9 ms·

Tiny 'nuclear batteries' unveiled

43 points by FreeRadical 17y ago

Mongoose 17y ago
I'd be interested to read what Energizer and Procter & Gamble think about this kind of tech.
RobertL 17y ago
They've been using small nuclear batteries (Plutonium-238) to power heart pacemakers for decades. They even left one on the moon to power monitoring equipment after humans departed. Pu-238 has about a 25 year half-life and the batteries maintain current for about half of that.. That's why folks with heart pacemakers have to go get them replaced every decade or so...
ars 17y ago
This is going to make tiny flying spy machines possible. Micromechanical Flying Insect: http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ronf/mfi.html/ http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ronf/mfi.html/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801434.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10... http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/flighttheory/ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/flighttheory/ The biggest unsolved problem for these is the power-to-weight ratio (real bugs are amazing). Nuclear batteries is exactly what they need, if they can be made very small.
- joeyo 17y ago
  Another possibility that I have heard discussed, specifically with respect to spy bugs, is "spray on" battery technology.
- pyre 17y ago
  > (real bugs are amazing) Real bugs don't have to record/transmit a/v data or record/transmit controller signals. They also spend most of their time refueling or in search of fuel.
gfodor 17y ago
Unfortunately they're already calling them "nuclear" so I doubt this is going anywhere unless some better buzzword takes hold -- it's a shame but people are just too scared of the word.
- berntb 17y ago
  How about "radioactive"? :-) IMHO, the green movement is important and necessary, I just wish a larger fraction of them weren't fanatics and/or idiots.
- Xichekolas 17y ago
  One of the newer technologies (there are several ways to skin the nuclear-battery cat) is refered to as "betavoltaics". Presumably this make them sound enough like solar panels to sneak by. ;) The name actually is related to how they work at least (beta particles into semiconductors). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaics
- gcv 17y ago
  I wonder if that's a generational thing. When I hear "nuclear," I tend to hear "exciting source of relatively clean renewable energy." Of course I know about weaponry, and I know about Chernobyl, better than most, but I also hold that atomic power is a tool, just like any other --- dangerous in the wrong hands, and dangerous if misused, but also a source of progress.
  - pyre 17y ago
    There are plenty of 'eco-activists' today that are very anti-nuclear. People still think that anything relating to 'nuclear' means that I could make an atom bomb out of it in my backyard with bubblegum and baling wire.
- chrischen 17y ago
  atomic batteries?
pmorici 17y ago
What kind of current can a dime sized nuclear battery supply and at what voltage? All the article says is "useful" amounts of power.
- tigerthink 17y ago
  The University of Missouri team says that the batteries hold a million times as much charge as standard batteries. Does that help?
  - bprater 17y ago
    I suspect that is the duration of the charge and not the amount of power it can put out at any given moment.
  - m_eiman 17y ago
    No, that says nothing about the current and voltage. It could trickle out a teensy bit of current for a very long time, which wouldn't be useful for e.g. a laptop.
  - pmorici 17y ago
    I don't think it does... ...charge is more like the total energy stored in the battery. Amps and Volts will tell you how fast that power can be used. A battery can have a million times the charge but if it can only release that charge over 100 billion years then it isn't going to be able to power small electronics, like cell phones for example.
  - drhodes 17y ago
    I believe "a million times as much charge" refers to the total energy content in Joules. The parent was referring to voltage. The original press release from missouri.edu: http://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2009/1007-mu-researchers-create-smaller-and-more-efficient-nuclear-battery/ http://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2009/1007-mu-resear... It references a published paper (likely behind a pay wall), otherwise the content is almost identical to the original link.
- pmorici 17y ago
teuobk 17y ago
Medtronic made some nuclear-powered implantable pacemakers in the 1970s. Supposedly, they worked fine, but adoption was hindered by the word "nuclear." My biggest concern is disposal. I don't like the idea of millions of these things ending up in landfills, even though I'm sure there would be an aggressive recycling campaign associated with their introduction.
- ars 17y ago
  > My biggest concern is disposal. I don't like the idea of millions of these things ending up in landfills Why not? You can replace 1 million regular batteries with a single one of these. The radioactivity is not a problem, it's well enclosed in the device, and when the device is spent the radioactivity is probably close to background levels. A landfill is the perfect place to put them and let them decay into passivity.
  - pyre 17y ago
    > The radioactivity is not a problem, it's well enclosed in the device, and when the device is spent the radioactivity is probably close to background levels. It depends on how efficient the device is. That said, the problem if 'nuclear waste' is largely created by ourselves. All of that 'nuclear waste' is still useful, we are just too lazy to utilize it. A good portion of that waste has completely spent its radioactivity. There is a portion of it that is useful as medical isotopes. There is still more that can be put to other uses. We just need to find applications for the waste rather than spend all of our time trying to find a way to store it.
- RK 17y ago
  Tons of radioactive waste is put in landfills all of the time. Usually, it just has to decay down to background radiation levels before it is allowed to be dumped there. Most US landfills have radiation detectors where the trucks enter. If your industrial trash sets off the alarms, they will usually ship it back to you and make you deal with whatever is setting off their alarms. This happens , for example, to hospitals sometimes, as they generate a lot of radioactive waste from nuclear scans, etc.
- 17y ago
charlesju 17y ago
Lets start a list of applications we could use with nuclear batteries: - Nuclear powered electric cars. Recharge like how one would change oil.
NathanKP 17y ago
From the article: Nuclear power sources have already been safely powering a variety of devices, such as pacemakers... It seems sort of strange that the article writer talks about how up until now nuclear batteries have had to be very large to work effectively. Yet then the statement is made that such batteries have been used in pacemakers, which I assume must be much smaller. Does anyone know anything more about pacemakers and this claim that nuclear batteries have already been used to power them?
- yannis 17y ago
  Yes they did sometime in the 60's. I was actually involved with research in the early eighties where one option for an artificial heart (not a pace-maker) was to use a tiny Stirling Engine powered by an isotope heat source. The general public has a revulsion for anything 'radioactive', however radio-active material if handled properly is quite safe. For many years people did not realized it, but all Smoke detectors had radioactive americium 241. If you ever renovate an old home just don't put them in your pockets :)
DanielBMarkham 17y ago
The killer app for these: flexible nuclear battery-powered e-books with color e-ink and 20-year lifespans.
chrischen 17y ago
Wow I can't wait for the day I can power my computer for a month on one charge! Actually these nuclear batteries probably won't be rechargeable, but they may outlast the electronic devices they power. Which means we could see computers and electronic devices being sold without the need for chargers. Just buy something and it works magically! That's probably the future.
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  If these are truly a million times more powerful, and the average computer battery lasts about an hour, that means these batteries could last a million hours, or around 114 years. I think that's long enough for me!
  - chrischen 17y ago
    Yea and think about Apple, who are crazy about making unremovable batteries. No more complaints about unremovable Macbook batteries. They can truly make a disposable self-contained product.
    - davidw 17y ago
      Err... for some values of 'disposable'...
  - chrischen 17y ago
    And if the penny size can be 1 million times more, think about a regular laptop sized nuclear battery.
cmars232 17y ago
Reminds me of the Foundation series -- the 1st foundation miniaturized nuclear powered devices.

