Radioactive diamond "batteries"
December 4, 2016This is an unexpected twist on an old problem based on research done at the University of Bristol (in the UK).
Via NewAtlas
Naturally I have to wonder how scalable this technology is. How much energy can be extracted from one of these diamond generators at a steady rate. Are we talking microwatt-hours, milliwatt-hours, watt-hours, or kilowatt-hours?
And, second, I have to wonder how many’eternal batteries we want out in the wild. How would you ever disable one of these if that were necessary?
Update 12/18/16:
Here’s an AMA session at Reddit about these batteries.
H.T. Paul B
No Truce With Kings 
Well, 1 Joule per second is 1 Watt.
According to this article: http://www.electronicproducts.com/Power_Products/Batteries_and_Fuel_Cells/Scientists_turn_nuclear_waste_into_ultra_efficient_diamond_batteries.aspx “Scientists haven’t yet finalized the amount of carbon-14 in each battery, but one battery containing 1 g of carbon-14 delivers about 15 Joules per day.”
So…. 15 Watt-seconds spread out over a day, so 0.0001736W continuous? Not much at all, but I suppose you could series / parallel the things or store up the power to do some periodic work.
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