Posted on 01/18/2024 1:07:17 PM PST by Jonty30
China's Betavolt New Energy Technology has unveiled a new modular nuclear battery that uses a combination of a nickel-63 (⁶³Ni) radioactive isotope and a 4th-generation diamond semiconductor and can power a device for 50 years.
Nuclear batteries may sound like something super-advanced, but they've been around in one form or another since the early 1950s. Most of these are what are called radio-thermal generators, which turn the heat from decaying radioactive elements into electricity by some sort of thermocouple or a Stirling engine.
In 2016, a new principle was introduced, which uses diamond layers doped with radioactive isotopes – in the case of the first attempt, carbon-14 (¹⁴C). The idea is to select an isotope that releases Beta (β⁻) particles, which are essentially high-energy, high-speed electrons or positrons. When these are released, the diamond matrix acts as a semiconductor to generate an electric
(Excerpt) Read more at newatlas.com ...
Bkmk
This a ship load of EV's on fire
Yep, a Chinese-made nuclear battery. What could go wrong?
Orobably more like:
Be one of the first to take advantage of this sure-fire investment!
(But first follow this link for a detailed promotional video by world renowned Energy expert...
Well, first, it’s in it’s relative infancy, producing only 100 microwatts (0.1 milliwatt) which could power a watch. The one watt version could power much more. I don’t know about the problems with scaling it up in size.
Han-Tur-Bai-Dun.
magic battery technology is becoming quite avant-garde lately: this one has BOTH diamond AND nuclear technology!
“The BV100 can produce 100 microwatts at 3 volts”
Time to bring back the radium dial watch. /sarc
There have been other companies that have tried this tech...
They need air to work, so applications are still kinda limited.
A 50 year flashlight or cell phone is probably do-able though.
The spray of water is a nice touch.
It’s probably to keep the flaming ship of EVs away…
They are more advanced. China reverse engineered these
And they only cost a million dollars apiece.
The side-story to this is - The US Dept of Energy apparently owns the patent on this technology, and sold it to China for pennies on the dollar.
“... and can power a device for 50 years. “
Already been done. Voyager 1.
Tofu-dreg nuclear battery
…can power a device for 50 years - as long as it is a very small device, in a warm environment and is turned off the whole time.
They’re programing the chip to allow them to have it go critical via backdoor software......
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