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A tiny radioactive battery could keep your future phone running for 50 years

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Re: A tiny radioactive battery could keep your future phone running for 50 years

#41

Post by CoastalCoder »

elzbardico wrote: post #35
rsaxvc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on one. Aircraft carrier. Edit: commenter seems to be editing without noting their edits. This comment was written against a their comment in a different revision.

It is a fucking shame politics, ideologies and greed for power makes the world so fucked up. It would be great if instead of nuclear powered air carriers we had nuclear powered cargo ships.

> It is a fucking shame politics, ideologies and greed for power makes the world so fucked up.

I'm thinking we could treat those as emergent behaviors of flawed human nature.

Re: A tiny radioactive battery could keep your future phone running for 50 years

#42

Post by charles_f »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #2

"A tiny radioactive battery could keep your future phone running for 50 years" Phone OS developers: Challenge accepted.

Of course not. They need to keep a way to sell new phones. Battery was a good physical limit. OS deprecation and fake hardware limitations will be the next one.

Side note - if they can't sell as many phones anymore, I bet that we'll see some Android+ or iOS+ appear at some point, for the low low cost of 39.99 per month. I'm quite surprised it's not there yet

Re: A tiny radioactive battery could keep your future phone running for 50 years

#43

Post by jvanderbot »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #36
herschel113 wrote: post #16

And most likely always hot. The nuclear process can most likely not be controlled, and will just provide energy the whole day long. A small sidecar battery may hold charge for peak usage, but still the nuclear battery have to churn atoms all the time to provide the mean power. And the conversion process usually is not very efficient either (but I don't see numbers for this particular device).

> will just provide energy the whole day long. Dimension it for just a little more than the average consumption and use a super capacitor or battery to soak up the excess when the phone is idle. I imagine one would need the battery anyway to cope with short term high demand such as photography.

Once you fill your storage you cup runs over. Now you need to radiate something. Heat, radio, light, whatever. You could always run a crypto mine when battery is full and phone is idle, but yeah youre heating your pocket regardless.

Re: A tiny radioactive battery could keep your future phone running for 50 years

#46

Post by jvanderbot »

rsaxvc wrote: post #10

100 microwatts - I can't imagine a phone idles on that. About 36 microamps at 3.6 volts. > less than a coin at 15 x 15 x 5mm Slightly smaller than a stack of four US dimes.

So 10 stacks in a pack and you have 3.6v and .3 amps? Overnight you'd stack up a couple amp hours, which is about a phone battery, right?

Edit oh microwatts not milliwatts

Re: A tiny radioactive battery could keep your future phone running for 50 years

#47

Post by jvanderbot »

z_ack wrote: post #40

"The compact battery uses 63 nuclear isotopes to generate 100 microwatts and a voltage of 3V of electricity through the process of radioactive decay" So the battery produce 0.1 mW or 0.0001 W: what "phone or drone" works with this microscopic power ? It isn't sufficient to power a sigle LED. IMHO this article is a sum of: clickbait + incompetence and, if the translation from Chinese is accurate, scam. The phrase "use…

It's more helpful to think of it as a power generator that produces that level of power. Then you use it or store it.

Having an onboard power source coupled with storage is an amazing win. And these power generators (not batteries really) are very small.

So, when phone is "off" it pulls some mW from each of the many such power cells onboard to charge battery, then when phone is "on" it works like normal.

Re: A tiny radioactive battery could keep your future phone running for 50 years

#48

Post by flappyeagle »

nolok wrote: post #6

90% of the people I know keep their near their head, near the genitals or near their heart when not actively using it. I read the part about them asserting that it's safe, but if they want this to actually sell without a major stigma, especially in the era of social media, they will need to go out of their way to prove it.

They use these in pacemakers.

Re: A tiny radioactive battery could keep your future phone running for 50 years

#49

Post by nolok »

Solvency wrote: post #23
nolok wrote: post #6

90% of the people I know keep their near their head, near the genitals or near their heart when not actively using it. I read the part about them asserting that it's safe, but if they want this to actually sell without a major stigma, especially in the era of social media, they will need to go out of their way to prove it.

It took 50 years for people to realize fat is healthy and sugar loaded bread and grains is bad for you. Because of "science". iPhones straddling your genitalia is considered "safe"' today. Can't wait to hear from science towards the end of the century.

My understanding is that phone near your genitals is not recommended at least for men because the increase in heat affects your testicular production, like any increased heat source would (between the heat of battery usage and the non ionizing radiation from the radio). I remember my science teacher talking about it in high school, and that was pre smartphone era (~2003 or so). I also remember it saying that guys liked wearing boxer and jeans and the increased friction was pushing more heat there anyway.

Now every 6 months we have a study about low and lowering sperm count in males, and between that and food changes and microplastics overabundance and ... It feels like that's a lost cause.

Re: A tiny radioactive battery could keep your future phone running for 50 years

#50

Post by mcfedr »

elzbardico wrote: post #35
rsaxvc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on one. Aircraft carrier. Edit: commenter seems to be editing without noting their edits. This comment was written against a their comment in a different revision.

It is a fucking shame politics, ideologies and greed for power makes the world so fucked up. It would be great if instead of nuclear powered air carriers we had nuclear powered cargo ships.

So we can have more stories like this? https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/fire-briefly-breaks-out...
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