India working on nuclear reactor using Thorium, not Uranium

Against the backdrop of a serious ammonia leak at an oceanfront nuclear power plant near San Diego, comes the news that India is building a new kind of nuclear power plant that uses not Uranium, but Thorium, which isn't exactly a new idea, but one which hasn't been studied in the United States because it's very hard to turn Thorium into nuclear bombs.

BrightHub compares the two:

Advantages of Thorium 233 over Uranium 235

1. Waste products can contain significantly less long-lived radioactive waste than uranium or plutonium.
2. Weapons cannot be proliferated from Thorium.
3. Thorium is more energy efficient, operating at higher temperatures.
4. There are massive supplies of Thorium worldwide.
5. Less environmental damage to the environment through mining, extraction, and processing.
6. Less damaging health effects to workers during extraction.
7. Many valuable metals can be extracted as by-products during the processing of Thorium, as well as medical applications.
8. Thorium does not require enrichment. 

Disadvantages of Thorium 233 over Uranium 235
1. Thorium is non-fissile on its own; it needs a kick-start from Uranium 235, to start a chain reaction, raising the radioactivity of the waste.
2. Although thorium produces much less long lived transuranics; some long life actinides are produced.
3. Research and development of thorium has been slow and underfunded owing to the difficulty to form it into nuclear weapons.
4. It would be difficult to convert existing uranium fuelled plants to thorium use.

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