One thing to note about the modern 'betavoltaic' batteries is that they don't actually have more energy density than a standard 18650 lithium ion battery, but instead give off a much smaller amount of power for a decade or two, while an 18650 would probably have lost all it's chemical abilities.
antonkochubey · 1h ago
I know this is an anecdote, but I have quite a few 18650's from early 2010's still in service, of course with significant increase to internal resistance and drop to capacity, but fully functional otherwise.
buckle8017 · 44m ago
He's talking decades without recharging.
nimbius · 2h ago
This is a fascinating topic if anyone is interested from a historical perspective.
"Another good use for nuclear batteries is to supply power in remote locations on Earth. Beginning in the 1970s, for example, the Soviet Union deployed over 1,000 RTGs in northwestern Russia to power its uncrewed lighthouses, radio beacons, and weather stations. Most of these batteries ran on strontium-90, and each weighed about 2,000 kg. The United States has deployed hundreds of similar systems for remote power both on land and on the ocean floor, particularly for remote monitoring sites in the Arctic."
SoftTalker · 1h ago
And some very bad consequences for scavengers who came across them and tried to take them apart for scrap metal to sell
It didn’t ruin his life. Having an unstable childhood due to a mentally ill mother and later developing paranoid schizophrenia and a drug addiction (common with schizophrenia) is what ruined his life.
don-bright · 1h ago
I'm missing the part where they solve for the collection problem. The article mentions the boy who gathered dangerous amounts of Americium from smoke detectors but doesn't provide any kind of mechanism to counteract that risk. It seems like any mass production of nuclear battery material risks an interested human or organizational collector amassing significant quantities of that material and that risk doesn't seem to have gone down.
That should get you started repeating the atomic boyscouts experiments straigt from china. If the thorium oxide isn't to your liking in bulk, it's been sold as a "negative ion" product to gullible esoteric idiots and widely available.
The Radioactive Boy-scouts real problems started with a unlucky find of an antique Radium paint vile inside one of the clocks he salvaged.
Everyone is already on a list now regardless of conduct, as privacy became redundant in 2017. The funnier phenomena is people still acting like they are Batman. It is absurd naive behavior... =3
IlikeKitties · 28m ago
I did extensive research into his experiments and i can guaran fucking tee you that the stuff i posted here is enough to repeat his experiments without the radium paint vile.
Joel_Mckay · 19m ago
Thorium requires a great deal of effort to turn into viable fuel, and China only recently managed to catch up on the tech.
It is a byproduct of Lithium mining in many places, and you can see the mountains of powdered low-grade waste from space. It is good they can at least turn it into something useful, as the US shuttered their research facility shortly after it showed viable output.
I was more concerned about our friends radioactive kitty after chemo treatments. =3
Nifty3929 · 1h ago
Also missing is any indication of whether or not this is a rational and valid concern, or whether it's simply generalized fear of "nuclear" without basis. I genuinely wonder and would be interested in some facts about it.
Joel_Mckay · 37m ago
Actually, the story of the Radioactive Boy-scout is often steeped in urban legends. The TLDR is he cobbled together a breeder reactor, and found a large sample of Radium from an antique clock that mistakenly contained an old dial-paint vile. His little hobby cost a lot to clean up, and ruined his life.
Nuclear energy should be conserved for space, as in the past 80 years people still haven't figured out how to safely dispose of hotter waste products. You can disagree on what this means, but every project attempt is provably wrong when projecting containment past 75 years.
These days renewables are profitable, and are not a 1950's hubris driven loss-leader fission tech for our grand kids to pay the actual cost. =3
ta20240528 · 4m ago
" as in the past 80 years people still haven't figured out how to safely dispose of hotter waste products."
Buried underground in salt rock formations.
Conceived, located, designed.
Willingham · 2h ago
It is my understanding that small nuclear batteries output very little energy, so little in fact that they are virtually useless for most applications where a classical battery would be used. The upside is that they can produce power for decades without ever ‘charging’ or in this case, replacing the isotopes. In other words, the use cases aren’t as exciting as one would expect.
xeonmc · 1h ago
Sounds perfectly suited for watch batteries.
wongarsu · 1h ago
I prefer changing the battery once every three years over having a radioactive emitter strapped to my wrist. There is a decent case for nuclear pacemakers since changing the battery of those requires surgery, and even there it didn't get traction. Watch batteries are quick to change, I don't see the risk/benefit tradeoff working.
