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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: 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...