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Run Your Laptop On Nuclear Energy
Reader zymano points to this news.com artcle on innovations in portable power sources. Would you feel comfortable with a radioactive power source inside your laptop or cellphone?
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Missle command on a nuclear powered laptop? That would turn my mind into a buttery crazy straw!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Would you feel comfortable with a radioactive power source inside your laptop or cellphone?
Sure, as long as it's not that yellow radiation.
It hurts when I pee.
An atomic pile the size of a walnut? Nonsense! Even the greatest technicians of the Empire could not do such a thing. Your upstart Foundation must be populated by wizards!
Look out radioactive man
i feel comfortable with a nuclear detector in my fire alarm
"Why worry. Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on our back. Switch me on"
Would you feel comfortable with a radioactive power source inside your laptop or cellphone?
Inside a cell phone or laptop near my balls! Have to get some lead boxers...
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
If these came into wide use, the US govenment would probably impose harsh export restrictions, since there is a small amout of radiation.
In the infamous words of Fry from Futurama
(On being scanned by some radiation emiting device)
"Ouch, my sperm"
heheh
.... ... }
int main (void) {
Why, you'd save a fortune in glo-in-the-dark condoms
"The Department of Transportation last month removed one hurdle to the commercial acceptance of fuel cells powered by methanol by ruling that they could be taken on airplanes. The issue was that these fuel cells contain methanol, which is a flammable liquid."
I don't see them being so quick to remove a similar hurdle for nuclear fuel.
But, hey, if they make nuclear powered cell phones, the radiation would treat the supposed cancer risk. Right?
-R
...a whole new definition of blue screen of death. "Error #10012 - Meltdown eminent. "
"What kind of chip you got in there, a Dorito?" - Weird Al Yankovic
First we had that whole fuss about how prolonged use of a mobile phone could cause cancer..And now, you make your head glow as well! Great..can't they invent one that uses solar power instead?
Think of the money my girlfriend will save on birth control pills!
SONY. Because caucasians are just too damn tall.
With a nuclear powered notebook on my lap I could save a load of money on future child support payments.
Trolling is a art,
No need for neon inside your case kiddies, the nuclear power source glows in the dark. And if you want to kick it up a notch, try our brand new nuclear powered monitors... true glowing beauty that you have to see to... hey... my face hurts... my whole body... feels like it's on fire... what's going on... ahh.. the burning.....ahhh!!!!
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
New trend of impotence traced to new laptops carrying radioactive power plants as batteries...
...they had a nuclear-like reactor on their back, and they felt SO cool.
So would I with a nuclear-powered laptop (how much battery life do you have? Oh, a couple thousand years).
As long as I won't drop it (you'll notice if I will).
cheers
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
The "Cellphones cause cancer" groups would defenatly have fits over that. But the Government might find it useful. I can just see Bush on TV, "If we don't stop the evil terrorists(tm), they could turn your cellphone into a nuclear holocost. Think of the children!"
In all seriousness if the manufacturers can guarentee that its safe I'm all for portable power that lasts 200 years.
The Anti-Blog
I would guess that there is simply too much irrational behavior relative to nuclear power to make these batteries all that popular. The irony is how quickly we ignore the supposed dangers from cell phone radio waves. The difference seems to be the emotional baggage that follows anything "nukyoolar". Too bad, too.
Boom Shanka
So long as it wasn't running Windows.
Do you really think I'm go to put something novel here?
Remember all the mutant freak babies that were born in some Nevada towns after the Army was performing nuclear tests back in the 40's?
Sure this thing sounds safe but are you going to risk giving birth to a retard or a one armed baby when they really don't have any conclusive studies yet? I'm not.
--Rosie
Sorry, but I refuse to put a source of radiation powerful enough to run my laptop or cell phone that close to my brain or testicles. I can't think clearly without all of the above, and don't want to mess them up for myself. (Note that cell phone antennas help place the radiation away from the head, when you get a cell phone with a decent external antenna, so they're of lesser risk, and only affect my brain, not my reproductive organs.)
