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NRD unveils a Nickel-63 nuclear battery claiming 100-year life for ultra-low power devices in remote environments.
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Not this thing again. Nuclear batteries have been around for decades, it’s nothing new although it makes the rounds in the media for some reason every now and again. Yes they last a long time in theory, in practice there isn’t really an environment they can live for that long in. It just means the lifetime isn’t limited by the amount of energy the battery can provide and the failure mode will be something else. The thing that always gets buried in the media is the kicker: These devices produce at maximum a couple of nanowatts. That’s just about enough to lift an ants dick if you are lucky. These devices do have their own very niche and specific uses, however for the general public there are zero uses. And don’t go shouting but what if they scale it up or they are going to make it much more powerful. They won’t, that’s not possible and they are frankly very shitty batteries in terms of just about any metric you can throw at them. Their only real upside is the extremely long lifespan.
Read all about these specific devices here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaic_device Or atomic batteries in general here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_battery
Yes these things are pretty neat and very interesting technology. No they do not serve any real purpose for the general public, so I have no idea why the media always wants to run with stories like these. It isn’t really helpful tech startups like Betavolt for example shout out nonsense to get funding and the media just takes their word at face value, even when what they claim is physically impossible and not backed up by even their own numbers in any way. This article is about an US based startup that uses the exact same tech and tries to make the exact same sort of noise.
could this become lemmy copypasta for ants?
You dismiss this so easily but as an operator of an occasional ant dick lifting machine this is my dream come true.
Have you taken an OSHA-approved ant dick lift certification course?
It’s perfect for my ant dick lifter!
Reframe your thoughts.
Instead of a continually powered device, this would be perfect for a periodic accumulation -> use device.
Doesn’t that sort of circuit involve a nontrivial amount of resistance in order for the charge to accumulate in the first place? Because the current from such a battery has very little amperage…
NRD claims the battery can deliver power outputs ranging from 5 nanowatts to 500 nanowatts.
Finally, a nuclear reactor for ants
Whoa, half an entire microwatt? /s
Seriously though, that should be enough for the sensors and stuff in hard to reach places that the article is about. They could last much longer than the devices that would communicate with them.
The device operates within a voltage range of 1.0 V to 20.0 V and a nominal current between 7.5 nA and 33 nA, all within a compact 20 mm by 20 mm by 12 mm form factor.
Yeah, can’t even power an ESP32. Wake me up when this thing can do between 7.5 mA and 33 mA, not nA.
NurdRage did this 9 years ago and the mentioned NanoTritium batteries exist since 2008… so, the only big advantage of these new Ni-63 ones is their longer half life of 100 instead of 12 years, it seems.
Very cool, better not be expensive
They will be very expensive and they don’t even supply enough power to run a digital watch.
Digital watch? They can’t even run a quartz watch
