{"id":35779,"date":"2026-08-10T04:18:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T23:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=35779"},"modified":"2026-08-10T04:18:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T23:18:35","slug":"america-is-building-seabed-batteries-that-charge-drone-submarines-and-keep-throwing-off-heat-for-28-8-years-without-a-cable-or-a-support-ship-fuelled-by-a-generator-the-energy-department-has-had-in-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=35779","title":{"rendered":"America is building seabed batteries that charge drone submarines and keep throwing off heat for 28.8 years without a cable or a support ship, fuelled by a generator the Energy Department has had in a store at Oak Ridge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div xmlns:default=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\">\n<aside role=\"complementary\" data-nosnippet=\"\">\n<div class=\"us-box-resumen\" data-us-box-unified=\"us-res-16544\" role=\"complementary\" aria-label=\"The Box\">\n<p><button type=\"button\" class=\"an-box-tab an-box-tab-on\" data-tab=\"claves\" role=\"tab\" aria-selected=\"true\">Keys<\/button><button type=\"button\" class=\"an-box-tab\" data-tab=\"preguntas\" role=\"tab\" aria-selected=\"false\">Questions<span class=\"an-box-tab-ct\">4<\/span><\/button><button type=\"button\" class=\"an-box-tab\" data-tab=\"tercera\" role=\"tab\" aria-selected=\"false\">Explore<span class=\"an-box-tab-ct\">4<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<div class=\"an-box-pane an-box-pane-on\" data-pane=\"claves\">\n<div class=\"us-box-carousel-vp\">\n<div class=\"us-box-carousel-tk\" data-us-carousel=\"us-res-16544\">\n<div class=\"us-box-carousel-cd us-box-cd-on\">\n<p>America is quietly building a network of nuclear-powered nodes on the ocean floor that can charge drone submarines for nearly three decades \u2014 no cables, no support ships, no resupply runs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"us-box-carousel-cd\">\n<p>The fuel source is strontium-90, one of the most notorious radioactive byproducts of the nuclear age, and the Pentagon is betting it can turn a decades-old waste storage headache into a strategic underwater power grid before China finishes wiring the Pacific.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"us-box-carousel-cd\">\n<p>Zeno Power just took physical possession of the hot cells needed to actually build this thing, which means the project crossed a line that separates a defense contract from a real weapon system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"us-box-carousel-cd\">\n<p>If it works, it rewrites the operational math for every autonomous underwater vehicle the U.S. Navy deploys \u2014 and the blueprint has been sitting in a Department of Energy archive since 1961.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><button class=\"us-box-carousel-cta\" data-question=\"What matters most?\" onclick=\"usBoxPill(this)\" type=\"button\">Ask The Box \u2192<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"an-box-pane an-box-pane-preguntas\" data-pane=\"preguntas\" hidden=\"\">\n<p>Ask <b>The Box<\/b>:<\/p>\n<p><button type=\"button\" class=\"an-box-preg-pill\" data-question=\"Summarize the article &quot;America is building seabed batteries that charge drone submarines and keep throwing off heat for 28.8 years without a cable or a support ship, fuelled by a generator the Energy Department has had in a store at Oak Ridge&quot;\" onclick=\"usBoxPill(this)\">Summarize<\/button><button type=\"button\" class=\"an-box-preg-pill\" data-question=\"Give me context on: America is building seabed batteries that charge drone submarines and keep throwing off heat for 28.8 years without a cable or a support ship, fuelled by a generator the Energy Department has had in a store at Oak Ridge\" onclick=\"usBoxPill(this)\">Context<\/button><button type=\"button\" class=\"an-box-preg-pill\" data-question=\"What are the implications of: America is building seabed batteries that charge drone submarines and keep throwing off heat for 28.8 years without a cable or a support ship, fuelled by a generator the Energy Department has had in a store at Oak Ridge?\" onclick=\"usBoxPill(this)\">What does it mean?<\/button><button type=\"button\" class=\"an-box-preg-pill\" data-question=\"Related articles\" onclick=\"usBoxPill(this)\">Related<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"an-box-pane an-box-pane-descubre\" data-pane=\"tercera\" hidden=\"\">\n<div class=\"an-box-ds\"><a class=\"an-box-ds-row\" href=\"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/reactor-module-lift-paperwork-bottleneck\/\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"an-box-ds-body\">\n<p>Energy<\/p>\n<p>A crane set a 2.2-million-pound module five storeys tall into a Georgia reactor in a single lift, and America is now planning as many as 91 more of those reactors, held up not by cranes or concrete but by the few people qualified to sign the paperwork<\/p>\n<p>3 hours<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a class=\"an-box-ds-row\" href=\"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/bristol-channel-caissons-tidal-wall\/\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"an-box-ds-body\">\n<p>Energy<\/p>\n<p>A 14-mile wall of 206 concrete boxes would be cast in dock, towed into the Bristol Channel and sunk onto the seabed to trap 