43 points by FreeRadical 17y ago

I'd be interested to read what Energizer and Procter & Gamble think about this kind of tech.

They've been using small nuclear batteries (Plutonium-238) to power heart pacemakers for decades. They even left one on the moon to power monitoring equipment after humans departed. Pu-238 has about a 25 year half-life and the batteries maintain current for about half of that.. That's why folks with heart pacemakers have to go get them replaced every decade or so...

ars 17y ago

This is going to make tiny flying spy machines possible. Micromechanical Flying Insect: http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ronf/mfi.html/ http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ronf/mfi.html/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801434.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10... http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/flighttheory/ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/flighttheory/ The biggest unsolved problem for these is the power-to-weight ratio (real bugs are amazing). Nuclear batteries is exactly what they need, if they can be made very small.

joeyo 17y ago
Another possibility that I have heard discussed, specifically with respect to spy bugs, is "spray on" battery technology.
pyre 17y ago
> (real bugs are amazing) Real bugs don't have to record/transmit a/v data or record/transmit controller signals. They also spend most of their time refueling or in search of fuel.

gfodor 17y ago

Unfortunately they're already calling them "nuclear" so I doubt this is going anywhere unless some better buzzword takes hold -- it's a shame but people are just too scared of the word.

berntb 17y ago
How about "radioactive"? :-) IMHO, the green movement is important and necessary, I just wish a larger fraction of them weren't fanatics and/or idiots.
Xichekolas 17y ago
One of the newer technologies (there are several ways to skin the nuclear-battery cat) is refered to as "betavoltaics". Presumably this make them sound enough like solar panels to sneak by. ;) The name actually is related to how they work at least (beta particles into semiconductors). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaics
gcv 17y ago
I wonder if that's a generational thing. When I hear "nuclear," I tend to hear "exciting source of relatively clean renewable energy." Of course I know about weaponry, and I know about Chernobyl, better than most, but I also hold that atomic power is a tool, just like any other --- dangerous in the wrong hands, and dangerous if misused, but also a source of progress.
- pyre 17y ago
  There are plenty of 'eco-activists' today that are very anti-nuclear. People still think that anything relating to 'nuclear' means that I could make an atom bomb out of it in my backyard with bubblegum and baling wire.
chrischen 17y ago
atomic batteries?

