Beta-M
≈ 1 min read
Names in other languages
No names in other languages are held for this entry yet.
Article bodies are English and are not machine-translated. A name in another language is not a translation of the article.
The Beta-M is a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) that was used in Soviet-era lighthouses and beacons.
The Beta-M is a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) that was used in Soviet-era lighthouses and beacons.
Recovery efforts
It's estimated that over 1,000 Beta-M RTGs were initially produced and deployed by the Soviet Union, though they have been left mostly abandoned since the USSR collapsed. In order to reduce the risk of nuclear waste getting into the hands of the public or terrorist groups, the United States and European Union partnered with Russia to reacquire and disassemble these abandoned RTGs, collecting hundreds to be processed at the Mayak nuclear processing plant. Over 200 lighthouses and beacons that still required power had their power sources replaced with solar batteries. Despite efforts, dozens or even hundreds of Beta-M RTGs are estimated to still remain unaccounted for, unrecorded, or otherwise untouched in the Russian wilderness. Only 482 were recovered before the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, which caused international cooperation on the task to fall apart.
Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1378386691 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.