Working with scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ArvinMeritor researchers found an answer: the plasma fuel reformer, or plasmatron.

FORBES: Clearing the Air

The plasmatron, whose official name is the plasma fuel reformer, is an aluminum canister about the size of a Big Gulp drink.

FORBES: Clearing the Air

For now ArvinMeritor is marketing its plasma fuel reformer to the commercial trucking industry, which is scrambling to comply with tough new emission laws that are looming in Europe and the U.S. By 2007 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will require a 90% reduction in the amount of soot (unburned carbon).

FORBES: Clearing the Air

First, fusion research failed to progress as quickly as expected, so there were no power stations producing streams of surplus plasma to fuel fusion-torch recyclers.

ECONOMIST: Nuclear waste

Just as air-conditioning increases a car's fuel consumption, so does a plasma scrubber.

ECONOMIST: Diesel engines

The Wendelstein 7-AS, a tiddler with a fuel capacity of but a single cubic metre, was built by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics at Garching, Germany, and operated from 1988 to 2002.

ECONOMIST: Fusion power