Nuclear waste made into batteries.

[Octobernight]

 

 

Summary

 Found this article where a company is claiming to have found a way to use nuclear waste to make batteries.  Apparently every thing from common batteries like AA sizes to batteries that could power cars and satellites.

https://blog.sci-nature.com/2022/07/scientists-turn-nuclear-waste-into.html?m=1

Quotes

They claim to have built a self-powered battery made entirely of radioactive waste that has a life expectancy of 28,000 years, making it ideal for your future electric car or iPhone 1.6 x 104. 

 

My thoughts

 This seems like a really cool possibly portable power solution but the claims kinda cause me to have doubts seems a little farfetched but if they do bring them to market in a couple years it would be pretty cool.

 

 

[Beerzerker]

17 minutes ago, Octobernight said:

 

 

Summary

 Found this article where a company is claiming to have found a way to use nuclear waste to make batteries.  Apparently every thing from common batteries like AA sizes to batteries that could power cars and satellites.

https://blog.sci-nature.com/2022/07/scientists-turn-nuclear-waste-into.html?m=1

Quotes

They claim to have built a self-powered battery made entirely of radioactive waste that has a life expectancy of 28,000 years, making it ideal for your future electric car or iPhone 1.6 x 104. 

 

My thoughts

 This seems like a really cool possibly portable power solution but the claims kinda cause me to have doubts seems a little farfetched but if they do bring them to market in a couple years it would be pretty cool.

 

 

Nah - I'm not cool with holding something like that up to my ear or holding it in general.

[jaslion]

How about noooooooooooooo

 

People will burst these

 

People will open these

 

People will experiment with these

 

If this isnt bullshit this is such a big risk.

[Kid.Lazer]

What is an "iPhone 1.6 x 104"?

[RollinLower]

11 minutes ago, jaslion said:

How about noooooooooooooo

 

People will burst these

 

People will open these

 

People will experiment with these

 

If this isnt bullshit this is such a big risk.

but so are regular batteries. if you poke a hole into your phone you will have a potentially lethal fire aswell.

 

personally i'm ok with this tech as long as the benefits greatly outweigh the risks, and a 28000 year life expectancy? yeah that is a massive benefit!

[tikker]

32 minutes ago, jaslion said:

How about noooooooooooooo

 

People will burst these

 

People will open these

 

People will experiment with these

 

If this isnt bullshit this is such a big risk.

So all the things people already shouldn't do with batteries but do anyway. Radiation hazards will be determined by how much material there is and what kind of radiation is emitted. Smoke detectors are also radioactive and are ubiquitous. They claim low levels:

Quote

Additionally, the business claims that its battery is safe since it emits less radiation than the human body.

If that holds up then I'm not sure there would be such a big a risk, but as most of these new battery announcements usually go there seems to be nothing super concrete to read up on yet.

 

If it works out I think power generation would be a great way to reuse nuclear waste.

20 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

personally i'm ok with this tech as long as the benefits greatly outweigh the risks, and a 28000 year life expectancy? yeah that is a massive benefit!

I hope there will be strict(er) reuse/recycle policies in place if these ever come to fruition given our trend of wanting to buy new devices ever few years.

 

[Edit] looking at the video it seems to operate on beta decay. Beta particles are easily stopped so I don't think the radiation risk will be high.

[Donut417]

16 minutes ago, jaslion said:

f this isnt bullshit this is such a big risk.

From the videos I have watched it looks legit. The nuclear material is put in some kinda of diamond matrix thingy I believe. The amount of radiation released is suppose to be minimal. Also I think it uses low radiation nuclear waste vs the highly radioactive stuff. 

 

Personally I think this would be perfect for battery backups, grid backups, possibly helping utilities smoothing out demand on the grid, potentially whole home backups. If they can assure us that the battery cant be breached then this would solve the electric car issue for the next 28000 years. 

 

[Zando_]

Finally. 

[Fl0yd-]

you're telling that the nuclear waste that's required to be buried 500-1000 meters in the ground and remain there for 50 years before the area is safe are now being used to make batteries?

[Donut417]

Just now, Fl0yd- said:

you're telling that the nuclear waste that's required to be buried 500-1000 meters in the ground and remain there for 50 years before the area is safe are now being used to make batteries?

There are different grades of nuclear waste. Have you never heard of Nuclear Medicine? 

[mariushm]

Uhmmm... no.

