Next in the "Can Plasma?" series: can plasma break down nuclear waste? A viewer on LinkedIn asked. The literal answer is no. The useful answer is that plasma is one of the top solutions for what we CAN do with it: turn it into glass.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 The question from LinkedIn

00:13 Quick intro, Greg Friedman, plasma bioengineer

00:30 The question in full: can plasma break down nuclear waste?

00:39 The sun analogy: pile any junk under a real thermonuclear plasma and it burns

00:53 Thermonuclear plasma on Earth: tokamaks at 100s of millions of degrees

01:17 Can you drive to Princeton with a bucket of trash? No, they won't let you

01:36 The practical version: plasma gasifiers using thermal torches

01:43 Torch temperatures: 10,000 to 30,000 Celsius

02:11 Still not hot enough to break down  ...