Sounds like something taken from the book Snow Crash. If only the book or Stephenson had an actual web site.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
...when they eventually do wear out? Eventually these batteries will have to be replaced and if they use radioactive material in their core then they could pose a very hazardous problem to the environment. Yucca is going to look like a playground compared to the problem with these batteries being disposed of when laptops are thrown out and replaced without transferring batteries for whatever reason.
Well, so much for me having kids!
Oh, wait... that means I'd actually have to get NEAR a real-life female first...
Heck, no. I simply wouldn't feel safe knowing that there were hazardous materials inside my computer...
(runs and hides from the Radioactive Boogeyman)
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
All kidding aside, I see major problems convincing portable electronics users that they'll be safe with ooooohhhhh.... "Radioactive" devices in their cars.
It's sad, because no one seems at all concerned with the energy already put off by cell phones and the batteries could be an awesome step torward better power management.
I wonder what the disposal concerns and criteria are?
Anything you say will be held against you.
"The amount of radioactivity is so miniscule that you don't have to worry about it as much."
If I may ask a simple question here: As much as what ?
These things are so weak that even a sheet of paper will block them. These things will probably be encased in metal and plastic. Everyone who is concerned about radation near their bodies should be more worried about the antennas than the isotopes. If these things can be shown to be safer than Lead, or Nickel-Cadmium (both extremely toxic, even in miniscule amounts), then these may be the next wave of power generation...
"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
...that this will not fly unless Beta Radiation hires a serious PR firm to spin its image into a happy, fun loving, club hopping, racially indeterminate, good looking female that everyone would want to have in their lap.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
The radiation mentioned in the article is just the emission of beta particles -- in other words, ordinary electrons. At the energy levels associated with atomic decays they would be stopped by a thick piece of paper, to say nothing of human skin.
So this actually sounds like quite a novel and safe approach. It's not like they're shoving a few pounds of plutonium into the thing and trying to get energy from the heat -- like NASA does on space probes.
Here's more info, straight from Cornell.
2 /t iny_battery.html
i le ver.ws.html
http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/02/11.7.0
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Oct02/cant
It seems to me that this should be safe. They note in the article that they are only creating batteries which use Beta radiation, which is too weak to hurt you. If that is true, then yeah, I would use them, if it meant my laptop or cellphone would last for 10 or 20 years.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
Hmmm...this sounds like radioactive batteries, except that I think radioactive batteries aren't mechanical. I personally wouldn't mind this at all, if the radiation that leaks from it isn't too high, that is. My only concern is that they migh be insanely heavy (both the source of the radiation and the radiation shield), which would render them useless for portable devices. Haven't read the article though, just looked at it for a few seconds.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
is that we are just one step closer to getting one of those cool laser guns that never runs out of fire power :)
"With enough memory and hard drive space, anything in life is possible!"
I hope you're driving your SUV while you drive - It's a lot safer than eating cereal while you drive.
Anything you say will be held against you.
Considering how warm laptops can get on the bottom these days you have more to fear from that. Sperm is very sensitive to temperature changes and heat is a prime enemy of them (which is why the testicles are outside the body instead of inside)
-
I would definitely be cautious using a battery like this, but I wouldn't be automatically opposed to trying it. Besides, if lots of radiation was leaking out of this thing, then that would be a pretty inefficient battery, wouldn't it?
And you thought all that Mountain Dew you were drinking made you sterile...
Th
The article states that the isotopes that they use only emit beta radiation. Even if it got out of its casing it would not penetrate your skin. There is no reason to fear.
People will of course fear. It is just like people getting up in arms about irradiated food. They didn't understand that exposing food to radiation does not make it radioactive. I don't think this situation would be any different.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
Only if it also lets me teleport, have laser-eyes, transform into a metallic form, or some other weird mutant power.
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Did you even read the article?
Lal said that he chose only isotopes that emit beta particles because their energy is small enough not to penetrate skin. Radioactive material can emit beta particles, alpha particles or gamma rays--the last two of which are carry enough energy to be hazardous, said Lal
No alpha or gamma particles.
No more steam conversions? I wonder, if applied to a conventional sized reactor, how the electrical output would change...
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Hey waiter, there's a flywheel in my laptop! Ba-da-bing, thanks, I'll be here all week.
