Topic: Surely to good to be true....Nuclear battery produces power for 50 years

[Trada]

Nuclear battery produces power for 50 years without needing to charge
Betavolt says its battery could power mobile phones that never need to be charged and drones that can fly forever
A Chinese startup has unveiled a new battery that it claims can generate electricity for 50 years with the need for charging or maintenance.

Beijing-based Betavolt said its nuclear battery is the first in the world to realise the miniaturisation of atomic energy, placing 63 nuclear isotopes into a module smaller than a coin.

The company said the next-generation battery had already entered the pilot testing stage and will eventually be mass produced for commercial applications like phones and drones.

“Betavolt atomic energy batteries can meet the needs of long-lasting power supply in multiple scenarios, such as aerospace, AI equipment, medical equipment, microprocessors, advanced sensors, small drones and micro-robots,” the firm said in a press release.

“This new energy innovation will help China gain a leading edge in the new round of the AI technological revolution.”

The battery works by converting the energy released by decaying isotopes into electricity, through a process that was first explored in the 20th century.

Scientists in the Soviet Union and United States were able to develop the technology for use in spacecraft, underwater systems and remote scientific stations, however the thermonuclear batteries were both costly and bulky.

The quest to miniaturise and commercialise nuclear batteries was taken up under China’s 14th Five-Year Plan designed to strengthen the country’s economy between 2021 and 2025, while research institutions in the US and Europe are also working on their development.

Betavolt said its first nuclear battery can deliver 100 microwatts of power and a voltage of 3V, while measuring 15x15x5 cubic millimetres, however it plans to produce a battery with 1 watt of power by 2025.

Their small size means they could be used in series to produce more power, with the company imagining mobile phones that never need to be charged and drones that can fly forever. Its layered design also means it will not catch fire or explode in response to sudden force, Betavolt claims, while also being capable of working in temperatures ranging from -60C to 120C.

“The atomic energy battery developed by Betavolt is absolutely safe, has no external radiation, and is suitable for use in medical devices such as pacemakers, artificial hearts and cochleas in the human body,” the company said.

“Atomic energy batteries are environmentally friendly. After the decay period, the 63 isotopes turn into a stable isotope of copper, which is non-radioactive and does not pose any threat or pollution to the environment.


https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nuclear-battery-betavolt-atomic-china-b2476979.html

[[new username under construction]]

Cool, I'll get one! Grow a second head and it can use it for the next 50 years

[Party Phil]

Straight out of the Fallout universe

[Schmidt]

As if people weren't already paranoid enough about phones making them sterile.

I would have thought nuclear cars would be first on the agenda?

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Straight out of the Fallout universe

Sucking back on my Nuka-Cola thinking good thoughts.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics/nuclear-fusion-reactor-in-south-korea-runs-at-100-million-degrees-c-for-a-record-breaking-48-seconds?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_content=livescience&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR0CBlxLMeu5RAroJV13U9VImbuLszIQuuLrDzRyz6ROC0ftddDxfUZWyfU_aem_Aai-vuQsRl7Kwxva8_daxNBeah18M8gDuTaNFcj3Wkgmv7axdNUew7hBIMurzrVWR3lA0JlZYpdvClG3aDdZEN35

Nuclear fusion reactor in South Korea runs at 100 million degrees C for a record-breaking 48 seconds

The experimental fusion reactor sustained temperatures of 180 million degrees Fahrenheit for a record-breaking 48 seconds.

South Korea's "artificial sun" has set a new fusion record after superheating a plasma loop to 180 million degrees Fahrenheit (100 million degrees Celsius) for 48 seconds, scientists have announced.

The Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) reactor broke the previous world record of 31 seconds, which was set by the same reactor in 2021.The breakthrough is a small but impressive step on the long road to a source of near-unlimited clean energy.

Scientists have been trying to harness the power of nuclear fusion — the process by which stars burn — for more than 70 years. By fusing hydrogen atoms to make helium under extremely high pressures and temperatures, so-called main-sequence stars convert matter into light and heat, generating enormous amounts of energy without producing greenhouse gases or long-lasting radioactive waste.

But replicating the conditions found inside the hearts of stars is no simple task. The most common design for fusion reactors — the tokamak — works by superheating plasma (one of the four states of matter, consisting of positive ions and negatively charged free electrons) and trapping it inside a donut-shaped reactor chamber with powerful magnetic fields.

Keeping the turbulent and superheated coils of plasma in place long enough for nuclear fusion to happen, however, has been a painstaking process. Soviet scientist Natan Yavlinsky designed the first tokamak in 1958, but no one has ever managed to create a reactor that is able to put out more energy than it takes in.

