The NRC should approve some more thorium reactors if it doesn't want to be buying technology off China 10-20 years down the line. From what I understand Thorium (especially LFTRs) are far safer. They are "walk away safe". My suspicion is that it is too late for the US to catch up though. As the article mentions..China already has a bunch these coming online in 2013...while it just got approved in the US. China is also filing more patents...they are progressing much fast than the states at this point. China and thorium: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html The US and their history with thorium and further thorium info: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4

yeah I guess I'm going to have to go with the person who's on the lecture track and has worked in the industry herself. What source are you backing your opinion on -- do you have ties with the industry? I'm taking it you contacted Dr. Kutateladze yourself and chatted with her regarding how their institute's experience was with the pharma industry in the 90s -- what their reasons were for backing out? I love your joke about pharma acting solely in the interest of the populous; it was cute and thanks for that. Pharma is one of the most profitable industries in the world; it's been commercialized. Look no further than all the ads for medications on TV in the US.

you can have your cake and eat it too. From what I understand of bacteriophages, they are far more resilient to bacteria mutations than bacteria are to quickly evolving phages. The phages are much more targeted/specific than antibiotics will ever be and don't cause damage to the large remaining flora you speak of. This was what I understood from the lead microbiologist at the Eliava Institute when I was in Tbilisi, Georgia to get bacteriophage treatment for an antibiotic resistant infection. Feel free to contact her yourself and ask for some optimistic data regarding those unwanted bacterial-infections that arise from time to time. Her name is Dr. Mzia Kutateladze and her email: http://www.eliava-institute.org/ is under "Contact Us". Be sure to ask about her Elsevier published article named "Bacteriophages as potential new therapeutics to replace or supplement antibiotics".

I had an antibiotic resistant infection and had to travel to Tbilisi, Georgia to get proper treatment, which ended up curing the infection. There has been interest from big pharma in the 90s into phage treatments for the west until they realized that you can't patent phages, which you can literally find and isolate from your backyard. No patent = no big money for pharma = no lobbying/testing to have it approved as a medication. If you are interested on the subject please feel free to inform yourself by watching the very good doc on the subject: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8887931967515748990 If you don't feel like bickering with me about it you can also contact the head microbiologist working at the Institute where I was treated. Here's the institute's homepage: http://www.eliava-institute.org/ Feel free to PM me too and I can send you my test results from the institute; I'm all about transparency and hopefully bringing this great treatment to the west. Right now the Eliava institute mainly does work on finding phages which kill bacteria that live in oil pipelines. The oil industry is where the money is.

I am getting tired of reading these news articles about antibiotic resistance. We have the solution to dealing with antibiotic resistance from nature. Bacteriophages are viruses that only attack bacteria and can be used to treat patients or food for bacterial infections. They evolved with bacteria as new strains appear. For each type of bacteria and their different strains there are phages that will work against them. I made a post on reddit about my ordeal with an antibiotic resistant infection I had and how phagetherapy saved me. Feel free to pm me on either site if you have more questions. http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/hr0gk/hey_redditrscience_just_so_you_all_knowwe_have/