this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
1111 points (99.1% liked)

Science Memes

11021 readers
3507 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Those have been researched and tested for decades and the tech still hasn't caught on. They just don't put out enough power to be useful for much more than a clock circuit (not even enough to power a full watch, just keep the time).

I have serious doubts they're going to suddenly become viable anytime soon.

Any useful energy production from nuclear is basically just making steam to run turbines. Same with coal but you know.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

I believe they have been used in pacemakers, for example. They are becoming practical for more applications over time and are seemingly on the verge of appearing in consumer electronics. We shall see.

RTGs also do not use water. I suppose the watch batteries are essentially just tiny RTGs.

Conceivably you could use bimetallic strips to produce mechanical energy from the heat generation.