Updates on Nuclear Energy

Who has it and who wants it.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Tiny Science...Big Potential

Just a quick post on something I found really cool. I recently had to give a presentation in my Extraction of Rare Earth Metals class about the rare earth promethium. One of the few applications of promethium is for the use in nuclear batteries. So this got me wondering about just that...nuclear batteries.

Credit: University of Missouri

So I went into researching them and came across a really neat story from CNET. The story is about scientists at the University of Missouri who are developing a nuclear battery...or as they call it "radioisotope battery", that is about the size of a dime but holds over a million times the charge as a normal battery. The developer Jae Kwon even states that with the right materials it may be possible to make the battery the thickness of a human hair.

Just so everyone knows...the basic concept behind a nuclear battery is that energy from released particles due to radioactive decay is transformed into a current and thus power can be produced. Nuclear batteries are already used to power many things from pacemakers to space satellites. Who knows where else these awesome little buggers could be used!
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4 comments:

  1. Carl BlumMay 2, 2011 at 10:00 PM

    This seems like a pretty big deal for something that isn't widely known. These batteries could definitely be useful is many areas that benefit from long, dependable life spans.

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  2. Aaron AckermanMay 3, 2011 at 6:09 AM

    These are really interesting. I know that the nuclear battery research going on in this country is exploding at the university as well. There are both a lot of interested students and a lot of interested professors out there. If this is any sign of the future, I think nuclear batteries are going to become much more popular than they are today. We are also looking on the large scale. I mean, they are even thinking nuclear battery type technology for small community reactors. For the small scale these things are really cool!

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  3. Zach TedfordMay 3, 2011 at 8:22 PM

    It seems really like a great idea, but have they run into alot of regulation and restriction already? I could see this being watched by big brother very closely.

    ReplyDelete
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