Seriously, wouldn't the gyroscopic effect seriously affect the portability of a small device with a flywheel? Imagine the struggle to turn your laptop vertically so you can slide it into your backpack.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Sometimes claiming "I gotta go, my battery is about to die!" is the only way you'll get a chatty friend off the phone.
I'm just too much of a sucker to hang up on people sometimes, I guess...
I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I *have* spent many hours studying CANDU nuclear reactors.
So, the answer to the question in the post? Yes, I would(!!) feel comfortable walking around with what these guys are talking about in my pocket.
The fact is, you get more radiation from a digital watch than you do living as near a CANDU reactor as you're allowed to live (about a kilometer). These people don't screw around. In the current global climate of anti-nuclear-anything, they'd be idiots to even contemplate cutting a corner. And, hell, most of these people are good people - the sorrow they'd feel at anybody having died because of their designs would be real, and it would be deep. As far as the companies are concerned, you can't have a plant meltdown and then just rebuild it. Chances are, you have to build an entirely new facility somewhere else, since the original area is waaay too contaminated.
I fully expect that the people working on these batteries have the same mind set - they just don't dick around. (And from the papers I've read, that does seem to be the case.)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
If these things are labeled as radioactive, then we might as well label our digital watches, our cell phones, and our PDAs as being radioactive. Those devices *already* emit radiation.
Of the three types of decay radiation alpha particles are the safest, then beta, and finally gamma. Alpha particles are bare helium nuclei while a beta particle is basically a free electron. Alpha cannot penetrate the skin, and will only travel about 1 inch in air before it snags a couple electrons and turns into regular helium. Beta particles are much lighter and tend to have higher energies. They can penetrate skin but will be shielded by thin layers of metal or plastic. Though in a battery casing this wouldn't matter much.
one problem with advanced technology is that it is often indistinguishable from magic as every SF reader knows. The downside is how people respond to magic with awe and fear.
ugh, radiation bad, me no like radiation. it heap bad juju; it give Grog cancer.
Meanwhile, Grog likes woodstove and fireplace. Note that the pleasure of such heat sources is infrared radiation. There is a lot of difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation.
the article says these devices would use BETA radiation. Whazzat? fast electrons. If they won't penetrate skin, they won't cause mutations, they won't give Grog cancer.
Slashdotters SHOULD know better. If we're half as smart as we think ourselves, then we ought to be able to distinguish between beta radiation, infrared radiation, etc. and also the safe energy levels of each type of radiation
Folks, we have a leadership role here. If we know the techie background to say whether something is safe or not, we ought to apply it to this kind of stuff.
a whole new definition of blue screen of death
:)
Yes. A literal definition.
And speaking of literal definitions:
Error #10012 - Meltdown eminent."
I think you mean "Meltdown imminent," rather than, say, to substitute, meltdown "prominent," "lofty," or "well-placed;" although I will admit such a catastrophe would be pretty egregious.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
I wouldn't have a problem with it, but I can imagine my conversation at LAX:
Me:
"My laptop is nuclear-powered, so don't drop it please."
Federal Screener (recoils in horror):
"You've got a NUKE in here?"
Armed national guardsmen (running hard toward me):
"Get Down Get Down NOWWW!!!"
Some other dudes in uniform (on the radio):
"We've got a 99-56!!! Notify STARTAC!!!"
Me: (writhing on the floor my hands pinned back)
"It's a Dell, Dude!"
"Piter, too, is dead."
So, lets say we do this and start using these "nuclear" batteries. Will I have the same problems with them leaking and exploding like I have with those old Ray-O-Vac(r) batteries I used to forget and leave in my flashlight?
Just wondering...
Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
Who's the marketing wiz that's going to sell these radioactive batteries? Remeber: it doesn't matter if it's a good idea, just weather or not it can be sold.
-... ---
Why put a 10 year battery in a cell phone that will be thrown out in less than 2 years? And why put radioisotopes in the hands of teanagers?
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Nuclear piles have been used for power sources in deep space probes for quite a while. All of the Voyagers have used this type of power source. I'm not sure the exact workings of the mechanism that is talked about in the article, but it probably just converts the heat from nuclear decay to energy. No fision is involved, as there certainly wouldn't be enough mass to reach critical mass. The radiation is also beta radiation, so there isn't much risk of it damaging you.
