This Teenager Will Revolutionize Nuclear Power | Archives | NBC News 

This is what happens when parents see and support the potential of their children.

This guy seems so chilled. Doesn't seem stuck up at all. Genuinely loves what he does

His parents are the lucky ones. They're reaping the lucky benefit of probably just one night's hardwork.

Everybody: Nuclear Fusion is 30 years away. 14 year old kiddo: Hold my dad's garage keys.

I'm 27 years old and I installed a shelf yesterday and had to reward myself with a couple of beers. Oy vey.

I really hope nobody bullies this kid, I wouldn't like to see the result of that revenge.

"At the time I didn't have weapons grade plutonium laying around" "At the time" "AT. THE. TIME."

A nice young man and I hope he uses his genius to change the world positively. I have great respect for his parents who have recognized and supported his talent.

"he showed us how it worked, and we almost understood it" haha

Thank God for productive young people like Taylor who are working to improve the world. Keep forging ahead young man.

with effort I could maybe create confusion, not fusion

God bless and protect that young man. I'm glad he's on our side.

"At the time, I didn't have weapons grade Plutonium laying around the house..." Ummm, and now?

Incredible young man! Brains AND charmisma usually don't go hand in hand! He is not only brilliant, but he seems very likeable and friendly!

ATTENTION: With all those radioactive items in the garage where he works, he may eventually develop CANCER due to cumulative exposure (aside from those more dangerous inside the SAFE). (I'm and geologist engineer and I know about this). But I wish we had MORE young people like him in the world !!! Congratulations, Taylor!

It's obvious he's gifted...And has a real passion about these sciences. With a great attitude and a desire to help mankind...We need more like him!

He can connect those dots. Brilliant.

Exemplary highly motivated self taught individual. Bravo !!!!!

This young is outstanding I wish him all the best in the world an much more! Truly fantastic story thank you!

God he carries himself like a 30 or 40 year old

Im 43 and i just fixed my broken air compressor, can i get an interview too?

Wow. What a smart young man. His parents must be very proud of him.

With myself being from the Appalachian mountains of KENTUCKY I am so proud that he is being raised by fellow southerners.

"I knew the easiest thing would be to build a fusion reactor" Yea definitely

imagine being his neighbour.. hearing a bang and thinking hmm should i run?

When your parents have that conversation with Homeland Security "yeah..he's built his own fusion device..but he's not a terrorist or anything..just a really bright kid who is curious about that stuff" and then "what do you mean you'll be right over?? Is that helicopters I hear?"

Thats a super human with a super human "HEART" THANK YOU for being there for us TAYLOR WILSON!! WE THE WORLD ARE GREATFUL!

You see his eyes. You see literal and metaphorical glimmer in them.

WOW! A real life Sheldon Cooper - only one with more social skills.

He,wants a better world, good for him,a future hero, keep learning

The one other thing to notice other than his intellect is that he has positivity in his shiny face. The world hasn't sucked out his happiness yet , and i hope it continues that way forever.

This kid is amazing!!! His parents are also amazing. How many parents move to another state for their kids education? It’s great he’s got so many mentors who help guide him and help him stay safe. I wonder what would have happened if that kid from 1994 had the same support, direction and guidance…. I gotta see what he’s done since this was taped..

His safe reactor design looks a lot like stuff that's already under development, e.g., liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR). Extremely safe, clean, compact, and easy-to-operate design that uses a fuel that's in such abundance that we could literally power the planet for many thousands of years with it. And it's not at all practical for making nuclear weapons with.

At 14, I was picking my nose staring at the clock in class.

Such a smart, brilliant guy. 😊 He is making a huge positive change to this world. Thank you 🙏🏼❤️

Proud parents . God bless you brother

I use to be a genius...just forgot everything...dam...what did i do with that plutonium..

I'm 30 years old and I installed chrome browser and tinder. Yay.

"I think I'm gonna try and sell it to him..." That is one funny genius.

He has "The Eye". Very few have it. In '76' I was told that it took 2 years from the previous one before they found me and one other person. Part of my subsequent training included how to find others with "The Eye". That guy! Once he learns that he can use that creative nature for more than one point of focus, he will be able to change world whenever the opportunity arises. Let's hope this kid stays leaning more toward hero, rather than super villain.

"his mom doesnt have a clue where he gets his smarts" ...oh ....she knows.... she definitely knows. Time for a DNA test buddy., lol

A totally chilled guy. But a long way to go - as someone once said, genius is 99% perspiration and 1 % inspiration. We will all have to wait and see BUT good luck man!

So the grown ups can't pull it off and now we must put our hopes on a teenager. I hope he succeeds, but someone please give him a hand if he fails.

"what we have today is of 1950s" - TWilson

His design is very similar to the one the Russians have now where it uses no water ,needs no coolant and can use up old fuel rods we have sitting in sealed off caverns . The problem with fusion is being able to get a sustainable output .In this case it takes more energy to create this reaction than the output of the reaction itself provides. This had been the stumbling block for a while now but perhaps he'll find a solution to this problem . I think cold fusion still holds promise .It has been replicated many times now but we're always being told it's a scam ,a flop etc ,yet there are several companies that are developing the technology . So obviously there's something to this . In any case best of luck to this kid . I hope he doesn't get caught up into thinking inside the box so much and uses his given intellect to think outside the box instead . It's people such as Tesla who change the world . He was never content with being constrained with playing by the rules and was always stepping on the toes of the establishment and paving the way forward . Einstein was once asked how it felt to be a genius to which he replied "I don't know , you should ask Mr. Tesla !" Whether this kid is another Einstein or Tesla remains to be seen . Given what I've seen I don't see him as a new Tesla ,but time will tell .

