Yes I think a lot of the articles are a bit hyped up and misleading. Thanks for checking on it! Even if he had produced something with the (alpha,neutron) sour

Yes I think a lot of the articles are a bit hyped up and misleading. Thanks for checking on it! Even if he had produced something with the (alpha,neutron) sources he was making, it still wouldn't be a breeder reactor, but rather the same kind of neutron source the e.g. Enrico Fermi was using in the 1930s to investigate the nature of radioactive materials at the pre-dawn of the nuclear age. Breeder reactors require a neutron chain reaction that generates more nuclear fuel than they consume, which is far beyond just irradiating stuff with a neutron source. After the Manhattan Project it took our top reactor designers until about 1951 to really build one and demonstrate it, at the EBR-1 in Idaho [1]. I think it's safe to claim that no kid will ever build one in a garage. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Breeder_Reactor_I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Breeder_Reactor_I