth out the bumps, even if we accept the idea that the overall inherent safety of the design is superior.
They are building one in Georgia http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=first-new-n...
http://www.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/UnderConstructionRe...
Rather an exception of course. But a big one.
"Fundamental problems"? I guess one man's applied metallurgy is another's fudamental research, but the problems are better characterised as engineering ones, not science ones.
The US is doing exactly this: (NNSA is the National Nuclear Security Administration)