For decades, nuclear energy has been regarded as the black sheep of the energy universe, thanks to drawbacks such as high costs, risk of thermal runaway leading to catastrophic accidents as well as the hazardous by-products of nuclear plants. Nuclear waste is notorious for the fact that it can remain dangerously radioactive for many thousands of years. Currently, there are thousands of metric tons of used solid fuel from nuclear power plants worldwide and millions of liters of radioactive liquid waste from weapons production sitting in temporary…