28,000 Year Nuclear Waste Battery? Diamond Batteries Explained

[@UndecidedMF]

Putting aside the overhyped PR around this tech, do you think there's something here? The first 1,000 people to use this link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/undecidedwithmattferrell09211. And if you liked this video, be sure to check out "The Mechanical Battery Explained - A Flywheel Comeback?": kzbin.info/www/bejne/bomVhmqYebOWhq8

[@dmdeemer]

If they can put an effectively permanent 100uW on a chip, then they "just" need to build 200 quadrillion chips and they can power the world. We'd start intentionally irradiating graphite to support the production of it (which today would just create more nuclear waste). Now, if they could scale up the power on a chip to, say, 10mW, and assume the chip needs a volume of 10mm^3, then you could fill a lead-lined warehouse with them to make a cool 1GW, and it would be baseload power with no emissions. It all comes down to how much they can scale it up and mass produce it.

[@SirRandallDoesStuff]

Remember this is a new tech and if they do pull it off the tech could evolve. Like every new tech, it's always small steps. Though it might not evolve the possibility is there. Even if it only stays at microwatts this could help power small things without the huge waste for years. I do hope we can improve the tech to power larger things. I just hope it isn't a pipe dream.

[@ZachGrady]

The one question I was hoping to be answered never was, can these NDB's be recharged? Not discussing that makes me assume they are non-rechargeable.

[@emmettraymond8058]

@@ZachGrady With a lifespan of 28,000 years, the question becomes "will human civilization survive long enough to ever change the battery?" rather than "can I recharge this?" That said, the power generated is absurdly low.

[@cjtymczak4687]

Niche uses. Power output is limited.

[@jperin001]

It's worth keeping an ion.

[@UndecidedMF]

😂Well done ... well done!

[@dylan7476]

Lmao

[@dizzy4u]

Pun intended

[@tordlindgren2123]

Hah! Nice.

[@paulmasoner8073]

Dad, is that you?

[@williambaikie5739]

C-14 is in the air you breath. There is millions of kilograms of concentrated C-14 in graphite reactor waste. C-14 emits beta particles, these are completely blocked by a single sheet of paper. Diamond is carbon. Whether your C-14 is graphite or diamond is of little importance, the term diamond is just a hype term for promotion. I see this technology best used in large stationary installations. A closet size generator in your house would provide about 600 watts of continuous power for 1000s of years. Encased in steel and tamperproof safety measures. A Geiger counter would register zero radiation over normal background. Cost would be about the same as a normal photovoltaic home solar system but provide exponentially more power over your lifetime.

[@anivicuno9473]

One, betavoltaics are already available, they just need fairly exotic materials to generate any appreciable power Two, the graphite will turn into a pop rock given enough time because the end product of carbon fission is nitrogen. Three, beta radiation is stopped by a layer of dead skin. Which is not the case in the lungs or digestive tract, which are extremely vulnerable to ionizing radiation. Also the power is truly terrible on these, the graphite versions generate 0.1mW each, meaning you'd need thousands to charge a smartphone. Both EEVblog and thunderfoot have videos on the topic and how sadly, it's another case of an overhyped extremely niche product.

[@williambaikie5739]

@@anivicuno9473 Yes, Yes, (but pop rocks is hyperbole) Yes, Don't ingest! and Yes Diamond batteries are a bunch of hype. But you didn't refute anything I contended. Other than governments not allowing C-14 out of their care and public radiation fears, why wouldn't a closet size beta-voltaic C-14 power source work?

[@IANSYT]

beta particles can pass through paper easily, paper only stops them "on average"

[@williambaikie5739]

@@IANSYT Technically true, but different beta emitters have different energies. C-14 is low in comparison to most of the others. I would not rely on paper to block of course.

[@grilledsausage5236]

@@williambaikie5739 I was thinking that creating a compound block would increase the efficiency these batteries could produce power. Instead of a a single block of C-14 do millions or thousands of super thin layers to get more beta propagation.

[@hedgehog3180]

It would seem like the perfect thing to have in fire alarms and other sensors that need to stay on forever to detect something potentially dangerous.

[@SammytheStampede]

Sure would help get rid of the low battery beeping from the detector.

[@The_Cakeminator]

Except that it's not powerful enough to power the siren, just the detector.

[@SwissPGO]

I would not like to be a firefighter, walking into that C14O2 gas: diamonds do burn if thrown in a fire. They ignite at around 900 degrees C.

[@guesswho2778]

@@SwissPGO ahh yes thats a good point

[@drkastenbrot]

Fire alarms already last 10 years off a small lithium cell, and need replacement afterwards anyways since the electronics start becoming a bit unreliable after such a long time.

[@The8BitGuy]

I'd have to do some math. But I'm wondering if you could use something like this to trickle charge a more powerful battery. For example, you shut your laptop off at 50% charge. You put it away on a shelf and get it back out a few weeks later and it's now at 100%.

[@UndecidedMF]

Interesting thought. I don’t see why not.

[@immopiippo]

Or to charge a capacitor (or supercapacitor if you have time)... Certainly a lot more power output for a short duration vs the extremely small continuous power output....

[@toddbellows5282]

Your laptop battery would self-discharge far faster than one of these could charge it.

[@djyownder109]

So like self healing battery

[@igeekone]

Yes, a battery maintainer is an excellent idea. It would solve phantom drain on low power devices. They could use multiple Diamond batteries to even trickle charge.

[@milo8425]

A kindle or e-ink word processing machine could run on these wattage levels indefinitely, that'd be a fun product. Imagine storing virtually every book ever on one device that always has a charge, preppers would gobble it up.

[@antman7673]

Only question is how big the kindle would be.

[@yay-cat]

💛🙀💛 yeah I was just thinking about an infinity pocket watch. Like it took us so long to develop reliable clocks and just because we can’t imagine the fall of our civilization doesn’t mean it won’t happen in the next 1000 years. Leaving behind some watches and kindle libraries would be spectacular! Imagine if the romans or greeks found a copy of wikipedia in the pyramids. Mmmm I think I should turn this into a short story :)

[@gordonlawrence1448]

Actually no it couldnt. The most power efficient microcontroller in the world needs about 800uA and 14g of carbon 14 can generate less than 6uA. Then you can divide that by 10 as beta radiation is stopped by even the thinnest tissue paper so stuffing it in a diamond would mean 90%+ absorption by the diamond. So you would not be able to change the text.

[@acehobojoe]

they also have solar cells that run on ambient sunlight

[@stevethepocket]

The problem seems to be that you not only have very limited wattage being produced, you also can't ever _not_ be consuming power because radioactive decay happens whether or not there's something making use of the energy it emits and you don't want it building up. So backup batteries for clocks might be acceptable because you can design the clocks to always run off their batteries even when the device is plugged in, but e-ink's whole appeal is that it consumes _no_ power when idle.

[@Guilherme-social]

Imagine never having to change batteries on remote controller, watches, and small things like that... I would absolutely use this.

[@TurtleMountain]

or a nuclear battery that slowly charges regular batteries over time, like self charging devices would be pretty cool

[@roodick85]

It's 2021 and we're still using 100 year old battery tech I think it's about time to change things up. Especially if you have to change your battery every two weeks

[@telectronix1368]

Phone companies would need to think of new ways that 'you need to replace your handset'.

[@drkastenbrot]

@@roodick85 Modern Lithium battery are everything but old. They are honestly insanely impressive in energy and power density, especially if compared to other battery tech. Nuclear batteries already exist and they are absolutely unusable for anything but memory retaining current.

[@HazyHerbivore]

@@roodick85 you clearly don't know what you're talking about lmao

[@alexiaabramov2544]

i like how he focused on a company that are realistic about their product instead of just trying to make cash out of empty hype

[@gordonbyron5145]

How can you call that realistic. It's basely a miniature nuclear waste filled synthetic diamond. About as real as the hyperloop LOL

[@noirekuroraigami2270]

@@gordonbyron5145 dude I’m confused. Are you being facetious?

[@gordonbyron5145]

@@noirekuroraigami2270 No, maybe you're being gullible?

[@KJRUSS0]

Would probably be good for red dot sights and other optical applications. It can't be much worse than some of the tritium that certain sights use, and you won't have to take it off to change the battery and re-zero the optic.

[@dakotareid1566]

Buy ones with a top side battery

[@CSMxKorvin]

Are you going to aim for 28000 years?

[@Attaxalotl]

@@CSMxKorvin You underestimate his power

[@zoverawizo7476]

@@CSMxKorvin hahahah

[@stupidburp]

Ancient Arkonian battle rifle of the human age, still in working order - description in a future museum

[@shadowtheimpure]

These types of microcells would be really good for maintaining a clock and acting as a trigger for higher power systems, such as a deep space probe or for radio re-transmission stations in remote locations. They would use renewables to charge the primary system and doesn't have to tap into it until the 'idle circuit' detects a need for the station to power up. It would be able to switch the system online using a simple switching circuit to bring primary power online.

