On April 26th, 1986, Chernobyl’s Reactor No. 4 unleashed a thoroughly modern plague that emptied cities, condemned entire regions, and seeped invisibly into the bodies of those exposed to it’s destructive presence.
An interdisciplinary MIT faculty group decided to study the future of nuclear power because of a belief that this technology is an important option for the United States and the world to meet future energy needs without emitting carbon dioxide and other atmospheric pollutants.
The authors of the study emphasized that nuclear power is not the only non-carbon option and stated that they believe it should be pursued as a long term option along with other options such as the use of renewable energy sources, increased efficiency, and carbon sequestration..
A group of physicists claims to have discovered a technique that could make nuclear waste much easier to deal with. The new technique, reported in the August edition of Physics World, would render nuclear waste harmless on timescales of just a few tens of years, instead of thousands.