The Unlikely Revival of Nuclear Batteries
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The revival of nuclear batteries is sparking debate, with some commenters highlighting their historical use in remote locations, such as the Soviet Union's deployment in lighthouses, while others point out the devastating consequences of improper disposal, like the "Lia incident." As some users downplay the potential risks, others express skepticism about the technology's practicality, noting that small nuclear batteries produce very little energy, making them nearly useless for most applications. Meanwhile, a few enthusiasts are holding out hope for alternative nuclear technologies, like the hafnium isomer. Despite the reservations, a few commenters see potential niche uses, such as powering watch batteries.
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The soviets had Beta-M powering more than two dozen lighthouses across the union at some point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta-M
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45014583
"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."
But if you need more juice, then solar watches are also a thing that work pretty well.
For a smartwatch, these batteries won't produce enough power to keep them going. It's better to just slap a bigger battery into the watch rather than a nuclear battery + regular battery.
And with smart watches we are back in "useless for most applications" territory.
Besides emergencies, there are also situations where the device has a low duty cycle, and thus its average power requirements are very low. For example a remote sensor that only activates for a few seconds per day may consume thousands of times more power for those few seconds than a nuclear battery could put out, but the rest of the time it could be recharging such that it has as much energy available the next time it turns on.
If we are talking about a basement with pipes, then power isn't likely too far away.
> an 18650 would probably have lost all it's chemical abilities.
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...
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.
When (not if) the salt caverns collapse from rotten concrete, they hope it will remain stable and dry. Even vitrified ceramic containment isn't perfect, but seems better than a caveman bucket technology. We will have to disagree about it justifying fission tech sustainability. =3
Or, people could put up a 20kW solar roof for $1k year in most places. =3
I don't know if you would be getting that much water in the desert that is the nevada test site, or who would even be drinking from that water.
Also the cat litter thing you mentioned earlier is already regulated by 10 CFR, and all uranium offgasses radon (even natural uranium that never gets dug up and used in a reactor in the first place).
The threat from used fuel is that the short lived nuclides seep into groundwater, or that someone might use the fissile material create a weapon. So as long as you keep it in a deep cave in the middle of nowhere and guard the entrance, it's fine.
Solar will probably remain cheap as long as it can take advantage of the existing grid capacity and push that storage externality on the rest of the electrical grid.
Nuclear's long-term problem in the USA is the massive reserves of cheap shale gas discovered in the last 10 years.
On a world-wide scale, its far more likely that someone uses some their thousands of existing nuclear weapons.
If I recall it was found to be perforated with deep defects that already leak water. And deserts do have ground water, but may only see periodic annual precipitation. Paleowater is also quite common in some areas.
>Solar will probably remain cheap
It gets cheaper every year, but $/kWh is not as cheap as the upfront naive costs of fission yet. Hence the loss-leader pejorative is accurate.
>regulated by 10 CFR
It was a real accident not hyperbole. The carbon matter based kitty litter actually did start a real radioactive fire in the disposal facility.
The proximity to hot waste causes material degradation and contamination. Stable isotopes in child eye lenses have already shown it rarely stays localized (baby boomers didn't show this phenomena).
The gas company shenanigans are well known, and they often do end-runs with 10 year below market cost contracts to maintain monopolies with large firms. They often wait to pull this stunt just before a project breaks ground to maximize losses.
Centralized infrastructure may simply be too expensive to reliably maintain under unstable conditions. =3
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
https://www.google.com/search?q=robert+heinlein+shipstone