Who Killed the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR)?

[Maslo55]

105. 20 years will be not enough

for complete worldwide fossil phaseout, even with nuclear, and not with renewables for sure, lets be realistic. More like 2050. We cannot avoid the first phase of warming, its too late for that already. Maybe we could have if LFTRs and IFRs were not stopped in 1970 and 1994, respectively..
But we can avoid catastrophic warming that would result if we do nothing and continue using fossil fuels beyond 2050.

SMRs will be cheaper to build than full sized reactors per TWh of energy they produce. Economies of scale of full sized reactors are more than compensated by many other technical advantages of SMRs, as well as automated factory production. See very good Chicago university SMR analysis here:
http://epic.uchicago.edu/sites/epic.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/SMRWhite_Paper_Dec.14.2011copy.pdf
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-small-reactors-figure-energy-future.html

SMRs dont need a lot of cooling, and are passively safe, so site availability is not a concern. Every large town can have its own SMR.

‘A path to sustainable energy by 2030′ does not adequately answer the concerns about intermittency and poor capacity factors of renewable energy, it ignores them. Good critique of it is here:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/11/03/wws-2030-critique/

Renewables are not cheaper than nuclear energy. Not per energy produced and without much higher subsidies per TWh. And not if you take into account needed smart grids and storage systems which would be required for more than marginal grid deployment.