You're an idiot. If you'd even have watched the video you told me to, you'd have known that China is working on LFTR right now, and should have it running by 2015. Additionally, perhaps you skipped the phrase "all the factors that I can see as to why LFTR isn't being built in the private sector in the US right now" while reading my response. Moron.

Hey, congratulations, you've discovered that government is made up of people! Good! Now, you just have to understand that those people's actions are motivated by self-interest, and that re-election is not the only, or sometimes even the primary, goal for them. Even if it is a primary goal, an empty war chest makes for an empty senate seat. Government's actions are largely controlled by lobbyists.

In the case of agencies like the EPA, there isn't even that pretense of public control. The unelected head of the agency makes policy for the unelected agents and bureaucrats. In that case, funding becomes priority, and funding, in government agencies, comes not to those who come to congress and say, "Yup, all is well in my district", but to those who drum up fears and point at things to be afraid of.

The system itself distorts the incentives needed to make good decisions. Is it any wonder that the decisions coming out of that system distort the market?

That video was very interesting. Especially since his reply to Sen. Franken was exactly what I said: "Government invested heavily in "traditional" nuclear power during the war. Shifting gears would be seen as a waste, or simply make them look bad, and is thus avoided."

I believe his exact words were "We have an entire fuel system based around Uranium and it would be a very costly shift to move to Thorium on any sort of short time-scale"