[@grugnotice7746]

Why is this being called a battery? This is a nuclear generator that uses nuclear "waste" as fuel. Really gets the heart pumping talking about a power source that can last for 5000 years. Makes me think of the tech left by the Ancients from the Stargate series.

[@sadlerbw9]

I was wondering if this really fit the definition of a 'battery' as well. I mean, we don't call radiothermal generators batteries and we don't call photovoltaics batteries. This thing appears to be somewhere in between the two. The technical distinction of whether it is a battery or a generator is probably the least important aspect of the technology to discuss, but it does still bug me!

[@JanBabiuchHall]

Nowadays when we say battery most people think of secondary (rechargeable) batteries like Li-ion, Li-po, lead acid, etc. But I guess you could call it a primary battery of sorts. Like the alkaline AA in your TV remote. Normally those are defined as producing electrical energy from a non-reversible redox reaction, which isn’t really what’s happening here, but I guess it’s close enough.

[@sadlerbw9]

@@JanBabiuchHall I was taught (whether correctly or incorrectly) that the defining feature of a battery was storing/releasing electricity as chemical energy. This is why a flywheel wasn't a battery, and why radiothermal generators weren't batteries: they weren't using chemical energy. Now, I can't say if what I was taught is actually correct in any particular industry or setting, but it seems like it USED to be correct and now maybe it isn't. It does seem like the definition has expanded to be more generic and apply to any self-contained voltage source. Honestly, I'm not even sure if there is still one, universally accepted definition for a battery, or if it means different things in diffierent industries. No matter what we call them, I do enjoy learning about all these strange voltage sources!

[@GreyDeathVaccine]

Love Stargate SG1, especially original four seasons.

[@destiny_02]

It's called a "Herbulary Battery"

[@greenxintet1651]

This seems like one of those technologies that when combined with other innovations lead to a much greater whole. Also if you are able to scale these up and simply have a power source for say your computer, permanently, that would be pretty amazing especially for remote locations. My dream of being a hermit in the middle of nowhere but still being able to talk smack to other people on the internet may eventually come true.

[@bringer-of-change]

I could definitely use such a thing to power an electrogravetic spacecraft I bet 😶 in order to propagate life across the solar system and galaxy. This technology would be awesome to use for that. Long term power sources can be used to charge capacitors wich use modulated pulses to power things that require more current.

[@chrisglaze658]

I concur with this message. Smack talking from the forests of North Carolina in a cabin would be incredible and ideal. It would take A LOT of these AAA's to power the 800watt power supply in my smack-talk machine...

[@audigit]

@@chrisglaze658 agreed, as in thousands of them.

[@swiftpawtheyeet6648]

mood

[@nomore6167]

"Also if you are able to scale these up and simply have a power source for say your computer, permanently, that would be pretty amazing especially for remote locations" - The trouble is that with microwatt-level generation, that's not going to happen. A standard low-power computer setup (computer + monitor) will use about 75W minimum. Even if you were able to get a bank of these batteries into a 100-microwatt package, you would need 10 of those packages for 1 watt, so you would need 750 of those packages to power that low-power computer setup and that assumes no energy loss in that overall unit. Having said that, the only metric mentioned was W; nothing was mentioned about VA (or V or A individually). That IC chip they showed had a marking of 100 microwatts, but nothing about voltage or amperage. Without that knowledge, the 100 microwatts metric is meaningless.

[@EsotericArctos]

The potential for these batteries in examples like you mentioned is what I would focus on. Long life batteries for space missions that power the sensors and small electronics. A way to remove at least small amounts of radioactive waste material. Long life batteries in situations where standard batteries just would never work out. I think this is a promising technology and worth watching

[@waltermcphee3787]

Why would anyone on the spacestation want nuclear batteries when they have solar panels.

[@EsotericArctos]

@@waltermcphee3787 In the situations where maybe solar is not generating enough power for peak loads or specific testing scenarios. Additional experiments that could be done if a higher peak power load was available, but for general use, the solar would be ideal obviously. :) There is a reason this sort of technology is still explored rather than just relying on tried methods like solar :)

[@waltermcphee3787]

@@EsotericArctos peak loads vs. milliamps.sounds more like a PR stunt financed by the nuclear industry.

[@mikes4135]

@@waltermcphee3787 As a possible backup power source, in the event the solar panels are damaged. BTW, solar cells actually DO get damaged and degrade over time, by said solar radiation. It happens to them on Earth, and even moreso in space, without an atmosphere/magnetosphere to filter the rays.

[@trollmastermike52845]

@@EsotericArctos isnt the latest mars rovers nuclear powerd.

[@Einygmar]

The longer the isotope's half life is the lesser amount of radioactivity it produces. This means Carbon-14 has a very weak potential to be anything more than a low power betavoltaic battery for use in low energy devcies. For bigger energy output you would need to encase in diamond something more radioactive which would obviously be more dangerous.

[@katm9877]

Yep, and that is why the radioactivity fears are all overdone - mobile phones and computers already emit radiation, as does the sun (UV rays) and the ground... I remember watching a video where some scientist in the 1920 or so discovered the sun's radiation by going up in a balloon with a Geiger counter.... clay, bananas and some nuts also can set off a Geiger counter, and I imagine those batteries would have a fraction of what the bananas or nuts have

[@Unethical.Dodgson]

@@katm9877 "mobile phones and computers already emit radiation" Non-ionizing radiation. "as does the sun (UV rays)" Not terribly dangerous to human life for sure but also non-ionizing. (Still bad for you in large doses but yeah) Also you'll find that going up high in a balloon you suddenly become exposed to considerably more than just UV light from the sun. While some foods can set off a Geiger counter... the amounts of radiation are miniscule. While some people are idiotic enough to be scared of actual low energy EMF (like from telecomms) the misuse of radioactive materials seems prevalent in our history and our present. Using Diamond to encase a more volatile radioactive substance just reminds me of that great idea of Uranium skin cream.... of course they thought the radiation was good for you back then XD

[@Al3xki]

@@Unethical.Dodgson UV is ionising radiation, only wavelengths within the visible spectrum and above are non-ionising

[@chrisfrostik8483]

@@katm9877 To die from banana radiation, you would have to eat 600 bananas... per second

[@pvic6959]

@@katm9877 wait I just watched this same video and I cant remember what it was!!! He was like "I wonder if we should get less in the sky.." They believed it all came from earth

[@nahlolurough]

Any battery breakthrough is a welcome improvement. This sounds like something that could power things like watches too which could be pretty cool!

[@Aereto]

Any nuclear waste reuse breakthrough is also a plus.

[@gabbyn978]

I am not quite sure if we should do that. That watch would have to be encased, maybe even in something heavy, like lead foil, and yet be able to dissipate heat (or the lead will malform and malfunction). This thing would be too heavy for the wrist.

[@gormauslander]

@@gabbyn978 I think you overestimate the amount of radiation it takes to cause harm to someone. These batteries will be less harmful to your skin then standing under direct sunlight

[@AllanSavolainen]

Sadly these batteries probably can't power any kind of watch which displays time.

[@KS-xd6ql]

@@gormauslander Underestimate, but yes, there's probably more radiation in the hamburger you had last night.

[@charlieevergreen3514]

I’ve often wondered if nuclear waste’s radiation could be used as a source of electricity, so I appreciate this segment.

[@marleymomo9582]

Yes, as a chemical engineer, I feel very happy about innovations in battery tech. Maybe hybrid of lithium ion & diamond battery give better result. It definetly have an interesting future.

[@iMadrid11]

This would be great for powering smart door locks or access point security door locks. No need to have a battery backup installed for every normally closed relay locks. Buildings usually have normally open relay locks that would unlock when the power goes it. So people could exit the building safely in case of fire.

[@uraniumcranium2613]

@Patrick Baptist UV radiation as is seen in welding.

[@jayjohnson3732]

While this is interesting, the most compelling use for “spent fuel” from current commercial reactors is as fuel for some of the advanced (in development) reactor designs that have the promise of “burning “ it so completely that what remains is virtually intert.

[@Your_username_]

Then the market might go towards the old designs that produce more waste from fissile reactors.

[@jayjohnson3732]

@@Your_username_ Uh, no. There is already enough spent fuel to supply this kind of reactor for a long, long, time. In addition these designs lend themselves to using “fresh” fuel that is far less enriched.

[@armax00]

I believe Rubia was pushing for such a solution a while back but I am not sure how far they got with research and actual implementations.

[@theodoremurdock9984]

In this case, they’re not using spent fuel…they’re using spent damping material instead. So I believe it’s not competing with nuclear fuel recycling; so long as reactors continue to use graphite as a neutron absorber, they’ll have a source of radioactive carbon.

[@joshuaewalker]

Yes, this. Thorium. LFTR

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

Reducing energy waste from heat in powerlines, by making more local energy, is a third bird with this stone! Also extra energy can be used to make products. Carbon capture into diesal energy storage or even gas liquification.

[@joe7272]

don't forget reduction in demand for scale of the powerlines. de-gridify!

