Tiny 'nuclear batteries' unveiled

[coliver988]

"Researchers have demonstrated a penny-sized "nuclear battery" that produces energy from the decay of radioisotopes." ...and...
"The University of Missouri team says that the batteries hold a million times as much charge as standard batteries."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8297934.stm

 

[stealth]

all solid state?

I'll bet it runs by beta-voltaics. No moving parts, just beta decay (an anti-electon current) inducing an electric current on the other side of a semi-conductor. :frankie:

 

[ThunderChilde]

Ah the dawning of Piper's Powercells, no longer must a traveller fear his comm unit will run out of juice, nor his flashlight fail him. Here comes the rise of the very durable, elegant devices with decades to centuries of power. My Future is bright shiny Nuclear future.:devil::devil::devil:

 

[Spinward Scout]

This would be the end of the electric companies if you can just buy a lamp or a TV that can run without external power for 100 years. If these were put into every device that uses electricity, what do we need the power companies for?

 

[FreeTrav]

There might well be size limits, or maximum-ergs-deliverable limitations that would be problematical - for example, you might be able to go off the power companies for your LIGHTS - but what about the refrigerator, air-conditioner, stereo, TV, and computers? Space heaters? Or industrial-scale usage, e.g., factories, especially if they use things like arc welders?

Plus, the power companies could diversify into PRODUCING and SELLING these batteries...

 

[Spinward Scout]

There might well be size limits, or maximum-ergs-deliverable limitations that would be problematical - for example, you might be able to go off the power companies for your LIGHTS - but what about the refrigerator, air-conditioner, stereo, TV, and computers? Space heaters? Or industrial-scale usage, e.g., factories, especially if they use things like arc welders?

You would just have to have an array of them like you do now with regular batteries. Some of these batteries we use now are stacked watch batteries with an outer casing that makes it look like one solid battery. Just think if you had an array of these built into your interior walls in your house. Every wall in your house. Then you are your own power company.

No need for solar.

No need for wind power.

No more need for coal.

They may have just hit the short term energy jackpot.

The University of Missouri team says that the batteries hold a million times as much charge as standard batteries.

Unless it releases it's charge slowly, with a charge like that, you really could have a hand-held high energy laser.

 

[Gadrin]

Yeah, but how much are they gonna cost ?

The story was short and sweet and didn't say how long
they lasted (I mean an actual number) and what they
were powering. Million sounds nice, but it's like watching
the Discovery Channel about astronomy or the solar system
and everything is "a million years old" type of prose they use.

If you've got a more in-depth URL post it. I'll try googling in
the meantime.

The question with a lot of things I see is: "Will it be available
in my lifetime ?" (is it something that's gonna reach everyone
or just the rich people?)

How long until manufacturers start providing for their use ?

So far lots of "cool ideas" but nada. Hope we get to see some
of it before it's time to go.

It always seems like most of this stuff is 50+ years off.

>

 

[Spinward Scout]

If the government actually approves its general use (that may be a big 'if'), and they are at the prototype stage now, probably less than five years until production starts. I'd say more about that, but it would fall into the realm of politics and my dissatisfaction with lobbyists that impede progress.

 

[Commander Truestar]

If the government actually approves its general use (that may be a big 'if'), and they are at the prototype stage now, probably less than five years until production starts. I'd say more about that, but it would fall into the realm of politics and my dissatisfaction with lobbyists that impede progress.

I can see it now:

...and I also bequieth to my loving family my collection of unstoppable nuclear tools including my flashlight, hair trimmer, Collection of room fans, PDA, universal cell phone batteries(yeah right!), wrist watch, et al in the hopes my family will enjoy their use and think of me down the ages...

heheheh

I do wonder if they can harvest the radioactive isotopes from spent rods left over from gross power generation? Hmmm


Marc

 

[FreeTrav]

You would just have to have an array of them like you do now with regular batteries. Some of these batteries we use now are stacked watch batteries with an outer casing that makes it look like one solid battery. Just think if you had an array of these built into your interior walls in your house. Every wall in your house. Then you are your own power company.

...and your walls, where the batteries are stored, would be so thick that they'd take up enough room for another three or four rooms. That might or might not fly, quite frankly. And, being 'nuclear', whatever the specific mechanism, there's GOING to be scaremongering about large concentrations of them, if not all the way down to the battery-in-the-base-of-the-lamp level. If they're stackable like that, you'll sure as hell end up with the power companies doing the stacking and distributing the power, sorta like we have now.

Unless it releases it's charge slowly, with a charge like that, you really could have a hand-held high energy laser.

This is a question of both ergs-deliverable and energy density - maybe the battery can deliver the ergs fast enough for a laser weapon, but can it deliver ENOUGH of them? Or, maybe it can deliver enough of them, but can it do so in a short enough time? And how long or how often can it do so before exhausting the stored ergs? And how easy is it to replace the battery?

In fact... Suppose I can have that hundred-year lamp with the battery built in to the base: how much is that sucker going to weigh?

 

[Whipsnade]

It's time like these when I'd love to believe in ghosts or an afterlife because H. Beam Piper would be laughing his *ss off. Okay, the technology is a far cry from the collapsium-lined "direct conversion batteries" used in his stories to power everything from flashlights to starships, but we're a few steps closer to his idea than we were a few months ago.

Of course and as the article mentions, large RTGs have been around quite some time now and have been employed in a variety of applications. I was doing some "professional" reading in just the last month which pointed out the biggest amount of unsecured nuclear materials in the slow motion train wreck that is the former USSR happens to be honking huge RTGs used to power the many unmanned remote lighthouses along that nation's Arctic coastline.

