Inspired Earth

← Inspired Earth3 Dec 2025 · 45 min

Episode 47: Part 2 Child Fusion Reactors & Karen Silkwood

Episode 47: Part 2 Child Fusion Reactors & Karen Silkwood3 Dec 202545 min

Curiosity can glow bright enough to light a room—or trigger a Geiger counter. We follow a remarkable arc from a twelve-year-old who assembled a working fusion setup out of surplus parts to a whistleblower whose warnings shook a nuclear powerhouse. The contrast is stark: a kid scavenging eBay for a turbomolecular pump, validating fusion with an open research consortium, and then answering to the FBI; a lab technician documenting contamination, faulty gear, and missing plutonium, only to vanish...