[@kamstra26]

Something like the bi-ow carbon capture systems may benefit from this linked with a sterling engine to run small pumps . Also led lights in indoor farming operations

[@nehpets216]

Depending on the cost and size per battery and if it needs to keep a continuous discharge for safety, these could be used in a lot of applications (if they do need to discharge at a steady rate power lines would still be needed to shift power from homes generating more power than they need to places that are using more.) Farms or local applications would use traditional batteries to even out those power spikes / needs.

[@TimK-1971]

Sound promising. I've often said, "there's almost always a better way to make or do something". I believe once they figure out a better way to design it, they will be able to boost it from microwatts up to something viable. Maybe if they were to combine it with some capacitor technology, they would be able to always have the capacitors trickle charging while parked, and maybe it might be sufficient to drive a vehicle a moderate distance. Any time it's parked during work hours, or overnight while you sleep, this battery could possibly be charging the capacitors that run the vehicle.

[@Jkirk3279]

If you had a million of these chips in series, you’d still only have watts of output. But if this could be scaled up to the size of a brick, maybe it could recharge a standard battery overnight.

[@KillaBitz]

NDB Could be used to power a small light so Schrodinger's cat can see while he's inside that little box.

[@Liz-pc3dc]

😂

[@asandax6]

Wasn't the cat dead so it doesn't need the light?

[@kmw4359]

That’s my fear … this stuff is pretty dangerous.

[@barrypascoe960]

Is it true, my Pacemaker won't need to be replaced - Ever again? Can't wait, had 6 already, nearly need No. 7.

[@2fathomsdeeper]

Just shake the box. The cat will be dead every time!

[@ahmedace4911]

FINALLY !! A channel that explains future technologies and where are they from mass production and commercial use

[@lookingbehind6335]

A lot of it is imagination, much like anything Elon Musk spews.

[@CommonCentsRob]

I've often wondered why the nuclear waste stored in caves don't use a stirling engine combined with each container to produce electricity. There is a huge differential between the heat of the container and the surrounding cave temperature. It would generate enough electricity to power self monitoring systems and maybe the extra output could be used in managing systems there.

[@stevemickler452]

Neat idea. Alternately thermionic device could harness the heat energy without moving parts but with a lot less efficiency of course.

[@irasponsibly]

They'd need maintenance, and you don't want to send technicians into the nuclear waste caves if you can avoid it.

[@whiteglitch]

@@irasponsibly You can send robot for mantainance

[@ignispurgatorius5297]

It's a pure cost/benefit analysis.

[@janeblogs324]

Stirling is terrible. We have peltiers now, no moving part, function for a long time

[@alwayslearning3671]

Depending on the energy density available, they might have use in long term space exploration probes. Imagine if Voyager could continue to send back data for several hundred years or if you could put long-term envionmental sensors on many of the moons surrounding all the planets in our solar system.

[@gordonbyron5145]

Space probes already use nuclear batteries only real ones which are large and dangerous

[@KarlKarpfen]

you may be surprised to hear that, but Voyager runs on nuclear batteries. The problem isn't the charge of the batteries, but the distance and therefore the needed broadcasting power to still create a usefull transmission of data.

[@gordonbyron5145]

@@KarlKarpfen As do most probes and satellites.

[@michaelmorris4515]

@@KarlKarpfen No, the problem is the capture tech. Voyager uses a plutonium 238 which has a half life of just 87 years. It is an alpha particle emitter which requires considerable shielding to protect the rest of the spacecraft. Electricity is drawn from it indirectly using the heat it generates. At about the 60 year point it will not be hot enough to sustain the electronics of the probe. This tech uses a more direct route of capturing the beta decay particles and converting them directly into electrons. This is more far more efficient in theory and also allows for the use of isotopes with higher half-lives than pu-238. Comparing these theoretical batteries to the Voyager battery is like comparing a lithium battery to the leyden jars used by scientists in the first half of the 19th century for electricity experiments. There is a very wide gulf in the sophistication of the tech. Not that any of this matters - this is the sort of thing companies quash to protect their bottom line. The failure of technologies like this to meaningfully progress is the greatest sin of crony capitalism.

[@NotOneToFly]

@@michaelmorris4515 Crony capitalism is capitalism, there is no difference. Other than that, everything else you said is spot on. Just a couple things to add. 1: Voyager has in fact already shut down some subsystems and instruments in order to continue working with its reduced wattage. 2: There's another hard limit on our contact with Voyager, and that's distance. IIRC around 2040 the NASA Deep Space Network simply won't be able to pick up signals from Voyager, even if it does manage to beat it's 2025 expiration date. I do wonder if New Horizons' improved tech will help us stay in contact with that probe for longer and at greater distances; I haven't checked that out.

[@dEcmircEd]

"I'm not turning this into a chemistry class", not with nuclear _physics_ you won't :p

[@aravindkm2012]

Chemistry is just applied physics ;)

[@Kerbezena]

@@aravindkm2012 yeah, which is why you could say that you are "(not) turning something into a physics class" even though you are talking about chemistry (aka. the physics of the valence electrons), but not the other way around. ;)

[@QDWhite]

…physical chemistry class

[@madspaz77098]

I think a lot of people fail to realize how much can be done at those power levels. Even at the micro amp scale entire microcontrollers are more than happy to run. Having access to burst able energy has it's uses as well.

[@nos9784]

What scares me is, those applications are often cheap and disposable... I don't think we should dispose of nuclear waste by giving it to consumers who will put it in the trash bin :D Sure, this could possibly be overcome with limited application, education, deposits, robust exchangeble modules that are easily located in the trash stream... but we'd better not create another way to spread of problematic long- term pollution. Scientific telemetry modules are propably ok- we don't use them by shiploads... Still, this tech is exiting!

[@m.g.1371]

what caught my eye was the mention of graphite. there is growing research and development about using graphite for current battery builds. i would love it if someone took the time to investigate using radioactive graphite as a base. as we know there is a lot of it in nuclear waste storage already.

[@annegajerski-cauley7624]

Matt, may I say that I admire the very tempered tone Undecided has taken on this item. It is indeed a very viable technology for very many niche uses. To address some of your owns questions, a 100uW of power originating from C-14 beta decay, where a mean decay energy is 100 keV-ish, would require about a few Curies of that isotope, assuming reasonable conversion efficiency. Though invisibly tiny, that is a seriously large amount of activity to, at some point in the manufacture, "openly" transfer for implant into a diamond lattice. Once in, however, you would more-or-less have to resort to literally burning the diamond in a very hot furnace to release it. If I required 100Uw for an pace-maker in me, I would have no qualms. A precedent for consumer use of large amount of beta emitter would be tritium-powered emergency illumination signs, which probably have saved lives. So also there is at least one major precendent for useful incorporation of large activities of a nuclear substance in a genuinely useful product. Best regards, Domenico Barillari

[@DWVoid0321]

"Only a few microwatts of power" Actually, this is more than enough for wireless smart metering devices, tags and sensors. The true challenge is whether they can keep the production cost low enough.

[@dragoristic5522]

or times 1000 times 1000 and you have few kilowatts packed in plumb isolated box for 28000 years! depends of dimensions of one battery and price of course. I don't see reason why is not safe to use these at all. Must be a way to isolate radiation.

[@rjwaters3]

its also the power output of something the size of your thumb, city labs sells a 100microwatt version thats roughly 100mm by 50mm, and 8mm thick, weighing 20grams, that being a product being sold right now, not quite consumer grade but its being sold, its not feasible for cars, but for a long term data backup? a 1cubic meter cube of that with absolutely zero power gains from scaling is 2watts, which could reasonably power a very low power data terminal in lieu of any other power sources, even more so if some sort of long lived 'buffer' battery/capacitor were used to store and supply extra power when it needs to process something, and and at that sort of size it can be transported by hand by 2/3 strong people (also to the other commenter, its MICRO watts not MILLI watts, (1/1,000,000 vs 1/1,000th of a watt a million fold increase in size would be 50cubic meters which isnt quite feasible, even more so since theres no 'off' switch so its make at minimum 1kw of heat where-ever you put it [assuming 100% efficiency which theres no way this is probably closer to 20/30% so 3-4kw of heat where-ever you put it] which is one of the bigger issues with the 'how' to store this stuff, it gets hot, with no real 'upper limit' beyond how fast its making it and how slow/fast its leaving)

[@Tore_Lund]

@@dragoristic5522 A million times a microwatt is only 1W!

[@aritakalo8011]

highly doubtfull they can make it cheap. Simply put dealing with radioactive material is not cheap. As soon as it is radioactive to point of ionizing radiation, radiation safety agencies get involved. Plus not to mention the device might have very small amounts of radioactivity, but the source waste is larger amount pieces of material. So the production facility would have to be a closely secured "hot zone" with all kinds of remote handling and so on. The one use I can see for this is specialty uses, where cost is no issue. Space probes, specialty remote communication installations etc. Since even if one could make a pacemaker or glucose monitor with 1000 year battery... that is useless. Since the device itself has shelf life in maybe few years or decades at most. Thus it makes no sense to put in 1000 year battery, if technology development or other degradation anyway causes the device to be switched out only decade into it's use. Whatever small power use item one can't think of, one has to ask "is it just cheaper and easier to do the same with traditional batteries. Even if that involves changing the batteries now and then."

