
Nobel Laureate Wants to Blast Nuclear Waste with Lasers Until It’s Safe - sandwall
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/300954-nobel-laureate-wants-to-use-lasers-to-blast-nuclear-waste-until-its-safe
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inetsee
This is somewhat off-topic, but I have a question for HNers who know more
science than I do.

I have sometimes wondered whether a plasma torch could be used to safely
dispose of exceptionally toxic waste? It seems to me that a plasma torch would
break down anything fed into it into its constituent atoms/molecules,
rendering it no longer toxic. I don't know what would happen to those
atoms/molecules after they cool down, but I can't image that they would re-
combine back into complex, toxic molecules.

I imagine that running a large plasma torch on a large volume of toxic waste
would have a substantial energy cost, but would the cost of destroying toxic
waste be greater than the current cost of dealing with all the toxic waste
being produced?

Just wondering.

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Gibbon1
Don't know. Do know that incinerators were found to be producing dioxins.

