Sounds to me very similar to schale oil. It is there but not readily usuable. Thorium needs breeder reactors to become fissable and spend rods need to be reprocessed to get it. The effort required to produce energy becomes more and more with each new step away from readily avaible fuels we a eagerly burn away because it enhances our self image.

In theory there are tens of different energy sources available to us, but none are as easily put to use as the ones we are using now, many seems to forget that. That and the fact that our societies are totally dependent on the cheap and abundant supply of these fuels. We will have to change our societies anyway as energy may no longer be one or the other, nor cheap or abundantly available. Losing either one is sufficient to require a total redesign of our societies.

It will also be difficult to use nuclear devices in many applications like house hold heating and cars/trains and automobiles. So yes Thorium can be an alternative, that is true, but how practical will that alternative really be; assuming we can get that alternative figured out sufficiently. We have also been promised a fusion reactor for a couple of decades now no results yet so far.

Basically it gets harder with each step further away from the plain good ole boys like oil, gaz and coal. It seems to me the best approach is to avoid running into that wall alltogether. And if we have have to encounter that wall then do it walking and not running.

Wouter