So, how exactly would you get rid of the battery after use ?. Moreover, even if there is a proper way to dispose them, how can you make sure that people will be responsible enough not just trash them in a regular trash can ?. It sounds horribly risky !
I hope they do not release this for the general public. It can only cause pontenial problems
What if a person drops it hard enough and the battery cracks open? Would it create a small dirty bomb spill?
If the batteries are consider to be safe (nuclear energy is low), but what if a naughty person used a few hundred of them strapped to a grenade? Again problems.
I just see many problems with this for general use. If this was to be released, it shoudl be controlled very well. Any input by anyone?
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
I've got 6 monitors in my cube. What is a little radiation in my laptop? I'm probably already sterile. Woo Hoo!!!!!
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
WARNING! Nuclear-powered laptops ARE NOT CERTIFIED for use on your lap. Using your NPL(tm) on your lap will result in STERILITY, or children which simply AREN'T RIGHT.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Small nuclear power plants? We had those back in the 1970s.
(best -- show -- ever, except for when they "jumped the aliens")
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Great. Then people might start saying that cell phones cause cancer ...
... :-)
Nah. Nobody'd ever say something like that
--
Me: http://www.robertdhill.com/
Seriously, wouldn't the gyroscopic effect seriously affect the portability of a small device with a flywheel? Imagine the struggle to turn your laptop vertically so you can slide it into your backpack.
You wouldn't just have one flywheel, you'd have several smaller flywheels that spin in opposing directions, thus canceling out the gyroscopic stuff. Sort of similar to how helicopters with multiple lift rotors get by without having tail rotors.
there was some thread on slashdot about 50 year nuclear energy battery. that reminds of a watch made by Westinghouse in early 90s which used to claim 25 year battery. Does anyone remember the details and if it is still available in market (or similar ones)? I never saw the real watch anywhere but had seen lots of ads in trade magazines.
we keep on talking about all these new batteries, but still continue to use the oldest battery system, that is lead acid. when counted in total energy, this is the most commonly used battery types in the world. until, i see some replacement of this, it would be hard to believe that battery industry has changed dramatically.
I agree. I always try to stay outside of guinea pigs. But then I don't really fit into them :-(
when the cellular generation people start having grandkids!
I'm feeling feisty today. You do realize that you shouldn't have your own grandkids, right? Most places call that incest and it plays havoc with the gene pool. Stick with the guinea pigs.
I am not a resource! I am a free man!
quote: Run Your Laptop On Nuclear Energy
Does this include when I plug it into my wall outlet, the electricity from which is generated by a nuclear station?
Perhaps something along the lines of "Portable Nuclear Generator for your Laptop" would have been more appropriate. The next article could be "Portable Birth Control for Men", with the same link.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
I think its okay to dispose of them like those others. Probably safer to drop them in the trash than regular nicads..
-
People are scared of what RF radiation could do to them. That's RF, as in Radio Frequency. Telling them that it's non-ionizing is pointless. They only understand "radiation" and they don't want to understand any more.
Now someone is proposing a nuclear battery. I wish them luck. With so many people believing that putting a cell phone next to their heads is dangerous today, wait until interest groups discover that the battery they're using is a nuclear device.
Once again, we have what is probably a technically elegant solution being offered to a seriously ignorant public. Expect the risks to be blown entirely out of proportion while "harmless" chemical batteries are added by the ton to landfills every day. Thank-you Jeremy Rifkin. Thank-you Paul Brodur. Thank-you Nancy Wertheimer. Thank-you Rachel Carson. You and your successors have taught a generation of idiots all about fear-mongering. Now we can all pay for the wages of stupidity and political grandstanding.
Meanwhile, because of our societal phobias we'll continue making a mess of our environment.
(Rifkin: Fearmonger on Genetically modified foods. Brodur: wrote the "Zapping of America", a treatise on RF phobias and science by innunendo. Nancy Werthiemer: Co-author of a seriously flawed paper on powerline exposure and lukemia. Rachael Carson: "Silent Spring"; although her cause was reasonable, her facts were not.)
