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Registered Member #543
Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992
Several hundred untended automatic light-houses containing Radioactive Thermal Generators (RTG) powered by Strontium-90 are in use along the Russian Arctic coast, where some of them are said to be in poor condition.
RTGs have been used in both the Russian and US space programs, where lead telluride has been used as the thermoelectric generator.
Full details and diagrams of the Betavoltaic cell are given in US Patent 20070080605
Even nano-nuclear batteries are now on the experimental horizon:
Registered Member #27
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058
There used to be about 1000 Strontium powered light houses in the Soviet union, there are about 300 left today. Norway has paid for solar power conversion of the 180 north western light houses and that work has recently completed. The USA, France and Canada have contributed in some way or another.
The conversion process is continuing further south and with some luck it will be completed before too many of the RTG units go missing. I remember many years ago someone were selling those units for $10 000 each.
Registered Member #902
Joined: Sun Jul 15 2007, 08:17PM
Location: North Texas
Posts: 1040
Bored Chemist wrote ...
" that the thread be locked due to it becoming hectic," Sure about that? I thought it was because the idea was not plausible.
The idea worked, I tested it - I just did not have any hard numbers as to how well, and I realized recently upon reinvestigation (well after the thread closed) that there might have been residue in the electrode chamber that contributed power However, I have seen various designs like it, though none of them ever proved feasible. So the only production, potentially, of usable power was minimal anyways, and the only one I was able to measure was the ionization chamber from a smoke detector (after removing power to it, and shorting the capacitor) and their was a very small amount of power, in the microAmp range at least
as for the closing of the thread, I personally thought too many outrageous suggestions were being made, such as directly mixing Be and radioactive ash, and that there was a lot of confusion regarding what was being said, be me and others - so I asked that the thread be locked. For example, your third post to me did not suggest that you were saying it worked the same way as a potato battery but rather it was a waste when a potato battery did the job
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Electricity from Nuclear Radiation
