Power Without Limits: Nuclear Batteries for Robots & Drones

Mar 25, 2025

Every robotics founder eventually runs into the same enemy: the battery. 

It doesn’t matter if you’re building a warehouse robot or a high-altitude drone—your brilliant system starts a countdown the moment it powers on. 

Power is the glass ceiling for robots and drones. 

And the frustrating part?

It's not that we haven't improved batteries. Lithium-ion cells today are smaller, faster, cheaper than ever. But they still top out at 5–6 hours of runtime. That's the very reason we end up designing docks for robots and hauling extra batteries for drones. 

What if you didn’t have to recharge these batteries at all?

That’s the promise of nuclear batteries powered by Carbon-14 and Nickel-63. A drone with a flight time of 8 minutes now becomes a drone with a flight time of 80 years. A robot that normally needs charging every 6 hours could now work uninterrupted for decades. 

As I was doing this research, I realized, a few years ago, when we were building and deploying security robots across the U.S. and abroad, these batteries would’ve saved us serious time, effort, and capital. Why?

Beyond spotty network coverage and localization issues, the third major cause of outages in our fleet came down to one thing: power. Or more specifically—lack of it. When you're operating a fleet, you need a ton of electrons to charge those batteries and you often run out of them. With nuclear batteries, that will certainly not be the case anymore. 

Because nuclear batteries are no longer science fiction. They are now a reality. Beijing-based startup Betavolt Technology has developed a nuclear battery, the BV100, that’s no larger than a coin and can power a drone—or a comparable device—for 50 years without recharging.

This is made possible by modern radioactive isotopes—Carbon-14 and Nickel-63—emerging leaders of our periodic table that are redefining the future of energy for robots and drones. From innovation hubs of Shenzhen, China to engineering labs in the Ohio State university here in the U.S., these isotopes are quietly becoming some of the most valuable commodities on the modern Silk Road of innovation.

Startups building next-gen robots and drones are starting to pay close attention.

So how do nuclear batteries actually work—and how are they different from traditional ones? Let's first try to understand how traditional batteries work.

Before we continue, a friendly reminder about our initiative: Boring Sage.

Our Mission at Boring Sage

This article is part of our Boring Sage initiative founded to help early-stage professionals break into emerging tech—AI, robotics, and self-driving cars—who often lack a clear roadmap or trusted guidance.

Our courses are built on a principles-based approach and rooted in real-world applications. You’ll learn what matters in your domain, why it matters, and how to apply it. No fluff. No jargon. Learn more at boringsage.com/courses.

And if you know someone who’s serious about learning and building in tech, please share it with them. It might just be the spark they’ve been waiting for.  Now let's try to understand how traditional batteries work. 

Why Traditional Chemical Batteries Are Good... But Not Enough

At their core, all batteries exist to store and deliver energy. Traditional batteries—like the ones in your phone or car—do this by converting chemical energy into electrical energy. The process is fairly simple. These batteries have three essential components: the anode, the cathode, and the electrolyte.

The entire mission here is to move a set of electrons stored at the anode to the cathode—but not through the battery itself. The electrons travel through your device. This flow of electrons is what we call electricity—a literal “city” of electrons that powers your device.

So how do we make that happen?

Well, for starters, the electrons are stored at the anode terminal of the battery. Between the anode and cathode, we have the electrolyte—a chemical that connects them. But here’s the key: we don’t want the electrons to flow directly through the electrolyte. If they did, the current would stay inside the battery and would not be able to power your device.

So, the electrolyte acts as a barrier to electrons. It forces them to take the external path from anode to cathode through your device. That’s what powers your phone, laptop, drones, and robots.

At the same time, to balance the chemical reaction, positively charged ions are emitted during this process and flow inside the battery from the anode to the cathode through the electrolyte. So now we’ve got a complete circuit: negatively charged electrons flowing outside the battery through your device, and positively charged ions flowing inside the battery through the electrolyte. This dual flow keeps this chemical reaction balanced. Now you must be wondering so why do these batteries die?

As the battery discharges, the anode eventually runs out of electrons—they’re finite. That’s why we say the battery “died.”

Rechargeable batteries—like those in electric vehicles and laptops—work by reversing this process. When you plug them into a power source, you force the reaction to run in reverse, pushing the electrons back from the cathode to the anode and restoring the battery’s charge–electrons. 

But no matter how efficient they get, all chemical batteries share the same fundamental limitation: they eventually run out of stored energy and must be either replaced or recharged.

For robots and drones in the field, that’s not just annoying. It’s a deal-breaker.

