Russian scientists have created a high-power atomic battery

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Okay! I'll look into this Russkie Pocket Nuke!

A diagram of the structure of the new nuclear battery prototype V. Bormashov et al./Diamond and Related Materials


The prototype of the new nuclear battery Technological Institute for Superhard and Novel Carbon Materials

Imagine only replacing the batteries in a device once a decade, or even once a century. Nuclear batteries could one day let us do just that, but their power density is currently too low to be very practical. Now, Russian researchers have developed a new nuclear battery design based on nickel-63, which has a higher specific energy than regular, commercially-available batteries.
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There are Lighthouses located at the Artic?

It is a team of scientists at the former nuclear weapon production site in Zheleznogorsk in Siberia that heads the project aimed at producing batteries generating electricity from a Nickel-63 (Ni-63) source, reports RIA Novosti.

Ni-63 can only be produced from natural existing Ni-62 in a reactor followed by enrichment in gas centrifuges.

The Siberian Mining and Chemical Combine in Zeleznogorsk (formerly Krasnoyarsk-26) together with the Electrochemical Plant in the same town will produce the radioactive isotope.
With a half-life of 100 years, the isotope will function as a good power source for at least 50 years.

That makes it suitable for providing electricity to sensors, monitors and other equipment located in hard to reach locations and under extreme conditions.

Like in the Arctic, according to the manufactures.
“These batteries will be useful for the operations of electrical equipment, including for developments of projects in the Arctic, as well as for space operations and robotics,” RIA Novosti reports.

Nuclear lighthouses
Nuclear batteries are nothing new. During Soviet times, around 1,000 so-called RTGs (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) were used to produce electricity for installations in remote areas, like lighthouses on the coast and radio transmitters in mountain areas. 

Those RTGs had a Strontium-90 (Sr-90) source from where the heat operated a generator providing the electricity.

Sr-90 is both a highly radioactive source and deadly toxic. There where several examples of lost RTGs and Sr-90 sources in unsafe conditions used at lighthouses in the Arctic.

Therefore, Norway together with Russian authorities teamed up and started to replace such radioactive batteries with solar panels on the lighthouses. 180 Sr-90 batteries were collected from the shores of the Barents- White- and Kara Seas on Russia’s northwestern corner.

All financed in partnership with Norway’s Action plan on nuclear safety.
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