Comment on Coin-sized nuclear 3V battery with 50-year lifespan enters mass production

• WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  There’s radioactive and then there’s radioactive. It beta decays with particles that would only penetrate 5 cm of air or .01 cm of tissue.

  You could get a thousand of these batteries, grind them up into a powder, explode them in a crowded place as an improvised dirty bomb…and you would still cause less harm than if you did the same with countless chemicals you can buy at the hardware store.

  There are many forms of radiation. Something like this going into a landfill is perfectly safe.

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• floo@retrolemmy.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Yeah, that’s how the battery works.

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  • deegeese@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Which is why your suggestion of simply recycling copper won’t work. You don’t have copper, you have a radioactive alloy.

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    • floo@retrolemmy.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Not after 50 or so years. Then it’s just non-radioactive copper.

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      • deegeese@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        That’s not how radioactive half lives work.

        Learn about radioactive decay and what half life means.

        en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life

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      • Sas@beehaw.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        A half life of 100 years many that after 100 years half of it is copper while the other half is still nickel 63. It does NOT mean that after half that time all of it will be copper

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• markinov@lemmygrad.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  And that nickel-63 can be recycled to make new batteries.

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