Hey Kids. Got Fission? Butch here to tell you a little about nuclear energy and show you how easy it is to build a home reactor. Like a lot of things, it requires a little elbow grease on the front end, but before you know it, you’ll be generating power you can measure in megawatts. You’ll be helping the environment, too, by cutting down on your use of coal and hydro power. Imagine how easy you and your folks will sleep at night knowing you’ve got a virtually inexhaustible supply of clean, safe energy chugging away in the backyard.

Supplies you will need:
Above ground swimming pool
Concrete Forms
Concrete (100 to 200 yards)
Lead
Rebar
Plywood (1 sheet of 3/4” CDX)
Lumber (2x4s)
55 Gallon Plastic Drum (do NOT use metal)
Iron Pipe (1” diameter x 4’ long)
Lawnmower
Magnets
Steel Tubes for Centrifuge
Yellow Cake Uranium (try looking in Africa)
Mineral Oil
Plain Jell-O Mix

Tools you will need:
Hammer
Nails
Hacksaw

Building the Centrifuge:

Let’s get started. Before you can put your Uranium to good use, it’ll need to be enriched in a centrifuge. A centrifuge is a round thing that spins around, a lot like a salad spinner. In most cases, you’ll need extremely high grade, precision-lathed stainless steel tubes to assemble your centrifuge. However, according to the CIA, you may in some cases be able to use Iraqi artillery shells or surplus rocket tubes. Check your local Army/Navy store to see what they’ve got on tap.

Turn a lawn mower upside down, and weld two strong magnets to the ends of the blade. Now build a plywood deck that sets just over the blade and magnets with enough clearance for everything to turn freely without binding. Place the 55 gallon plastic drum on the plywood and put your stainless steel metal tubes inside so they’re pointing up. Fill the tubes half full with the Yellow Cake Uranium. Drop a length of iron pipe about 4 inches long in each tube. Now add a pound of plain Jell-O mix, and top off with mineral oil.

Enriching your Uranium:

When you fire up the lawnmower, the blade spins the magnets which in turn spin the lengths of iron pipe. Mix on high like you’re making a milkshake. Watch out for splashing. Enrich it good and proper. It’s a lot like making maple syrup. You’re pouring in that Uranium, the “sap,” and boiling it down -- or in this case distilling with the centrifuge – ‘til you get that nice, sweet enriched Uranium “syrup.” Just skim it off the top with a ladle. You won’t want to use that ladle around food anymore, so seal it in a Tupperware container and bury it out back in the garden. Tupperware should last at least 100,000 years under normal conditions, surely long enough for that stuff to mellow out.

WARNING: Don’t enrich it too much. Folks in the government seem to get a little stressed if you get it to the point where it’s weapons-grade.

Assembling the Fuel Rods:

Wearing rubber gloves, scoop out the enriched Uranium and roll into golf ball-sized spheres. Set them in an ice cube tray to cool.

Now, take up another of those stainless steel tubes and drop in a ball of Uranium. Cover with a layer of Styrofoam peanuts, and a circle of tinfoil. Drop in another ball of Uranium and repeat the process. You want to layer these tubes just the way mom makes a lasagna. When you get to the top, seal the end with a clump of molten lead, and set the fuel rod aside some place safe where pets and siblings won’t get into it. You may want to take it outside at this point, as it will be starting to get a little hot to the touch.

My reactor at the farm uses four fuel assemblies to generate full power. Each assembly is made up of six rods, so you do the math... Yep, you’ll need 24 in all. When you’re done making the fuel rods, yoke 'em together with rebar just like a six pack.

The Reactor:

For the reactor itself, we took an above ground swimming pool, built a circular form around it about 30 feet out, and poured 190 yards of concrete in between. This gave us a nice, thick doughnut of crete for insulating purposes. You might also line this with lead if you feel so inclined, but it’s not essential to the reaction itself. Fill the pool with water, and drop in your fuel assemblies. Woops! Almost forgot to tell you about the control rods.

Control Rods:

You’re going to need control rods in the pool with the fuel assemblies. These things regulate the rate of fission. To be honest, I’m still figuring out the details around the control rods, cuz my reactor seems to run a little hot. I think they’re supposed to be made of sodium or carbon or something, and they kind of soak up a little of that extra energy, like pouring a dash of cream on the evaporator table when your sap starts to boil over. See Diagram 1, below.

Diagram 1