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
As many have stated before...read the figgin article smart guy.
The word Nuclear seems to have become a misnomer for anything at all involving atoms. The article you have linked to is not talking about nuclear power at all: power harvested from the nucleus is a distinct thing.
What they are doing is not making a battery out of a nuclear reactor or nuclear power source -- no fission or fusion is being used, therefore, they are not harvesting the power derived from splitting or merging nucleii, so the term nuclear would seem incorrect.
They are simply using some substance that has a certain radioactivity: it has the tendency to decay and release some energy, but other than that, is relatively harmless unless you ingest it or something (You would at least get very sick if you opened and ingested the contents of any battery, however!).
Read from the article:
You won't be glowing or sterilized if you put one of these in your lap, the danger is about as great as using an ordinary battery -- it could pop a leak and fill your lap with mercury, hydrochloric acid, or something, which would be just as bad.
Moreover, if simple radioactive decay is called nuclear because it deals with atoms, then it could perhaps be argued, that all batteries (and indeed, all power sources) are nuclear, because all electrical power sources eventually depend on generating electricity: exciting electrons, and electrons effect atoms.
It is not apparent that there is any danger with this battery that is new, that is, you can't tell by the fact that a battery uses this particular method of power generation that it would be more dangerous than any other kind of battery.
Check it out, then tell me if this is a big deal. (it's not.)
Rob
WebMaster:
BinFeeds
XXX Thumbnailed Image Newsgroups but
I'm picturing an updated Bloom County comic strip with Oliver bringing a live nuclear bomb to class.
;)
In the original comic strip the teacher scoffs at Oliver that it couldn't be live. Where'd he get the material. Oliver's answer was 9999999 glow in the dark stickers....
I guess the 2k version will be a laptop....
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Look, the point of the article is that these are very small devices. The radiation source is only emitting ß particles, which is an electron (or positron)! They can't even pass through your skin. Not only that, but if these new batts are as small as the article implies, then you could waste a half-ounce and put a lead shield around the thing to prevent any leakage at all! And if the particle won't go through skin, think what a (very thin) lead sheet would do?
It's not that bad. Now if you actually had a fission plant going on, then you'd want to be concerned.
God doesnt want us to develope technology so we can't find him on his secret moon-base. Dont you know anything?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Cross Reference to Previous Slashdot Article on Cornell Atomic Battery
www.bannination.com Two things float to the top he
OK - How Atomic Batteries Work and Medical Physics 101 :)
Medical Physics
The damage done to human tissue is a function (~linear) of the amount of energy deposited by the radiation into the tissue.
This is a function itself of:
1) The amount of energy depositied by the radiation per unit of path length.
2) The length of the path in the body.
Also of interest in practical situations is this also applies to shielding i.e. if the shielding is such that the energy is enirely deposited in the shield materiel then the radition is fully shielded. If not then you have attenuated the radiation.
On one hand massive particles like Alpha Particles are 'safer' because they deposit energy quickly (they interact fairly strongly with matter), so can be stopped by very small masses like paper/foil/skin epidermis. On the other hand high energy Alpha Particles can be very dangerous if not shielded because they can carry a lot of energy into the body due to thier mass, and deposit it there as the tissue stops the particle.
At the other extreme Gamma Radiation is 'bad' because it doesn't lose energy very easily (becasue they don't interact as strongly with matter) so they cannot easily be shielded, but will at least not deposit the whole of the energy in the tissue but pass through it. Unfortunatley of course gamma radiation is highly energetic so it can still deposit a lot of energy.
So the risk of medical damage from a radioactive source is function of
1) The strength of the emmission
2) The type of emmission
3) The amount of shielding between the source and you
It is not just the radition type.
As already stated the biggest risk is when radioactive substances are ingested such that they stay in the body for some time, as this increase the energy depositied into the tissue - alpha emission is particularly bad here because it will deposit the whole of the energy into the surrounding tissue.
In this instance you may well find that a low energy beta source is a better choice, because with a low energy alpha source the raditation may not even make it out of the source's casing.
