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from the diamonds-are-our-best-friend dept.
[Converting] Carbon-14 from nuclear waste to long life battery.
From engadget
Nuclear waste is normally a major environmental headache, but it could soon be a source of clean energy. Scientists have developed a method of turning that waste into batteries using diamond.
From treehugger
"There are no moving parts involved, no emissions generated and no maintenance required, just direct electricity generation," said Professor of Materials Tom Scott. "By encapsulating radioactive material inside diamonds, we turn a long-term problem of nuclear waste into a nuclear-powered battery and a long-term supply of clean energy."
From newatlas
One unexpected example of this is the Bristol team's work on a major source of nuclear waste from Britain's aging Magnox reactors, which are now being decommissioned after over half a century of service. These first generation reactors used graphite blocks as moderators to slow down neutrons to keep the nuclear fission process running, but decades of exposure have left the UK with 95,000 tonnes (104,720 tons) of graphite blocks that are now classed as nuclear waste because the radiation in the reactors changes some of the inert carbon in the blocks into radioactive carbon-14.
Presumably other beta emitters could be wrapped in diamond shells creating a common class of Betavoltaic nuclear batteries. Although the diamond in a diamond seems an elegant technical solution.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @10:37PM
If you can use these in a dirty bomb, then its a non-starter for anything other than a well-guarded battery-farm out in the boonies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:14PM
Will these be made by Samsung?
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Wednesday November 30 2016, @12:03AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @12:34AM
As mention in at least one of TGDMFAs, the core of each diamond is radioactive.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @01:10AM
Come on man. If you are going to expound on how someone is wrong, the least you could do is google the topic before hitting submit.
A "dirty bomb" is one type of a radiological dispersal device (RDD) that combines conventional explosives, such as dynamite, with radioactive material. The terms dirty bomb and RDD are often used interchangeably in the media. Most RDDs would not release enough radiation to kill people or cause severe illness - the conventional explosive itself would be more harmful to individuals than the radioactive material. However, depending on the situation, an RDD explosion could create fear and panic, contaminate property, and require potentially costly cleanup. Making prompt, accurate information available to the public may prevent the panic sought by terrorists.
A dirty bomb is in no way similar to a nuclear weapon or nuclear bomb. A nuclear bomb creates an explosion that is millions of times more powerful than that of a dirty bomb. The cloud of radiation from a nuclear bomb could spread tens to hundreds of square miles, whereas a dirty bomb’s radiation could be dispersed within a few blocks or miles of the explosion. A dirty bomb is not a “Weapon of Mass Destruction” but a “Weapon of Mass Disruption,” where contamination and anxiety are the terrorists’ major objectives.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/fs-dirty-bombs.html [nrc.gov]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @03:14AM
And there is no fission or fusion involved, QED.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday November 30 2016, @04:24AM
Do you even know what radioactivity is?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 5, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday November 30 2016, @01:05AM
Pretty much. At 7 billion people on this planet, with many of them having their faces ground into the dirt by Elite boot heels, all it takes is motivation, resources, and information to create massive catastrophes. When viewed at in percentages, it's too risky to have tech like that known or out in the open.
Literal Diamond-age tech like this is reserved for societies straight out of science fiction, not the hellish existence we eek out here.
There are just too many bad apples in our rotting pile to have any truly nice things.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Wednesday November 30 2016, @04:26AM
Unlike Alpha emitters, beta emitters are basically harmless unless you ingest them / breath them.
But that property itself does not preclude them being used in a dirty bomb. If you have a strong enough explosion that you expect to able to shatter the C-14 diamonds then perhaps you could build a dirty bomb out of them.
Of course you would do it a hell of a lot easier, cheaper and more effectively by just pulling the Americium-241 out of a shipment of smoke detectors and putting that in a fertilizer bomb. You would have an alpha emitter with a half-life an order of magnitude less [ie and order of magnitude more radioactive and substantially more dangerous by dispersing an alpha emitter].
In conclusion I find the proverbial dirty-bomb to be largely a government and media fantasy used to scare large populations into giving up essential freedoms.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @06:04AM
> Unlike Alpha emitters, beta emitters are basically harmless unless you ingest them / breath them.
Ahem, I think you got that the wrong way around...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @11:24AM
Theoretically C14 could be used for dirty bombs but it would only leave some radioactive soot and radioactive CO2 it would not be very effective (CO2 would quickly dilute with little lasting effects). Also vaporizing diamonds would require a lot of energy. Another problem C14 has half life of 5k years so you would need a lot of it to have some serious radioactivity. Best isotopes for dirty bombs would have half lives around 10 to 100yrs (too short and it will decay too fast, too long and there will be not enough radiation at all or people in attacked area won't have to clean all of it to make area somewhat safe) and have mix of several elements to make clean-up harder.
Unrelated: have this nice chart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14#/media/File:Radiocarbon_bomb_spike.svg [wikipedia.org]