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Thorium is not new - in fact it's use was being researched alongside the development of the Light Water Reactor which used uranium. They built a working Molten Salt Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee at the same time that the uranium-fuelled light water reactor was being put together. It was a time of war and uranium had the ability to produce plutonium, as a bi-product, which could be used to make bombs and weapons of mass destruction. Nixon, the president of the USA at that time, opted for uranium and had the Thorium plant shut down.
In a Thorium reactor you can not experience a "China Syndrome". In case of any trouble, a freeze plug melts and the liquid in the reactor flows into a storage tank. Reactions take place in ambient pressures without the need of containment structures. Thorium reactors can also be literally "shut down" at the end of the day with the flick of a switch. To completely shut down a uranium based nuclear reactor would take 7-10 years. Hence: Chernobyl and Fukushima - and for those of you who were around - Three Mile Island.