A hobbyist in Sweden is gaining notoriety after being arrested for trying to build a nuclear reactor in his kitchen, according to news reports.

The Associated Press identifies the previously unidentified man as Richard Handl, 31, of Angelholm, in southern Sweden.

He was arrested July 20 for unauthorized possession of nuclear material after contacting the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority to ask whether his home physics project was legal.

Police and government officials showed up at his apartment, measured for radiation and confiscated all of his materials. He had scavenged radium from old clock hands and americium from household smoke detectors, obtained thorium from a Coleman gas-lantern mantle and bought depleted U-238 from a U.S. supplier.

"When they came they had the police with them. I have had a Geiger counter and have not detected a problem with radiation," Handl told Helsingborgs Dagblad, according to The Local, an English-language news site.

The experiment began in mid-May, and he blogged about it. Here's how he introduced his stove-top nuclear stuffings: "My project is to build a working nuclear reactor. Not to gain electricity, just for fun and to see if it's possible to split atoms at home. I[t] would be a breeder reactor, and my primary goals is to carry out two main reactions ..." [Clarification: On his blog Handl mixes the concepts of fission (splitting atoms) and fusion (combining atoms), although his stated aim was a fusion reactor, otherwise known as a breeder.]

A week later he wrote about "The Meltdown" on his electric stove, when a heated mixture of americium, radium and beryllium in sulphuric acid exploded as he tried to blend them. See the results, which he called "not so dangerous."

Handl says police released him after questioning. He but that he is "still suspect for crime against the radiation safety law," and could be fined or jailed for two years.

The citizens of Angelholm were largely unfazed by their neighbor's experiment, a spokesman for the local city council told FoxNews.