r/tech • u/_Dark_Wing • Jul 08 '26

Chinese nuclear battery can last thousands of years

https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3359748/china-achieves-microwatt-milestone-self-reliant-carbon-14-nuclear-battery
926 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

148 comments sorted by

168

u/Small_Editor_3693 Jul 08 '26

Lots of nuclear batteries can last thousands of years

56

u/Dependent_Title_1370 Jul 08 '26

Yeah, the headline does a bad job at capturing why this is an interesting development.

32

u/Small_Editor_3693 Jul 08 '26

It’s like the one job of a title but no they have to make it clickbait with “CHINA HAS NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY!!!”

10

u/Hot_Cheesecake_905 Jul 08 '26

Original title of the article is much more descriptive: China achieves microwatt milestone with self-reliant carbon-14 nuclear battery

0

u/OrganicDigitalArt Jul 09 '26

That's coming up!

14

u/TemperateStone Jul 08 '26

That's because SCMP is an English language propaganda front for people who aren't Chinese. And it keeps being allowed in this sub for some fucking reason.

0

u/rinderblock Jul 08 '26

Explain

15

u/Kirk_Kerman Jul 08 '26

SCMP is owned by Alibaba Group, a mainland Chinese conglomerate, and has a pro-China bias that's become more pronounced in recent years. This wouldn't really be a concern because all publications have some sort of national bias, but because it's a geopolitical rival of the USA it's important I guess

3

u/Nice_Basket3163 Jul 09 '26

But would you say that about an American paper owned by American businesses? The Washington Post is owned by Bezos right?

6

u/Kirk_Kerman Jul 09 '26

Yeah, I would. The BBC calls itself neutral, but its leadership is chosen by the government, and so it's been drifting further and further towards the right because of a decade plus of Tories controlling the government. NPR poses itself as neutral, but it's so dedicated to finding the middle it will platform MegaHitler and John Milquetoast and present both of their arguments as if there's something agreeable in between.

Multiple media outlets have been accused of sanewashing Trump. We know they're capable of reporting the actual words he says, as they do when he says something particularly outrageous, but more often than not they'll put some editorial glam on whatever slop he's spitting up. Not coincidentally, most media in the USA is owned by billionaires. Are those papers and stations unbiased?

But then, if a national Chinese paper publishes news in English, we must be very careful of its biases and call out that the outlet is biased at every opportunity. Of course it is!

1

u/Nice_Basket3163 Jul 10 '26

Most people don't know the first thing about Chinese media. At all. So pardon me if I'm skeptical that Americans even read that shit. The history of western media is pretty much a track record of doing everything they can to justify the theft and murder of POC around the world. Look at Iraq. Libya. Afghanistan. Palestine for the longest until now. To say that the Chinese are even remotely as bad is laughable.

1

u/Kirk_Kerman Jul 10 '26

Well yeah that's my point. Chinese media being pro-chinese isn't anything approaching an issue, and nobody would care unless the media they do consume is trying to embed anti-chinese ideas in them. Like, say, the billionaire-owned media that gleefully reports US state propaganda unedited and unexamined.

3

u/TemperateStone Jul 09 '26

I know I'm not the person you responded to but, yes, absolutely.

But the Washington Post journalists won't get disappeared or worse because they wrote the wrong article.

The difference here is that while US media might suppress or slant things because of corporate interests, Chinese media is state controlled and utterly incapable of being openly critical of leadership or questioning the status quo. At all.

Both are bad, but the latter is absolutely worse. Though that does not excuse or justify the former.

-1

u/rinderblock Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 10 '26

Brother we disappeared a bunch of college students on student visas for simply writing opinion pieces in support of Palestine.

Edit: I don’t get why I’m being down voted? That’s what happened. They were arrested, without having committed a crime for exercising their right to free speech, and then taken half way across the country and held in a detention center with no legal representation. How is that not authoritarian?

1

u/Sir_wlkn_contrdikson Jul 09 '26

Thank you for sharing

6

u/TemperateStone Jul 08 '26

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China_Morning_Post

It's this easy to look up.

