Two nitpicks: LFTR would be much much further along if it had the interest and research that fusion has had. Plus, LFTR went undeveloped for 25 years for some very stupid reasons.
Fusion has the interest and research it does because solving it would solve our energy needs almost permanently. It has a far higher payoff than thorium. And it doesn't matter that thorium research was abandoned because we couldn't vaporize commies with it. It was abandoned, and is decades away from commercial use.