Related: Nuclear fusion reactor in UK sets new world record for energy output

One of the main stumbling blocks has been how to handle a plasma that's hot enough to fuse. Fusion reactors require very high temperatures — many times hotter than the sun — because they have to operate at much lower pressures than where fusion naturally takes place inside the cores of stars. The core of the actual sun, for example, reaches temperatures of around 27 million F (15 million C) but has pressures roughly equal to 340 billion times the air pressure at sea level on Earth.



Cooking plasma to these temperatures is the relatively easy part, but finding a way to corral it so that it doesn't burn through the reactor without also ruining the fusion process is technically tricky. This is usually done either with lasers or magnetic fields.

To extend their plasma's burning time from the previous record-breaking run, the scientists tweaked aspects of their reactor's design, including replacing carbon with tungsten to improve the efficiency of the tokamak’s "divertors," which extract heat and ash from the reactor.

"Despite being the first experiment run in the environment of the new tungsten divertors, thorough hardware testing and campaign preparation enabled us to achieve results surpassing those of previous KSTAR records in a short period," Si-Woo Yoon, the director of the KSTAR Research Center, said in a statement.

KSTAR scientists are aiming to push the reactor to sustain temperatures of 180 million F for 300 seconds by 2026.

The record joins others made by competing fusion reactors around the world, including one by the U.S. government-funded National Ignition Facility (NIF), which sparked headlines after the reactor core briefly put out more energy than was put into it.

[thejbs]

Nuclear battery produces power for 50 years without needing to charge
Betavolt says its battery could power mobile phones that never need to be charged and drones that can fly forever
A Chinese startup has unveiled a new battery that it claims can generate electricity for 50 years with the need for charging or maintenance.

Beijing-based Betavolt said its nuclear battery is the first in the world to realise the miniaturisation of atomic energy, placing 63 nuclear isotopes into a module smaller than a coin.

The company said the next-generation battery had already entered the pilot testing stage and will eventually be mass produced for commercial applications like phones and drones.

“Betavolt atomic energy batteries can meet the needs of long-lasting power supply in multiple scenarios, such as aerospace, AI equipment, medical equipment, microprocessors, advanced sensors, small drones and micro-robots,” the firm said in a press release.

“This new energy innovation will help China gain a leading edge in the new round of the AI technological revolution.”

The battery works by converting the energy released by decaying isotopes into electricity, through a process that was first explored in the 20th century.

Scientists in the Soviet Union and United States were able to develop the technology for use in spacecraft, underwater systems and remote scientific stations, however the thermonuclear batteries were both costly and bulky.

The quest to miniaturise and commercialise nuclear batteries was taken up under China’s 14th Five-Year Plan designed to strengthen the country’s economy between 2021 and 2025, while research institutions in the US and Europe are also working on their development.

Betavolt said its first nuclear battery can deliver 100 microwatts of power and a voltage of 3V, while measuring 15x15x5 cubic millimetres, however it plans to produce a battery with 1 watt of power by 2025.

Their small size means they could be used in series to produce more power, with the company imagining mobile phones that never need to be charged and drones that can fly forever. Its layered design also means it will not catch fire or explode in response to sudden force, Betavolt claims, while also being capable of working in temperatures ranging from -60C to 120C.

“The atomic energy battery developed by Betavolt is absolutely safe, has no external radiation, and is suitable for use in medical devices such as pacemakers, artificial hearts and cochleas in the human body,” the company said.

“Atomic energy batteries are environmentally friendly. After the decay period, the 63 isotopes turn into a stable isotope of copper, which is non-radioactive and does not pose any threat or pollution to the environment.


https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nuclear-battery-betavolt-atomic-china-b2476979.html

https://www.wired.com/story/is-this-50-year-battery-for-real/

BetaVolt’s nuclear battery lasts for decades, but you won’t see one in your next iPhone—powering a mobile device would require a cell the size of a yak.

[bradders1011]

Does this have any potential to entirely destroy the planet in a gigantic ball of unstoppable flame?

[thejbs]

Does this have any potential to entirely destroy the planet in a gigantic ball of unstoppable flame?

Fusion? No. Nuclear batteries? No.

If anything, they’ll help save the people on it.

[bradders1011]

That's good then.

[rob1966]

Does this have any potential to entirely destroy the planet in a gigantic ball of unstoppable flame?

Putin, Biden and the Chinese already have that capability...

[thejbs]

Putin, Biden and the Chinese already have that capability...

And the ordinary joe on the street is doing their best to manifest it.

[WhereAngelsPlay]

Does this have any potential to entirely destroy the planet in a gigantic ball of unstoppable flame?

Chances are near zero.

[bradders1011]

Chances are near zero.