Atomic Batteries
For the interested 'atomic' batteries generaly work by using a radioactive source to heat a shield material around it. This heat can then be turned into electricity by putting a thermocouple matrix in the shield material, with the hot junction in the material, and the cold junction outside.
Now in this case we need a lot of energy in the shield material, but enough to get out of the sources casing, so low energy beta is good here.
It is safe, because the whole point of the design is that the radiation is shielded, thats how you recover the energy into electricty. You will get very very little external radiation from a well designed atomic battery.
This is not new technology, deep space probes have been using them for years because solar cells would be useless in the outer solar system
The characteristics of this sort of power generation is that it is physically small, long lasting but low current. This is ideal for portable devices, but not usable really for transport or power devices.
Practically you would probably need another battery like LiIon such that the LiIon cell is trickle charged all the time, but can supply surges of power.
This would be great in a cellphone where the LiIon battery would supply the high power needed for transmiting during the calls, and the atomic battery would supply enough to charge the LiIon and do standby - phone not got enough charge, just leave it for an hour. Conceptually you may never need to charge the phone, or change the battery, it could be fitted for life in the phone.
The challenge is finding the right materials and making it mass producable. On space probes its easy because you can cool the cold junction in the vacuum of space and make it efficient, plus you don't really care about the cost or making 1000's of them a week.
Why wont we use the residual radiation in nuclear waste that is being dumped/buried for small personal power plants?
I realize it would not be as powerful or efficient as 'fresh' fuel that is needed to power a city, but since we could 're-cycle' the waste for lower power, and less efficient personal usage, such as radios, cars etc., why wont we just end this dependence and so-called energy crisis?
The amounts are small enough to be 'safe'... And its waste fuel so its cheap enough to be inefficient....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The headline should read: Run laptop and get colon cancer.
All protons in our universe will decay in about
10^33 years from now.
You can't handle the truth.
The amount of radioactivity is so miniscule that you don't have to worry about it as much.
What does "as much" mean, having a radioactive power source sitting on my lap makes me fear for my ability to produce offspring. People worry about cellphones causing sterility, and they just run on Li/NiMh batteries and transmit out a focussed antenna...
Somehow not having to worry "as much" still leaves me worried enough. Nerds have enough problems getting to the point of propogating without having irradiated nether regions. I'll let them test this for awhile first.
Look, it glows! - phorm
"...chose only isotopes that emit beta particles because their energy is small enough not to penetrate skin. Radioactive material can emit beta particles, alpha particles or gamma rays--the last two of which are carry enough energy to be hazardous..."
Really gamma rays (ie photons) are the only form of radiation we'd have to worry about. They have such low specific ionization (# of ions created (due to photointeractions in this case) per cm trraveled that they can go right through your body...ionizing stuff which shouldn't be and making you sick (or worse).
The other two, beta (electrons or positrons) and alpha particles (essentially helium-4 w/o the electrons) have such high specific ionizations (due to their charges) that they will not penetrate past your skin. In fact, alpha particles won't even penetrate your DEAD skin! IMHO, I consider alpha particles are much safer (unless you swallow the emitter ) in that you could hold those 'batteries' in your bare hand and not have live skin be touched whereas the beta particles WOULD reach live skin.
In any case, all of this is just probability so 'safe' is a relative term. Economically, many more nuclides beta decay (specifically beta minus decay) than anything else so that is probably the real reason: easier and cheaper to get enouogh of the right nuclide...but I applaud the efforts at trying to show the general public that at least one type of radiation isn't so bad.
You can bet as soon as these decay-powered batteries are available I'll be the first in line to get one =)
--Jubedgy
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis hebes
This type of battery could supply power for decades, said Amit Lal, a professor at Cornell's electrical and computer engineering department and the lead researcher.
So would that be lead as in "the man" or lead as in protect me from radiation?
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
Rather than doing all of this from scratch, wouldn't it be easier to simply duplicate the power supply used by our ancient cyborg ancestors?
Then we could power all of our portable devices directly from a jack in bodies somewhere.
Beta decay is most certainly a nuclear reaction. The parent nucleus and daughter nucleus are different. The beta particle is from the nucleus, not the orbital electrons.
The description is correct.