Sleep tight, shriners...


Regards,
Bill

 

[Spinward Scout]

If they're stackable like that, you'll sure as hell end up with the power companies doing the stacking and distributing the power, sorta like we have now.

You're right - which is why I doubt that the government will allow it for general use.

Scaremongering is also one of the hurdles to get government approval. But not an insurmountable one.

The energy density needed sounds like it's there. I don't think size will be an issue if the energy can be released fast enough. If it can't - well, then the discussion is moot.

...but we're a few steps closer to his idea than we were a few months ago.

I like the sound of that. Makes me really look forward to hearing more about it.

 

[aramis]

I'll bet it runs by beta-voltaics. No moving parts, just beta decay (an anti-electon current) inducing an electric current on the other side of a semi-conductor. :frankie:

That's precisely the technique being described in the article, but now using liquid semiconductors for durability.

 

[FreeTrav]

It's time like these when I'd love to believe in ghosts or an afterlife because H. Beam Piper would be laughing his *ss off. Okay, the technology is a far cry from the collapsium-lined "direct conversion batteries" used in his stories to power everything from flashlights to starships, but we're a few steps closer to his idea than we were a few months ago.

Just another example of "the future comes too soon and in the wrong order"...

 

[Whipsnade]

I like the sound of that. Makes me really look forward to hearing more about it.

Spinward,

First of all, Piper's ideas were and are scientific nonsense. He wasn't describing RTGs or anything like the technology mentioned in the article.

His stories, in the THFH setting and others, have a "direct conversion" battery of sorts. Piper writes that the devices convert nuclear energy directly to electricity. They also can be manufactured in various sizes. Small ones, described about the size of a single round of pistol ammunition IIRC, power things like flashlights almost indefinitely. Others are larger naturally, apparently a few the size of "beer kegs" can power Piper's huge starships for a year or more.

Piper never describes the process in any real detail, although there's some additional, but vague, gobbledeegook in Space Viking when Trask's merry band of nuclear-armed murderers attack and loot a mining and manufacturing facility near the south pole of the planet Beowulf. Apparently while the battery is made up of mostly radioactive material, there is a small section which contains the conversion apparatus. Trask vaguely describes the manufacturing process as he's describing the attack and in the process mentions the conversion apparatus built into the batteries.

One important part of these devices is the "collapsium" sheathing they all have. "Collapsium" is a material somehow compressed or otherwise manipulated so that the "atoms touch each other". (I know, I know. I laughed too when I first read it around 12 or so.) This material is predominantly used for armor in Piper's stories, but it is also used to sheath the direct conversion batteries. With the atoms "touching" each other, no radiation can leak out!

Collapsium also makes the batteries very heavy. In Four Day Planet, an engine hand aboard a hunter ship strains his back trying to move a battery by hand and has to be hospitalized. I would think that pistol round-sized flashlight battery would be extremely heavy too, but science was never one of Piper's strong suits.

As for the real technology mentioned in the article, I'm rather excited by it. This might be the battery "breakthrough" some many other things having been waiting for.


Regards,
Bill

 

[coldwar]

gotta remember about Enviormentalists who disapprove of nuclear power as it is a wide subject in Britain today as we need to renew all our nuclear power plants here in a few years time ( about 20 years at the most) and we already have oppersitition against nuclear energy from enviormentalists going on about how much waste it gives "yeah right", is my opinion as the waste goes to the USA and gets retreated so it can be used again at the same or a different nuclear Power Plant, And it holds no hazard to anyone, as long as you look after the computers running the powerplants

My true opinion on Nuclear Energy is that it is the safest, cleanest (no waste as it is re-usable) And Provides a Highly Qaulified Work force.

Anyway thats my view.

 

[Lycanorukke]

The big catch though is "People can be stupid" factor.

As with the Soviet lighthouse RTG's (which run on Strontium 90 IIRC) thieves tore them apart for scrap metal to sell, used them as heaters, vandalised them for laughs, and any number of other "not so bright" things - and that's before you get into government incompetance in security, maintenance and disposal.

One fo the first things that would happen if the 'nuke-batteries' became easily available is that someone whould try and pry one open to 'look inside', tamper with it (if I remove the safety shell I can boost power output by....) or 'destroy teh ebul nuculear' device.

Same with the "Neighbourhood reactor" touted by Hyperion - nice idea, fairly clean, easily accessible power, long life - but potentially in easy reach of some people who couldn't be trusted to tie their shoeslaces.

 

[Peter Schutze]

the only thing new here is the apparent decrease in size

rt generators have been used in space to power just about everything.

problem as i undestand it is the power output curve depends on the isotope used. From memory voyager 1's unit (suitcase sized) was running around 105% of required output when launched but its already down to the low 80s

Thats a pretty good run rate but if your tolerances are only plus or minus 10% eg most household appliances then the centuries is already down to 2 decades

I had a table for incorporating them into 2300AD somwhere .... great for smallish applications requiring a steady current. The only real alternative for feulless power out past mars where solar becomes unfeasable

they can't compete in (any ruleset or real life) for Kw+ applications eg vs fission or thermal power generation systems. where size, weight or speed of output matters batteries or capacitors usually beats RTG as well

 

[aramis]

Peter: RTG is different process from Beta-Voltaics, but both are radio-decay converters. (I suspect both could be combined into a single cell...

And both will likely have similar output decay.

But still, 2 decades is far better than 2-3 days to maybe 2-3 weeks.

If the price can be kept down, a decade is still a viable length.