Nuclear Batteries Could Bring Power to Space and the Ocean Floor
- Nuclear batteries offer a power source that can last for decades, utilizing radioactive materials and their decay to generate energy, making them ideal for remote and extreme environments.
- Both the United States and China are at the forefront of developing these nuclear battery technologies, with companies like Zeno Power and Betavolt producing advanced models for various applications.
- The potential applications of nuclear batteries range from powering space missions and oceanographic equipment to potentially enabling consumer electronics that require charging much less frequently.
"With great power competition rising, the ocean floor, Arctic, and lunar surface are becoming the front lines of global security and economic progress — but they remain energy deserts," says Tyler Bernstein, the Chief Executive Officer of a venture-backed nuclear battery startup called Zeno Power. Zeno Power just received $50 million in Series B funding to continue its work to develop nuclear batteries for extreme environments. “With this round of funding, we’re on track to demonstrate full-scale systems in 2026 and deliver the first commercially built nuclear batteries to power frontier environments by 2027,” Bernstein continued.
Nuclear batteries hold immense potential for frontier innovations because they can last for decades, or even a century, without needing a charge. The way that the battery powers itself is through capturing the particles emitted by radioactive materials as they decay, and harness their energy. Since these radioactive materials – such as Strontium-90, Nickel-63, and Carbon-14 – have lengthy half-lives, these batteries have enormous potential for longevity.
Zeno Power’s investing tractio is just the latest development in a long legacy of nuclear battery experimentation in the United States. The U.S. government began experimenting with nuclear batteries way back in the 1950s through NASA, and the nation led the global research and development charge for 70 years. But now, the United States is quickly being overtaken by China.
While Zeno Power is closer to getting its batteries off the ground, Chinese labs are already producing them. Early last year, China-based nuclear battery company Betavolt rolled out a tiny, coin-sized nuclear battery named BV100 with an estimated half-century lifespan thanks to its use of Nickel-63. “But this battery isn’t just a lab innovation,” reports Popular Mechanics. “It’s already being mass produced, with the intention to power technologies ranging from medical and aerospace devices to future smartphones.”
Betavolt’s technology differs from that of “traditional” (for lack of a better term) nuclear batteries. Rather than using a thermoelectric method, like NASA’s models, Betvolt’s “betavoltaic batteries” use a radioactive emitter and semiconductor absorber which is specifically designed to capture beta particles – the electrons and positrons that are emitted by the decaying Nickel-63. While this process produces less power than NASA’s thermoelectric method, their power production is reliable and incredibly long-lasting, with potential to endure a century or even longer.
Another team of researchers in China has been working on another nuclear battery with a 100-year lifespan based on Carbon-14. However, Carbon-14 is much more rare than Nickel-63, suggesting that Betavolt’s technology will be more scalable. In both cases, China seems to have enough supplies of these isotopes to make the research and development of these technologies worthwhile. “Mimicking its photovoltaic playbook for solar energy, China is building the entire supply chain for these devices within its own borders,” Popular Mechanics reports.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Zeno Power has “locked in a strontium-90 fuel supply” from the U.S. Department of Energy, and boasts contracts with the Department of Defense and NASA, totalling tens of millions of dollars according to reporting from Axios. The company is also collaborating with the commercial space sector, and is working with the lunar robotics company iSpace-U.S. to “develop nuclear-powered systems that can survive the extreme cold of the lunar night” according to Space News.
“Nuclear energy is having a renaissance, and Zeno is at the forefront of bringing it to places no other energy can reliably go,” said Lior Prosor, partner at Hanaco Ventures, one of Zeno’s key funders. “Zeno’s nuclear batteries will have an immediate impact in defense and space, and long-term potential to transform how energy is delivered in remote and distributed environments.”
The potential for scaling these technologies range from the high-minded (think outer space and the ocean floor) but could also lead to more practical day-to-day innovations like a cell phone that never needs to be charged. The disruptive potential is enormous and constantly evolving. Together, the United States and China are the clear frontrunners in the nuclear battery battle, but some European nations and South Korea are also making headway on their own models.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
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