...or a tin foil Jimmy Hat.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Using a nuclear process is different from harvesting the nuclear power. There is a major difference between the amount of energy released from decay and the release from fusion, for example, which popular conception assumes the same.
To be overtly vague and to misuse popular misconception is a way to mislead people
Its pronounced nuc-u-ler
-Homer Simpson
Notice how GWBush also pronounces it that way? Homer for president!
The challenge is finding the right materials and making it mass producable.
And then what? Are these atomic batteries safe for the landfill? Are they at least safer than the Pb, NiCad, LiIon, and NiMH batteries that consumers are supposed to recycle practically anywhere batteries are sold, but never do?
All we have to do is drop off these batteries at a local RadioShack, but what percentage of consumers actually do this?
How does the danger of atomic batteries in the local landfill compare to these other heavy metal toxins?
So what happens when slashdot posts a link to a laptop powered by one of these things?
Kaboom!
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
According to this CNN story (which I'm sure will be a Slashdot story by the time I finish typing), some company in Florida claims to have invented an amazing radiation-proof fabric that will stop alphas, betas, and gammas (!!).
Since they're seeking investors and I don't want to be sued, I will refrain from any comments about whether this is or isn't complete B.S. and fraud. Caveat emptor.
Gee, maybe I should buy a couple bolts of this stuff and learn to sew, so I can start selling radiation-proof pants...
>;k
It is possible to convert the radioactive decay directly into electric energy without going through heat. Alpha and Beta particles are charged and they are released at relativistic speeds. This create a magnetic field that can be harnessed.
See U.S patent 4,835,433 "Apparatus for direct conversion of radioactive decay energy to electrical energy".
This technology has been demonstrated to be an order of magnitude more efficient that RTGs.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Is it just me or does the domain printed after the URLs in this comment make it look like the idiots are the BBC and UBuffalo?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I've just returned from a business trip to moscow with my laptop. Somehow I feel that if I had been carrying a nuclear powered laptop I might not have been allowed into the country or perhaps even worse, I might not have been allowed to leave. Also, what effect would a radioactive power source have on an X-Ray machine. Perhaps there would be way to check whether a laptop contained a bomb without tearing it apart. I think this idea needs a little thinking about, and besides, wouldn't a fuel cell be safer and cheaper.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
People don't really understand how most technology works in the first place. So, if the company doesn't print "radioactive source inside" on the side of the phone, nobody will know the difference anyway.
You could tell folks that the thing runs on a pixie dust generator (converting freely available pixie dust from the air into electricy) and I'll bet if you said it with a straight face at least 50% would believe you.
It's about time that this came into play for battery powered devices. The older NASA satellites all ran on "nuclear" power, actually most ran on the beta and alpha particles because the long halflives and powerful decays allowed the satellites to last for 30+ years, such as the probe that left our solar system 2-3 years ago, and the satellites around jupiter right now. Currently, shielding techniques for gamma rays are too heavy (lead or other heavy atoms) and they are too dangerous in low shielding around the battery because gamma rays have the ability to transmit enough energy into DNA and perform substitutions and translations that can make your children be born with a tail or something. Beta particles have an distance of something to the negative 7 meters, which is pretty small and easy to shield. That and beta particle is a form of a charged radiation so that you can effectively shield the source by providing enough of a voltage or ground so that the particles won't harm you. Alpha particles, in my opinion, are the safest forms of radiation (unless you eat it, I'll explain in a second). Alpha particles are simply helium particles that have a varying momentum and lack electrons, meaning that it's a relatively large, charged particle that can be deflected. So they too can be effecively shielded against. If you eat it, the lining in your system isn't thick enough to stop the particles, so the +2 charges can enter your system and kill off cells very easily, and rapidly. In my opinion, radiation powered batteries are great if engineered right. In case you're wondering of my validity, I am a nuclear engineer.
Unfortunately, such a battery would be too big for a laptop (unless you can significantly reduce the power requirements). Based on Cornell's press release, they plan to use Nickel-63 with a half-life of about a 100 years. So how much Nickel-63 will they need?
