Nuclear batteries

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The term "nuclear battery" generally refers to self contained, maintenance-free, "fit and forget", nuclear power sources.

Some are based on decay of radioactive isotopes. These are not nuclear reactors as they do not initiate or control either fission or fusion reactions. They are single-use power sources, typically with lifetimes of decades but low power outputs.

Others are small, self-contained reactors needing no operators to run, and designed to be shipped out and replaced when their fuel is exhausted.

Reactors

A June 2021 article "“Nuclear Batteries” Offer a New Approach to Carbon-Free Energy" in SciTech daily by David Chandler of MIT discusses proposed systems which would be completely modular, shipping-container-sized, providing around 10MW.

Radioisotope Thermionic Generators

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators use decay heat to drive electricity generation (and also as a heat source directly on some spacecraft).

Beta emitters

Electricity can be harvested directly from beta emitters, such as the much-hyped nuclear diamond batteries.

Other technologies

Thermionic emission can also be used as a source of electricity, where electrons are boiled off a hot metal surface (known in electronics as a cathode) and collected on another electrode (the anode). According to Atlas Energy Systems, who claim to be working on such devices:

The process of thermionic conversion has been known for almost 100 years but it was not until the 1950s that it was pursued seriously. At that time the US and the former Soviet Union began extensive development of thermionic nuclear reactors for space due to the technology’s high reliability, compactness, and power density. This research culminated in the flight of two, fully operational 5kW electric thermionic reactors by the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. However, with the termination of space nuclear power programs in the 1990s, much of the thermionic converter development halted completely and the technology never found a foothold in terrestrial applications; despite being proven extensively in combustion-fired and concentrated solar systems.

In a video (below) from the 2017 Thorium Energy Alliance Conference Atlas's founder and CEO Ian Hamilton describes work on batteries based on what sounds like a different principle he describes as using "a plasma to convert ionising radiation from any isotope into electricity"