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It looks like we may have new power storage options available in the very near future, based on the decay of tritium:
Personal Nuclear Power: New Battery Lasts 12 Years
The technology is called betavoltaics. It uses a silicon wafer to capture electrons emitted by a radioactive gas, such as tritium. It is similar to the mechanics of converting sunlight into electricity in a solar panel.
Until now, betavoltaics has been unable to match solar-cell efficiency. The reason is simple: When the gas decays, its electrons shoot out in all directions. Many of them are lost.
“For 50 years, people have been investigating converting simple nuclear decay into usable energy, but the yields were always too low,” Fauchet explained. “We’ve found a way to make the interaction much more efficient, and we hope these findings will lead to a new kind of battery that can pump out energy for years.”
Fauchet’s team took the flat silicon surface, where the electrons are captured and converted to a current, and turned it into a three-dimensional surface by adding deep pits.
The description in the article gives the impression that the technology is only suitable for low-power devices, but a cellphone or a laptop with a lifetime built-in power supply is nothing to sneeze at. And given the immense potential market in those two products alone (not to mention other small electronic items like smoke detectors, digital cameras, PDAs, pacemakers, nuclear iPods, etc.), there ought to be plenty of money in the technology to fund development of more powerful units.
Amusingly, the technology (and the related alphavoltaics) sounds like a hybrid of radioisotope power generation and solar photovoltaics. Perhaps those pushing solar and hydrogen power* will get their wish, albeit in a form they didn’t expect: a tritium betavoltaic economy.
*Hydrogen isn’t a power source, but a power storage medium…and the same is true of tritium, which would have to be manufactured. But since the obvious choice for manufacturing tritium is in a nuclear reactor (by bombarding ordinary hydrogen with neutrons), it’s a win-win technology: we would get additional nuclear electrical power for fixed applications, plus tritium for long-life portable power supplies.
There’s SNAP, and then there’s…“snap”.
Looks like the Mars Polar Lander may have been found after all.
Looks like Bruce Gagnon’s Global Network has found a new friend:
Karl Grossman reported that Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) had called the GN office to say she intends to lead a fight to defund Project Prometheus, the nuclear rocket that is being funded at over $400 million in 2005. Rep. McKinney is sending a “Dear Colleague” letter to Congress inviting them to join her in the effort. (We urge all of our supporters to contact their congressperson urging them to join her.)
UPDATE: It seems the convergence of interests between Congresswoman McKinney and Mr. Gagnon go beyond opposition to what they mistakenly call a “nuclear rocket”: We Want Real Answers About 9/11
Looks like the LM CEV concept is going to be unveiled tomorrow, at the Popular Mechanics website — don’t have to wait for the June issue, after all.
[via Rand Simberg]
Following on the House passage of his energy bill, the President is promoting nuclear power:
Speaking at a Small Business Administration conference, Bush hailed nuclear power as part of a long-term solution to the nation’s energy challenge and outlined plans to encourage construction of oil refineries and facilities for storing liquefied natural gas…
The Bush plan also calls for providing a new incentive to build nuclear power plants by reducing the “uncertainty in the licensing process” and providing “federal risk insurance to mitigate the additional cost of unforeseen delays.”
Industry analysts questioned whether this would be enough to spur construction. Investors have been leery of the upfront costs needed to build a nuclear plant compared with other forms of electricity production.
Of course, one has to wonder just how large a share of those offputting up-front costs are due to the licensing process itself, and to nuisance litigation by those opposed to nuclear power as such.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to be making the obvious tie-in to the so-called “hydrogen economy”. While I’m personally agnostic on the concept, it is a popular notion/fad, especially among those one would expect to express knee-jerk opposition to nuclear power. Even worse than missing a good marketing opportunity, Bush’s reference to hydrogen in tonight’s press conference described it as a source of energy, rather than an energy storage/delivery medium. Nuclear power would be an excellent means to produce hydrogen for other applications, since it doesn’t rely on the fossil fuels hydrogen is intended to supplant — making this connection (and clearing up what is a common misconception in the process) would do wonders for both ends.
