> But can you scare every single person out of [tampering with a home atomic reactor]? I'd bet there's a reactor design that's tamper-proof enough to be less l

> But can you scare every single person out of [tampering with a home atomic reactor]? I'd bet there's a reactor design that's tamper-proof enough to be less lethal than vending machines. That just leaves very determined, educated terrorists trying to harvest the fuel for radiotoxins or a dirty bomb. There are probably less convoluted ways to cause mass death and destruction than that, but "radioactive" and "fallout" are certainly more terrifying than "gunman" "bomb" or "poison" even if the actual damage is likely much lower. > The most dangerous thing a mad person can do right now is blow up their house with natural gas. Wiki says the Oklahoma City bomb cost USD5000 and was equivalent to 5000 lbs of TNT. I don't have a TNT figure for gas explosions in buildings (even the worst-case intentional one you describe), but it sounds like they're way less powerful than that. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271492483_Hazard_analysis_and_consequences_assessment_of_gas_pipeline_rupture_and https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271492483_Hazard_an... Don't forget to weigh all this doom and gloom against the massive (green) upsides of distributed power generation!