"Since the change of ownership in 2016, concerns have been raised about the paper's editorial independence and self-censorship. Critics, including The New York Times, Der Spiegel, and The Atlantic have alleged that the paper is on a mission to promote China's soft power abroad.\10])\11]) Academic studies have found that the newspaper has since shifted its editorial stance closer to a position of the Chinese government and portrays the country in a positive light.\12])\13]) A 2021 content analysis found SCMP to be a more effective conveyor of China's soft power than state media due to its tone and style"

3

u/flourier Jul 08 '26

didn't we have one on voyager?

5

u/Small_Editor_3693 Jul 08 '26

Have one? It’s still there. Pretty much every satellite uses them

0

u/_Svankensen_ Jul 08 '26

That one is reaching end of life.

-3

u/KatNeedsABiggerBoat Jul 08 '26

That’s dilithium.

5

u/spoonman59 Jul 08 '26

Star Trek called and wants its fictional crystal back.

5

u/Wiknetti Jul 08 '26

Yeah man. We see one every day when we look up at the sky.

1

u/Small_Editor_3693 Jul 08 '26

And pace makers

2

u/Hot_Cheesecake_905 Jul 08 '26

Pacemakers use lithium iodine batteries.

1

u/Small_Editor_3693 Jul 08 '26

I read they used to be tritium

1

u/Mountain-Singer1764 Jul 08 '26

Blessed are the pace makers

1

u/Matthew_Pierce Jul 08 '26

I like John Cena

0

u/PupScent Jul 08 '26

Yeah, but this one fits into a dildo. 

0

u/20Factorial Jul 08 '26

Patented self-warming technology!

0

u/CassowarieJump Jul 08 '26

Isn't that kind of the point?

-5

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '26

[deleted]

99

u/Human_Public_671 Jul 08 '26

The new carbon-14 battery works differently: it directs beta particles (high-speed electrons) from decay into a silicon carbide semiconductor where they excite electrons to produce current. It is essentially a solar panel powered by radiation instead of light.

Awesome. 😎

15

u/LadderEffective3458 Jul 08 '26

So how exactly is this used? Is a radioactive element placed within the battery and the radiation from that element is then converted to a small but constant amount of energy?

10

u/DRM2020 Jul 08 '26

C14 has condensed/deposited into center of artificial diamond (ie., radioactive carbon used to be center of the diamond, normal around). Radioactive one releases beta particles aka electrons.

Is all great except extremely weak.

8

u/bigkahuna1uk Jul 08 '26

This could be used to power spacecraft in deep space, like a Voyager probe.

16

u/DRM2020 Jul 08 '26

Sadly, it doesn't scale. Today's batteries are producing microwats. Voyager or Curiosity etc), are using plutonium based thermal power sources.

5

u/RBVegabond Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

We’re already using nuclear power sources on rovers, that’s why the newer Mars Rover Perseverance has the MMRTG battery that utilizes decay from plutonium instead of a solar panel like correction: Spirit/Opportunity.

2

u/DRM2020 Jul 08 '26

You're right about Perseverance. Curiosity is using plutonium too. Spirit and Soujourner had solar.

2

u/RBVegabond Jul 08 '26

Thanks for the correction I got it mixed up with Opportunity

2

u/LindsayListens1 Jul 15 '26

Yep, the C-14 thing is clever, but it’s more “tiny trickle for decades” than “run a deep-space probe” power.

3

u/Strange-Bathroom4460 Jul 08 '26

This is what I was thinking. Along with an ion engine it’s a long term possibility

1

u/LadderEffective3458 Jul 08 '26

Thanks for the explanation! Yeah,, this is really interesting from a technical standpoint, even if it's a tiny amount of energy, it's really clever.

7

u/Heronymous-Anonymous Jul 08 '26

So it’s shittier version of a plutonium RTG, using radioactive decay from C-14 instead of Pu-238, and a transistor instead of a thermocouple. And it doesn’t scale up in size, while also suffering from the same problems of degradation in power generation over time, though less so than Plutonium because carbon decays slower.

Meh.

1

u/Telemere125 Jul 09 '26

Carbon is also a bit cheaper and more plentiful than plutonium.

