Comment by HPsquared
6 hours ago
We already have radiotrophic fungus, found near Chernobyl. Interestingly they appear to use melanin to absorb and utilise energy from the radiation.
6 hours ago
We already have radiotrophic fungus, found near Chernobyl. Interestingly they appear to use melanin to absorb and utilise energy from the radiation.
It doesn't really eat the nuclear waste, it "just" feeds on the radioactive energi, so it doesn't speed up the decay. But you can use them as a radiation shield.
As far as I know you cannot speed up the decay, unless you put it in a particle accelerator and bombard it into something with a much faster half life?
Not exactly a scalable solution.