30-year battery may be too good to be true

According to reports, a team of scientists have developed a battery which uses "betavoltaic" cells to keep chugging along for up to 30 years without the need for a recharge. If you believe what they say (and that's a big "if"), the battery uses a non-nuclear form of radioactive material as the basis for power, and that material gives off energy as it decays. Apparently, the batteries are small and thin, and when they've cashed in their energy-producing chips, they're totally non-toxic and inert. Sound too good to be true? Well you're not alone. Rupert Goodwins, of ZDNet, cleanly separates the wheat from the chaff by pointing out a number of problems with claims being made over the batteries, pretty much dashing any real hopes that these things will end up in your next laptop. Raining on the parade, Mr. Goodwins says that the atomic structure of the cells tends to fall apart when hit with high energy electrons, the "inert" battery would still be toxic should its housing ever crack, conversion efficiency would be 25-percent (an abysmal number, which also means 75-percent is heat), and finally, the cells would weigh something like 72-times more than conventional batteries. Guess we'll get back to watching the Orbo progress.

Read -- Scientists Invent 30 Year Continuous Power Laptop Battery
Read -- Radioactive laptops? Perhaps not...

[waiownsyou @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:05PM]

lol @ 72x conventional weight. Gotta love a 50-pound cellphone in your pockets.

[Jean-Michel Decombe @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:55PM]

Invasion of the new Energizer bunnies. They're fat... but they're hot!

[iceh @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:08PM]

I'm sure getting through airport security would be a lot of fun with one of these

[Ahmed Alzayani @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:08PM]

Finally …. True mobility...

[Ahmed Alzayani @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:09PM]

Finally …. True mobility...

[Hawko @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:12PM]

Whilst use of these kind of batteries in everyday-devices is pretty much useless, why can't this be useful in some other ways? Seeing as it could last so long, could it be used as an energy source in emergencies or other things?

[Phil @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:19PM]

Electric trains. Very heavy electric trains.

[Jason @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:24PM]

You raise a good point.

Atomic batteries would make excellent power sources for sensor motes. They need ultra low power over a long, long time.

For laptops it's a non-starter. But for a distributed network of dust-sized sensors that are mixed into a bridge's concrete and monitor for stress and fractures for 50 years, they would be perfect.

[cmonkey @ Oct 2nd 2007 5:49PM]

The Engadget summary implies that this is something new. Radioisotope generators have been used for decades in satellites. Really all that's new here is a group of scientists being foolish enough to think that it would be feasable as a consumer product.

[Juaquin @ Oct 2nd 2007 6:54PM]

Space probes, perhaps?

[Scott Gaertner @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:18PM]

Yes, because clearly, a columnist from ZDNet knows more about the technology than the Air Force Research Laboratory.

[octoberasian @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:50PM]

Agreed. >.>

And, ZDNet mainly deals with consumer electronics and computers, not high-tech US military research projects.

[nih @ Oct 2nd 2007 5:55PM]

High end military projects are free from your petty "science" and "common sense" restrictions! Rawr! Slap a flyboy logo on it and bang it out the door!

[oshean @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:30PM]

You and I know that a 15 year half-life is just not good enough!

[Electromodo @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:33PM]

Guys, this article was discussed a lot on other forums today. Before ditching the 30-year battery as fake, consider what other discussions generally came to:

1. It is true that after years this battery becomes completely inert.

2. Beta-rays are not penetrating the skin, and are not dangerous if you don't eat or inhale the radioactive substance.

3. Your current Li-Ion battery remain dangerous forever, while this battery will eventually become harmless.

4. Even if its too dangerous for consumers, the military will still be able to use it.

5. Since the idea of "atomic batteries" was popping up from time to time with no results, this particular idea might be fake, so wait until they have a prototype.

I am not a specialist in physics, I just summarized what people think on other forums.

[Carbonize @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:41PM]

You actually think that Engadget "bloggers" (read 'faux journalists') actually understand half the stories they report (read 'copy') ?

[deniz @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:36PM]

at least it gets lighter in time?

[darrinmack @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:37PM]

How about my house?!?!?! I don't care how heavy it is!!!!!!!

[slyecho @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:42PM]

This has been done before, all the space probes use it. Only thing is that plutonium-238 is not easy or cheap to come by. But by the sounds of it, it looks like they are using beta radiation, like tritium. This is already used in things such as Exit signs that don't need external power.

I'd like to know what element/isotope they're using.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-powered_lighting

[catfish @ Oct 3rd 2007 2:00AM]

I remember reading about one (a while ago) that was supposed to utilize deuterium as the fuel source.

(Just because it says radioactive doesn't imply plutonium. Heck theres a chunk of radioactive americium (or similar element) in stuff as common as a smoke dectector.


Now the technology is far from mature, but the potential is certainly there for "30 year" batteries. (or really really long relative to present batteries.) The main problem afaik is just in making the "battery" sufficiently efficient to use a less radioactive source than say Pu.

[Ted Capiendo @ Oct 5th 2007 3:40AM]

yeah, this tech has been around awhile. i remember reading back in the 70's that these type of batteries were used to power remote weather and other scientific sensors up in the Canadian artic.

[Jeff Lewis @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:43PM]

"non-nuclear form of radioactive material"

What exactly does this mean? All radiation (other than reemission of a photon from say, the relaxation of an electron to a lower energy state) is from some kind of nuclear process.

I assume you mean 'non-fission' form such as beta-decay?

The problem is that even beta emitters can be dangerous and the notion that after the battery has completely decayed it's safe is not actually sound. It would depend on what the original materials and the decay products were.