[@lewisd56]

@@aritakalo8011 beta radiation isnt particularly dangerous, and is mostly stopped by thin metals like aluminium. the significant production risk comes from direct of handling C-14, but that's not happening. Ive used cobalt-60 in experiments, and the amount of shielding on it, as a gamma source is still not particularly significant, though does need to be dense, so it was shielded in a lead box. for less dangerous sources, such as beta or even alpha decay, standard construction materials provide enough shielding to make the materials safe. The real risk from alpha or beta sources comes from ingestion, where the ionising radiation has no shielding between the source and your DNA. As for the use cases, IOT devices, and low power devices would certainly be good use cases. Space probes already have a tried an tested power source, they generally use radioisotope thermoelectric generators, they work in a similar way, but use the decay of a considerably more active isotope to create a heat gradient and generate electricity from that. those used on the voyager probes were about 40kg and produced ~160W each, more modern RTGs are significantly more power efficient,. The difficulty with them is they are still inefficient power sources, require a significant heat gradient to work and require very radioactive sources, that would be better used in a true nuclear reactor.

[@jgoose7126]

If they are safe to put in your pocket, I could see them taking over low power and standby operations in a cell phone, making a hybrid power source. Just using a lithium battery for transmitter and screen operations could greatly increase battery life. In a hybrid setting, depending on size, the applications could be enormous.

[@Iiphaedos]

^ this. Best comment I've read all day. Who says these types of batteries need to power a device on their own, all the time? They'd still be incredibly useful, especially if you are trickle charging another type of battery passively. You cant use a device all day, every day. There will always be some downtime and why not use another source of power that doesn't put carbon into the air in some form or another?

[@markgeorge447]

Exactly This was the first idea came to my mind when I heard about this batteries is that a phone instead of relaying mainly on the nuclear battery it uses it to charge the main battery when you don't use the phone or use the small amount of power in standby process like receiving calls

[@conorstewart2214]

@@markgeorge447 It is a good idea but assuming your phone has a 4000mAh battery and the information in this video was correct about the nbd one generating 100uw then it would take over 6000 days to charge the phone and thats without the phone being used. If the technology will be used in phones it needs major improvements. Also 100uw is not a lot of power to use for any standby tasks either. One of the only uses I see at the moment is in small embedded devices where a few batteries may be able to power a microcontroller or detector for a very long time.

[@markgeorge447]

@@conorstewart2214 true I'm talking in the context not of nowdays but when the technology reaches a more mature state then it will be able to get to alot of applications

[@edprochak]

interesting idea

[@wemustbecomemachines2012]

it's like a self-contained rectifier, which I guess could be stacked with capacitors to trickle-charge regular batteries

[@Hunnter2k3]

Could be used for parts of devices that need to remain always on too, like CMOS battery replacements in loads of computing devices. Could also be used with some of the emerging low-power long-distance communication systems, like LORAWAN, in emergencies. Trickle charging supercaps just for those times where you might need to send an SOS long distance. Combined with an e-ink panel under the touchscreens of phones for maximum power saving, and some physical buttons rather than said touch screen. (physical buttons on a phone?! It's almost disgusting to think about from phone companies perspectives right now with them ripping out every single thing possible) Loads of good ideas that could be done with these little things.

[@tonysofla]

Yes, items that need to boot up once a day for one minute that during this time uses 10mA (radio transmission etc), but have 1440minutes of 8uA supercap charging in between. But is there a need for 500year battery? product will be obsolete by then anyway. 50years yes, as 10year coin-cell is only 1/3 of what would be good for something permanently soldered to a pcb board

[@DavidHalko]

@@tonysofla - imagine: measuring everything. Temperature of every square yard. Wind speed every square yard. Sunlight every square yard. Pollen every square yard. Walk around with a real cell phone, always consuming low energy updates from small sensors always around us, to help guide decisions related to health, comfort, paths for solar powered bots to travel autonomously, etc. These types of batteries makes humans completely unnecessary, since replacing sensors is only needed during catastrophic storms.

[@BushidoBrownSama]

@@Hunnter2k3 That's what i was thinking

[@OhWell0]

Thanks, Matt. None of the sources I looked at mentioned how small a microwatt was. Thanks for the realism.

[@geekdomo]

I am pro-nuke as I was stationed on a nuclear cruiser for 4 years in the US Navy in the 90s. Amazing technology.

[@alwayscensored6871]

US Navy have more experience with nuclear than anyone.

[@UndecidedMF]

Nuclear can be done safely ... and that's a great example.

[@alwayscensored6871]

@@UndecidedMF Not much profit in reactors designed to last a hundred plus years, take up very little space have high energy density. Mind you lattice confinement fusion seems to be bubbling along. Fusion or Thorium, either or both solves lots of energy problem. With enough energy a fusion torch can "burn" any waste back into elementary particles.

[@BBBrasil]

4:44 Yeah, as chem teacher I taught this in my class, but emphasized that this is actual physics, not chemistry. If you want to separate Thorium from Uranium we use chemistry, but nuclear reactions are the domain of physics.

[@johnjordan3552]

Well I don't know about that, physics and chemistry always seemed to have a very thin line in-between, to me

[@HarpreetSingh-ul9wj]

Exactly the comment i was looking for . Radioactive decays , fusion , fission always come under physics

[@sykeassai]

It's been 20 years since I was last in a science lesson but the way I see it, Chemistry is really just a subset of physics. and if someone were to take it further, then Biology would be a subset of chemistry. The difference is really about scale. Physics becomes chemistry in the scale of atoms and atomic interactions. or chemical reactions. Complex chemical compounds in the right proximity and conditions then form I think it's called proto-life? when then evolves from basic singular cell life forms into multi-cell life forms, eventually resulting in us. And that is biology. But it's all just an extension of physics, all be it a pretty niche one which is (as far as we currently know) unique to this little planet of ours.

[@eglintonflats]

Physics is everything, chemistry is a subset of physics. I am glad that you are not my teacher.

[@AD-u7svi]

@@eglintonflats from your reasoning math would be everything. physics would then be just applied mathematics.

[@simple-cut-progress2778]

Can we just appreciate, that this kind of content is free.

[@frankiethebull8269]

Ewww....no, digital socialism... gross. I hope KZbin starts charging people soon, they really shouldn't be giving things away for free, it's like Communism.

[@Ferodra]

I immediately have the feeling that this will never be a commercial product in any way. Amazing and innovative tech allegedly almost always gets burned down by bigger companies before it can bloom

[@CorwinPatrick]

I think the first, best use of Nano Diamond Batteries would be Chip Power. Imagine a computer where every transistor chip on the motherboard and even CPU is individually powered. Every computer in the world that does not need to need plugged in. SSDs, self powered. WiFi, self powered. Seems pretty major to me.

[@ponocni1]

question is, if its financially viable and space efficient.

[@totalermist]

> Imagine a computer where every transistor chip on the motherboard and even CPU is individually powered I imaged this and I decided that a computer the size of a family home isn't for me 😋 You see, these batteries have a power density of 10 µW per cm³ while a typical low power CPU (think Apple's M1) requires some 10+W. This means to power the CPU in a Macbook Air, the batteries would be 1 million cm³ in size, or about a m³ or the size of a small fridge and much heavier. The total power draw of all components inside a moderately powerful desktop PC or gaming console (PS5/XBox One X) can be as high as 200W, so 20 m³ in terms of just battery size. That's the size of a small bedroom. You wouldn't even be able to move that thing and basically need to build your house around it. Methinks that's not entirely practical...

[@DavidHalko]

@@totalermist - “not practical” Eliminate gravity & friction, I foresee amazing applications in small drone space travel, low energy relay satellites around the Sun, Earth, Moon, other planets & moons, etc.

[@ottodidakt3069]

turning off your computer would be impossible, that would be minor tech challenge in itself but also a wet dream for our big brother societies as well a dystopian nightmare to civil society

[@totalermist]

@@DavidHalko While such batteries would be great for tiny interstellar probes like those proposed by the Breakthrough Starshot initiative, relay satellites are much better served by solar panels and beyond Jupiter by nuclear reactors. Energy density, power density and price are many orders of magnitude better with these alternatives. A battery big enough to power a relay satellite would cost millions of dollars compared to thousands for solar panels. Beta decay batteries simply serve a very specific niche and low to high power applications just ain't it.

[@richardgoldsmith7278]

It’s all worth keeping an eye on, whether or not automotive applications are relevant.

[@Squidbush8563]

This could actually be very relevant to automotive applications in two ways. Using these would free up the limited lithium supplies to make the high capacity batteries needed and they could be integrated into each component of a vehicle and power on-board electronics, lights, displays, sensors, etc... thus freeing up the main batteries to be used solely for drive power.

[@philipsmi-lenguyen8155]

Worth keeping an ion. Lol

[@reillygrimley9542]

Thank you! Ive been talking about nuclear diampnd batteries for years, and this is the first ive heard any of my favorite science youtubers talk about them.