pmorici 17y ago

What kind of current can a dime sized nuclear battery supply and at what voltage? All the article says is "useful" amounts of power.

tigerthink 17y ago
The University of Missouri team says that the batteries hold a million times as much charge as standard batteries. Does that help?
- bprater 17y ago
  I suspect that is the duration of the charge and not the amount of power it can put out at any given moment.
- m_eiman 17y ago
  No, that says nothing about the current and voltage. It could trickle out a teensy bit of current for a very long time, which wouldn't be useful for e.g. a laptop.
- pmorici 17y ago
  I don't think it does... ...charge is more like the total energy stored in the battery. Amps and Volts will tell you how fast that power can be used. A battery can have a million times the charge but if it can only release that charge over 100 billion years then it isn't going to be able to power small electronics, like cell phones for example.
- drhodes 17y ago
  I believe "a million times as much charge" refers to the total energy content in Joules. The parent was referring to voltage. The original press release from missouri.edu: http://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2009/1007-mu-researchers-create-smaller-and-more-efficient-nuclear-battery/ http://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2009/1007-mu-resear... It references a published paper (likely behind a pay wall), otherwise the content is almost identical to the original link.
pmorici 17y ago

teuobk 17y ago

Medtronic made some nuclear-powered implantable pacemakers in the 1970s. Supposedly, they worked fine, but adoption was hindered by the word "nuclear." My biggest concern is disposal. I don't like the idea of millions of these things ending up in landfills, even though I'm sure there would be an aggressive recycling campaign associated with their introduction.

ars 17y ago
> My biggest concern is disposal. I don't like the idea of millions of these things ending up in landfills Why not? You can replace 1 million regular batteries with a single one of these. The radioactivity is not a problem, it's well enclosed in the device, and when the device is spent the radioactivity is probably close to background levels. A landfill is the perfect place to put them and let them decay into passivity.
- pyre 17y ago
  > The radioactivity is not a problem, it's well enclosed in the device, and when the device is spent the radioactivity is probably close to background levels. It depends on how efficient the device is. That said, the problem if 'nuclear waste' is largely created by ourselves. All of that 'nuclear waste' is still useful, we are just too lazy to utilize it. A good portion of that waste has completely spent its radioactivity. There is a portion of it that is useful as medical isotopes. There is still more that can be put to other uses. We just need to find applications for the waste rather than spend all of our time trying to find a way to store it.
RK 17y ago
Tons of radioactive waste is put in landfills all of the time. Usually, it just has to decay down to background radiation levels before it is allowed to be dumped there. Most US landfills have radiation detectors where the trucks enter. If your industrial trash sets off the alarms, they will usually ship it back to you and make you deal with whatever is setting off their alarms. This happens , for example, to hospitals sometimes, as they generate a lot of radioactive waste from nuclear scans, etc.
17y ago

charlesju 17y ago

Lets start a list of applications we could use with nuclear batteries: - Nuclear powered electric cars. Recharge like how one would change oil.

NathanKP 17y ago

From the article: Nuclear power sources have already been safely powering a variety of devices, such as pacemakers... It seems sort of strange that the article writer talks about how up until now nuclear batteries have had to be very large to work effectively. Yet then the statement is made that such batteries have been used in pacemakers, which I assume must be much smaller. Does anyone know anything more about pacemakers and this claim that nuclear batteries have already been used to power them?

yannis 17y ago
Yes they did sometime in the 60's. I was actually involved with research in the early eighties where one option for an artificial heart (not a pace-maker) was to use a tiny Stirling Engine powered by an isotope heat source. The general public has a revulsion for anything 'radioactive', however radio-active material if handled properly is quite safe. For many years people did not realized it, but all Smoke detectors had radioactive americium 241. If you ever renovate an old home just don't put them in your pockets :)

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

The killer app for these: flexible nuclear battery-powered e-books with color e-ink and 20-year lifespans.

chrischen 17y ago

Wow I can't wait for the day I can power my computer for a month on one charge! Actually these nuclear batteries probably won't be rechargeable, but they may outlast the electronic devices they power. Which means we could see computers and electronic devices being sold without the need for chargers. Just buy something and it works magically! That's probably the future.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
If these are truly a million times more powerful, and the average computer battery lasts about an hour, that means these batteries could last a million hours, or around 114 years. I think that's long enough for me!
- chrischen 17y ago
  Yea and think about Apple, who are crazy about making unremovable batteries. No more complaints about unremovable Macbook batteries. They can truly make a disposable self-contained product.
  - davidw 17y ago
    Err... for some values of 'disposable'...
- chrischen 17y ago
  And if the penny size can be 1 million times more, think about a regular laptop sized nuclear battery.

cmars232 17y ago

Reminds me of the Foundation series -- the 1st foundation miniaturized nuclear powered devices.