 

Betavoltaic devices are old thing, they're made for decades ... ex another company that makes them : https://citylabs.net/products/

 

Also see the wikipedia article : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaic_device

 

The company in the article has the innovation to incorporate the radioactive material in an artificial diamond, therefore it's safer.

 

BUT keep in mind the amount of energy created is extremely small, no matter the package. The amount of radioactive material they can put in a diamond like material can produce about as much power as you'd need to power a watch on your hand or a pocket calculator... basically 1-2v at 0.1mA - to power an iphone and make calls you'd need at least 2-3v and around 50mA ... so around 500-1000 times more power than what one of thes batteries can do.

 

Also keep in mind it's not infinite ... yes, the battery can produce energy for 28 thousand years, but depending on isotope you have a half-life of around 10-20 years.... so in 10 years your 2v 0.1mA battery will produce HALF or 2v 0.05mA because the radioactive material decays.

So they're not wrong, it will still produce energy 28k years from now ... but 1v 0.00000000001mA ....enough maybe to blink a led once a day if you top up a good quality capacitor.

 

 

edit : ok city labs uses tritium which has a half-life of around 12 years, the company above plans to use radioactive graphite from spent rods or other materials, that material's half-life is around 5k years so the batteries with that radioactive material will last longer... and i suppose they could parallel a bunch of such diamonds and shove them in a AA or some similar package to get more current out of a battery.

 

 

[Jito463]

I think I found a picture of the new batteries.  Ignore the glow; it's a feature, not a bug.

 

[Fl0yd-]

8 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

There are different grades of nuclear waste. Have you never heard of Nuclear Medicine? 

yes but making consumer grade batteries and thinking it's a good idea tho

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, Fl0yd- said:

yes but making consumer grade batteries and thinking it's a good idea tho

Phone batteries can cause fires and car/boat starter batteries are filled with lead and sulfuric acid. As others have also pointed out a few posts back, what we use now is already dangerous, this wouldn't be some new risk for the local idiot. 

[da na]

In theory a good idea. But hopefully they're affordable enough to actually become mainstream. 

If they last this long, my first idea would be lamps that need to remain constantly lit. Eg, exit signs, road signs, et cetera. 

[mariushm]

BTW they make or at least they're developing power station using the same concepts as RTGs , using nuclear fuel which can't be converted to weapon use, and with designs that self shut down safely and basically have no chance of runaway.

They're pretty much supposed to be like shipping container sized, so easy to transport on a trailer, and you can basically dig a big hole, put the device and the power cables in the hole and cover everything with dirt, and the device will keep producing a few megawatts for decades, enough to power a village.

 

 

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, Octobernight said:

 

 

Summary

 Found this article where a company is claiming to have found a way to use nuclear waste to make batteries.  Apparently every thing from common batteries like AA sizes to batteries that could power cars and satellites.

https://blog.sci-nature.com/2022/07/scientists-turn-nuclear-waste-into.html?m=1

Quotes

They claim to have built a self-powered battery made entirely of radioactive waste that has a life expectancy of 28,000 years, making it ideal for your future electric car or iPhone 1.6 x 104. 

 

My thoughts

 This seems like a really cool possibly portable power solution but the claims kinda cause me to have doubts seems a little farfetched but if they do bring them to market in a couple years it would be pretty cool.

 

 

Article summary:

They take the graphite moderator from a nuclear plant and recycle it into radioactive diamonds.

 

Interesting use of the material, but not something I'd want in a personal device, let alone a car or home in the event there is a fire.

 

It makes sense in maybe something like spacecraft or autonomous vehicles and robots, but it would be an absolute disaster if used in cars before we automate all vehicles. All it takes is one accident and then the radioactive material gets scattered. This is a problem we already have with radioactive materials we already treat irresponsibility: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_radiation_accidents

 

Look at how many times Cobalt 60 is poorly handled. If you think catalytic converter theft is a problem, just wait until "nuclear battery"'s are routinely stolen because people don't want to dispose of their old one, so they steal one from another vehicle and then their old battery and "stolen car" are dumped into a river.

 

[CarlBar]

15 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Article summary:

They take the graphite moderator from a nuclear plant and recycle it into radioactive diamonds.

 

Interesting use of the material, but not something I'd want in a personal device, let alone a car or home in the event there is a fire.