I remember there were proposals for rolled layers of uranium and selenium foils to be placed in lead cases about the size of a D cell that would essentially give off electricity forever (well, 4.5 billion+ years). That's an alpha and neutron emitter, so it turned out to be too dangerous.

I'm not sure a beta emitter can generate enough power to be small enough to be useful though.

[Zoli @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:48PM]

What the hell... engadget used to give props for submitting news tips.

[Michael @ Oct 2nd 2007 5:22PM]

Alpha radiation is the type that doesn't even go through skin, beta can go a little ways into you. Doesn't sound like something I want in any vicinity to my genitals.

[shaun @ Oct 2nd 2007 5:29PM]

£10 says Steorn are behind this

[J @ Oct 2nd 2007 5:33PM]

Here's the thing -- it's still useful in certain applications. Like deep sea/space exploration. One of these batteries could take care of you for 1 year and you're doing a lot better than the current crop.

And who knows -- in 10 years we might have solar powered laptops that can run off of typical office lighting and carry a battery that can get you through the dark times.

[MonteVale @ Oct 2nd 2007 5:53PM]

Nice dreaming but this is not possible by using current technology levels and chemistry we have.
Lithium ion is the best material so far and the most appropriate if you look at the periodic table. (besides led which is unacceptable for the obvious reasons)
Until we move on to the next levels of nano tubes and some very crazy chemicals delivery and integration battery life is going to suck.

[rickane58 @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:34AM]

wow, fail. obviously, your statement would apply if we were talking about a chemical potential battery. However, in this case it is using radioactive decay particles to provide power. But nice try using your chemisty.

[Eric @ Oct 2nd 2007 6:39PM]

psssh, ZDNet.... That means nothing to me.

[ark_v2 @ Oct 2nd 2007 6:40PM]

I don't care about the weight. Make an smaller one that lasts for a year maybe and I'm all for it.

[shaun @ Oct 3rd 2007 9:32AM]

I would be happy with like, I dunno 2 days on my laptop

[Erico @ Oct 2nd 2007 6:45PM]

http://community.zdnet.co.uk/i/z5/gl/ava/default/big/rupert.jpg
This guy (just guy... not expert of anything) is obviously just lashing out at anything that will improve the world because it won't do anything to help people that underwent human/louie anderson/pig genetic experiments at birth.

[mccuerc @ Oct 2nd 2007 8:10PM]

The original article which is referenced is an example of incompetent journalism.

The "battery" referred to has been described in "Technology Review" and the "Economist". It uses particles given off by the decay of Tritium. The breakthrough (from experimenters @ Univ. of Pennsylvania?)is using a "nano" material (analogous to a sponge as opposed to a flat plate) which greatly increases the ability to capture particles. The initial uses that appear practical are in implanted medical devices such as pacemakers or deep brain stimulation. The radioactive tritium is regarded as realtively safe; the particle it emits are very easy to stop.

The articles I read were devoid of data that would allow one to calculate power density for a battery the size of a laptop battery or the lifetime of such a battery.

On a similar note if you drop into the DARPA website you can find references to a project to create a "battery" to replace standard AA and similar cells used by the soldier in the field with a small radioactive core that would continually recharge the battery. It actually is a hybrid of a battery, capacitor and a radioactive core. The trick which they are trying to develop is the way to very compactly convert the radioactive energy to electricity. DARPA appears to be agnostic as to which method would work, baryonic, MEMS, or something else.

[baz.karim @ Oct 2nd 2007 8:29PM]

No. This won't happen---Energizer and Duracell won't let it. Batteries is a huge business.

Karim Baz

[Cyperk1 @ Oct 2nd 2007 11:26PM]

Wow.... last time I checked voyager 1 and 2 were leaving the Solar system quite nicely. Powered on nuclear power no less. Turns out they are 30 years old. Man I hope someone invents this stuff, wait.......

[Yojimbo @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:40AM]

Just don't use it on your lap for too long... unless, it creates some really useful mutation.

[Jonyah @ Oct 3rd 2007 9:19AM]

How about purchasing 50 of these to use to power your house?

[Dwarden @ Oct 4th 2007 4:52PM]

i suggest to read following article to get bit of understanding
http://www.peswiki.com/index.php/PowerPedia:Beta_voltaic

[Chris Adams @ Oct 8th 2007 2:11PM]

The power density (i.e. watts per cubic centimeter) will never be sufficient for a high-power app like laptop batteries. And even if you wanted to generate a constant number of milliwatts (mW) you would need $K's of dollars worth of tritium. These applications are more for microwatts or nanowatts. And yes, folks like the AF need those kinds of power levels for different things.

That being said, 1) the isotope is tritium and as such the penetration energy of the beta-radiation is the lowest of all beta emitters. It won't even make it past the dead layer of cells that our skin is surrounded by. 2) the breakdown product of tritium is helium. So when all the relatively benign tritium is gone you are left with helium. And it likely already escaped. BTW there are methods of keeping the tritium in solid form so it won't escape. 3) because the energy level of the beta rays is so low (and methods are available for putting the tritium in solid form) it won't damage the semiconductor "collector." Remember this is much like a conventional solar cell, and silicon versions of those last for 25 years or more.

One last thing to consider - those faintly green glowing exist signs? Those are stuffed with lots of tritium. Watches made by Luminox, Uzi, Swiss Military, Smith and Wesson, etc....have sealed tritium vials on the face which provide the energy for the phosophorescent glow we all know and love.

30 years? No, not unless you really front-load these batteries with a huge extra helping of tritium (on top of the million bucks worth of tritium you would need to get more than a tenth of a watt), since the half life of the isotope is only a bit over 12 years.

But we can keep on hoping for the day some of those pesky low-power battery applications are replaced by batteries such as this!