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USING nuclear reactions to generate electricity is a messy business. Reactors that exploit nuclear fission (in which energy is generated by splitting uranium atoms) have produced thousands of tonnes of spent fuel and other radioactive by-products. Meanwhile, research into fusion power (in which energy is generated by fusing hydrogen atoms together at very high temperatures) has left behind adifferent kind of debris:a trail of experimental reactors,none of which has yet reached the break-even point where the amount of energy that comes out exceeds the amount put in.Bernard Eastlund, a physicist and veteran of the American nuclear industry, has proposed an ingenious way to deal with these nuclear leftovers. The experimental fusion reactors, he suggests, could be used to clean up the waste generated by the fission reactors.
Dr Eastlund first came up with the idea for what he calls a "fusion torch" in 1968, in collaboration with an electrical engineer called William Gough. At the time, it looked as though practical fusion reactors were just around the comer, and the two physicists suggested that their surplus plasma--gas heated to around 10m deg C, so that individual atoms have their electrons stripped offmight be used for recycling household and industrial waste.
The idea works as follows. First, start with the plasma, confined in a doughnutshaped magnetic "bottle" called a tokamak. Next, throw in some unwanted material. This will be reduced almost instantly to a soup of electrons and nuclei. it will also cause the magnetic bottle to...