[@scottgilbert7927]

Thank you Matt for this very informative video. I wasn't aware of this technology until now. One thing you didn't mention is the voltages that, say, a single cell diamond beta particle battery can generate. Voltage is probably a parameter based on choice of semiconductor materials and radiation sources, and I am assuming a single cell may generate only a volt or two at most. The most important factor is the power (current x voltage) that one can extract from the battery. Nevertheless, this technology sounds like a great solution long-term (years) monitoring with low power-consuming sensors as you mentioned, or devices that have very low current demand, like in the nanoamp to low milliamp range. For example, a single battery may be used for powering low-power remote data or beacon transmitters used for weather balloons, robotic ocean-going craft and wildlife tracking. One major advantage is that these batteries won't leak or overheat, and their performance is not subject to temperature or pressure. Encased in diamond, they would be capable of withstanding extreme environments. They could be used on deep space probes or rovers. However, I don't think the use of beta particle battery technology, even if made practical, in higher-powered electronic devices such as cell phones or consumer electronics is really called for simply based on the extreme longevity. Even if the power delivery hurdle may be overcome, I don't think battery manufacturers would want to sell batteries for consumer products that will last hundreds or thousands of years. They wouldn't be in business very long if that were the case, or at least it seems. Just my opinion. Again, thanks for a great overview of this very interesting battery technology.

[@audigit]

Micro volts, as in thousands of times lower than a conventional battery. still a ways to go

[@ungrave5231]

I think regardless of its practical use in civilian life, a 5000 year nuclear diamond battery sounds super awsome.

[@ArsathSally]

Keep going Matt.. Love your presentations of difficult subjects in a easy to understand manner..

[@Unethical.Dodgson]

Given that the main use of something like this would be in ultra low power appliances that would be far outlived by the power supply and people's habit of just throwing out used appliances... I don't see how this would be a better solution than cutting down on the number of throwaway appliances and doodads.

[@DavidHalko]

The reason people throw out used appliances is related to failing batteries, becoming broken, and code bloat resulting outgrowing old appliance CPU/Memory form factors. Former Sun Microsystems did it right by creating a Thin Client, which was effectively a Keyboard / Video / Mouse (ie KVM) combination, which was able to last efficiently for decades (ie SunRay), since the main compute power was somewhere else. This type of technology would work very well as a wireless rugged KVM, which could effectively last forever, where new models could be released for newer video display technology. Using a super capacitor to hold charge during non-use times could provide price points, depending on the amount of use time required. Terrific for any kind of wireless instrumentation, like a house HVAC monitoring, house alarm system, visual pressure valve on home water lines, etc. A beacon could be used, to emit a pulse, so garbage trucks don’t pick them up for disposal, to enforce recycling.

[@sepg5084]

@@DavidHalko another reason that people throw stuff away nowadays is planned obsolence. If a person bought something only once and it could work reliably for at least 100 years, for how much would the seller sell it?

[@DavidHalko]

@@sepg5084 - “100 years… how much would the seller sell it?” With an ever increasing population around the world, the market is ever expanding. So, price really depends on the market growth size and projection for sales. They normally use CAGR as a metric. This can usually be done, until patent runs out, then the prices drop like a stone since everyone and their brother can make them, without recovering any development costs, and without unlimited law suit liability (the original inventor usually gets sued.) A big issue driving price is with litigation costs, if someone gets hurt or cancer. Profits have to be high enough to cover this, and do additional development to limit the exposure of such issues over the years.

[@WernerKaffl]

Well, these are all valid points. My opinion is, looking back in history, we had always those momentswhere new innovations came up, many of which were claimed to be hypes to vanish again soon due to not being able to replace something well known (at that given time) or due to be rather a gadget than an application. The steam engine was such a thing, the railways, aircrafts after railways. Radio as well as TV later on. Computers in general were deemed a nice gadget but useless due to being the size of a house - now they are in pretty much anything we use. The internet was onlt taken serious bu universities and military, since there was no real application in the late 1960s - and where is it now? True, those diamond batteries might be producing small amounts of energy, but they DO produce it. Like the first motorized flight transported one pilot at some 50 kph - and mow one plain can transport hundreds of tonnes at incredible speed. I appreciate that you look at the status quo of those batteries, but you shouldn't underestimate the waves of follow-up innovations which will rather likely multiply the energy output of such experimental batteries. Remember how people viewed Edison when he proposed to light things up with electric light, his years of thought and innovation to find the correct wire as well as finding the necessity of a vacuum or absence of oxygen. This resulted in the first working light buls, still smiled upon, developed into lighting pretty much everything this way, then evolving into new types of electric lighting - Now we are lighting a lot via LED (which was smiled upon too, about a decade ago). Re batteries, well, first we had lead batteries, which were the holy grail, then there were Ni Ca batteries who claimed that status, and now we are on Li ION batteries... Pretty much every innovation was at one point ridiculed (oh yeah, like Edison ridiculed AC over his DC technology), and was then developed further to become today's cutting edge - and will be replaced by future innovation. My bottom line, you should not so much see actual existing stuff by looking at it from a static view point. It's a highly dynamic subject in a fast paced highly dynamic environment. Which means what you say today can be made obsolete by another innovation 10 minutes later (vs a decade later say 50 years ago). Our computers' capacity multiplied on astronomical levels, and innovations pick up pace just by that as well as other factors. The subject can't be just talked about without the context of all other concerning factors. Still, I enjoyed watching this and agree with some of the points you made (for the records, my personal connection to this: I've been working in electrical engineering for years and been IT systems engineer for 2 decades).

[@Whawpenshaw]

"even though the amount of radiation is MEASURED to be small and within safe levels, I don't know if I trust it." - you basically.

[@cjwilson54]

less than emitted by a banana according to Bristol University

[@SandrA-hr5zk]

There's natural radiation in the earth. Some areas are more radioactive than others, but you pretty much live in it. I want to say that beaches in Brazil are more radioactive than the city around Chernobyl. Radioactive dust is a problem. But as long as it's encased and treated as such, it shouldn't be a cause for concern. Check out this video if you want to be actively worried about something kzbin.info/www/bejne/aXOkZpWtZqqJa6s

[@guesswho2778]

the various nuclear accidents have given nuclear power a bad name, for good reason. when things go wrong, they can be devastating. even attaching the word "nuclear" to something makes people hesitant about that thing. but its like giving a bad first impression at a job interview for example because of a mistake you made, you know that you can do the job well. but because you screwed up, the boss is hesitant to hire you even though you could be a better option than a lot of other candidates. not the best analogy, but hopefully you get what i mean.

[@mikewilliams6467]

I’m told it’s less than the equivalent of a chest X-ray.

[@SandrA-hr5zk]

@@ezicarus8216 Because the girls were in direct contact with the material, and using their spit to point the brush tips. If you look into it further, you'll also learn that the people handling the paint were fully protected and didn't get radiation poisoning. Once they finally put in proper protection for handling the material, and prevented from direct contact with the skin. Properly stored and protected materials can be safely handled. There's just as many chemicals that we handle on a daily basis that can cause cancer and other health issues. Quit trying to fear monger on something you don't understand and just want to take in the headlines without knowing the full story.

[@kyleburns9439]

This is definitely interesting, but more for the scale of like "memory" batteries in various electronics or sensors like you said. I still think the solid state batteries you covered a while back are a much more enticing technology in terms of a real impact on emissions, the grid, and larger scale storage.

[@group555_]

I'm curious about using these as charging stations. Like how big would a stack to provide enough power to 10 outlets be. What about small power plants to power a single street. Possibly underground structures.

[@trulyinfamous]

@@group555_ the small amount of energy produced means that scaling up to a useful level is prohibitively expensive. In this state, these batteries are NOT capable of anything but specific and very low power applications.

[@dimagass7801]

Very true, I just want a longer lasting drone battery🥲

[@dimagass7801]

I think this is for bigger scale than my DJI MINI 2 tho😅

[@group555_]

@@trulyinfamous yeah I did the math on it. shit gets out of control fast.

[@MessiahProfile]

Great video as always! Nuclear energy is vital for our world.

[@DyslexicMitochondria]

Without a doubt

[@sterlingarcher8041]

@@DyslexicMitochondria your username made me click on your profile. Your channel is a hidden gem bro

[@gemelwalters2942]

yea, the same was probably said about fossil fuels and coal before it. Let's just take it easy

[@Restilia_ch]

Remember the cookie test for radiation sources. Between an alpha emitter, a beta emitter, a gamma emitter, and a neutron emitter, the beta is the one you want in your pocket as it is easily blocked by just clothing. So if they could make these have the power output to run a phone, the passive radiation from them would be the least of my concerns as the phone casing would already be blocking the vast majority of beta particles (electrons) that escape the battery.

[@slowrides78]

This is the amazing I had no idea that people were trying to do this and I’m very excited to see where this tech goes

[@jacob_90s]

4:00 Nice to see Tom's clones improving the world.

