David Hahn
:
David Hahn (born October 1976) attempted to build a
nuclear breeder reactor in 1994 in his backyard shed in
Commerce Township,
Michigan, a suburb of
Detroit, at the age of 17.
Hahn, nicknamed the "
Radioactive Boy Scout", is an
Eagle Scout who had previously earned a
merit badge in Atomic Energy and had spent years tinkering with basement
chemistry which included small explosions. Furthering his experiments, Hahn diligently amassed
radioactive material by collecting small amounts from (occasionally stolen) household products, such as
americium from
smoke detectors,
thorium from camping lantern
mantles,
radium from clocks and gunsights, and
lithium from batteries. His "reactor" was a large, cored-out block of
lead.
Hahn posed as a legitimate adult scientist or teacher to gain the trust of many professionals, despite the presence of misspellings and obvious errors in his letters. Hahn ultimately hoped to create a breeder reactor, using low-level
isotopes to transform samples of thorium and
uranium into
fissionable isotopes.
Although his home-made reactor never achieved
criticality, it ended up emitting toxic levels of radioactivity, around 1000 times normal
background radiation. Alarmed, Hahn began to dismantle his experiments, but a chance encounter with police led to the discovery of his activities, which triggered a Federal Radiological Emergency involving the
FBI and the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The
Environmental Protection Agency, having designated Hahn's mother's property as a
Superfund hazardous materials cleanup site, dismantled the shed and its contents and buried them as low-level
radioactive waste in
Utah. Hahn refused medical evaluation for
radiation exposure.
Hahn suffered local ignominy, but did attain the rank of Eagle Scout. After dropping out of
community college, Hahn joined the
Navy, assigned to the nuclear-powered
aircraft carrier USS Enterprise as an ordinary
seaman. Aboard the
Enterprise he was kept away from the nuclear reactors, largely for his own safety, as he had reached the point that further exposure would result in illness. Later, Hahn re-enlisted as a
Marine.
The incident received scant media attention at the time, but was widely disseminated after writer
Ken Silverstein published an article about the incident in
Harper's Magazine in 1998, and subsequently expanded it into a 2004 biography,
The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor (ISBN 0812966600).
A television documentary,
The Nuclear Boyscout, aired on
Channel 4 in the
United Kingdom in 2003. In it, Hahn reenacted some of his methods for the camera. Though slated to air on the
Discovery Channel, the program has not yet been broadcast in the
United States.
*
Nuclear reactor*
Biography by Ken Silverstein â€" Amazon.com*
'The Nuclear Boyscout' from Channel 4*
'The nuclear merit badge' â€" Christian Science Monitor*
'Tale of the Radioactive Boy Scout' â€" Harpers Magazine*
'The Radioactive Boy Scout' â€" Ken Silverstein*
Smoke Detectors and a Radioactive Boyscout
