On Mon, 10 Dec 2018 23:43:14 -0000, Rod Speed wrote:



"Bruce Farquhar" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 10 Dec 2018 20:30:34 -0000, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Bruce Farquhar" wrote in message
news On Mon, 10 Dec 2018 18:48:55 -0000, Tim J wrote:



"Tim Streater" wrote in message
.. .
In article , Bruce Farquhar
wrote:

On Mon, 10 Dec 2018 09:22:20 -0000, Tim Streater

wrote:

In article , Bruce Farquhar
wrote:

On Sun, 09 Dec 2018 21:40:03 -0000, Rod Speed

wrote:

Bruce Farquhar wrote

A thermocouple produces enough to power a spacecraft?!?

It isnt a single thermocouple, it's a thermopile.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermopile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_space

Or just for some small electronics?

Not small at all.

Why are these not used on earth?

Probably not that cheap, once you've made the Pu-238.

Whatever happened to those AA nuclear batteries? I assume
they worked the same.

What on earth are you talking about?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_battery

Not wanting to read the entire article, apart from space are we using
any
now?

Don't think so.

And eeek! Pacemakers! Don't think I like that idea.

Might be preferable to repeated surgery to change the battery tho.

Can't they charge it magnetically like with electric toothbrushes?

They can now, but didn't then.

I'm sure people with pacemakers never recharge them? Or at least only every several years, so they can't be using that much power.

Or have some kind of recharger like watches that use wrist movement (oo
er) to charge the battery?

Doesn't produce enough power for a pacemaker.
They need rather more power than a watch does.

But presumably you can put a much bigger generator inside a human body than inside a watch.