And with smart watches we are back in "useless for most applications" territory.
gerdesj · 1h ago
My wristwatch's "face" is a solar panel - Citizen Eco-Drive. Had it for around 20 years and it has never stopped.
wiz21c · 1h ago
Until they reach the dump...
NoSalt · 1h ago
Who else remembers "Shipstones" from Robert Heinlein's writings? This kind of has that "feel".
In Friday (1982). Still a great story. There's a sequence where Friday does research on a super advanced secret agency computer system, that feels a lot like my interactions with chatbots today.
pjs_ · 1h ago
Nuclear pacemaker is astonishingly bad ass
isoprophlex · 1h ago
Looking at the picture in TFA, it's also quite un-miniaturized. I was surprised at how big it looked, with huge electronic components visible.
louwrentius · 1h ago
I read 'Nuclear Batteries' and the first thing I think about is the "Lia Radological accident", where three men were exposed and one died.
This incident happened in the country of Georgia, which was part of the Sovjet Union. Which probably already hints towards the root-cause of this incident (they lost track of the devices).
Also: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
zparky · 1h ago
oh man i read that medical report [1] a while ago. nightmare fuel, with nightmare pictures included.
There’s something especially bad about radiological burns. Not necessarily knowing severe damage is being done, we don’t have a feedback loop to even know we should get away. And beyond the metaphysical and psychological aspects for me, they just look wrong.
selimthegrim · 2h ago
And here I was hoping they finally got that hafnium isomer to work.
actionfromafar · 1h ago
It feels like LLM blogspam. The only "revival" I could find in the text was the mention of Beijing Betavolt.
elictronic · 1h ago
Article lists 9 companies in a big table, technology used, and what they are targeting.
Your comment "is" spam because you didn't even do a simple check of the article before bashing it.
The soviets had Beta-M powering more than two dozen lighthouses across the union at some point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta-M
"Another good use for nuclear batteries is to supply power in remote locations on Earth. Beginning in the 1970s, for example, the Soviet Union deployed over 1,000 RTGs in northwestern Russia to power its uncrewed lighthouses, radio beacons, and weather stations. Most of these batteries ran on strontium-90, and each weighed about 2,000 kg. The United States has deployed hundreds of similar systems for remote power both on land and on the ocean floor, particularly for remote monitoring sites in the Arctic."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45014583
Anyway here's where you can order bulk capsule of americium: https://de.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-nap-07-module.html?spm...
Thorium oxide powder https://whgoldenwing.en.made-in-china.com/product/PZtfXWbMbA...
That should get you started repeating the atomic boyscouts experiments straigt from china. If the thorium oxide isn't to your liking in bulk, it's been sold as a "negative ion" product to gullible esoteric idiots and widely available.
Edit: you might also need some beryllium for the neutron gun, you can get that on ebay https://www.ebay.de/itm/266979263956?_skw=beryllium&itmmeta=...
Anyway, i'm on a whole lot of fbi lists now
The Radioactive Boy-scouts real problems started with a unlucky find of an antique Radium paint vile inside one of the clocks he salvaged.
Everyone is already on a list now regardless of conduct, as privacy became redundant in 2017. The funnier phenomena is people still acting like they are Batman. It is absurd naive behavior... =3
It is a byproduct of Lithium mining in many places, and you can see the mountains of powdered low-grade waste from space. It is good they can at least turn it into something useful, as the US shuttered their research facility shortly after it showed viable output.
I was more concerned about our friends radioactive kitty after chemo treatments. =3
Nuclear energy should be conserved for space, as in the past 80 years people still haven't figured out how to safely dispose of hotter waste products. You can disagree on what this means, but every project attempt is provably wrong when projecting containment past 75 years.
These days renewables are profitable, and are not a 1950's hubris driven loss-leader fission tech for our grand kids to pay the actual cost. =3
Buried underground in salt rock formations.
Conceived, located, designed.
And with smart watches we are back in "useless for most applications" territory.
https://www.google.com/search?q=robert+heinlein+shipstone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident
This incident happened in the country of Georgia, which was part of the Sovjet Union. Which probably already hints towards the root-cause of this incident (they lost track of the devices).
Also: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1660web-81...