Swede arrested for building nuclear reactor in his kitchen

[the_leander]

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.

From here.

Sorry Karlos, looks like someone beat you too it

 

[Robert]

That's some home-boffinry.

 

[whabang]

Seems as if he'll get a fine for building a nuclear reactor without prior permission. I'd say that's the first time anyone gets fined for that



Edit: Forgot to add the link to his blog:
http://richardsreactor.blogspot.com/

 

[cecilia]

well, isn't he a clever boy!

 

[Karlos]

I recall reading an article some time ago about a kid called David Hahn (?) that attempted to build a back yard nuclear reactor. Again, I think he used thorium and americium harvested from gas mantles and smoke detectors.

Anyway, if I was going to build any kind of nuclear reactor, I'd go for a Farnsworth fusor, simply because I can turn it off an not have to worry about latent radioactivity.

 

[cecilia]

I recall reading an article some time ago about a kid called David Hahn (?) that attempted to build a back yard nuclear reactor. Again, I think he used thorium and americium harvested from gas mantles and smoke detectors.

Anyway, if I was going to build any kind of nuclear reactor, I'd go for a Farnsworth fusor, simply because I can turn it off an not have to worry about latent radioactivity.

let me know when you start making them for homes.....try to make them really small

 

[Karlos]

let me know when you start making them for homes.....try to make them really small

You can build them yourself, there deceptively easy to make but you need the right kit.
You will need:
1) a vacuum pump and bell jar
2) good quality copper wire
3) deuterium gas
4) a high voltage generator

Fashion a small globe around 5cm diameter from copper wire (three intersecting rings will do, it needs to be fairly sparse). Place this at the centre of your bell jar and attach to the high voltage (cathode).
Create a larger globe around the first (such that the smaller globe is positioned in the centre) with a decent gap (about 10cm should do) and attach this to the high voltage (anode).
Fit the bell jar and pump out the air.
Allow a small amount of deuterium to enter the bell jar. You want this low pressure.
Crank up your high voltage generator until you start to see ionization around the central globe

Once the ions start forming, they are basically accelerated towards the centre by the potential difference between the globular electrodes. At the centre, some of them have enough energy that when they hit, they'll fuse.

Here's one (courtesy of wikipedia) that a highschool student allegedly built:

It may look like a artistic experiment for a neon sign, but in the central plasma, there are fusion events happening...

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

I found that youtube is a good place for finding stuff on the Nuclear Boy Scout and also on fusors, Farnsworth and later.

 

[Karlos]

I found that youtube is a good place for finding stuff on the Nuclear Boy Scout and also on fusors, Farnsworth and later.

Forget youtube, look up the presentation given by the late Robert Bussard to Google a couple of years ago. He's come closer to net power using fusion than anybody. He takes the basic principle of the Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor and gets rid of the inner grid, using a magnetic trap that, whilst not spherical, is close enough to keep the plasma confined at the centre.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606

He makes one of the most significant points about toroidal systems. There are trillions of fusion reactors in the universe and they're all spherical.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

I saw that one - it's cool - but a bit stagnant now. These sorts of research are relatively cheap to fund but they tend to get starved. It's good that there is an internet around so at least these guys that'll be kicking off in the next few decades can pass on the information before they go.

 

[Karlos]

I saw that one - it's cool - but a bit stagnant now.

There's a degree of politics behind that. Existing technologies like Toroids and laser-based compression have already secured large amounts of investment, even though everything we know about them so far demonstrates they're unlikely to reach net power output, even in pulsed mode, let alone continuous operation. His polywell design, particularly WB6 showed a lot of promise, indeed WB5 - with all of it's losses due to the magnetic fields penetrating the edges of the metal structure attained fusion output 10^5 times higher than anything that's been done with a Farnsworth-Hirsch reactor under the same energy levels. Having said that, I read somewhere modern experiments with the latter at much higher energy levels have attained 10^9 fusions/sec, though the problem with grids remains.