Looking at a handy dandy table of the isotopes gives a half-life of 92 years and a decay energy of 67 keV per disintegration for Nickel-63. Also, it has an atomic mass of 63 g/mol. 1 Joule equals 6.24E+15 keV, so to produce 1 Joule of energy you would need:
6.24E+15 kEV/67 keV/disintegration = 9.32E+13 disintegrations
One Watt is a J/s, so to produce a Watt of power you would need 9.32E+13 disintegrations per second. So, how much Nickel-63 is needed to get this many disintegrations per second?
9.32E+13 / (1-exp(1/2903299200*ln(2)) = 3.90E+23 atoms
(Note 2903299200s = 92 years). Dividing by Avogadros Number and multyplying by the atomic mass gives a mass requirement of 40.8g for each Watt. A typical laptop computer consumes ~50 Watts giving a required mass of ~2 kg.
While a bit high, this probably isn't too bad, especially since future technologies can probably lower the power requirement to 10-20 Watts. However, the above calculations assume 100% efficiency. I have no idea what the actual efficiencies are, but they are likely to be less than 50% since the proposed battery uses a mechanical process to produce the electricity. This alone would double the mass. In addition this is only the mass of the nickel. The other components and any shielding are likely to double or triple the mass, so the overall battery would likely weigh 8-12 kg (18-26 lbs). Much too heavy for a laptop.
This is not to say there aren't many very low-power applications for which such a battery would be ideal, but a laptop isn't one of them unless the power requirement can be dropped below about 10W.
One specific example where nuclear decay is used to generate electricity is in radioisotope thermal generatures used by NASA on space probes. In these RTG's Pu-238 decays (alpha decay in this case) to create heat which is then converted to electricity. While it's not fission or fusion, it's still energy created by nuclear (not atomic) processes.
Nuclear reactors generate energy from the fission process in which uranium is interacts with neutrons to create an unstable isotope, which then fissions releasing more neutrons and a lot of energy. The emitted neutrons then cause more fissions creating a sustainable chain reaction. Of course, after this reactor is shutdown, there are a lot of radioactive nuclides that decay and generate a lot of heat as well.
Of course, what is novel about this battery is the way that they are capturing the energy of the beta particle.
Batteries that last decades? Ultra-small? Only beta decay? Wonderful! Where can I order mine? I won't wait for the manufacturers to include them. I have several uses for them now. Afraid of the radioactivity? About as afraid as I am of the K-40 in my (and all human) blood.
13 month old baby, broke the looking glass..
> Would you feel comfortable with a radioactive power
> source inside your laptop or cellphone?
Yes, I'd feel comfortable, and I don't fear
black cats or ladders either.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Nobody has asked for or posted real technical details. I'm somewhat disappointed in /. tonight--there's more to being a nerd than running LINUX!
Here is a page describing the research.
Here is a PDF file with real details, including construction, etc.
I am also perfectly happy with the little Radio Isotope Generators used inside of people. I am less happy with what happens when there are larger numbers of these things knocking around. Morticians know about these things when they are inside pacemakers and that they must be removed before cremation.
If there were larger numbers of these thermal generators knocking around, would they be correctly disposed of?
What the anti-Cassini radiophobes have to say about all of this. If I throw my nuclear laptop on the couch, will they protest because the perigee passes dangerously close to Earth?
X Whoops... Should have looked in the smoke detector that's just off the shelf...
Old smoke detectors used to use photoelectric sensors that were sensitive to everything including steam, etc. Too many false alarms were caused by these units and they couldn't be relied upon to sense smoke at low levels to be of real use in warning people. These days, if you buy a smoke detector, you're buying a device with an Americium based ionization detector that detects smoke and at low enough levels to be a real advance warning.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I know where you could look for a higher rate of cancer with RF radiation: Do a study on people who maintain the large radio antennas and such. They are most likely exposed to relatively large amounts of radiation. Probably more than a cell phone.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
In Japan radiation detectors are banned. Make of that what you will.
They will use the heat to create steam and run a turbine. This battery is only intended for small power requirements.
A nuclear water heater for my house. Give me an 80 gallon vertical cylindrical tank with a hemispherical concave bottom. Place a several kg sphere of vitrified Pu-238, and voila! 80 years of hot water. See this site for data on Pu-238 (used in NASA RTGs for years).
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.