Lasers Tackle Radioactive Waste
Summary
August 14, 2003: Scientists have demonstrated how to use a laser to convert one radioactive isotope into another with a much shorter half-life.
Source
Bibliography
Game and Story Use
- In science fiction settings, this system could form the basis of a "portable decontaminator", cleansing objects and even regions in fairly short periods of time.
- There could be autonomous robotic vehicles driving or walking through contaminated areas and gradually cleansing them.
- Ironically, this kind of technology might encourage nations to use nuclear weapons in wars, since they can still make use of the conquered territory even if they have dropped a nuke on it previously.
- Used incorrectly, could something like this make an area radioactive?
- There was a science fiction story where a similar device caused the target to emit at once all radiation that it would normally produce while decaying, with a prototype with a sabotaged timer being used as a murder weapon.
page revision: 5, last edited: 07 Oct 2019 05:08