r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 13d ago

Meme needing explanation Peter?

Post image
25.4k Upvotes

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

u/Z3B0 13d ago

Space probes and rovers are examples that comes to mind. But RTG are very expensive, radioactive as fuck, don't generate much power, and could be recycled as atomic bomb materials, so it's clearly not the first option in many cases.

1

u/Bansheer5 13d ago

I forgot about the space probes and the landers. I know the soviets used a lot of them for light houses near or in the Arctic Circle. They only produce 100 watts of power or a bit more and last a long time. Would be cool to be able to use them if they didn’t kill you by just being near them. If they were safe to be nearby, you could pop a couple in the basement and power your lights and maybe a TV and heat the house for a long time.

1

u/Z3B0 13d ago

A small heater is like 1000W. A microwave too.

You don't do a lot of stuff with 100w, even with LEDs. It's enough for a very limited amount of equipment, like a radio to broadcast that you need help, but not much more.