The unlikely revival of nuclear batteries
22 comments
·August 25, 2025datadrivenangel
antonkochubey
I know this is an anecdote, but I have quite a few 18650's from early 2010's still in service, of course with significant increase to internal resistance and drop to capacity, but fully functional otherwise.
NoSalt
Who else remembers "Shipstones" from Robert Heinlein's writings? This kind of has that "feel".
nimbius
This is a fascinating topic if anyone is interested from a historical perspective.
The soviets had Beta-M powering more than two dozen lighthouses across the union at some point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta-M
b3lvedere
It's mentioned in the article as well
"Another good use for nuclear batteries is to supply power in remote locations on Earth. Beginning in the 1970s, for example, the Soviet Union deployed over 1,000 RTGs in northwestern Russia to power its uncrewed lighthouses, radio beacons, and weather stations. Most of these batteries ran on strontium-90, and each weighed about 2,000 kg. The United States has deployed hundreds of similar systems for remote power both on land and on the ocean floor, particularly for remote monitoring sites in the Arctic."
SoftTalker
And some very bad consequences for scavengers who came across them and tried to take them apart for scrap metal to sell
louwrentius
That's the 'Lia incident'
don-bright
I'm missing the part where they solve for the collection problem. The article mentions the boy who gathered dangerous amounts of Americium from smoke detectors but doesn't provide any kind of mechanism to counteract that risk. It seems like any mass production of nuclear battery material risks an interested human or organizational collector amassing significant quantities of that material and that risk doesn't seem to have gone down.
IlikeKitties
If you knew how bad it really is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7TwBUxxIC0
Anyway here's where you can order bulk capsule of americium: https://de.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-nap-07-module.html?spm...
Thorium oxide powder https://whgoldenwing.en.made-in-china.com/product/PZtfXWbMbA...
That should get you started repeating the atomic boyscouts experiments straigt from china. If the thorium oxide isn't to your liking in bulk, it's been sold as a "negative ion" product to gullible esoteric idiots and widely available.
Edit: you might also need some beryllium for the neutron gun, you can get that on ebay https://www.ebay.de/itm/266979263956?_skw=beryllium&itmmeta=...
Anyway, i'm on a whole lot of fbi lists now
Nifty3929
Also missing is any indication of whether or not this is a rational and valid concern, or whether it's simply generalized fear of "nuclear" without basis. I genuinely wonder and would be interested in some facts about it.
Willingham
It is my understanding that small nuclear batteries output very little energy, so little in fact that they are virtually useless for most applications where a classical battery would be used. The upside is that they can produce power for decades without ever ‘charging’ or in this case, replacing the isotopes. In other words, the use cases aren’t as exciting as one would expect.
xeonmc
Sounds perfectly suited for watch batteries.
wongarsu
I prefer changing the battery once every three years over having a radioactive emitter strapped to my wrist. There is a decent case for nuclear pacemakers since changing the battery of those requires surgery, and even there it didn't get traction. Watch batteries are quick to change, I don't see the risk/benefit tradeoff working.
And with smart watches we are back in "useless for most applications" territory.
gerdesj
My wristwatch's "face" is a solar panel - Citizen Eco-Drive. Had it for around 20 years and it has never stopped.
wiz21c
Until they reach the dump...
pjs_
Nuclear pacemaker is astonishingly bad ass
isoprophlex
Looking at the picture in TFA, it's also quite un-miniaturized. I was surprised at how big it looked, with huge electronic components visible.
louwrentius
I read 'Nuclear Batteries' and the first thing I think about is the "Lia Radological accident", where three men were exposed and one died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident
This incident happened in the country of Georgia, which was part of the Sovjet Union. Which probably already hints towards the root-cause of this incident (they lost track of the devices).
Also: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
zparky
oh man i read that medical report [1] a while ago. nightmare fuel, with nightmare pictures included.
https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1660web-81...
selimthegrim
And here I was hoping they finally got that hafnium isomer to work.
actionfromafar
It feels like LLM blogspam. The only "revival" I could find in the text was the mention of Beijing Betavolt.
elictronic
Article lists 9 companies in a big table, technology used, and what they are targeting. Your comment "is" spam because you didn't even do a simple check of the article before bashing it.
One thing to note about the modern 'betavoltaic' batteries is that they don't actually have more energy density than a standard 18650 lithium ion battery, but instead give off a much smaller amount of power for a decade or two, while an 18650 would probably have lost all it's chemical abilities.