Nuclear battery produces power for 50 years without needing to charge

Comments ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38989690 )

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nuclear-battery-betavolt-atomic-china-b2476979.html


God I hope this is not another vaporware battery story.


that's what I'm talking bout.


I doubt it's true. Betavoltaic batteries don't do more than a few mW. They are super cool for things like sensors and low power IoT devices, but things like smartphones are simply too much.


Just imagine what power we as humans can produce! The obvious is in the mirror.


Probably going to be banned in the US in favor of bug mulch batteries.


Finally I can switch back to my beloved Thinkpad x220

nostr:nevent1qqsyldcrpdmcnm68xfr80sqmcaj2klnudn3g6jw5s3a3a64cv9f2ckqpzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejsygypw9yvx6gp24qpkj29szr3lvzkff0647u52jqnau547fcxhjfntypsgqqqqqqsa8rvzg


LK-99 vibes IMO


When you think about it. We have submarines running on nuclear energy. Why not making cars that never needed to be charged again. Not in our lifetime plebs. The tech and oil cartels are way to powerful. We also could have a lightbulbs with a lifespan over 100 years but lightbulb cartels had too much power to create a lifetime of the bulbs.

https://youtu.be/j5v8D-alAKE


nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m have you read https://press.stripe.com/where-is-my-flying-car ?


I call bullshit


In b4 nuclear car crashes


i dont buy it


More more more


Maybe that's just a dream but I would love it for my portable consoles so the batteries won't die some after just 10 years. Plus keep playing a lot.
nostr:nevent1qqsyldcrpdmcnm68xfr80sqmcaj2klnudn3g6jw5s3a3a64cv9f2ckqpr4mhxue69uhkummnw3ez6ur4vgh8wetvd3hhyer9wghxuet5qgsgzu2gcd5sz42qrdy5tqy8r7c9vjjl4taeg4yp8meftunsd0ynxkgrqsqqqqqpr230sp


Comes with free testicular cancer


Literally the first sentence:

https://image.nostr.build/b9ee68e8df3eac0c14ef3cce253e6b48c0d425e9933ddff6757eaaf0ef751af6.png
Is it a typo or is it just yet another battery?


Idk anything about nuclear power. But this sounds almost too good to be true. No downside whatsoever?


Still safer then lithium batteries


I'll takr the organic litium ion batteries that wont give me cancer...


Very interesting, especially from the decay side.


I don‘t buy it, but I would buy it.


Well that quickly became an interesting rabbit hole ..

https://hackaday.com/2016/12/01/make-your-own-nuclear-battery/


It seems like I've heard this story a lot, some startup made an actually working nuclear battery that is actually doable. But even assuming that this is correct the company really did everything they claim it's certainly not going to power a phone.

The Iphone 15 can output 12.981Wh meaning that if the battery really did output 100mWh you would need 129.8 of those batteries to replace an Iphone battery.

There's plenty of room for technology to improve but it's not exactly like nuclear reactions are a new concept so I am not sure if this would be able to improve like an entirely new technology could.

Maybe someday we can have something more powerful but I wouldn't get my hopes up for 2025 like they claim.


definitely won't cause a 600% increase in testicular cancer


Until an actual product arrives, I will never believe battery news anymore.


Nuclear battery produces power for 50 years without needing to charge

Comments ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38989690 )

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nuclear-battery-betavolt-atomic-china-b2476979.html


i'm sure the military already has them in their most expensive projects, but probably currently a huge cost in production, and probably the weight to momentary power ratio is probably still in the range of NiCd grade of power density, if not less


There is no such thing as waste! Only people wasting a potential resource.

(Usually because someone in government decided to strike a pose, using other peoples money and no skin in the game).

This is a great use for radionuclides usually wasted.


Might be, but I don't plan on signing up for the army to get better batteries...


my point was that there is probably advanced military tech using larger scale versions of these things, for satellites and high altitude drones, for example

if they can get the power to weight ratio up high enough and have them put out more power for less time it's gonna be a boon for autonomous spy recon drones too


Deep space probes also use nuclear batteries, this is not new, just smaller.


And 1960s/1970s heart pacemakers!

https://www.ans.org/news/article-3591/the-case-of-the-pupowered-pacemaker/

Most journalists would believe a person would die of cancer after being in the same city as such a device :-p


The resulting chemical waste just might, and it has a half life of "forever".

But as long as we can outsource that work to the Third World using borrowed fiat money, we'll be fine...


True enough, but the iPhones gluttonous 12W consumption is a challenge, not a dealbreaker.

With modern semiconductors, it would be totally possible to run the equivalent of a Nokia 3210 on 100mW.

Remote area work. Emergency services. Emergency equipment on marine vessels. There's a big market if they can get the government out of the way.