Macdonald, who had been on a community work placement at the Ransomes Europark industrial estate, in Ipswich, tried to burndown a shop and flat above it in Great Yarmouth on 16 September.
Yet the German government, for one, has been reluctant to spend money on reactors to burn Russian plutonium at a time when it aims to wind down Germany's own nuclear-power industry.
"I don't think he really thought this through, and it ended up where he had to do something that was pretty wacky, which was burndown his house, " said Rubin.