30 square miles of sea behind 125 turbines, and four times a day the whole thing would stop generating<\/p>\n<p>6 hours<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a class=\"an-box-ds-row\" href=\"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/oregon-solar-panels-elk-corridor\/\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"an-box-ds-body\">\n<p>Energy<\/p>\n<p>Oregon approved 406,000 solar panels on 1,560 acres of forest land and made the developer leave a 600-foot gap in the middle with no fence and no panels in it so deer and elk can still reach their water, and nobody has ever built one to find out if it works<\/p>\n<p>8 hours<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a class=\"an-box-ds-row\" href=\"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/german-machine-radioactive-drums-salt-mine\/\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"an-box-ds-body\">\n<p>Energy<\/p>\n<p>A German crew built a remote-controlled excavator to pull 126,000 corroding drums of nuclear waste out of a collapsing salt mine, and the machine now sits on the surface until 2039, because the shaft big enough to lower it down has not been dug yet<\/p>\n<p>24 hours<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"us-box-disclaimer\" role=\"note\"><default:svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 16\" fill=\"currentColor\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><default:path d=\"M8 1a7 7 0 100 14A7 7 0 008 1zm-.75 4a.75.75 0 011.5 0v3.5a.75.75 0 01-1.5 0V5zm.75 6.5a.75.75 0 100-1.5.75.75 0 000 1.5z\"\/><\/default:svg><span>AI-generated summary from reviews, comparisons and articles by AutoNotion<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Strontium-90 has never had a good reputation, and it earned all of it. The isotope is a fission product, it turns up in spent fuel and at cleanup sites, and when it gets inside a body it heads straight for bone. Keeping it sitting still has been a line item on the <span class=\"an-entity\" data-entity-slug=\"department-of-energy\" data-entity-name=\"Department of Energy\" data-entity-type=\"brand\" role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\">Department of Energy<\/span>\u2019s books for decades.<\/p>\n<p>The <span class=\"an-entity\" data-entity-slug=\"pentagon\" data-entity-name=\"Pentagon\" data-entity-type=\"brand\" role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\">Pentagon<\/span> would now like some of it on the ocean floor, and not as a disposal problem. The plan is to run seafloor sensors off it, and further out, charging stations for underwater drones.<\/p>\n<p>That is not marketing language. It is the written objective of a Defense Department program called <span class=\"an-entity\" data-entity-slug=\"depths\" data-entity-name=\"DEPTHS\" data-entity-type=\"competition\" role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\">DEPTHS<\/span>, and the company holding the contract is <span class=\"an-entity\" data-entity-slug=\"zeno-power\" data-entity-name=\"Zeno Power\" data-entity-type=\"brand\" role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\">Zeno Power<\/span>, a startup split between Washington, D.C. and Seattle. Nothing has been switched on at the bottom of the ocean yet. But in June the company took possession of a set of hot cells in California, which is the part of this story that stopped being theoretical.<\/p>\n<h2>The contract is small, the job description is not<\/h2>\n<p>DEPTHS stands for Distributed Energy Provided Throughout the Seas, and Zeno won it in October 2023. The award is $7.5 million, funded through the DoD\u2019s Operational Energy Innovation office and the Office of Naval Research.<\/p>\n<p>The stated goal in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zenopower.com\/announcements\/zeno-awarded-contract-to-build-and-demonstrate-radioisotope-power\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Zeno\u2019s announcement of the contract<\/a> is decentralized nodes for generating and distributing energy on the seabed, enabling long-endurance sensors and charging stations for autonomous undersea vehicles. Blue Origin and Sunpower are on the team for the Stirling converter, alongside PowerLight Technologies and the University of Dayton Research Institute.<\/p>\n<p>Admiral John M. Richardson, the retired former Chief of Naval Operations who later joined Zeno\u2019s board, framed it in the same release: \u201cubiquitous access to power in maritime environments is critical to maintaining U.S. leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Why anyone cares is straightforward arithmetic. Every autonomous machine on the seafloor is on a timer set by its battery, and the workarounds are expensive. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/battery-packs-drone-submarines\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pressure-tolerant battery packs going into drone submarines<\/a> buy endurance by deleting the housing, not by adding energy. A power node that runs for years without a cable or a support ship changes what you can leave down there, which matters more every year that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/china-great-wall-pacific-drone-submarines\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">China keeps wiring the Pacific floor with sensors<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>America put one of these in Baltimore harbor in 1961<\/h2>\n<p>This is a rerun, and the original is well documented. Under the SNAP program, the Atomic Energy Commission funded a strontium-90 thermoelectric generator for a U.S. Coast Guard light buoy.