Why do we have e.g. nuclear waste, if mass can be converted to energy?

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My knowledge about school level physics is admittedly not that fleshed out, but we were told that it is possible to convert mass to energy. My google-fu has sadly left me for my question here 🙁

So why can’t we just take e.g. nuclear waste and convert it to energy? After that so is my understanding it wouldn’t simply exist as matter anymore and wouldn’t require to store dangerous trash if you can convert it all to energy.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Because we currently don’t have the ability to turn any amount of matter into energy at 100% efficiency. The only way to do that is with antimatter, and we can’t make antimatter without putting in the same amount of energy to start with. In other words, mass can be converted into energy, but we can’t convert mass into energy.

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