No question they work. Lab reactors were run for years until funding ran out.
There were 5 American startups designing Thorium reactors a few years back. I'm guessing regulation killed them.
People assume regulation is responsible for the death of nuclear programs all the time. More likely, it's technical feasibility or cost issues. Which gets back to the "Why isn't China doing this?" Building a lab reactor that implements a theoretical reaction chain, and building a production reactor that puts out terawatt-range power safely and cost-effectively for decades are two entirely different things. Lab reactors are the Hello World apps of nuclear power.
I think we should definitely keep researching thorium. The theoretical aspects are very appealing and solve a lot of problems. My concern isn't that thorium can't work, or won't solve the problems it should solve, but rather that there's a LOT of handwaving and assumptions and finger-pointing from the pro-thorium crowd. If it was as easy, cheap, and safe as they claim, it'd be done already. Doesn't mean it can't be done, just that it isn't as easy or cheap as is claimed by its proponents.