<\/p>\n<p>    <iframe name=\"mn-nl-1-frame\" style=\"display:none\" title=\"Newsletter form target\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<aside class=\"mn-nl\" aria-labelledby=\"mn-nl-1-heading\">\n<h2 id=\"mn-nl-1-heading\" class=\"mn-nl__sr\">Autonoci\u00f3n Newsletter<\/h2>\n<p class=\"mn-nl__legal\">No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/privacy-policy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Privacy policy (opens in new window)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.osti.gov\/biblio\/4799588-dSet2M\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">final report filed with the Department of Energy<\/a> spells out the numbers. Four capsules holding 40,800 curies of strontium-90 titanate. A 10-watt generator feeding a 5-watt electrical system. Installed in the buoy at Baltimore, Maryland, on December 15, 1961, with the lamp running continuously.<\/p>\n<p>A sister unit, SNAP-7D, went into a modified Navy NOMAD-class weather buoy in the Gulf of Mexico with a 60-watt generator behind a 30-watt system. More than 100 strontium-90 generators were built in total, per a Waste Management Symposia paper on the program, most of them for government monitoring work, and the material itself came out of Hanford.<\/p>\n<p>Then the whole thing was abandoned. The reason is the same reason your phone doesn\u2019t have one: strontium-90 shielding is heavy, and those marine units ran to thousands of pounds to deliver single-digit watts. Zeno says as much in its own materials, describing historic Sr-90 systems as heavy enough to constrain them to limited terrestrial use.<\/p>\n<h2>The Stirling engine is the reason anyone is trying this again<\/h2>\n<p>Two things changed. The first is the heat source itself. Zeno\u2019s patented claim is higher specific power, meaning more thermal watts per kilogram than the 1960s hardware managed, and it demonstrated a first strontium-90 heat source at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington in October 2023.<\/p>\n<p>The second is what happens to that heat. A conventional radioisotope thermoelectric generator converts roughly 5 percent of it into electricity, which is why the old units were so lopsided. A Stirling engine is a piston cycle driven by a temperature difference, and it converts a much larger share.<\/p>\n<p>Zeno\u2019s founder and CEO Tyler Bernstein has been candid that this is the hard part. He told GeekWire the Stirling generator \u201cis right now at a lower technology readiness level\u201d than the company\u2019s other products, with NASA and DoD programs maturing it in parallel.<\/p>\n<p>The physics underneath does not need maintaining. Strontium-90 has a half-life of 28.8 years, per NIST, decaying into yttrium-90 and throwing off heat the entire time. No sunlight, no fuel deliveries, no crew.<\/p>\n<div style=\"display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 14px; margin: 28px 0;\">\n<div style=\"flex: 1 1 260px; min-width: 260px; background: #0f172a; color: #f1f5f9; border-radius: 14px; padding: 22px; border: 1px solid #1e293b;\">\n<p>DEPTHS Contract<\/p>\n<p>$7.5M<\/p>\n<p>DoD Operational Energy Innovation office and the Office of Naval Research. Awarded October 2023.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"flex: 1 1 260px; min-width: 260px; background: #0f172a; color: #f1f5f9; border-radius: 14px; padding: 22px; border: 1px solid #1e293b;\">\n<p>SNAP-7A, 1961<\/p>\n<p>40,800 Ci<\/p>\n<p>Strontium-90 titanate in four capsules, powering a 5-watt Coast Guard light buoy in Baltimore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"flex: 1 1 260px; min-width: 260px; background: #0f172a; color: #f1f5f9; border-radius: 14px; padding: 22px; border: 1px solid #1e293b;\">\n<p>Half-life<\/p>\n<p>28.8 years<\/p>\n<p>Strontium-90 decays into yttrium-90, per NIST. Heat comes out the whole time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"flex: 1 1 260px; min-width: 260px; background: #0f172a; color: #f1f5f9; border-radius: 14px; padding: 22px; border: 1px solid #1e293b;\">\n<p>Vallecitos Site<\/p>\n<p>1,600 acres<\/p>\n<p>Sunol, California. Hot cells restored with NorthStar. Announced June 18, 2026.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"flex: 1 1 260px; min-width: 260px; background: #0f172a; color: #f1f5f9; border-radius: 14px; padding: 22px; border: 1px solid #dc2626; position: relative;\">\n<p>TARGET<\/p>\n<p>First Deliveries<\/p>\n<p>2027<\/p>\n<p>Zeno says volume production follows in 2028. The full-scale demo comes first.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>The fuel is a generator the government has been storing for years<\/h2>\n<p>Zeno is not buying fresh strontium. In January 2024 it announced a partnership with the DOE\u2019s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management to recycle a legacy radioisotope power system known as the BUP-500, held in storage at Oak Ridge, into fuel for its first ten-plus systems.<\/p>\n<p>Chief Commercialization Officer Harsh S. Desai described the deal at the time as reducing a DOE liability and revitalizing the technology for modern use. The fabrication work goes to Westinghouse at a facility in Pennsylvania, while the Seattle lab does its recipe development with strontium-88, the non-radioactive version, so chemists can iterate without a hot cell.