"1 Watt Nuclear Generator - Free Energy "

[george graves]

Growing up, I had one of those slot car racing tracking.  And you could run it at night, cause part of the tracks would "glow in the dark" - and so would the cars.  Cool....



But the odd thing my dad noticed, is it would glow even without being exposed to light.  Yep - it was radioactive, and with some kind of florescent plastic material mix in with it.

So I found this video funny.  In the way of "what was old is new again" - someone on ebay is selling "Tritium illumination keychain flashlights".  If I understand correctly, they are more "glow in the dark key fobs" But the pic looks way brighter then anything I remember from my youth.



Anways, of the little I know about radiation,  Tritium only spits out alpha particles - harmless electrons?  No?

Anyways, here's the video - guy thinks he's getting 1 watt out of it.  LOL - silly youtubers.

[ElektroQuark]

Electrons are beta particles.
Alpha particles are composed of two protons plus two neutrons.

[cyr]

I have a tritium keychain thingie, glows *very* faint. Just enough to locate my keys in a dark room.

[rsjsouza]

If wikipedia is to be trusted (and its reference):

"Beta particles from tritium can penetrate only about 6.0 mm of air, and they are incapable of passing through the dead outermost layer of human skin.[2]"

[daqq]

Anways, of the little I know about radiation,  Tritium only spits out alpha particles - harmless electrons?  No?

Alpha are helium particles, and harmless is relative - yup, they won't get through skin, but if you inhale/eat/otherwise get an alpha emitter into you, you're not gonna like the results. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium#Well-known_poisoning_cases

If I understand correctly, they are more "glow in the dark key fobs" But the pic looks way brighter then anything I remember from my youth.

How old are you? There were quite more powerful radioactive things in ye olde dayes, when very little care was given about radiation. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls

Also, radium used to be used for this kind of stuff, not tritium. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_dials

[Psi]

and have a read of the radioactive boy scout, if by some fluke you missed it
http://harpers.org/archive/1998/11/the-radioactive-boy-scout/

[Ian.M]

Its a troll:
Youtube description

Published on Apr 1, 2015

An update on the progress of using tritium keychains to generate electrical power. Lighting a single LED with max output of 1 Watt.

NOTE the publication date!

[PeterFW]

Anyways, here's the video - guy thinks he's getting 1 watt out of it.  LOL - silly youtubers.

You might want to check you calendar for the current date...

[george graves]

Sadly no.  According to him, he's serious.

[Ian.M]

The video is clearly faked.  You cant get power out of a coil of wire unless there is a varying or moving magnetic field involved.  Tritium is an isotope of hydrogen that decays to He-3 by emitting a low energy Beta particle (a fast moving electron).   The electrons are emitted in essentially random directions and stopped by the phosphor so there is no net flow of current outside the gas ampule and certainly no macroscopic varying magnetic field.

Notice how he never puts the coil straight over the ampule, its always tilted towards the plane of the table top. He also never moves the ampule through the coil, its always the coil that he moves. I suspect that's because he has a small coil under the table cloth energised at the self-resonant frequency of his LED coil and he's holding the ampule directly over it so all we are seeing is near-field electromagnetic coupling.

[dexters_lab]

just looks like an april fools to me, might have been more plausible though if he had just converted the light with a solar cell.

as for tritium itself, it's fine if it's kept within the lead glass envelope. If it's broken, dispersal is the best way to deal with it... i would just open windows etc.

[Alex Eisenhut]

Is it 1973 again?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betacel



Yeah, he had an atomic battery, type AED-4, in his arm.

[PeterFW]

Well... the first atomic batteries (RTG) were implanted into living humans around the same time. That part is not fiction

It might be that people are still alive and walking around with one of these nulcear powered batteries inside them.

But since we are running out of plutonium 238, these types of batteries will soon be no more.

[Dataforensics]

I have a couple of betalight (tritium) military lights. They are bright enough to read maps in total darkness and act as indicators, but no use beyond a few cm. Also my Traser watch uses tiny vials of the stuff on its hands and hour markers. The most handy thing being the life. The manufacturers claim at least ten years to half brightness. My map readers are twenty years old and still glow. They are really expensive though and I only got mine during a closing sale.
Here is a modern supplier.
http://www.militarysystems-tech.com/suppliers/betalight-self-luminous-gaseous-tritium-light-sources/betalight-bv

Tony

[BlueBill]

Stebe Awesome, the ironic man. 

[Artlav]

I got one of these:
http://www.inovatech.co.uk/shop/Tritium-Variable-Brightness-Torch.html

It's about as bright as a green LED powered from a 3V coin battery through a (EDIT) 100 Kohm resistor.
Bright enough to read by.

However, it's not much power at all.
I heard of some guys making a diamond-based "beta solar cells" that can convert beta radiation from tritium directly to electricity, and even they mentioned nanowatts, not full watts.

[SeanB]

I like the 50m range, I suppose that is only obtainable by the placement of the unit in a coal mine deep gallery on a dark moonless overcast night, and then walking away with night adapted eyes till you no longer can see the light source.

[Alex Eisenhut]

Stebe Awesome, the ironic man. 

[Alex Eisenhut]

Well... the first atomic batteries (RTG) were implanted into living humans around the same time. That part is not fiction

It might be that people are still alive and walking around with one of these nulcear powered batteries inside them.

But since we are running out of plutonium 238, these types of batteries will soon be no more.

They weren't RTG. Betacel.

[PeterFW]

They weren't RTG. Betacel.

Well... i know the difference, i checked about the date before posting.
The article said RTG, but yes, betacell makes more sense.
I claim no responsibility for this mistake

[Artlav]

It's about as bright as a green LED powered from a 3V coin battery through a 1Mohm resistor.

Correction - a 100 Kohm resistor.