New nuke solution. (Energy).

Technology Review (Cambridge, Mass.), July, 2002 by David Cameron

Spent nuclear fuel remains dangerously radioactive for 10,000 years or more--one reason that storing it scares scientists and politicians alike. In a study funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, nuclear physicists from the University of Nevada, New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory and other organizations have concluded that one possible technique for managing nuclear waste could work on an industrial scale. The technique-- bombarding waste with high-speed neutrons--would reduce both the half-life of the waste's longest-lived elements, such as plutonium, and the quantity of waste that needs to be stored.

The ultimate goal of the Advanced Accelerator Applications Program, as the study is called, is to build a demonstration unit that chemically treats spent...