Could we change the electrodes to meltable? If you don't cool them heavily, they burn down. Judging the amount of plasma and heat emanating from the electrodes, this would be quite plausible.
http://powder.hardwired.org.uk/View.html?ID=4703 Actually, I didn't know about this thread when I made it. Just found some dirty hack that allows to melt them. And yes, I totally agree with the idea to make them meltable by normal means.
Put some ETRD, turn off heat simulation, add 1px of LAVA, wait for ETRD to melt, collect formed LAVA, HEAT it to at least 1500 C, turn on heat simulation. Yes, backward compatibility is evil.