The Beifuss File: The Nuclear Kid — Memphis youth builds home nuclear fusion reactor

Sometimes you meet a person who is much smarter than you are.

And sometimes that person is 14.

Meet Jackson Oswalt. He built a nuclear fusion reactor in his Midtown home. This makes him, according to experts in the field, the youngest known “fusioneer” in United States — and probably world — history.

So if much of Memphis is transformed into a large glowing crater any time soon, you’ll know who is responsible.

Ha ha! Just kidding. Just a little nuclear fusion reactor humor for you!

Jackson Oswalt and his parents are used to such stabs at humor. The jokes are a measure of how little most people understand Jackson’s achievement and the science behind it.

"I think there is a great disbelief until they actually see it," said dad Chris Oswalt, who works at Smith & Nephew, a medical equipment company.

In fact, Jackson’s homemade nuclear device is not going to blow up. Even so, as hobbies for kids go, building a fusion reactor is not as safe as building “Star Wars” models or playing with Legos.

Many tweens post “Keep Out” signs on their bedroom doors. But the sign on Jackson’s door reads: “Warning — X-Ray Radiation.”

Inside the room, a second sign is similarly unnerving. It states: “Caution — This Equipment Produces Radiation When Energized.”

WEATHERSBEE: To build a nuclear reactor, the 'nuclear kid' had to become a welder first

This room inside the spacious Oswalt home in Central Gardens is not Jackson’s bedroom but a playroom that has been transformed into what resembles a movie scientist’s laboratory. A burn on the wooden floor from a propane torch testifies to the fact that Jackson’s interest in nuclear fusion is not merely theoretical: He built this thing.

Against the north wall is the reactor itself, a boxlike assemblage of radiation-shielding steel and electronic parts that, when activated, creates in its interior what is referred to as “a star in a jar.” This tiny artificial “star” — a small, pinkish, starfish-shaped manifestation of continuous energy — is made of plasma, the fourth state of matter (solid, liquid, gas, plasma). You may not think much about plasma, but you wouldn't be here without it: The sun itself — like all the sun-type stars in the sky — is a spheroid of incredibly hot plasma.

Jackson generates this plasma by heating deuterium gas with 50,000 volts of electricity within a vacuum chamber. The vacuum is achieved with a turbomolecular pump, which Jackson describes as "basically, an engine that spins 10 times faster than a jet engine that pushes a plane."

The nuclear fusion reaction occurs within the plasma. The accelerated gas atoms are smashed together with such force that they combine and release fusion energy, sort of like how the striking of stones can produce a spark. This is the same process that powers the sun.

The release of energy in Jackson’s reactor produces subatomic particles, including neutrons, which can be detected with Jackson's equipment. The detection of the neutron is the proof that fusion has taken place.

'Verve and nerve and courage'

Jackson first achieved fusion when he was 12, just hours before he turned 13 on Jan. 19, 2018. His achievement was affirmed by representatives of the Open Source Fusor Research Consortium on Feb. 2, so this week represents more or less the one-year anniversary of the event.

"It's pretty hard to get confirmed," said retired electronics engineer Richard Hull, 72, of Richmond, Virginia, a verifier with the research consortium and an administrator of Fusor.net, a website for "fusioneers" and other amateur nuclear engineers and technologists. "You've got to jump through a lot of hoops to prove your work. We catch anybody trying to cheat."

When Jackson's achievement was verified, he became the youngest known fusioneer in history, beating the record of Taylor Wilson of Texarkana, Arkansas, who was 14 in 2008 when he built a working fusion reactor in his home garage.

Dubbed a "nuclear boy genius" by Britain's The Guardian, Wilson, now 24, became a celebrity of sorts, meeting with then-President Barack Obama at a White House science fair, earning big-money science awards and conducting radiation research for the Department of Homeland Security.

So far, however, Jackson's recognition has been mostly local.

Hull — a lifelong science experimenter who first built his own fusion reactor when he was 52 — said "verve and nerve and courage" are required to do what Taylor Wilson and Jackson Oswalt have done.

"You have to master many disciplines, you have to machine, you have to develop welding skills, gas-handling skills ... Younger people typically do not 'pack the gear,' to use an old Marines term, to do the necessary work," Hull said. "They do not have the attention span. They do not want to work at it, whatever 'it' may be."

“This project requires a lot of science, but Jackson’s a hands-on guy,” said Chris Oswalt. “He’s always been drawn to building things. Every day, we’d come home to a box from Russia or China or some far-off land,” containing a piece of equipment Jackson had ordered. "So this is actually a good fit with who he is.”

'Singularly focused'

Jackson spent about two years pursuing fusion.

“A couple of years back, all I did was play video games," he explained. "And I decided I didn't want to spend all my life doing video games."

Instead, he decided to dedicate his time and energy to something more unusual and challenging; and when he learned about homemade nuclear fusion reactors.

"Slowly, I convinced myself I could do it."

“He’s been singularly focused,” confirmed mom Jennifer Oswalt, president of the Downtown Memphis Commission.

Indeed. In what might be one of the more unique examples of show-and-tell in history, Jackson last year brought his fusion reactor to school, for a PowerPoint presentation to the seventh grade. His peers at Memphis University School may be addicted to the pocket scientific miracles that are their cellphones, but their reactions to Jackson’s project were mixed.

“A lot of 'em thought it was cool, a lot of 'em didn’t care,” Jackson said. “As was to be expected.”

“There was a lot of safety talk,” said Jennifer Oswalt, who said the school required reassurance that the reactor was not dangerous.

“When you hear ‘nuclear,’ you think ‘Chernobyl,’” said Jackson, obviously a student of history as well as of science (the deadly nuclear power plant explosion at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union occurred in 1986).

“But this is far different from the conventional fission reactors” of the type that provide nuclear energy to power customers, he said.

Unlike a fission reactor (or an atom bomb, which also relies on nuclear fission), a fusion reactor produces "clean renewable energy with practically zero waste products," according to Jackson.

However, "It takes in more energy than it produces, which is why I’m not a billionaire,” the teenager said. “Currently the only fusion reactor in our solar system that produces more energy than it takes in is our sun.”

According to Hull, Jackson joined an exclusive group of close to 60 known hobbyist "fusioneers." In the words of a 2016 Washington Post story about this unusual pursuit: "Forget cars, these guys build nuclear reactors in their back yards."

Perhaps with this sense of community in mind, Jackson said he hopes to develop some sort of nonprofit organization that could provide funding for kids who are interested in science projects but don't have parents who can foot the bills for the necessary equipment.

In the meantime, Jackson's reactor is ready to fuse atoms as needed, while the rest of the household — three rescue dogs, a 6-year-old pet toad and a Siberian cat named Victory, in addition to Jackson's parents — carry on as usual.

During a demonstration of fusion, Victory padded into the room, and Jackson was asked: What does the cat think about the device?

"It used to be a toad," said Jackson, demonstrating that nuclear humor is not restricted to non-fusioneers.

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