[@PsyKeks]

Is this the very far fetched and rather niche reference to MattColbos parody of the KZbinr Tom Scott? 😆

[@jacob_90s]

@@PsyKeks Aww another man of culture! How fair you, good sir?

[@dumbdragon2129]

You shouldnt worry about having a nuclear battery in your phone, you should worry about a damaged or destroyed nuclear battery

[@christopherengland7245]

This would be an amazing thing to add to a standard home so it keeps things like fridge and some lights running during things like power outages when we figure out how to get more out of them.

[@MyouKyuubi]

You would need a gigantic cluster of these batteries to power a fridge. :P I mean, it lasts 28 000 years, so it'll be a very useful heirloom for multiple generations, so the investment will definitely be worth it, lol.

[@matthewbriggs9414]

"Self-charging phones" - some marketing department, probably

[@kitsunekaze93]

"with only 10000 of these, you can charge your phone in 12 hours!" - same marketing department

[@trenchXspike]

this would actually be incredible for keeping IC sensors or radios powered during a loss of power.

[@ebolapie]

Even with just 5 uA you could keep an ESP32 in deep sleep mode indefinitely.

[@lagging_around]

I would be really comfortable having a nuclear powered phone. I wouldn’t have to live with battery anxiety ever again. I doubt the batteries will be powerful enough though. Still an interesting technology worth pursuing. I could think of an LCD wristwatch containing a capacitor to be drained in order to set of an emergency signal. Would be optimal for military applications.

[@CaedenV]

Perhaps not enough power for a modern high-end smart phone... but for an older style cell phone that just does text and calls? Not saying you would power the operational use with the nuclear battery, that would just be the charging mechanism. Pair it with a capacitor of some sort that would build a charge when not in use, and then be good for a 2-3 hour call... or good old fashioned binge of Snake. Maybe not even good enough for a daily driver cell phone, but something that you buy once, keep in a safe secure spot of your car, and then use in an emergency when you get in an accident. Or have it charge a capacitor in a light for emergency lighting, or other similar situations where you need something reliable in a last-ditch effort that may go unmaintained for years at a time.

[@bryanhumphreys940]

Same here, it's all about the flux and type of decay. Alpha & beta emission are fairly easily handled so as long as the gamma radiation is tolerable then why not.

[@gordonlawrence1448]

@@CaedenV Nope not even close. 14g of carbon 14 in a 100% efficient system when brand new can deliver less than 6uA. Beta radiation is even absorbed by air in just a few cm and a sheet of tissue paper stops it. In a diamond less than 10% is going to get out so in reality you are talking 0.1uA. You need way more than that for even a class D transmitter (the most efficient type) transmitting just 3mW.

[@raptordriver7340]

Semiconductors are moving towards perhaps well below the 1nm node. Smaller the node, the less voltage = less power. Moore's Law limit will need to be extended well beyond the 1nm node. Therefore, there is a push by semiconductor companies to ensure their "know how" remains inside their own borders. Those days of tech transfer is well and truly behind and gone. Hence, there is a coalition of leading semiconductor companies from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and US to ensure a new process to go beyond Moore's Law limit becomes feasible in future designs. NDB will power the future semiconductors... NDB will become the future battery for all semiconductor devices. Apple's M1 silicon at 5nm is showing how efficient it is on power consumption based on CPU power management. It is the start of a power revolution!

[@andoletube]

@@raptordriver7340 You still need to power the other parts of the phone though - the screen, the antennas, the speakers, etc. That is stuff that isn't going to get significantly smaller or more power efficient. So it's a waste of time developing a super efficient CPU that can run on radioactive diamonds if that power supply can't power the whole phone.

[@markmoreno7295]

A nano battery could provide enough juice to keep memory chips from fading, say if a laptop was set aside, forgotten about, and centuries later powered up. They could be used to slowly fill a conventional battery, provided the battery was not too leaky. If the current they produce is constant, combined with a quartz crystal they could make an excellent timing device useful in many applications. I could also see use in networks, particularly where numerous nodes are present. A small current is the best way to alert a router or similar device to the presence of an working connection particularly if the connection were coded.

[@belledetector]

The technology was initially developed by NASA and has been used in satellites for decades. This is just an improved design, in a scaled down version - that will eventually be scaled up. Well done by the bright minds behind it.

[@TonkarzOfSolSystem]

While thermal nuclear batteries were developed by NASA, this concept is more that just an improved design. Using radioactive graphite as both the nuclear material and the energy generating component drastically increases efficiency and is a fundamentally different design - however it is based on the same basic principles.

[@jamesbizs]

Yeah no , that’s not what this is

[@exosproudmamabear558]

Powering pacemakers with this would be awesome since due to batteries need to change after a while pacemaker batteries usually put just under the skin of chest.Result of this usually skin get necrosis(Yes it looks really bad when it happens) and batteries come to contact with air putting people at risk. So it is really a big problem.

[@grinpick]

The general public is so suspicious of radioactivity that even applications that are shown to be safe would meet with resistance. And the assurances of safety would themselves be the object of suspicion. These devices might be useful in spacecraft, but I would not predict commercial success in any scenario that requires broad public buy-in.

[@Unethical.Dodgson]

Well I mean there's a difference between say... your 5g or your TV and actual ionising radiation. Most of the radiation fear mongering is just that. About the wrong types of radiation. One should not put sources of ionising radiation willy nilly into the public without a fantastic reason. So far the only good use of this tech that I've heard a suggestion for is in things like Watches, Tv Remotes etc. Things we don't even need anymore. And all of that electronic waste we produce would then contain actual thousands or millions of tons of these radiation batteries. It's not ideal at all. I prefer to wait and see what new reactors might be able to do with all of that waste instead of encasing it in a very expensive shell and then having it run a device peripheral for about a year before being found in a junkyard.

[@SaHaRaSquad]

Agreed, though I can see a market for specialized products aimed at engineers etc. instead, things like self-powered microchips would be amazing. And maybe a niche for some consumer products - a watch that runs more than a lifetime would be neat.

[@ianthepelican2709]

At a rough estimate (very rough) based on the C14 battery depicted at 100microwatts and guesstimating a package size of 35mmx10mmx5mm I would need a small brick of these about the same length & width of my Xperia and about 5 times the thickness for it to be usable as a power brick providing 2A @ 5V to charge my phone. The thing would contain roughly 280 of these batteries which each would cost around $2k. At $560k that's one power brick that isn't going to see market. I think the things are great for micro devices with ultra low power requirements but the tech just doesn't scale yet, one can only hope they will eventually crack that one as the concept is definitely intriguing.

[@oldo2840]

What concerns me initially is that it doesn't matter how hard diamond is, because it can be destroyed quite easily by burning instead. What if they are exposed to fire? Not unlikely if they are used in devices within homes, vehicles, etc.

[@aevangel1]

3:59 Video: "Tom Scott" Everybody: ears perk up Also everybody: No, it's not _that_ Tom Scott.

[@Veldaren]

yes it is

[@lit2021]

@@Veldaren No, it's not.

[@edwardwilliams2564]

I believe having electronics that are charged on their own without being plugged up would be interesting. It would help a lot for laptops workstations and the like. Though it would probably take quite a few of them put together to accomplish that.

[@audigit]

Like a suitcase of them to generate a standby charge for sleep mode, I'm guessing

[@bds4410]

i hope they will set a standard for batteries in the future and they would be interchangable by all devices like just pop a battery in and never worry about your device running out of charge, cars would have very big battery packs that are extra safely encased that wouldnt break on crashes and essentially carbon free driving with batteries being salvaged and reused.

[@johnkeck]

Thanks for cutting through the hype, Matt! Question: do these batteries emit other forms of radiation in addition to betas? If not, I see absolutely no problem with having one of these batteries in a watch, say. If it's just betas, the extra diamond coating seems like a safety precaution that's not strictly necessary. Betas are just electrons after all, and it takes very little to stop them. (And nitrogen-14 is just ordinary nitrogen.)

[@brianm744]

You're right. Beta particles are emitted from CRTs and those are attenuated by atmosphere alone....roughly a foot away. Heh, when I found that out I realized my parents were giving me good direction. These batteries could be placed in series or parallel, turning microwatts into milli- or even watts, depending on the size of the batteries, as shown in the video. Electro-chemistry 201(0). What will be interesting to see is if manufacturers can use the C-14 graphite in the manufacturing of carbon nanotubes. With the hexagon structure, the conductivity of graphene, coupled with the beta production from C-14 decay? It will be interesting to see how that affects the overall structural integrity of the graphene nanotubes.

[@whirledpeaz5758]

In close proximity like in your pocket they could cause a skin burn similar to a sunburn, but the casing of a device/phone should be enough shielding. I could see such a power source used as a means for company to skirt any Right to Repair laws.

