Generating Energy with Plutonium: 2kW Requirement

[Numeriprimi]

I don't know a lot of about radioactive decay of particles, but I have a crazy question. Theoretically - plutonium 237 has a warm effect. I get a heat energy when I catch it through lead. How much plutonium I need to some power (eg electrical device - 2kW)? What do you think?

Thanks and sorry for my bad English.

 

[Drakkith]

You're talking about something similar to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

Several have been used on various space probes. But they have used Plutonium-238 instead of 237. P-238 has a half life of over 80 years, almost idea for space missions. However P-237 only has a half life of around 45 days, which means that while it would put out far more power, you simply aren't going to be able to make enough of it for any power generation purpose. That's also an important thing to consider. Plutonium isn't naturally abundant. All of it is made artificially.

From here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPHS-RTG

The GPHS-RTG has an overall diameter of 0.422 m and a length of 1.14 m.[1] Each GPHS-RTG has a mass of about 57 kg and generates about 300 Watts of electrical power at the start of mission (5.2 We/Kg), using about 7.8 kg of Pu-238 which produces about 4,400 Watts of thermal power.[2] The plutonium oxide fuel is in 18 GPHSs. Note that the GPHS are cuboid although they contain cylindrical plutonium based pellets.

Note that RTG's are very inefficient, and only 300 watts of electrical power are generated from the 4,400 watts of thermal power.

 

[Numeriprimi]

Hmmm, interesting, thanks :-)
And how to determine the power (P) of plutonium?(without loss)

 

[DrDu]

Take the energy freed in one decay, e.g. from the isotopes list in
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium
and calculate the activity of the given amount N (in atoms) of the Pu isotope from the half-life
$A=N/t_{1/2} \cdot \ln 2$
and multiply the two to obtain the power.

 

[DrDu]

Btw, the sowiet marine has used Strontium-89 based SNAPs (systems for nuclear auxiliary power) to power light houses and these are now rotting around all over the former SU posing a major thread for nuclear terrorism.

 

[Numeriprimi]

Hmmm, this is a general formula? Is any intelligible page where is more about the formula?

 

[DrDu]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activity_(radioactivity)