Monday December 05, 2005

A friend lent me a copy of The Radioactive Boy Scout by Ken Silverstein, which I read last night while flying to the Bay area. It's the true story of a teenager who built a model breeder reactor in his mother's backyard that was radioactive enough and dangerous enough to be declared a Superfund cleanup site in 1995 when it was discovered. Moon suits in Michigan.

It's the story of a troubled kid who develops an obsession with chemistry and, eventually, atomic energy. Despite the author's attempt to portray David Hahn as a whiz-kid science type, I didn't buy it. His failure to use all but the most rudimentary of safety procedures, and his poor handling and understanding of the dangerous substances he was using speak to a real lack of intellectual depth. And his stealing and receiving stolen goods speaks to a real lack of character as well.

I don't recommend reading the book to gain insight into David Hahn's psyche. What I found fascinating was how easily he was able to obtain his radioactive materials -- radium, thorium, americium, polonium, and uranium. Fascinating and extremely disturbing. Which leads me to my final point. This book was written in 2004. I found it odd in the extreme that the author makes not a single reference to terrorism or to the construction of dirty bombs. The story illustrates how, with a little creativity, a determined individual could procure and produce a variety of radioactive materials in a large enough quantity to build a dirty bomb using this material and conventional explosives. THAT is a lesson worth understanding.