[@jeanf6295]

​@@brianm744 they could be placed in series or parallel, but they have a really low power density. Take the ndb claims : they say that one of their device containing one gram of C-14 would deliver 15 J in one day, that's 0.17 mW/g, but the phrasing is important here : containing, we don't know what fraction of the device this represents, the real value could be much lower. It should also be noted that the active part of their devices have 10x10x0.5 mm dimensions for a volume of 0.05 cm^3, the density of a normal diamond is at 3.5 g/cm^3 : at best they can fit 200 mg of C-14 into a cell, granted those are thin, but their choice of words is still quite misleading. And there is not a lot of margin for progression : according to wikipedia one gram of C-14 emits 2e11 beta particle per second, with a mean energy of 50 keV, that's 2 mW/g worth of power. A smartphone need hundreds of mW of power and weight at worst 300 g, to get into these orders of magnitude, most of the 2 mW/g of C-14 worth of power would be needed. As said in the video, and as recognized by ndb, those devices are targeted at (very) low power applications that need to run for a long time without maintenance, not smartphones, laptops and even less EV.

[@brianm744]

@@jeanf6295 oh I agree, numbers don't lie. Unless.... you make them do so. Overhyped indeed.

[@brianm744]

@@jeanf6295 Yes, what ndb is saying is rather misleading. On specific energy density though, roughly the best commercially available now is the Li Ion (Cobalt) with 150 mWh/g. You're right, that's a huge difference. But the fast charge rate of this type of Li Ion battery is about half that of other Li I ones. So NDB would need to ramp up the performance of their Diamond/C14 batteries by an order of.... four orders of magnitude? That's HUGE. I don't see it. Unless they use a different radioactive isotope with a higher energy density decay rate. We'd be talking MeV rather than KeV and then you'd be getting into the heavier radioactives with gamma photons as a by-product of spontaenous decay, i.e. St 90 to Yt 90 to Zr 90 (with Brehmsstralung Radiation). Consequently, you'd have to have heavy shielding (lead) and that would change the product from portable to permanent structure batteries. Might as well go with the Fe (Air) ones. Much safer and a theoretically higher energy density. Having devices with a St 90 battery commercially available? Heh, that'd be something like a Fallout 76 horror story come true. Yeah, that'd be a NEGATIVE.

[@jaym5602]

I could see this be a great breakthru in medical procedures...if it is safe then it would prevent the chance of infections from repeat implantation of devices to re charge thr batteries

[@Jourei_]

They should keep developing the tech, anything that can make use of nuclear waste is welcome without question. However, at this time, I have no hope for the near future, in regards of any kind of micro power production, with the use of radioactivity.

[@davidstrong7854]

I think you did an excellent job discussing this topic!

[@KelvinNishikawa]

What is the energy conversion efficiency? It'd be interesting to know what kind of improvement horizon this technology has. The story is radically different if these betavoltaics are, say, 0.5% efficient vs 45% of modern photovoltaics. If we're still in the sub 1% range, there's tremendous potential for advancement.

[@ReginaldCarey]

Imagine all ICs with an embedded power supply. The power density is perfect for current IC technology use. Definitely worth paying attention to. The trillions in energy savings and carbon emissions is staggering. Cooling will still be an issue though just not as big of a problem.

[@naga6962]

Agreed. A dedicated IC that can be placed in challenging environments... a powered rfid or sensor that is a use till destroyed system. Maybe a self powered CPU ... with a manual kill switch of course. 😀

[@YEUNGMANCOOKING]

Love coming to your channel to geek out 🙂

[@kamilmusalat]

Nice to see you here love your recipes!

[@obviouslytwo4u]

Yoo vegan chef. Wouldn't have thought we'd both be here.

[@kamilmusalat]

@N0D3 at what time, I didn’t pay attention to this?

[@ApeX-pj4mq]

@N0D3 ???

[@UndecidedMF]

Appreciate that!

[@stupidburp]

These have good potential for use on space probes and satellites, keeping some of the essential functions running even in the event of other sources of power being unavailable. They would also be handy for remote monitoring of infrastructure and environment in remote areas. They might also be useful in essential control units, providing at least minimal functionality during power failures.

[@DoctorX17]

I would loooove to get my hands on some of these for things like realtime clocks and IoT projects. I have plenty of little sensor projects that would do great with these, since they use "virtually no power", but a LiPo battery will either run out of juice or degrade from various conditions...

[@audioillity7893]

I'd like to think about remote controls (for Smart TV Sticks, etc)and night readable alarm clocks . Lots of great projects where a ever lasting battery would be a great help!

[@DoctorX17]

@@audioillity7893 yeah! A big capacitor bank would be great for remotes. They're "high power" compared to what these are made for, but several cells and capacitors could make up for that, since they're very bursty workloads

[@thomas5666]

One thing with nuclear energy that is always ignored is that yes, nuclear power plants do not create much pollution themselves, but the processes that are done to mine fuel for nuclear energy creates tons of pollution. Maybe it's just ignored because it's not mined in our country?

[@DavidHalko]

The nuclear fuel is mined in our country, making it expensive. The lithium & copper are strip mined in places like Africa, making it fairly cheap, which is why people like electric stuff so much.

[@Sam-pp7vf]

Yes but when put to use they last so long it’s well worth the initial pollution investment. For example United States aircraft carriers are powered by nuclear reactors, and never have to fuel up once in their life, running the largest ships in the world on clean energy for 50 or so years.

[@DavidHalko]

@@Sam-pp7vf - “when put to use they last so long” - yep, don’t disagree with you at all. The high cost still sees more benefit in a cost/benefit analysis. I think the nuclear subs are an even better example, being able to be under water for a year, with the energy sustaining life for that entire time. Waiting for 3D printed food for future subs & space missions! :-)

[@Sam-pp7vf]

@@DavidHalko exactly haha, yeah a 3D printed pizza 600 feet under would be epic

[@DavidHalko]

@@Sam-pp7vf - Yeah, man! Pizza, the ultimate 3D printed food… with an irradiator over or steam in pipes around it to cook it where it was printed! Maybe a tube from a nuclear reactor to conduct the cooking with! :-)

[@jaredspencer3304]

These could make batteries go the way of computer chips and sensors: instead of having one large, central chip or sensor, most electronic devices now have many small chips and sensors spread throughout the device. But still, batteries are large and central. Perhaps these new smaller batteries could be colocated with small chips/sensors that don't need to draw from large, central, rechargeable batteries.

[@DavidHalko]

Disposal of the boards would need to move to mandatory recycling, since these batteries would be good, basically forever, in technology terms.

[@Dana5775]

Dissipate heat better, circuitry shortened .

[@jaseastroboy9240]

I imagine this is very much like the original transistor development. Where initially individual transistors were created but later on the integrated circuit with orders of magnitude more transistors on a single die were created. As these diamonds with radioactive material in them are artificially created, I imagine there would be an opportunity to scale the devices up once the technology is approved and used. Instead of a tiny mW generating diamond the technology may scale to outputs in the 100 to 1000 Watt realm. Making creating an EV or home scaled power source viable. It just depends on how the technology scales and whether there is success with the initial small scale targeted market.

[@anthonya.gentry8882]

Well, despite the heavy mass of graphite contained energy, I am wondering if Electric Propulsion systems might be developed for ion propulsive applications requiring very long, very steady, very low acceleration associated with outer space environs.

[@canobenitez]

how would you stop it though

[@D3adP00I]

personally I'm damn sick of replacing my batteries in my zwave & zigbee devices, this would be epic.

[@andrewharbit7449]

Evan though low power is produced there are literally thousands of electronics out there that take batteries, ex: TV remotes which sit idle most of the time, by using circuit design one could charge up small super caps. Any battery powered tech that sits idle for a greater portion of its life is a good market for this tech. Because the shelf life of traditional batteries is poor in comparison.

[@Unethical.Dodgson]

Honestly we're at a point where we don't even need Tv Remotes anymore and given that the power cells would far outlive the peripherals that just go in the bin when people are done with them or when they break... not a fan of that idea.

[@andrewharbit7449]

Sensor circuits, temp. Humidity, ect. Things you want to power but not have to worry about changing batteries on....

[@Shonicheck]

It is actually a very interesting technology for "off the grid" tech. I recon something like LoRa devices would be able to run from 1-10 of those things, and since there is not much constraints on their size usually using even 100 of them woudn't be much of a problem, i think urban engineers would absolutely love this thing. It's should also be a great thing for home automation, since this thing could probably power some ZigBee device on your sensor, or hell maybe even something rarely used like a smart door lock or some gasket. I think rarely used but more power hungry devices can be designed with this technology with conjunction with a conventional battery. It is even more interesting if they are cheap, then it opens a ton of possibilities, like creating a humongous mesh network of low-power wireless devices, something like internet 2.0, though it is a rather long shot since they are quite power hungry but a man can dream none the less.

[@--DM]

Why not building this as a "forever" power plant? Is it correct to say that if 1g generates 100 uW, then 90 metric tones would generate in access of a few kW? So before dumping waste as "waste" just package it into these "forever" powerplants and let it sit and forever generate some electricity?

