ben_w a day ago

Nuclear batteries are a superset of RTGs.

There are other kinds of nuclear battery, but the ones I've heard of outside labs, are extremely low power betavoltaics.

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  • cap11235 19 hours ago

    The biggest issue for weight is that you are using trans-uranic materials. By their fundamental nature, they are heavy as fuck.

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    • ben_w 17 hours ago

      Nope.

      Betavolatics can be just about anything that emits an electron. Could be tritium. Low power due to long half life and low decay energy, but not because it is low-Z.

      RTGs can be anything that gets hot from its own radiation. Loads of things with a short half-life and high decay energy, so phosphorus-32 would be a low-Z option, and polonium-210 (which still isn't transuranic) if you're completely disregarding safety.

      Big part of the mass budget is shielding, not source. This gets proportionally worse for small sources, as you need a certain thickness (proportional to r^2), while the emitter power is proportional to volume (r^3).

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