Nuclear batteries solve this problem by taking an entirely different approach.

How Nuclear Batteries Work—From the Inside Out

Unlike traditional chemical batteries, which store and release energy through electrochemical reactions, nuclear batteries generate energy using a process called radioactive decay.

Yes, we all remember from physics class—energy can’t be created or destroyed, as declared by the thermodynamic gods. So in the case of nuclear batteries, we’re really talking about the conversion of energy—from radioactive decay i.e. radiations into electricity. 

The big questions are: What exactly is this radioactive decay process? Which elements are involved? And where do we even find them on Earth? Let's try to answer each of those questions one by one.

Nuclear-Powered Batteries & Radioactive Decay

Radioactive decay is a process that occurs at the atomic level when an unstable atom attempts to reach a more stable state. Let's simplify this further. 

So if you look around yourself, that table, chair, car, laptop , each of these objects are made up of atoms - smallest building blocks made by nature. Atoms are the building blocks of matter, and they consist of protons (positively charged particles), neutrons (neutral particles), and electrons (negatively charged particles orbiting the nucleus). For an atom to be stable, the number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus more or less need to be the same or in other words the difference should be relatively small. 

This balance between protons and neutrons in an atom’s nucleus determines whether it is stable or unstable. If an atom has too many or too few neutrons relative to its protons, it becomes unstable—meaning that, over time, it will naturally break down into a more stable form by emitting excess energy in the form of radiation. This process is called radioactive decay and the excess energy released in this process is the one that we tap into and convert into electricity. 

To simplify further, think of unstable atoms as hyperactive toddlers. Eventually, they need to calm down. And when they do, they cry, run around, and release energy. That’s the excess energy we capture and convert into electricity. The challenge here is that different atoms release different types of energy—and not all forms of these radiations are useful when it comes to nuclear batteries. So what are these types? Let’s break them down one by one.

Types of Radiation: Alpha, Beta, Gamma

When atoms decay or in simple words release this extra energy to achieve stable states, they release one of three types of radiation: alpha, beta, or gamma.

Alpha particles are heavy and slow. They can’t penetrate skin or even paper—but if ingested, they’re dangerous. That makes them a poor fit for nuclear batteries.

Beta particles, on the other hand, are smaller and faster. They can be captured more easily to generate electricity, which is why most nuclear batteries rely on beta decay. They're not entirely safe, but with proper shielding, they can be safely contained inside the battery.

Gamma rays are the most energetic of the three. They can penetrate almost anything—but they’re difficult to convert into electricity and require heavy shielding. This means, they in most cases are not used in nuclear batteries. 

One important thing to remember here is that, the kind of decay dictates how the battery works and where it can be used. On the other hand, the kind of atom used in this process dictates the kind of decay you can expect. So now you must be wondering: how do we know how long a typical nuclear battery will last, given a specific element or isotope is being used in this process?

Nuclear Battery : Lifetime & Elements

Nuclear batteries work by harnessing the energy released from radioactive decay.

But here’s the key: radioactive decay isn't a random process—it follows strict probability laws. In simple words, the way an atom splits into half and releases the excess energy—radiation—follows statistical laws. Every radioactive isotope has a "half-life"—the time it takes for half of its atoms to decay. Some decay in seconds. Others take centuries.

Tritium has a half-life of 12 years and powers small betavoltaic cells. Plutonium-238, with an 87-year half-life, has powered space missions. Americium-241 lasts 432 years and is being explored for ultra-long-duration use cases. Because the process–radioactive decay– is spontaneous and can’t be turned off easily, nuclear batteries are incredibly reliable. Once they start, they provide a perennial flow of energy. 

Now you’re probably wondering—how is all that energy converted into electricity?

How Do Nuclear Batteries Generate Electricity?

There are two main ways to convert excess energy or to be precise radioactive energy into electricity: betavoltaic and thermoelectric conversion.

Betavoltaic batteries work like solar panels—but instead of capturing sunlight (photons from sun), they capture beta particles from decaying isotopes. These high-energy particles hit a semiconductor material placed inside the battery—similar to the silicon used in solar cells. This material is specially designed to absorb that energy and release electrons in response. 

So, when beta particles strike the semiconductor located inside these batteries, they knock electrons loose, generating a small electric current. The power output is modest (usually in microwatts), but the lifespan can stretch for decades, even longer. These types of nuclear cells are, therefore, a good fit for sensors and drones.