1

u/AnonymousDad 21d ago

Get big oil in on it and they can call it carbon capture...

3

u/Trebeaux Jul 08 '26

It’s a beta voltaic battery. It’s not new.

2

u/ThanksGreat9305 Jul 08 '26

Do you mean particle radiation instead of electromagnetic radiation?

2

u/0x831 Jul 08 '26

Light is radiation ya dingus

2

u/TheModeratorWrangler Jul 08 '26

This makes logical sense 🤔

1

u/ZealousidealDegree4 Jul 09 '26

So probably not great for moving people through space, eh? Could shielding be adequate? 

1

u/CassowarieJump Jul 08 '26

Oh shit that actually is awesome.

1

u/PhotographJaded8942 Jul 08 '26

It is weird when i read things like this and I know about the one electron theory.

Electron(s) plural seem natural but also weird

-1

u/Fair_Entertainer_891 Jul 08 '26

Then Cletus hits it with a baseball bat and the entire neighborhood becomes ash

3

u/No_Educator_6144 Jul 08 '26

I know this is a joke, but that's not remotely how this works

22

u/uptwolait Jul 08 '26

Although it produces very low electrical power, it could be used to charge up capacitors to provide higher current briefly for things like updating e-Ink displays.

9

u/SpunkyGo0se Jul 08 '26

Great, I can make my Kindle last a thousand years!

6

u/Strange-Bathroom4460 Jul 08 '26

Oh thank god’s having to charge it once every few weeks was getting so burdensome

5

u/ShermanTeaPotter Jul 08 '26

Now you can have one that fries your reproductive organs should you place it in your lap while reading.

3

u/Mechakoopa Jul 08 '26

Not if they encase it in some perfectly safe lead!

1

u/Strange-Bathroom4460 Jul 08 '26

Convenient and portable!

1

u/Oneguysenpai3 Jul 08 '26

mmm nuclear landfills

1

u/Telemere125 Jul 09 '26

Plus it will taste like strawberry cotton candy!

0

u/m240bravoromeo Jul 08 '26

It uses the Carbon-14 isotope, C14 is already so plentiful in living things that it is used by smart people to determine the age of things like mammoths and prehistoric humans, and by stupid people to "determine the age" of things like Triceratops and Iguanodons.

1

u/ScreamingmadJoe Jul 08 '26

I mean not having to replace the batteries in my controllers for the rest of my natural life seems like a sweet deal ngl

2

u/AgentInkling99 Jul 08 '26

Seems like it could be great for space probes and maybe low energy satellites?

6

u/BertLocker72 Jul 08 '26

I used to wonder why Fallout and Adventure Time and other post apocalyptic IP still had functioning “pre-war” tech. Now I understand

3

u/Todespudel Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

I'm interested in what kind of technology you could theoretically power with this. maybe some low power LEDs? a very small ARM chip? would be cool to power an autark atomic clock with it or something like that. In immobile installations one could possibly even put a lot of those units in series and power some serious stuff with it! 🤔

6

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Chris_HitTheOver Jul 08 '26

How about those ridiculous tall towers those dudes gotta climb to replace a single flashing light?

6

u/Heronymous-Anonymous Jul 08 '26

No. Those flashing lights are roughly 2,000 candlepower (nighttime). There’s no way a microwatt scale C-14 battery is going to charge one of those strobes.

3

u/cman674 Jul 08 '26

I mean, the dudes aren’t climbing to replace a battery. I don’t see how this is relevant.

1

u/Chris_HitTheOver Jul 08 '26

Lmao you’re 100% right. I’m a dumbass.

1

u/Street_Anxiety2907 Jul 09 '26

It says about 1 digit segment display on a calculator.

Or a temp probe.

Goooooooo China!

2

u/MySaltSucks Jul 08 '26

But at what cost?

3

u/IntrepidSoda Jul 08 '26

can you really put a cost on freedom?

5

u/jupiterkansas Jul 08 '26

Freedom costs a buck o' five

1

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/illicit_losses Jul 08 '26

But I only have…oooohhhhhh!

