As WUWT readers know, I’m an advocate of do it yourself, amateur science, that what the surfacestations.org project was. This however, in our hypersensitive world, was a recipe for trouble:
Swedish Man Arrested For Building a Nuclear Reactor In His Kitchen
Swedish police have detained a 31-year-old man in Ängelholm in western Sweden who was discovered after he sought advice from authorities on the legality of building a nuclear reactor in a domestic kitchen.
The man began his experiment some six months ago and has reportedly been open about his plans to construct a nuclear reactor in his apartment in the small Swedish coastal town, maintaining a blog of his nuclear adventure.
The man, who explained that his interest in nuclear physics was awakened as a teenager, ordered some radioactive material from overseas and acquired more by taking apart a domestic fire alarm.
Despite the man’s frank and full disclosure of his experiment, his activities only came to the attention of the authorities a couple of weeks ago when he contacted the Swedish Radiation Authority (Strålsäkerhetsmyndigheten) to inquire if it was legal to construct a nuclear reactor at home.
It appears that there likely wasn’t any danger from this guy as he did his experiment, and even though he talks about meltdown, it seems he didn’t come anywhere close to having a critical mass for runaway fission. I mean, c’mon, just how much Americium can you get out of a smoke detector?
The guy likely “ordered some radioactive material from overseas…” from this source:
Yep, good ol United Nuclear.
Full disclosure: I have some pitchblende and some radioactive glass marbles somewhere in my collection of stuff. I also have some pure liquid mercury in my collection of thermometers. I guess that makes me a target for a visit from the science police.
Funny thing though, one of my very first blog posts back in 2006 was about Nuclear power in your basement and nobody got arrested from that one.
“I’m sure that in 1985 plutonium is available in every corner drugstore…” — Doc Brown in “Back to the Future”
Whats for dinner honey?
Fission Chips !
Hey! See the second kit in this article (from one of my favorite trade mags) — perfect for the DYI guy (as opposed to DIY)
http://www.edn.com/blog/Anablog/4122…th_science.php
Atomic Power for the masses! First blogger with a reactor to go live wins.
DYI = “Do yourself in” as opposed to “DIY” or do-it-yourself!
Sorry about the link… Try this for the DYI crowd…
http://www.edn.com/blog/Anablog/41223-When_kids_really_had_fun_with_science.php
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1994/02/15
Society doesn’t value hard work and imagination as much as they say they do.
@PaulH says:
August 4, 2011 at 10:51 am:
CRS Reply Thanks for the Oklo link, Paul! Very cool! I knew about those natural reactors, but the link provides interesting details!
I built a small cloud-chamber for a grade school science fair when I was about 11, it worked pretty good. We used a chunk of uranium ore as a radioactivity source. I guess I’m a dead man walking.
Oh this is really health and safety gone mad. Which one of us can honestly say we have never started a chain reaction in the kitchen? We all do it at some time! I know I have, until she who must be obeyed objected to the amounts of lead I was using and the cats with hair falling all over the place. I must admit though, like most of us, I only ever used such experiments for peaceful purposes, though I was sorely tempted when Cardiff missed out on the play offs for the premiership. Can I recommend the “Windscale special” Meccano set if anyone is interested?
Early last century, radioactivity was a big selling point for household and personal products:
http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/quackcures/quackcures.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/16/books/you-could-buy-radium-in-the-drugstore.html
Years ago, my brother found an ad in the Philadelphia Bulletin:
Wanted: Nuclear Weapons Engineer
After going through the then thick classified, we expect it to read “Hobby Experience a plus“
This may not be the place to ask but….The USS Nimitz has two A4W reactors of about 104 mws each. Portable….Obviously well shielded as 4000 people live within 1000 feet of them. Why do we not install this type of reactor to generate electricity in local high demand areas such as industrial estates.. Is it costs? or what. Or am I being an idiot for even asking such a question?
Well – this is Sweden, which has just reversed its anti-nuclear stance. Can you imagine what would have happened if that guy had tried this in Germany?
@Mike M
I’m fairly sure it’s an urban legend. The half-life of medical isotopes tends to be fairly short – I doubt there would be much left by the time anyone went through the scrap.
His homepage:
http://richardsreactor.blogspot.com/
Maybe he needs to try to build a cold fusion reactor instead. Some scientists claimed to have built such a reactor several years ago, but it was later shown to be a false claim. No one was arrested for trying, however.
Overinflated media story. Cracking open “A” smoke detector is a long step away from “reactor”
I posted this in a FaceBook reply last night. Shoulda thought it belonged here too.
See http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html – it has an update with the 2007 arrest and a very disturbing photo of Hahn. Like disturbing enough so that even I am disinclined to make the obvious jokes.