Thermoelectric batteries, on the other hand, convert the heat from radioactive decay into electricity using the Seebeck effect. This effect essentially refers to the generation of voltage caused by temperature difference between two materials used in the battery. These are the engines behind NASA’s RTGs (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators), powering deep-space missions like Voyager and the Mars rovers. They produce more power than betavoltaics but are still limited in their overall scale–longevity.

The trade-off is always the same: longevity vs. power. You can have one, but not both. At least—not yet.

But knowing how they work is only part of the story. The real question is: who’s actually building these batteries today—and where can you get one?

Who’s Building These—and Where Can You Get One?

They’re certainly not available on Amazon or eBay—at least not yet. That said, both here in the U.S. and on the other side of the planet, Carbon-14 and Nickel-63 are becoming increasingly familiar names.

In China, researchers recently developed Zhulong-1, a Carbon-14–based nuclear battery designed to last a century. It uses a silicon-carbide semiconductor and delivers 10x the energy density of lithium-ion batteries. This thing is wild—it can operate in extreme temperatures ranging from -100°C to 200°C. A test LED powered by it ran nonstop for four months.

Meanwhile, Ohio State University took a different approach. Their prototype uses nuclear waste—not to emit radiation directly in the environment, but to excite scintillator crystals, which then emit light—more precisely, photons. This stream of photons is then converted into electricity by using solar cells. These are also known as nuclear photovoltaic batteries. 

It's important to note that the radiation in this case stays sealed inside the battery. No direct emissions, just photons. It’s a clever, controlled design—and a serious step forward for using nuclear batteries in sensitive environments.

Similarly, City Labs in Florida is commercializing tritium-based cells with lifespans of over 20 years. Betavolt in China is developing coin-sized batteries powered by Nickel-63, expected to last 50 years. Soochow University is exploring ultra-efficient americium–terbium combinations.

If you're building robots, drones, or edge devices that need to operate for years without human intervention, this shift in how we power them is nothing short of galactic.

Why Lithium May Not Be the Future

If you’re building robots or drones, lithium-ion batteries are both your foundation—and your ceiling. You spend more time thinking about battery swaps, charging docks, and weight limits than on the product itself. We did the same as we were launching security robots in the U.S. and abroad.

Nuclear batteries will now change the narrative. 

No recharging bottlenecks. No battery management systems. No downtime.

It changes how you design hardware.

It changes your business model.

It changes how you think about your users and use-cases.

The only real question: will you be early or late to adopt?

Yes, there are concerns—regulatory barriers, cost, and public perception all stand in the way. Handling radioactive material requires strict licensing and oversight. But the upside is exponential—and it’s an opportunity that deserves serious attention.

Some of you might say that building nuclear batteries means capturing the same kind of energy that powers our stars—and safely containing it into a device as small as a coin. Agreed. That’s hard.

But these are problems that can be solved. And the teams addressing these challenges are moving fast.

What Founders Should Watch For

Power is still the bottleneck for robots and drones.

The idea of a 100-year battery isn’t just appealing—it’s transformative. It opens the door to products and solutions that simply aren’t possible today. Imagine drones and robots operating autonomously in disaster zones or remote regions for weeks—without a single recharge or human touch. Environmental sensors deployed once and left for decades, quietly tracking emissions in the most inaccessible corners of the planet.

Yes, commercialization is still in its early days. But watch three things closely: form factor, cost curves, and safety profiles. All three are moving in the right direction.

The real opportunity for robotics founders isn't just in adopting nuclear batteries—but in building the first breakthrough applications around them.

Because if power defines the limits of robotics—nuclear batteries could be what finally erases those limits for good.

If this essay got you thinking, you’ll probably like what we’re building at Boring Sage.

Our Mission

Boring Sage is an initiative to help those who want to build a career in emerging technologies—fields like AI, robotics, and self-driving cars—but lack a clear roadmap, right resources, or clear guidance.  We help early-stage professionals and serious learners cut through the noise and approach these fields with clarity and confidence.

Our courses are built on a principles-based approach and rooted in real-world applications. You’ll learn what matters in your domain, why it matters, and how to apply it.  Right now, we’re offering courses on self-driving cars, AI, and computer networks.

You can learn more at boringsage.com/courses.

If you know someone who could benefit from this initiative, we’d be grateful if you shared it with them.

Cheers,

Prathamesh

Disclaimer: This blog is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, business, or legal advice. The experiences shared are based on past events. All opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views of any mentioned companies. Readers are solely responsible for conducting their own due diligence and should seek professional legal or financial advice tailored to their specific circumstances. The author and publisher make no representations or warranties regarding the accuracy of the content and expressly disclaim any liability for decisions made or actions taken based on this blog.