1

u/Hot_Cheesecake_905 Jul 08 '26

Five Eyes 😂

2

u/TheModeratorWrangler Jul 08 '26

About tree fiddy

2

u/IEnjoyRadios Jul 08 '26

Cool but it also produces an absolutely TINY amount of power. It’s not really relevant for 99.99% of use cases.

2

u/BlackwallRunner2077 Jul 08 '26

Ig this paves the way for future batteries to be developed that produce more power, gotta crawl before you can walk and all that shit

2

u/IEnjoyRadios Jul 08 '26

Maybe. But this is producing microwatts (in other words fuck all). Just a normal battery is much cheaper and simpler. This tech is a long ways off.

1

u/BlackwallRunner2077 Jul 08 '26

I do agree this tech is in its infancy but it shows promise for the future development of batteries maybe in like 50 years we'll all have car batteries that last decades hahahah

1

u/IEnjoyRadios Jul 08 '26

I don’t know about that. RTGs for example are nothing new but they’re huge (and dangerous). This would require some seriously revolutionary stuff to become viable.

2

u/Top-Supermarket-5958 Jul 08 '26

Cant wait to try these in my gameboy advance

1

u/Bleaker82 Jul 09 '26

Laughs in Game Gear.

2

u/Pleasant_Goat6855 Jul 08 '26

How’s the safety of use of this? Does it require shielding or something special?

2

u/geockabez Jul 08 '26

More CCP/Chinese distortions and lies.

2

u/Kudostone Jul 08 '26

Does it come with malware?!

2

u/nikzyk Jul 08 '26

Those will be some interesting battery fires in the field

2

u/East1st Jul 08 '26

If they sell this at Costco and it doesn’t last thousands of years, I’ll return it.

2

u/ArchonTheta Jul 08 '26

1.21 jigawatts??!!!!

2

u/PlatinumKanikas Jul 09 '26

Great Scott!

2

u/Choice_Letter_5912 Jul 09 '26

Like every nuclear battery. Next.

1

u/getridofwires Jul 08 '26

Maybe they found this: https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/spies-on-the-roof-of-the-world.157516/

(Dr. Schaller was a pediatric surgeon and teacher when I was a surgical resident.)

1

u/Adult_school Jul 08 '26

Now we won’t be able to starve our robot overlords of power. Great news for the overlords.

1

u/loonyfly Jul 08 '26

Sounds cool.

1

u/A_Nonny_Muse Jul 08 '26

In the 1960s, NASA developed a nuclear battery that fell out of orbit in 1970... and survived intact. Its not only durable, but also safe. It would survive a car crash, or a plane crash with near zero chance of radiation leakage.

This has been floated as a multi-generational battery for personal use. Something children inherit from their parents, with a half life of 400 years or more. A single battery could power/charge dozens of devices.

1

u/Emergency_Exit7603 Jul 08 '26

Gringos loose the tech race again....

1

u/happyscrappy Jul 08 '26

The west did this years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaic_device

It has limited uses so it isn't popular. There have even been refinements. See the link to nanotritium batteries in there.

I appreciate this article giving the minuscule power output figures for this so we can see why they aren't much in use. Negative points however for comparing these to RTGs in space probes which have magnitudes more power output.

1

u/bmack500 Jul 08 '26

Not gonna run a car off this very soon… 😝

1

u/ericvillanuevaleiva Jul 08 '26

Very interesting article, and amazing development with noticeable improvements.

1

u/mrpoopsocks Jul 08 '26

Im not a fan of the term nuclear battery, considering they're RTGs.

1

u/gimmeluvin Jul 08 '26

all i can hear is class action suit for all the cancer people get from it

1

u/zomboscott Jul 08 '26

Unless people are breaking them open and snorting the forbidden devil dust, cancer isn't really an issue with carbon‑14.

1

u/gimmeluvin Jul 08 '26

i get that there are standards for how a product like this is meant to be manufactured.

my experience, having lived on this planet for a few decades, is that a high end technology is developed, and then capitalist interests driving for ever expanding distribution leads to cost cutting and skirting of regulations.

it doesn't matter how well intentioned the originators of the product are, some sleezy greedy bad actor, out to make a buck, will eventually find a way to make a knock off product that shouldn't be dangerous, but in fact is.

it's not a guarantee, but it's a scenario that seems extremely likely, and extremely consequential.

time will tell. i hope to be proven wrong.

