Nuclear Battery

[weazuul]

http://www.livescience.com/technology/050513_new_battery.html news sound 2 good to be true. And yes i know i posted it in 2 sections of this forum but it is so nice. I realy like it

[AndyOne]

Maybe it is too good to be true as the link doesn't work.

I once saw an article in the electronics press about a battery based on the radioactive decay of strontium 90 which would give 30W of power for 30 years. Never did find out where I could buy one from though.

Andy.

[thanhTran]

Maybe it is too good to be true as the link doesn't work.

I once saw an article in the electronics press about a battery based on the radioactive decay of strontium 90 which would give 30W of power for 30 years. Never did find out where I could buy one from though.

Andy.

How would us, normal civilian, make sure that there is no radiation leak? I think it could cause cancer if it happens ;)

Thanh

[Steffeo]

Remember that there is radioactive materials in a lot of stuff we still use every day! On the top of my head I will mention; Firealarms, and also some cellphones!

But, dont worry, I think the world, and the economic powers in this have started to be a little more aware of the dangers of messing our planet up to much though.

[weazuul]

I have fixed the link and now works fine.
As for shielding the battery they say:"It is safe and can be implanted in the body," Fauchet said. "The energetic particles emitted by tritium do not penetrate inside the skin." Tritium emits only low energy particles "that can be shielded by very thin materials, such as a sheet of paper," said Gadeken of BetaBatt. "The hermetically-sealed, metallic BetaBattery cases will encapsulate the entire radioactive energy source, just like a normal battery contains its chemical source so it cannot escape." and they say it could be used for medical aplications mainly for starters(peacemakers) so i don't think that is going to be a trouble for us.
The single main problem is that they give too few amps (yet).

[AndyOne]

How would us, normal civilian, make sure that there is no radiation leak? I think it could cause cancer if it happens ;)

Thanh


Hummm, I suspect this is why it didn't make it to market, strontium 90 is pretty nasty stuff.

Andy.

[andrew b]

sounds like "frivalous" use of "scarce" resource (tritium) thats why you cant buy the nice glow-in-the-dark keyrings in the U.S. Its usually used in intrinsically safe indicators, such as aircraft and ship, The Humber lightship used them as power supplies for years

[AndyOne]

Since nuclear weapons testing stopped, the level of tritium in seawater has dropped, so the answer is to let off some more nukes that would renew the world's resource of this scarce isotope.

Andy.

[Discharger]

Since nuclear weapons testing stopped, the level of tritium in seawater has dropped, so the answer is to let off some more nukes that would renew the world's resource of this scarce isotope.

Andy.

Let's not wish for things we could regret. We mightn't have to wait too long if the North Koreans have their way.

[Lomcevak]

Steffeo, you are correct about smoke detectors containing a very small amount of radioactive material... however, where exactly does a cell phone use radioactive material? What brands? For what purpose?

[Pete P]

Doctor Octopus used Tritium or Deuterium to power the mini-sun :-P
There has to be some way of making tritium from water... or maybe go up a covalent level and bombard with some subatomic particles to split a reactive (made so by neutron bombardment) into the small radioactive particles... Even going by individual atoms, it's one way of storing energy :-P Plus once it's been done, it will always be improved!