why we need Mr. Fusion right quick

As if that mass of plastic supposedly floating out in the ocean weren't bad enough, we've now got news of a river in Indonesia that is positively clogged with plastic. Have a look.

It'd be nice to have Mr. Fusion-style reactors that produce energy by gobbling anything and everything that can fit into the device's aperture. We'd clean up the world in a jiffy.

Of course... there'd be other problems, such as how all that "digested" waste matter isn't coming back as anything other than energy to supply electric or reactor-driven devices. We'd be eating the earth itself, in effect, to the point where we'd have to lasso some asteroids to provide extra matter for the ravenous reactors to consume.

Such reactors, assuming they're 100% efficient and thus waste-free, would also turn out to be great dumping grounds for, say, criminals intent on destroying evidence of crimes: fingerprint-covered murder weapons, dead bodies, documents that no one should see, you name it. Students would no longer need to blame their dogs when it comes to missing homework. Hmmm... maybe Mr. Fusion isn't the best idea after all.