 

It makes sense in maybe something like spacecraft or autonomous vehicles and robots, but it would be an absolute disaster if used in cars before we automate all vehicles. All it takes is one accident and then the radioactive material gets scattered. This is a problem we already have with radioactive materials we already treat irresponsibility: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_radiation_accidents

 

Look at how many times Cobalt 60 is poorly handled. If you think catalytic converter theft is a problem, just wait until "nuclear battery"'s are routinely stolen because people don't want to dispose of their old one, so they steal one from another vehicle and then their old battery and "stolen car" are dumped into a river.

 

 

Thanks for summarising.

 

Honestly dumping it in the river isn't somthing i'd be super worried about, diamond isn't the most reactive thing in that environment, it's getting exposed to extreme temperatures or crushed that are bigger worries, Diamond will burn if heated sufficiently, (Strictly speaking i believe it sublimates and then the gas burns but same result), and powdered radioactives in general are a huge concern. Though the type of radiation can also be a concern if it's especially penetrating, but i'm assuming this probably isn't so getting it inside you as either a gas or fine dust is the biggest concern.

 

Conceptually a cool idea but not one that should be anywhere near a commercial consumer product. There probably are specialist use cases though where this absolutely makes sense so still a cool tech.

[BuckGup]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

How about noooooooooooooo

 

People will burst these

 

People will open these

 

People will experiment with these

 

If this isnt bullshit this is such a big risk.

Have you considered batteries used to be a box full of highly toxic acid that spilled when it was knocked over? Or how a LIPO/LiFE/LiON burst into flames if the battery is opened? People generally aren't opening every battery they find

[tikker]

1 hour ago, Fl0yd- said:

yes but making consumer grade batteries and thinking it's a good idea tho

It's all in how the product and components are handled. Multiple consumer things are actually dangerous if misused. We use stuff with lasers, microwaves, dangerous metals and what not. If lithium-ion batteries get damaged or punctured they easily catch fire, but we still carry them around in our pocket every day without thinking about it. While radioactivity and nuclear energy is not something to treat carelessly, it's gotten an unnecessarily bad reputation.

 

No, I wouldn't recommend camping next to a big vat of nuclear waste, but in small quantities it's a different story. Certain smoke detectors operate using radioactive material, for example, but are safe because there is very little material in there and doesn't generate enough or travel far enough to harm you unless you eat it. Same for these batteries. There it's only a tiny amount of material.

[tim0901]

4 hours ago, Kisai said:

 

They take the graphite moderator from a nuclear plant and recycle it into radioactive diamonds.

 

Interesting use of the material, but not something I'd want in a personal device, let alone a car or home in the event there is a fire.

 

It makes sense in maybe something like spacecraft or autonomous vehicles and robots, but it would be an absolute disaster if used in cars before we automate all vehicles. All it takes is one accident and then the radioactive material gets scattered. This is a problem we already have with radioactive materials we already treat irresponsibility: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_radiation_accidents

 

Look at how many times Cobalt 60 is poorly handled. If you think catalytic converter theft is a problem, just wait until "nuclear battery"'s are routinely stolen because people don't want to dispose of their old one, so they steal one from another vehicle and then their old battery and "stolen car" are dumped into a river.

 

It's really not that bad.

 

The isotope they're after is Carbon-14 (C¹⁴), which is already present in the world around us anyway in trace quantities, being produced in the upper atmosphere and absorbed by plant life as C¹⁴O₂. As such it's all around you: in your body, your food, your clothing - anything organic - which we exploit to perform carbon dating. C¹⁴ has a half life of ~5700 years, so by measuring the amount of C¹⁴ in a fossil and comparing it to the amount we see in modern day, we can work out how old something is.

 

Will the concentration of radioactive material here be higher than in nature? Yes. Is it going to cause a public health disaster if this battery breaks? No. Not only is C¹⁴ not considered particularly dangerous to humans (the energy of the beta particles it produces is much lower than that of say Cobalt-60, and it's not like it's biologically dangerous like Strontium-90) but when these control rods are reprocessed today, the C¹⁴ is simply vented to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide! If it is safe enough for that, it's probably fine to put in a battery, especially when encased inside a protective diamond. And as mentioned it's not like each and every one of us doesn't already have a radioactive source in their home today: your smoke alarm contains an alpha particle emitter (Americium-241), which coincidentally is also isolated from nuclear waste. We don't have to call the hazmat teams out every time a house goes up in flames do we?

