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submitted 9 months ago by haxor@derp.foo to c/hackernews@derp.foo

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[-] Coreidan@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

And when something goes wrong you and your family get to die from radiation exposure. But it’s OK because they told us it’s “perfectly safe”.

[-] lauha@lemmy.one 6 points 9 months ago

I agree. Just like pens are safe until someone stabs you with it.

And pillows are perfectly safe until you get suffocated by one.

And ~~water is perfectly...~~

What's your point?

[-] ForgetPrimacy@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 9 months ago

These aren't nuclear reactors. This isn't a miniaturized Chernobyl in your pocket, a delicate balance between control rods and radioactive material maintaining the right proximity to critical mass. This is a rock that's (metaphorically) kinda warm and takes some decades to become noticably "cooler" and we can use that temperature differential to power tiny devices (and we have used these devices continuously since the 70s)

The thing that nuclear reactors (and weapons) use is the chain reaction of certain radioactive materials whereby the decay of atoms can be triggered by the decay of a previous atom. That is not the mechanism nuclear batteries use and they in fact are incapable of that chain reaction; the radioactive materials that nuclear batteries are made of don't work the same way as the special isotopes of uranium or plutonium.

this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
9 points (71.4% liked)

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