Betavoltaics - battery technology breakthrough?

[Albuquerque]

The headline is something like "30 year battery for your laptop" whichi is nonsense, because nobody would use a 30-year old laptop. But the underlying technology sounds very interesting...

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-betavoltaic-10.1.html

The question is, what kind of mAh rating does something like this have? If you don't need the longevity of 30 years, can you make a 5-year single-charge battery instead that's a whole lot smaller? Or do you need the size to get the amperage? Could it be applied to bigger (ie, more power hungry) devices such as full computers, cars or even UPS systems?

 

[aaaaa00]

The headline is something like "30 year battery for your laptop" whichi is nonsense, because nobody would use a 30-year old laptop. But the underlying technology sounds very interesting...

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-betavoltaic-10.1.html

The question is, what kind of mAh rating does something like this have? If you don't need the longevity of 30 years, can you make a 5-year single-charge battery instead that's a whole lot smaller? Or do you need the size to get the amperage? Could it be applied to bigger (ie, more power hungry) devices such as full computers, cars or even UPS systems?

Mostly debunked here. http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10006069o-2000331777b,00.htm

 

[Rainbow Man]

A battery 100 cubic meters in size to run even a medium-powered laptop sounds rather crazy.

However surely the gas could easily be pressurized to several times atmospheric pressure, reducing its size to a mere ten or twenty cubic meters.

Surely that would go a long way to making it ideal for portable use!

Peace.

 

[Blazkowicz]

sounds useful for space probes if it's true.
how would the efficiency compare to an RTG?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

 

[Rainbow Man]

Space probes have already used this kind of tech for the better part of half a century, except they've used somewhat more space anbd weight-efficient fission products than hydrogen, such as plutonium etc I believe.

Read about this stuff a coupl,e years ago.

Ah yes.. Here we go.

Peace.