Book review: The Radioactive Boy Scout

[Jeffrey Leavey <leaveyja@us.ibm.com>]

While browsing a local library last week I saw this book on the new book

shelf:  The Radioactive Boy Scout by Ken Silverstein, published by Random

House, 2004 (ISBN 0-375-50351-x).  It's a true biography about David Hahn

who, on June 26, 1995, had the EPA, NRC, FBI and other agencies take down

and dispose of his radioactive garden shed laboratory.



Silverstein open the book with the agencies arriving in "space suits" and

monitoring instrumentation to dismantle David's shed where he tried to

build his own breeder reactor.  As a child, David was one of those kids

that didn't do well in school but did do very well teaching himself those

things he was interested in. He always liked to tinker and started in

chemistry. David was smaller and skinnier than the other kids and his

parents had issues of their own, so David was left to himself often.  He

was given a copy of the 1960 Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments by a

relative and this started him on a path to home-made explosives, fireworks

and other concoctions.  The author on page 20 compares David's personality

to others that Richard Rhodes describes in his book "The Making of the

Atomic Bomb", trying to draw similarities but pointing out that David

didn't have all the psychological factors other great American scientists

had. Primarily, David had no concern for his or other's safety in his

experiments because he was all on his own.  Because of David's poor grades

in school and his family problems, his father got him interested in the Boy

Scouts.  David learned about the atomic energy merit badge and immediately

linked it to the last chapter of the Golden Book which asks the reader to

be a part of the future of chemistry and help to harness the power of the

atom (remember this is from 1960).



Silverstein then presents a brief history of the Manhattan project, nuclear

power and it's status in the world, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, etc. All

of which was presented basically neutral but still played up the hype,

misinformation, and controversial topics a little.  For example, on page 45

Silverstein says of plutonium "A particle the size of a speck of dust can

cause lung cancer when inhaled."  The next sentence mixes pyrophoric

properties with nuclear properties:  "Plutonium is so highly reactive that

small shavings of it can self-ignite, and it must be stored in small pieces

to prevent spontaneous chain reaction."



David's chemistry interest started him trying to collect a sample of every

element which led him to uranium and other radioactive materials. He linked

this new goal with his desire to become an Eagle Scout, and with the atomic

energy merit badge, David decide to create a new energy source. The Golden

Book "... struck a deep chord with David." "With the Golden Book as his

bible, he joined the atomic fraternity" (page 29).



David got him self a geiger counter, wrote to the NRC, DOE, ANS,

universities and other sources posing as a professor asking about how to

separate U and Th from ore, how reactors worked, what isotopes would breed

fissionable material, and so on.  He got all of his questions answered with

out fail.  To build his "reactor", David collected camping lantern mantles

by the hundreds, worked out the chemistry to separate the Th-232 and

learned from text books that neutron absorption makes Th-233 which beta

decays to U-233 and that U-233  could be used in place of Pu in his model

breeder reactor.  Silverstein says that David realized that getting 30 or

so pounds of U-233 wasn't possible, but that the ability to be able to

transmute an element into another was very powerful for David, that the

process "... approached a sacred act." (page 135)



David made a neutron source for the Th-232 conversion by collecting Am-241

from lots of smoke detectors and mixing it with aluminum filings, putting

it in a lead block with a hole in the side as an aiming mechanism.  He

realized, using GM measurements, that AmAl wasn't a good neutron source so

he got Ra from old clocks (even found a vial of Ra paint inside one of the

clocks) and Be from a friend at Macomb Community College (page 157).  David

separated the Ra from the paint and formed a RaBe neutron source.  When his

Th-232 only became slightly more radioactive with the RaBe gun, the DOE

(page 158) told Professor David that Th needed slow neutrons and that

tritium is the best moderator.  David got H-3 from many hunting gun sights

he managed to obtain either by buying them or "borrowing" them from

suppliers.  David even got a skin burn (page 158-9) from having missed

cleaning up some of the H-3 material and then getting it on his skin.

David coated his Be with the H-3 material. gathered his Th-232 and let them

sit for a few weeks; the GM counter began to show increased counts which

thrilled David greatly.



To speed up the process, David read in Modern Chemistry that neutrons

multiply when they hit carbon (page 161) so he packaged his Th with C

(having read about the CP-1 reactor) surrounding the neutron source, bound

it with duct tape and ended up with a ball about the "...size of a shoe box

and weighed two pounds."  After a few weeks David could detect above

background levels thru 1.5 inch concrete blocks. At this point David

realizes that he doesn't have an off switch and things could run away on

him.  A friend said that real reactors have control rods and suggested

David make some from cobalt (pg 162).  David buys cobalt drill bits from

the hardware store and inserts them into his "reactor".  There was no

effect and David started to really worry now.



Above background radiation levels started appearing several doors down the

street and this was when David decided to dismantle his garden shed

reactor. He stored parts of it around the shed, in his bedroom and in his

car.  By chance, the local police find David sitting in his car at 2:40 AM

and when they search it they found some of the reactor parts, along with

chemicals, fireworks, a toolbox with his "fuel", and other things (page

167).  David tells them that the items in the tool box are radioactive and

the police decide to treat the box as an explosive device.  David was taken

in and his car impounded.  The bomb squad called the Michigan Dept Public

Health (DPH) and the DPH got very concerned over the radioactivity.



The story ends with David telling everything to the authorities. The EPA

looked if any contamination got spread outside the shed (they didn't find

any) and then had the shed and it's contents packed for disposal.

Silverstein gives some data on the contamination levels saying a can had

50,000 CPM, a copper bowl had 6,000 CPM, some paper scraps had 3,000 CPM,

etc.  Silverstein then says that federal limits are 1,000 CPM for

residences.  His use of CPM is, of course, incorrect.



The book ends with David, post high school, in the Navy and the suicide of

his mother.  Silverstein says David doesn't have plans after his time in

the service but that David aspires "... to be happy - like when I was a

kid." (page 197).



Overall the book is an easy read and certainly offers some interesting

challenges to back-calculate just what David did create in his garden shed.



Thanks,

Jeff

------------------------------------------------------------

Jeff Leavey

leaveyja@us.ibm.com



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