/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Ok here's my idea. You get a metal vacuum chamber like this, with an insulating pillar going into the middle. Down the middle of the pillar is a wire. On the pillar is held a piece of beta emitting isotope, especially nuclear waste like Strontium 90. The half life of this isotope is 28.8 years and the molar mass is 89.9g/mol. So for 1g of the stuff you'd start off getting 5.11E12 decays per second. Each electron emitted has an energy of 546keV so you'd get 2.79E18 eV/s, which is equal to 13W. Constantly, for a single gram, for decades. A kilogram could power a few houses. That assumes 100% efficiency of energy capture. Ideally, the electrons would charge up the outer shell to 546kV, so each electron that follows converts all of its kinetic energy into potential energy as it moves against the electrostatic field, preventing the heat buildup that makes RTGs so inefficient.

Also don't inspect gauss's law too closely.