3 ms·

The power of persistence!

• TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  and radioisotope thermoelectric generators... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...
  • elevaet 4y ago
    Touché!
  • LoveMortuus 4y ago
    Could you power a house with a few dozen of these RTGs? Or are they just so obscenely expensive? If you could use these then you wouldn't really need batteries, which you do need if you go solar. Is it even possible for a mortal to buy a RTG?
    • nix23 4y ago
      You can steal some from russian lighthouses....on your own risk.
    • fennecfoxen 4y ago
      Generally it'd be more efficient to build a nuclear power plant with the materials from the RTG, and power many houses.
    • wcoenen 4y ago
      The voyager probes had 450 watt of total electrical power at launch, supplied by 3 RTGs. The plutonium alone in one of those RTG units (4.5kg) would easily cost $10M. And it's the type of thing that is only used by government programs, very dangerous to handle, and which requires a whole specialized industry to produce. The accounting gets complicated. I wouldn't be surprised by a $100M cost per RTG unit.
    • floxy 4y ago
      The Cassini probe used about 60 pounds of plutonium-238 for its RTGs, at a cost of around $200 million for just the plutonium.