<\/p>\n<p>Zeno is not the only outfit that spotted the same isotope. On July 3, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defenseone.com\/technology\/2026\/07\/these-light-weight-power-cells-run-nuclear-waste-and-could-power-next-gen-drones\/414585\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Defense One reported<\/a> a $3.37 million award under DARPA\u2019s Rads to Watts program, targeting more than 10 watts per kilogram, with Morgan State University as prime contractor and PNNL handling nuclear materials and testing. Northrop Grumman and ARA are doing computational modeling, and Project Omega is building the generator.<\/p>\n<p>That one skips heat entirely. \u201cOurs directly convert radiation into electricity,\u201d Project Omega founder and CEO Stafford Sheehan told the outlet, describing a solid isotope layered against a semiconductor. A prototype is due at PNNL in early 2027. It is a different bet on the same waste stream, closer in spirit to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/coin-sized-battery-nuclear-decay-100-years\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">coin-sized betavoltaic cells now being pitched for century-long service<\/a> than to anything with a piston in it.<\/p>\n<h2>The factory is the actual news, and it is in California<\/h2>\n<p>Hot cells are the bottleneck in this entire industry. They are heavily shielded rooms where technicians handle radioactive material remotely, through leaded glass, with mechanical arms. There are very few of them in the United States, and most were built for small batches.<\/p>\n<p>On June 18, Zeno <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zenopower.com\/announcements\/zeno-power-industrializes-nuclear-battery-production-at-historic-vallecitos-nuclear-center\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">announced a lease with NorthStar<\/a> to restore the hot cell complex at the Vallecitos Nuclear Center in Sunol, California. The site opened in 1957, spans 1,600 acres, and held Power Reactor License No. 1 from the Atomic Energy Commission. NorthStar closed on a deal to decommission it in March 2025 and will keep working the rest of the site while Zeno operates the hot cell portion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVallecitos wrote the first chapter of American commercial nuclear power,\u201d Bernstein said in the announcement. Non-radiological work has already started. Radiological operations are expected later this year, pending regulatory approval.<\/p>\n<p>The commitments attached are specific. More than 50 jobs in the Tri-Valley over three years, a third company location alongside Seattle and D.C., first deliveries to government customers in 2027, and scaled production from 2028. Zeno puts its total funding above $130 million, including $70 million in private capital and $60 million in contracts with the Pentagon and NASA. Scott State, NorthStar\u2019s CEO, said his company preserved the hot cells deliberately, expecting them to have future value.<\/p>\n<h2>There are under five months left in the demo year<\/h2>\n<p>Here is where the calendar gets interesting. When Zeno closed its $50 million Series B in May 2025, led by Hanaco Ventures, the stated plan was to demonstrate full-scale nuclear batteries in 2026 and deliver systems in 2027. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.geekwire.com\/2025\/inside-zeno-power-lab-nuclear-batteries\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">GeekWire reported a tank-based demonstration scheduled for 2026<\/a>, which is how you test a seabed power system without going to the seabed.<\/p>\n<p>As of early August, no such demonstration has been announced. The company\u2019s homepage now leads with a single line: delivering to market in 2027. Bernstein\u2019s late-June essay says the same thing, adding that Zeno has demonstrated its heat source and its electrically heated power systems, which is a meaningfully different sentence from having run a fueled, full-scale unit.<\/p>\n<p>None of that is a broken promise. Deliveries were always slated for 2027, and 2026 is not over. But the year has four and a half months left in it, and the difference between a company with a hot cell lease and a company with a working nuclear battery is the demonstration nobody has seen yet.<\/p>\n<p>If it lands, the Navy gets something it has wanted since it started buying machines that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/american-seabed-drone-navy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sit on the seafloor and listen for months at a time<\/a>: a power outlet down there that nobody has to visit. If it slips, it slips into a year where the first customer hardware was already due.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KeysQuestions4Explore4 America is quietly building a network of nuclear-powered nodes on the ocean floor that can charge drone submarines for nearly three decades \u2014 no cables, no support ships, no resupply runs. The fuel source is strontium-90, one of the most notorious radioactive byproducts of the nuclear age, and the Pentagon is betting it can&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/nuclear-battery-zeno-power-drones.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}