"Nuclear" battery with six orders of magnitude better power density?

[Norbert]

Am I reading this correctly? Six orders of magnitude?

Researchers create smaller and more efficient nuclear battery

Why would it be the most important thing to make it "thinner than the thickness of human hair", when the whole world needs better batteries which can be used for EV's?

[ra-san]

Medical implants, very small scale robotics and similar embedded devices.

[Norbert]

Medical implants, very small scale robotics and similar embedded devices.

Usually it is better for a technology if it can be used in as many applications as possible, and a more general use benefits each individual application. The article already mentions that such batteries, in general, are not only used for "pace-makers", but also for "space satellites and underwater systems".

Since the claim is that the batteries are safe, and smaller batteries are desirable in almost any application, I think a sentence or two are missing, which would explain why reducing the size, specifically to below that of an hair, is the only objective the researcher seems to consider worthwhile.

Meanwhile I was reading elsewhere that these batteries would be too expensive to be used (for example) in cars, due to the scarceness of the material. But then, maybe it should not be used for "underwater systems" either, or even be reserved for medical applications.

[edo]

The thing about nuclear batteries to date is that the best ones only use about 8% of the energy and the rest is given off as heat (hopefully, given the alternative!!)

So with a 185kW peak demand, you would need to find a way to dump 2MW!