This desolate area in Belarus near the border with Ukraine could be decontaminated and rejuvenated if a biofuel crop were grown (Image: Viktor Drachev / AFP / Getty Images)

CONTAMINATED lands, blighted by fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, could be cleaned up in a clever way: by growing biofuels. Belarus, the country affected by much of the fallout, is planning to use the crops to suck up the radioactive strontium and caesium and make the soil fit to grow food again within decades rather than hundreds of years.

A 40,000 square kilometre area of south-east Belarus is so stuffed …