One thing my father didn’t “take with him” was a sample of Uranium oxide. It’s powdered, so I’ve never opened it. He also had a small piece of silver wave guide and tungsten turnings. I added few things of my own, silicon wafers and mercury and labeled the box “Heirloom chemicals.” Sorry Hannah.
I’ll add my uranium glass marbles (thank you United Nuclear) before I kick the bucket.
Nowhere near as impressive as Theodore Gray’s http://periodictable.com/ – He has a couple calendars out, I bought a 2012 Calendar at Borders a week or two ago.
BTW, readers of this thread will like a link I preserved on my Guide to WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/29/friday-funny-science-safety-run-amok/#comment-650884
@Robert E. Phelan: The EPA has indeed shut down Edison’s lab in Menlo Park. Used to be a tourist site. No more.
There are, however, some very interesting things going on in the fusion arena:
http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/RecipientReportedData/Pages/RecipientProjectSummary.aspx?AwardIDSUR=46419&PopID=212569&qtr=2011Q2
And:
http://prometheusfusionperfection.com/
Bob Kutz says:
August 4, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Is it really legal to buy uranium via the internet?
===================
Buy 10 Forty-Foot Containers per Month of this stuff, a big old evaporation system and a centrifuge and you can give Ahmadinejad the finger in no time:
http://www.alibaba.com/product-free/108189561/Mineral_Water.html
I think it’s probably from Caxambu, up in the mountains between Sao Paulo and Rio, where I had the pleasure of speaking at a conference once:
http://en.db-city.com/Brazil/Minas_Gerais/Caxambu
In the main square, there’s a bubbling spring coming up from the bowels of the earth and, chained to the structure are Geiger counters, so you know you’re getting the real deal when you drink it.
I have been told that the average garden is richer in uranium than the average gold mine is in gold. That makes most of us (with gardens) a target….
“Mike M says:
August 4, 2011 at 11:07 am
Ahhh shucks! They’re all sold out!
Is this an urban legend or true? The story I heard a very long time ago goes something like: A well funded charity or whatever sent doctors and hospital equipment to the middle of some poor country in South or Central America to set up a clinic. The equipment including some nuclear medical device that contained a powdered radioactive substance. For whatever reason, (revolution? lack of funding? – I can’t recall) the staff left but the equipment stayed, (ransomed?), which was eventually stolen for scrap. The junk man pried open the lead lined container inside the machine, discovered the powder and then sold it to people in his village which contaminated the entire village and radio-poisoned everyone in it including him – to their deaths. The story included people putting the powder on their food because they were told that it came from a hospital and therefore had to have some sort of beneficial medical property. The US government was secretly allowed to move in to clean up the whole disaster and bury the victims at great expense.”
———————————————————————————————
Don’t know anything about that, however back in 1984 just across the border in Juarez Mexico which is just a few miles from my home here in El Paso, we had a similar “accident”.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,955289,00.html
The US government flew a chopper back and forth in a grid searching pattern across El Paso and I think also Juarez attempting to locate any addition material. From what I remember the instruments used were capable of detecting a BB sized piece on the ground while flying above the city.
The Border Patrol has check stations on all routes out of this area. I was recently told that if you have certain medical tests done in El Paso that you need to carry a paper provided by the hospital should you drive by one of the check points. This documentation is to be shown because the radioactive isotopes used will set off their detection equipment.
I have a bunch of Potassium 40 in my kitchen. It’s mostly yellow on the outside and white on the inside and about 8″ long and 2″ dia. tapering to pointy ends.
To put this in historic reference, you cannot order a bunch of vital part for airplanes in Sweden neither these days, now why did the airplanes become such a vital part of society? To present day reference in Sweden it would be illegal to do what them guys did in Denmark, try to launch home built rockets into space from open sea because someone might get hurt.
In EU, Sweden is the only country that is enough an extreme socialist state that allows the government authorities to hold people without charge and therefor bail for over a year, no terrorist stamp on forehead needed.
Sweden is the de facto big digital ear of EU due to the amount of fibers owned by Sweden that’re leaving EU combined with the highest amount of authorities being allowed to listen in to everything.
Sweden is currently the sole owner of the largest B I G E N E R G Y company in EU, completely state owned that owns everything from german brown coal and crappy nuclear to retarded british wind power plants.
Sweden, the only country in the world who’s government state is only allowed to sell alcohol if they tell you you will die drinking the goodies it sells.
Sweden, the only country in EU who allow psych patients to own .50 calibre guns and decide for themselves if they’re ok to drive while heavily intoxicated on legal prescription medication…
I’ve always had a fascination with radioactive materials ever since a kid. I used to buy up old watches from junk shops and scrape the radium salts of the dials. Built my own geiger counter at 16. Now I’m the pround owner of 57 items of uranium glass ornaments and at least 500 uranium glass marbles.. It’s the UV black lights I used to display them that is more of a health hazzard, I think.