[thulldud]

These fellows have been working on this for some years. They have a way of spreading a laser pulse out and reconcentrating it into a very short blast of tremendous power--enough to affect atomic nuclei. They can already kick U-238 into fission with lasers, so why not try it on radwaste?

Relevant article here.

[samuel_adams_us]

I thought it was possible, I remember reading the book "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" and I remember part of how they actually made the reactions which created the plutionium, etc. I am going to go back through that book tonight and see how it all fits together with LASER.

[I got the rope]

I believe the University of Rochester's Laser Fusion Research Facility is working on sustaining a controlled fusion reaction with Hydrogen.

[tortoise]

They can already kick U-238 into fission with lasers, so why not try it on radwaste?

If you actually could make arbitrary isotope radwaste decay that fast (as opposed to selective isotopic material), you have two very obvious problems. First, the energy requirements alone would make this fantastically expensive on an industrial scale. Second, you would need some really heavy shielding because the complete fission decay of that much material would generate one hell of a nasty particle and radiation flux.