
Ask HN: What is the smallest practical nuclear battery for a quadcopter? - ThaddeusQuay2
There has been much recent work in quadcopters, self-assembling bees, and other types of small flying machines which require lightweight, long-lived power supplies. There is apparently no ready, tested, practical example of such a supply. "Nuclear" always comes to mind when considering lifespan, but "lightweight" does not usually come to mind when considering nuclear. I've read about atomic batteries, but have not found any good discussion of just how small they could be made, yet still be able to power our newest and  smallest flying machines for long periods.
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ORioN63
Well, pacemakers already use nuclear material due to it's long lived nature
and it's stability.

Unfortunately, that's nuclear's only strength with something so small.
Chemical batteries are much more cost effective, lighter and much more
powerful(power-wise) than RTG's.

Also, for most things, including quadcopters, use of radioactive-material, not
only is a risk, is a major waste. Most technology, in these days, appear to
last 5 years(if you're lucky). Having batteries, that outlasts what it powers
by magnitudes of time, is just not sane.

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ThaddeusQuay2
Waste can be mitigated by designing the power supplies in the form of
interchangeable packs, which can be moved from one generation of flying
machine to the next. Risk can be mitigated with good design principles,
overall, and advances usually aren't made by people who are afraid of handling
risk. That only leaves performance as the real issue. If my quadcopter's
chemical battery allows for 1 hour of flight with a load of 1 pound, then how
do I increase the time or the load by a significant factor, when required?
Unless there is some major breakthrough in chemical batteries, it seems that
nuclear is the only real option here. Therefore: Can we build, using today's
technology, a nuclear battery (or even a reactor) which can power quadcopters
and mechanical bees [1]?

I use the combined example of quadcopters and bees because, perceptually, they
appear to be on the same physical level (as opposed to a rock versus a
molecule, for instance), but they require very different design decisions as
to how they are powered. Chemical processes used for a quadcopter won't easily
translate to a bee (unless we are using something exotic, such as ATP
manipulated by nanotech), whereas nuclear processes could easily transition
between the scales occupied by the quadcopter and the bee.

NOTE TO SELF: Write a children's technology coloring book called "The
Quadcopter and the Bee", and after some initial success, turn it into a series
of eyewatering, yet thought-inducing, books and movies, thus making lots of
money, which would in turn be used for your "Nuclear Batteries Are Us"
startup.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3606394>

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ORioN63
The good old Power vs Weight problem :P.

The main problem with nuclear is that it doesn't give enough energy, when you
want something so small.

I believe the best bet to power both the quadcopter and the bee are
microwaves, in another words, wireless energy. There has been some
concepts(some of them were even materialized), of RC toys, being powered like
that. It will limit their range, but it will gain so much.

But who I am to predict the future? Maybe nuclear will be the way to go :P

