Is this a battery made out of a specific form of carbon encased in yet another specific form of carbon? If so carbon needs to take a break and let the other elements have some fun.
this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2024
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It's just a betavoltaic cell using carbon-14. The science here isn't really anything new outside of isolating that much carbon-14 and turning it into a diamond. Also it's going to produce next to no power. With betavoltaics the more active the radiation source, the more power you get and the faster it depletes. Carbon-14 is radioactive but only barely. Considering even shortlived betavoltaics only produce microamps at less than 3 volts even when brand new, I'm guessing they had some really sensitive sensors in use here to even detect any power being output by the carbon-14 cells.
I think it would really depend on just how much power the damn thing could produce. For example, it mentions sending back data from Voyager 1, and that's great and all, but it seems like those transmitters would probably need more than what it could provide along with the science equipment. I would say to accomplish that you would either need a bigger version that produces more power or you would need some sort of super capacitor or something to store the charge in for short bursts at high power.