[@ComradeHammy]

Too expensive

[@johnjordan3552]

I don't think those people are stupid, gain per cost ratio must be too low

[@--DM]

@@johnjordan3552 I am sure they are not stupid. Tho in the USA, people use to just burn gasoline and diesel in the fields for decades! They did not know how to use it and focused on kerosene instead. If there is anything to learn form history - human kind is very vasteful :D

[@johnjordan3552]

@@--DM well, fossil fuels might pollute the environment but they do have a very high energy density. But you are right, humans are very wasteful

[@silverdragonheart]

I will be interesting to see if this technology is up scaleable for use in larger non-portable energy production but anything that makes use of nuclear waste is a good thing. I'm hoping they'll be able to at least get the power up to a level that can power a smartwatch, I hate having to constantly recharge mine.

[@Ithirahad]

Smartwatches and anything not passively lit is pretty much ruled out by simple physics. That much power into something like this would mean dangerous levels of radioactivity on your wrist.

[@lloydellington3384]

This sounds so exciting, in 50 years when this hits the market; maybe just maybe we as a society can solve the energy crisis coming our way.

[@yuibkys3522]

Too bad were all fucked by then

[@darrendrapkin4508]

As I understand, the main advantage in a diamond battery is not as a power source but as a nuclear reprocessing technology. If you could make a diamond battery as large as a nuclear reprocessing plant, the energy produced would be a minor gain/profti. That is, as opposed to current technology that uses energy and costs money.

[@PierreLalu]

One question : even if it produces very low energy, isn't it a good argument to propose a good containment for radioactive matérials, that could also produce electricty ? Couldn't we have sets of diamonds racks, next to nuclear traitement facilities (that already are equiped to manage radioactive element), in order to stack radioactiv elements and still produce electricity with it ?

[@ShieTar_]

Not comercially interesting. Put a black water hose in your garden and flow wather through it, and you will collect much more energy that if you fill the same area with heat-producing nuclear waste + all the protective barriers it requires. The principle of the existing fission reactors is to extract the heat from the fuel as long as it makes comercial sense before removing the fuel. If the residual heat production was sufficient to make money from it, the power plant operators would be doing it already. As it stands now, even the fission reactor concept themselves can no longer compete with a combination of renewable energy generation & mid-term storage. The only reason the operators keep making a profit is the fact that the reactors have been built in the past, and that most of the waste disposal costs will be carried by the government.

[@PierreLalu]

@@ShieTar_ i understand, commercially speaking regarding energy production, but what about the cost of radioactivity confinement ?

[@ShieTar_]

@@PierreLalu That does not change by harvesting the heat. We already keep the hot waste in intermediate storages until they are cold enough to go to final storage. Harvesting or "wasting" the heat makes no difference to the confinement concept. Unless you break down all the waste into tiny portions and pack them in diamonds to be safe. But generation of the diamond is very, very costly. The batteries described in this video cost much, much more energy in the production of the diamonds than they will ever generate, even over 10 000 years.

[@PierreLalu]

@@ShieTar_ thank you, I get it now. (always feels good to have reasonable argumentations

[@bowdiddly6172]

Yes, pursue it. Yes, give me a nuclear powered cell phone!

[@fyrelorde]

Me reading title: oh no, the Medusa from Dr. Stone is based in reality...

[@mikes4135]

As for the excess heat, it too can be harvested by thermocouples, turned into electricity, and stored in a supercapacitor/battery. I'm thinking a graphene batacitor, surronding the radioactive core, providing even more shielding. It might work like this-the core charges the batacitor over a period of time, starting when it is activated, and when the battery loses power, it is charged incrementally by the core through electron exchange, core heat, and the heat produced by the battery itself when under load. Sort of a peltier effect, but it would have to be as large as possible, maybe even incorporated into the shell of the battery itself. Regulating circuits would monitor the heat with sensors, and if it did overheat, a simple switching circuit could send voltage to the peltier, making it cool the inside faster than the heat could build. The outer layer could also be a heat sink, to further dissipate heat buildup. The battery compartment for the whole thing would also need to aid in dissipating heat, with venting, or a heat conductive material surrounding the battery, then wicking it off through the case material in whatever it's charging. It may sound odd to design a computer, phone, camera, flashlight, car, or whatever, around the battery, but I think it's worth a go. Just a thought.

[@andredepaulagomes]

As AvE once said: "When you make something foolproof, the world comes and invents a bigger fool" Nice tech, but I'm a bit scared of how it can go wrong...

[@Iiphaedos]

I agree with that sentiment, but the possible benefits can't be ignored. It's at least worth exploring and seeing what is possible. Anything and everything can be misused, but this could be really good, especially if it scales up eventually.

[@massimo8408]

Well people already but smartphones inside theirs microwave at home. What could possibly go wrong?

[@HHalcyon]

@@massimo8408 Well, people do tend to be careless with their e-waste management. People keep sinking all kinds of tech all the time. Not to mention e-waste recycling habits aka straight to landfill quite frequently I would assume.

[@2MeterLP]

Theres gonna be headline of people trying to murder someone by crushing these and putting them in food.

[@Danz4n]

@@2MeterLP i Like your Typ of thinking, but tbh where are other sources of Dangerous Things around us.

[@erika002]

Wait a minute... So Diamond Batteries in Dr Stone is scientifically accurate and possible?

[@HadleyCanine]

One meter, one second.

[@TsukuneASMG]

all the concepts in dr. stone are scientifically accurate, just with some space for interpretation

[@manindersingh6333]

12800000 meter ,1 second

[@markos.5539]

These cant be rechargeable but they act as generators that last millenias

[@Hveragerthi]

NuCell batteries were developed I think it was in the 80s. They used strontium-90 as their beta source. The largest battery was 18 by 32 inches and produced 100 kilowatts. The company had a patent on the technology but the company could not be found within 2 years of receiving the patent. Last I heard the military was using this technology.

[@bz3086]

If it lasts A lifetime, the industry will mandate them all to be WiFi "enabled" 😂😂😂

[@fixerbear7912]

I know it takes it into the realm of fantasy but logic says, this is the way we should be going, just thinking Star Trek communicators, if you could reduce it to a manageable size

[@Arterexius]

Star Trek communicators have already been created and reduced to a manageable size. Take a look at your smartphone. Then utilize the NDB to power specific functions of the phone and you'll essentially only need a battery for the more power hungry parts. If the current Lithium-Ion batteries are then replaced with Lithium-Carbon-Ion batteries, which are rumored to being able to contain 100 times as much energy as Lithium-Ion batteries can, then you've suddenly got a long lasting communicator.

[@Unethical.Dodgson]

@@Arterexius "rumored to being able to contain 100 times as much energy as Lithium-Ion batteries can," Whoever told you this rumour about a 'magic battery' that's "100x better" or whatever... is a fool. And you shouldn't parrot things like that. 5% better? Perhaps. 10% better? Now we're getting into "wow!" territory. 20% better!? Wow! Let's adopt this tech right now! 30%? Nah... you're probably full of shit. 10,000%? Yeah you're definitely full of shit. No sale. Batteries are a very well understood tech. You're not going to see a battery that is more than a few percent or tens of percent improvement over its predecessors for quite a while. In fact I googled that for you. Those batteries CHARGE faster. By measures of tens of times... but articles state HUNDREDS of times better... Jesus Christ... They're basically fast charge batteries but no mention of how exactly reliable they are.

[@roodick85]

Honestly I would like to invest or be a part of this technology. Even if it leads to other avenues it would be great to see where it leads to especially recycling nuclear waste.

[@malcolmtruman6467]

Hi. I worry about toxic waste from all new inventions since my large once wonderful and enchanting large natural pond/small lake was destroyed after a tyre waste toxic 3G sports field was built next to it. The kids inhale the same fumes and dust and leaching toxic chemicals yet 2000 more pitches are intended for the UK.

[@TheValSawyer]

So interesting. The major problem at this point is not hyping a possible solution as 'the' solution and justifying the already sluggish acceptance of ending fossil fuel extraction and use. Your presentation did an excellent job in that sense. So, I look forward to not having to change the battery in my smoke detector but won't expect the firetruck to be powered by diamond cased nuclear waste batteries in the short term. Got it.

[@among-us-99999]

Wouldn’t even a normal LED produce more power if exposed to daylight?

[@chuckcassel5417]

Problem is sun light doesn’t last all day

[@among-us-99999]

I’m pretty sure a small photo cell would even at night produce more power than this.

[@sim.frischh9781]

"Only for power generation"... technically, detonating a bomb is power generation as well. Just saying. But i DO look forward to any innovation in storing and generating electric energy, because it´s the one area we are still behind on. Smaller batteries able to store more energy for longer time reliably are needed for so many applications.

[@donbrutcher4501]

It has been my experience that about 3% of wild hair ideas have present day merit. Another 3% in the distant future. Probably a better yield than gold ore.

[@littleredpony6868]

Yeah, I’m still waiting for my poop powered electrical plant

[@donbrutcher4501]

@@littleredpony6868 A number of large livestock farms have "poop powered electrical plants" (methane fueled generators).

[@littleredpony6868]

@@donbrutcher4501 that’s not what I was referring to. A few years ago Discover magazine did an article about using the waste removed from waste water plants and burning that directly to provide electricity, skipping the methane gas part