(And another thing…does it make any economic sense at all to bump up tax incentives for people purchasing hybrid cars? It’s a supply rather than a demand problem — the incentives ought to be directed at automakers, to encourage them to increase the production of hybrids to meet market demand.)
It’s such a groovy idea, someone was eventually going to do it.
…is that it might well resemble NSF’s U.S. Antarctic Program.
I just finished reading the book associated with the website, likewise named Big Dead Place. While it’s quite funny at times, at other times it’s disturbing to see from an insider’s perspective just how dysfunctional such a program can be, and how disconnected from its purported purpose it really is.
I fully expected that the energy bill passed today by the House would offer little in the way of nuclear energy promotion. But, there do seem to be some good items tucked away in the bill. (Note: the link is to a slow-loading 1.4M text file.)
- Section 629 calls for a report on the feasibility of developing commercial nuclear power facilities at existing DoE sites — which one might expect to take the wind out of NIMBY arguments.
- Section 638 creates a national low-enriched uranium stockpile, to be filled with home-grown LEU and “blended down” materials recovered from Russian weapons materials. Why do you suppose there would be a need for an LEU stockpile, unless…we were perhaps planning an expansion of nuclear power generation?
- Section 651 establishes a project to develop a new nuclear reactor design specifically geared towards the generation of hydrogen fuel — a project which those pushing for a “hydrogen economy” will no doubt get wholeheartedly behind…it’s a special gift from Congress just in time for Earth Day!
- Section 906 declares that it is “policy of the United States to conduct research, development, demonstration, and commercial application to provide for the scientific, engineering, and commercial infrastructure necessary to ensure that the United States is competitive with other nations in providing fusion energy for its own needs and the needs of other nations, including by demonstrating electric power or hydrogen production for the United States energy grid utilizing fusion energy at the earliest date possible”, and sets the terms for U.S. participation in ITER.
- Section 948 calls for a program to develop cleaner, safer fuel recycling technologies.
- Section 951 directs the Secretary of Energy to carry out the Nuclear Power 2010 program to develop fuel, fuel processing, and reactor technologies required to deploy new nuclear plants in the U.S. by 2010.
- Section 952 also directs the Secretary to develop a technology and R&D plan for evaluating next-generation nuclear power technologies.
- Interestingly, Section 958 actually calls for the construction of a next-generation nuclear power plant based on the research and development called for in the preceding sections:
The program shall culminate in the construction and operation of the demonstration plant based on a design selected by the Secretary in accordance with procedures described in the plan required by section 960(c). The demonstration plant shall be located and constructed within the United States and shall be operational, and capable of demonstrating the commercial production of electricity, by December 31, 2015.
Hmm…
With the ongoing program to develop new nuclear power sources for space applications, I’m mildly surprised that there wasn’t at least some mention of space nuclear power. But, I guess the fact that nuclear power is a part of the national energy policy at all is cause enough for celebration.
(The text can also be found at the Library of Congress’ Thomas server, conveniently indexed by section, but unfortunately the LoC has gone out of its way to avoid providing permanent links to the bills archived there.)
Orbital Recovery’s CX-OLEV “Space Tug” Passes Major Program Milestone
Mission modeling performed with simulators confirmed the CX-OLEV’s ability to carry out its high-value space servicing flights, including the precision approach and docking phase with telecommunications satellites.
The CX-OLEV will supply the propulsion, navigation and guidance to maintain valuable telecommunications satellites in their proper orbital slots for up to eight additional years.
And all this from a commercial European consortium, despite the fact that the EU is still holding high-level consultations on planning for a conference to discuss the terms for building consensus on evolving a process for developing a unified space policy. How do they manage without leadership from Brussels?
(Snarkiness aside, this is a promising development for European commercial space efforts.)
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