I'm glad a scientist allowed him to build the reactor in his lab. There's another, not so well known story about a kid who did it unsupervised and... you can imagine. Just look it up if you're curious. I saw this kid on a TED talk, I believe. Thomas Townsen Brown was much like this kid at his age. He said he wanted to go to mars in the 1910's & 20's. I know I'm going to catch flack for this but it would not surprise me if one day, we find he did that very thing, eventually. With a little help, of course. Follow your dreams kid! Just make sure to do everything possible to make sure they aren't hijacked. There's powerful people who want what you can do so they can keep it for themselves.

My God! building a reactor at the age of 14??????????????? Daaaaaaaaaaaang! This guy is a science god!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thats awesome!!! As rare as true genius is it's even rarer for it to be acknowledged and nurtured most never the chance to pursue their dreams and don't fit in to regular society which usually leads to severe depression as they retreat further and further in to the depths of the only place that gives them any satisfaction.

DAMN, who gets paid to skip college, how more badass can you get.

Kudos to his parents fostering his inspiration and Sens of adventure, this kid has a long way to go, live long and prosper making our world a bit better!

Happy there is still a few young people that give me hope for the future generations

So that's how he heats your entire house in minutes while using 95% less energy than a standard heater

BLESS THIS KID and BLESS EVERYONE who helps him!!! Good luck, kid!!

"His Dad's a coca cola bottler and Mom a former yoga instructor" Then where'd that multi-million dollar house come from?

What an incredible guy! All power to him!

i can imagine his product powering the car, the bus, the tractor, the house ... clean energy and reusable... amazing..

What an amazing young man. Hopefully he sees the light to help mankind live well and not become a mega Corp.

He is going to be the best Supervillain ever.

We stop Iran from this but allow a 14 year old to do it in his garage lmfao

Nashville Hillbilly Here, God Bless his parents. All You Need is Love.

What can you expect he's human. Boy am I proud of our species

i wish i could afford those equipments

And one day, little Taylor told his parents of his big plan but we had to wait Dark 3rd season to found out

Holy Crap well I hope you took that scholarship to my hometown University good job young man we need more like you to come forward in this country......

It is Great to see someone with Passion and Determination at young age working to better humanity through there Scientific work, we should all be Investing and Encouraging and Teaching people like Taylor Wilson as ultimately it is people like him that lay the Scientific and Technical foundation that our Future World will need,even take for granted. Invest not just Financially but in Education of all people and give them the skills and support they need no matter what their background ability or disability to achive there Dreams for a Wealthy and Happy Country Tomorrow!

This guy rocks Love too see kids with a dream and work on it. That’s the New Rock&Roll 🤘🏻🤘🤘🏾🤘🏿

Ok he can build one but when I ask too much, my Chemistry teacher calls the office.

My mans has had the same chop since grade school

A boy scout does this stuff 20 years ago and everybody goes apes hit causing him to go into depression and eventually die. NOW it's celebrated when a kid does it. Wtf? RIP, Nuclear Boy Scout

Mummy mummy I want weapons grade plutonium for my birthday

Great work Taylor We all will benefit from your interventions

Ultra level intelligent youth are awesome. Taylor is going to do epic things in his lifetime hopefully always for the benefit of mankind.

"Hi -my name is Brian Williams, and I invented both atom bombs and nuclear weapons when I was in Pre-K"

aaand then he hit puberty

So smart but held back by the rules of don't out science your elders. Don't mess with the powers that be. He is a genius in a field of poison oak.

I can see him moving to New Mexico becoming a school chemistry teacher and start manufacturing meth

Just wait till he buy a dog named scoby do

A real life Sheldon cooper 😎😂🤣😂

I love this It’s annoying how everyone is sold on the advancement of technology when import fields like this have not been improved for half a century Go taylor

7 years later, where's my free, clean, sustainable power ?

The problem, still, is that even the most brilliant minds have not figured out how to generate electricity with fusion without consuming more energy than is produced...

Only thing left to do is build the octopus backpack, this kids are amazing!

Enormous complexity Harry Smith you have recreated how stars and how our sun works a teenager OMG what a future support him all the 💓 way

His eyes say he is a super villain

He is obviously brilliant, nuclear reactors have an 1% - 2% efficiency rating and the waste has a half life of approximately 128,000 years. And after the incident in Japan not the best choice. Thorium reactors were developed in the 50's safer and NO possibility of nuclear fallout from a breach. They were discontinued due to the uranium lobbyists. Just the electric cars of the 70's were destroyed because of big oil. Watch the documentary on it.

That's why a flux capacitor uses bananas, tobaccos, Brazil nuts and etc. because it contains a certain amount of radiations.

He is a real life Sheldon Cooper! I bet someone has already wrote that... 🤣🤣

Just pop that fusion reactor in my Teslaand keep riding til I die. Wheels will NEVER stop turning vrooooom!!!

well, people don't realize (nor do they want to believe) that schools (controlled by gov) make you dumber. when kids can learn in a different environment, they learn more. but I've had this discussion so many times, i dont want to do it again.

6:48 - he's not joking when he says it's a "beta" test.

I first saw Taylor on Vice. Taylor is amazing!! Kids are sponges, feed them love and knowledge. 🤩

Oh wow what an amazing young man. You can do it Taylor!

With a quick google search, I too can make a nuclear reactor.

I wonder how this is coming along now March 2019

What an amazing young man! My biggest contribution to science is converting chili beans to methane gas. I'm good at it.

What a great news piece. An incredible young man.

Clean energy has already been invented but you know.... human greed.

He was worried about going to school for nerds 🤣🤣🤣🤣. YOU 👏🏽ARE 👏🏽THE 👏🏽NERD👏🏽. I trade places though lmao

I wish I had friends like him

He looks like a alien 100 percent