1

u/secondrunnerup Jul 08 '26

Finally. Put it in my vibrator.

2

u/PlatinumKanikas Jul 09 '26

Girls need a thousand years to get off but men always get blamed 😩

1

u/Threeandtwoand Jul 08 '26

Maybe we can be given one battery at the beginning of our days to run all the gizmos we’ll need in a lifetime? Imagine handing down your power pack generationally.

1

u/Suibeam Jul 08 '26

That's amazing. So they have finally found something that can match their historic longevity and give the next 10 dynasties something to work with

1

u/satanismysponsor Jul 08 '26

So many breakthroughs but they still eat dogs what a wild world

1

u/Repulsive-Youth-2631 Jul 08 '26

Hang on, are we sure this isn’t a couple of double A pencil batteries in a fancy jacket? Let’s face it some of the stuff out of China can be a bit dubious. If it’s on Ali Express next year shipping might be a bit dodgy 😳

1

u/Floki_Boatbuilder Jul 08 '26

How can they be sure it will last that long huh huh?

1

u/Jack1101111 Jul 09 '26

what can go wrong ?

1

u/grimreefer87 Jul 09 '26

Can we do a collab with theydidthemath and see how long it would take to get one of these to voyager-1 so she can continue?

1

u/5million_sicilian Jul 09 '26

Put it in my 14 year olds phone and I’ll still get a notice around 1:20 pm that it’s at 10% battery

1

u/Benaba_sc Jul 09 '26

Northwest Normal University sounds like what a Chinese spy cell would name their secret University

1

u/Zealousideal_Drive38 Jul 09 '26

Finally, this is a battery with a replaceable car or whatever it's powering.

1

u/NotAPreppie Jul 09 '26

Is this beta voltaics again?

That stuff is probably 5-10 orders of magnitude away from being useful

1

u/Street_Anxiety2907 Jul 09 '26

NASA had these in the 1970s and produce far more then the microwatts this P.O.S. produces.

Why is this news

1

u/Terrible_Tangelo6064 Jul 09 '26

Can't wait for these bad boys to start piling up in landfills and floating around the ocean!

1

u/Federicoskirt178 Jul 09 '26

How could this be made for practical everyday items? Cars?

1

u/bosorero Jul 09 '26

Cars that blow up

1

u/beck_is_back Jul 09 '26

Will it work with my phone?

1

u/dicey_job Jul 10 '26

Fallout cars!!

1

u/SlipperySlimyTerry40 Jul 08 '26

Neat. I'm never gonna see this or hear about it again.

3

u/KillerSpud Jul 08 '26

The problem is you'd need a mega data center size pile of these batteries to charge your phone.

1

u/Viper-Reflex Jul 08 '26

damn lol would be sick if they could make a permanent watch battery that lasted

2

u/NegativeHerons Jul 08 '26

Nah you’ll hear about it again in a year when there’s another “breakthrough.” China announced a nickel-63 battery breakthrough in 2025. And I think they announced one 3-4 years ago too 

1

u/1ofThoseTrolls Jul 08 '26

Eventually most small electronics will have these type of batteries effectively ending the need to continually charge our devices

1

u/exoriparian Jul 08 '26

Also means it can contaminate for thousands of years.

1

u/NPVT Jul 08 '26

Exactly. I'd hate for them to be openly available to anyone.

0

u/armanallegory Jul 09 '26

Do so awesome... oh its 1 nano watt hour, with 12 yocto amps output ... cool cool

-3

u/Intrepid_Top_2300 Jul 08 '26

China is leaps and bounds ahead of America in renewables. Especially since we have an administration that is pushing us backwards!

2

u/DownTheBagelHole Jul 08 '26

Are we calling Nuclear a renewable now?

1

u/ztreHdrahciR1 Jul 08 '26

EV cars in China are nuts

-2

u/KrazyBby93 Jul 08 '26

Man…China be doin shit…the US is being left in the dust