 

However, I don't think that this will ever happen for a reason that you and the rest of this thread has just demonstrated perfectly, for the same reason nuclear power plants continue to struggle to gain support: people hear "nuclear" or "radiation" and immediately think of terrible health consequences and catastrophic disasters. This battery concept - even if it does work - probably won't be commonly adopted for that reason alone.

[TetraSky]

A few lines that were relevant from the article to me:

Quote

Additionally, the business claims that its battery is safe since it emits less radiation than the human body.

...
The nuclear waste from which NDB intends to manufacture its batteries consists of reactor components that have become radioactive as a result of exposure to nuclear power plant fuel rods. 
...
NDB cleanses graphite and then converts it to microscopic diamonds. The business claims that by using current technology, they've engineered their little carbon-14 diamonds to generate a large quantity of electricity.
...
However, since they are still radioactive, NDB encases the miniature nuclear power plants in other low-cost, non-radioactive carbon-12 diamonds. These glistening lab-created shells provide diamond-hard protection while also containing the carbon-14 diamonds' radiation.
...

According to NDB, a battery may live up to 28,000 years when utilized in a low-power setting, such as a satellite sensor. They predict a usable life of 90 years as a car battery, much longer than anyone vehicle would last—the business believes that one battery could theoretically power one pair of wheels after another. For consumer gadgets like phones and tablets, the firm estimates that a battery will last around nine years.

 

They say it emits less radiation than the human body... But that's only in their lab-created shell that provides protection. Shit happens, what would happen if a micro fissure appear in that protective shell?? Will have have to carry a Geiger counter to know if your battery is faulty?

That said, honestly, while I probably wouldn't want these anywhere near me, I could definitely see it having some use, especially in things like shelters or that seed vault, to provide long time power in the event of a catastrophic event. Or to send up in a satellite. 

But 9 years of power without ever needing to charge your phone is kinda attractive... Except you can bet people will throw these devices in the trash instead of properly disposing of them and then we end up with radioactive piles of trash.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, tim0901 said:

 

However, I don't think that this will ever happen for a reason that you and the rest of this thread has just demonstrated perfectly, for the same reason nuclear power plants continue to struggle to gain support: people hear "nuclear" or "radiation" and immediately think of terrible health consequences and catastrophic disasters. This battery concept - even if it does work - probably won't be commonly adopted for that reason alone.

"Not that bad" is not the same as "risk free" which is why nuclear is pooh-poohed. Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, "The China Syndrome", people are absolutely scared of that scenario, when the Cobalt 60 mishandling has likely killed or injured more people directly.

 

I'm OK with safe uses of nuclear material, but those safe sources are either:

a) Guarded by the military and treated with the seriousness as weapons

b) Medicinal use, where the devices are rented/leased and must be returned if/when they are decommissioned, the the owners must properly maintain.

c) Spacecraft, where radiation shielding is part of spacecraft designs.

 

I'm not okay with "haphazard" nuclear materials

a) Think of how much garbage gets dumped rather than properly disposed of, if the product is disposable, it does not get such batteries.

b) The use in personal vehicles (Cars, Bikes, Scooters, etc), I may consider transit vehicles as an appropriate use case due to the vehicles (busses, light rail, and commuter rail) generally surviving accidents, but your typical single-occupant vehicle should not.

c) In cell phones, tablets, or any device that the user will be within 1 meter of for any length of time.

 

"background radiation" is what is is because we allow it to be. That doesn't mean you should double it by having nuclear batteries in wireless headphones.

 

Basically, keep this stuff out of the hands of stupid people. Build these batteries so they are easily 1000kg, and are bolted to the vehicle or building in a way that stealing the battery can't be done by one person.

 

[Octobernight]

Interesting so many people seem to have concerns about safety.  Based on what I have read the risk seem minimal.  My scepisizem is of the end products performance mainly run time.  If I understood the article correctly this technology is low current and will charge up a capacitor so that it can discharge a useful amount of current.  I think the idea of never having to plug in my cellphone to charge it is pretty cool.  But if it can't provide a useful run time of hours of screen on time so you can watch movies on a plane for example the technology won't take off.  I think if the end product fails to provide useful run times before needing to be set aside to allow the capacitor to recharge that the product will die. 

[Salv8 (sam)]

this is kinda cool but i don't think governments want more David Hahn's running around making nuclear powered furby's.

still cool though.