In the 1990s, a teenager named David Hahn set out to earn his Atomic Energy Merit Badge. For a science whiz like him, the requirements were too easy, so he decided to make his own challenge: build a nuclear reactor in his own backyard. Journalist Ken Silverstein is the author of The Radioactive Boy Scout and he joins us to tell the tale.

*Season 3 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lincoln. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

*Find us on social media - @wildthingpod - and on our website https://wildthingpodcast.com/

Most people consider Three Mile Island to be American’s worst nuclear accident. But the actual legacy of that incident is much more complex than than many of us realize, as historian Natasha Zaretsky, author of Radiation Nation, points out.

*Season 3 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lincoln. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

*Find us on social media - @wildthingpod - and on our website https://wildthingpodcast.com/

In this bonus episode, we hear from author Richard Rhodes. His best known book, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, won a Pulitzer Prize. It's about the Manhattan Project, but as Rhodes explains, there's a lot of history leading up to that moment, starting back in the 19th century.

*Season 3 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lincoln. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

*Find us on social media - @wildthingpod - and on our website https://wildthingpodcast.com/

Transparency has always been something of a gray area in the history of nuclear fission. It made sense to keep this knowledge a secret during World War II. But afterwards, it seemed that citizens should have had the right to know what their country was involved in and how it affected them. Dr. Sarah Robey is the author of Atomic Americans: Citizens in a Nuclear State and she sits down with us to talk about transparency and trust in the nuclear age.

*Season 3 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lincoln. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

*Find us on social media - @wildthingpod - and on our website https://wildthingpodcast.com/

A faulty reactor overheats, melting through its containment unit and poisoning a nearby town with radioactive gas. A spacecraft pushes further into deep space, exploring new galaxies, powered by a small nuclear reactor. An ordinary scientist is struck by cosmic rays—and finds he has new powers. Fiction? Or fact? Or a little of both? Stories of nuclear peril and promise permeate American media, and especially comic books. In this bonus episode, we explore atomic comics and why nuclear ideas captured artists’ imaginations.

*Season 3 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lincoln. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

*Find us on social media - @wildthingpod - and on our website https://wildthingpodcast.com/

What were the long-term effects of the SL-1 explosion? Nuclear power is a shrinking part of America’s energy picture; accidents and fear have tarnished it, and the old reactor fleet is reaching its end. Yet nuclear energy could provide a bulwark against the looming threat of climate change. Is it something we can make work for us, in spite of ourselves? Are the costs worth it in the long run? Sixty years on, what do we know—and are we better prepared?

*Season 3 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lincoln. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

*Find us on social media - @wildthingpod - and on our website https://wildthingpodcast.com/

Incidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima are often what comes to mind when we think about nuclear energy. Thankfully, events like these actually very rare. So does that mean the risks we associate with atomic power are as bad as we think? How good are we at actually assessing those risks? And can we make things even less risky by removing humans from the equation? That’s how some next generation projects hope to make nuclear energy safer.

*Season 3 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lincoln. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

*Find us on social media - @wildthingpod - and on our website https://wildthingpodcast.com/

The aftermath of SL-1 highlighted a problem that we still haven’t solved, despite decades of searching for a solution: what to do with the waste. Our plans to store nuclear waste inside Yucca Mountain in Nevada fell through. So now what? Can we safely contain these materials? Should the waste be in one location, or many? How do we warn future generations about the dangers these materials pose?

*Season 3 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lincoln. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

*Find us on social media - @wildthingpod - and on our website https://wildthingpodcast.com/