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Frame from EEVblog #1333 - Nuclear Diamond Self-Charging Battery DEBUNKED! Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

EEVblog #1333 - Nuclear Diamond Self-Charging Battery DEBUNKED!

14 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
Cited on HN 9 times, 2020–2024, never outright recommended score 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Repeatedly linked under hype stories about nuclear diamond batteries as the definitive debunk.

Dave Jones of EEVblog debunks the marketing claims of the self-charging nano nuclear diamond battery from NDB Inc. He argues it is no better than existing 100uW betavoltaic batteries, with an added graphene supercapacitor.

“eevblog had a good video about this product” (HN, 2020)

9 critical · Commentary · intermediate · news from the time

9 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@gus_massa Sep 2020 Pushes back
on HN thread Scientists turn nuclear waste into diamond batteries
It is not clear that they have a real working prototype. The current is very low, only 100uW, and there are similar batteries made with tritium. More info in a video by EEVblog eevblog had a good video about this product: [this video] Also, there is a calculation of the low the maximal current per kilogram in [link]
@colejohnson66 Feb 2021 Pushes back
on HN thread Hybrid supercapacitor offers NiMH energy density, charges much faster
To add to the sample size of n=1, a few months ago, there were many articles about “nano diamond” batteries that will supposedly solve the radioactive waste problem. Dave Jones of EEVBlog debunked it pretty quickly: [this video] Basically, every few months, a company comes out with claims that battery tech or e-waste has been revolutionized , but it’s always a bunch of bunk claims made using a multitude of weasel words.
@gus_massa Apr 2021 Pushes back
on HN thread Diamond battery powered by nuclear waste runs for 28,000 years
It is not clear that they have a real working prototype. The current is very low, only 100uW, and there are similar batteries made with tritium. More info in a video by EEVblog eevblog had a good video about this product: [this video] (it's old, but I can't find any evidence of improvements.) Also, there is a calculation of the low the maximal current per kilogram in [link]
@mikewarot Apr 2021 Pushes back
on HN thread Ask HN: What under-the-radar technology are you excited about?
Why are you interested in this? If it is for anything other than very LOW power (microwatts), you're going to be disappointed. It is essentially a beta emitter hooked to a capacitor via some electronics to handle voltage conversion. The thing is the beta source is use it or lose it, and very low power. If you scaled this up to power a Tesla, it would be a nightmare, as it would need to dissipate the full power the car requires, all the time, or it would melt down (aka Fukashima) For a longer debunk - [this video]
@gus_massa Apr 2022 Pushes back
on HN thread Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries
It was heavily discussed a few years ago, for example in [link] They last for a log time, but the important detail is that they have very low power, like 1mW with the size factor of a normal battery, so you need like a dozen for a (old) wrist watch and s few hundred to turn on a led. More details in: [link] [this video] (EEVblog)

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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