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After reading some of the comments, I feel I need to differentiate nuclear power from nuclear batteries, as a nuclear engineer. Nuclear power harnesses heat produced by nuclear fission (splitting atoms in a controlled manner) to heat water into steam to drive large electric turbine generators. Nuclear batteries simply use decay heat from a small amount of a radioactive isotope, like Strontium-90, to heat one end of a thermocouple, inducing a voltage across it. They made for great small power sources in remote, unmanned locations. The Russians also used them for remote Siberian airport runway lights. But in the days of terrorism, the risk of them being stolen and attached to conventional explosives (a "dirty bomb") and promptly dispersing their radiative materials across a small urban area is too great. The chemical properties of Strontium make it seek out bones if ingested (like its relative Calcium) and cause a permanent internal body burden of a highly radioactive source.

There was a radiological incident involving Soviet RTGs. A few hunters found a couple of incredible canisters that were melting the snow around them and warm to the touch. Naturally, they decided to take them with them; they even slept against them at camp that night. Medically, they did not fare well.

Never underestimate people's ability to steal shit, even if it's hundreds of miles from civilization.

That Aniva lighthouse looks very appealing from a "mystery" point of view, like some kind of ancient unknown structure that would not be out of place in some exploration role playing game featuring ancient mysteries!

This actually makes a *lot* of sense. In remote parts of the Arctic and Antarctic regions, nuclear and wind are pretty much the *only* reasonable solutions. And wind wasn't real cost effective during the Cold War.

1:50 - Chapter 1 - The northeast passage 3:40 - Mid roll ads 5:00 - Chapter 2 - The lighthouses 7:20 - Chapter 3 - The nuclear batteries 9:35 - Chapter 4 - The lighthouses now

Fun fact: the Lighthouses found on the island in the video game "Rust" are closely based on these nuclear lighthouses.

Plainly Difficult did a video about a group of people who found a stray soviet RTG in some mountains, not knowing what it was, and it being very cold where they were, they used it to stay warm overnight like a campfire as it radiated a lot of heat, only to end up suffering radiation sickness as a result, and the military having to be called in to retrieve the device... :S

I visited the Aniva lighthouse in Sakhalin this August. Quite a sight!

The background of nuclear batteries used in pacemakers would be a interesting topic.

“The Soviet government did not want to subject anyone to that life”, … Oh please, that’s not it.

RTGs are awesome tech. Love how you incorporated their utility in space exploration.

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators are great! Every Household should have one imho!, no more grid affected Blackouts & truly off-grid!

Lighthouses are so awesome imo, they have such an eiree and creepy but sturdy and defiant atmosphere and I love them. The Aniva lighthouse also just looks so damm cool, like something right out of a fantasy story.

Canada built a RTG powered lighthouse in Brockville Ontario in 1970 utilizing an AECL MAPLE-1B RTG. It operated for 3 years then AECL decided this was not a viable concept.

Hell yeah! A megaprojects that I have never heard of or even imagined someone doing.....leave it to the Russians lol

"No keeps wanted to volunteer for that task" I don't think motivating people to "volunteer" was really a problem in the Soviet Union.

3:16 did my guy say “world war one” and edit in a “two” hahahaha

8:00 Iirc, and this may be mentioned, but not only were they using Strontium-90, but they were also unshielded...which was...wise(*ahem* if you consider theft, losing them, accidentally dropping them all over the place, and what not as 'wise'), considering what happened to quite a few of them

You had me at Soviet Nuclear Powered Lighthouses

In the 1930's the Soviet Government didn't want to subject anyone to that kind of a life. Ha Ha good one Simon.

I guess Russia's version of Energizer's are more hardcore.

I love how everything was nuclear during the cold war

Canada is part of the Arctic too, 40% of Canada is in the Arctic. 🇨🇦❄

I think that if there were no Russia, Simon's channel would only have three videos. You can count of them to come up with dangerous radioactive things, weird projects that involve subjecting their own people to certain death, or a huge amount of cannon fodder.

Sr-90 decay generates about a Watt per gramme of heat, but thermoelectric conversion efficiency is generally quite low - about 5%. A kg of Sr-90 would yield only 50We or so, yet would contain a huge amount of radioactivity - several thousand TBc. I am thinking many kg of Sr-90 were required to supply all these lighthouses, and the source would have been large nuclear reactors.

And I thought that old Lighthouses with floating mercury bearings for the heavy Fresnel lenses were interesting. This is even more interesting, and probably even worse in some respects.

Super interesting find, Fact Boy! Great video :-).

The Aniva lighthouse at 6:30 looks like a structure from Minas Tirith.

There was an incident i Georgia where a group of woodsmen found the remains of one that had been dismantled by metal thieves all were poisoned one woodsman died the other two spent months in hospital and it required a group of brave Georgians to undertake a Chernobyl like recovery effort in the remote location with men running in for the 45 seconds that was safe and in relay transferring the core into a lead container

This segment is very well done! The depth of information provided is appreciated

I want one in my truck, unlimited power through its lifetime

Simon all your channels are good. Thanks for the content

Very, very interesting. Thanks for this one folks.

America powers their installations in Antarctica in a similar way. Here in NZ we are nuclear free and the US Navy is not generally allowed here. But there is an exception. The nuclear power packs can transit through Christchurch, NZ on their way to Antarctica.

Thanks for the video, i have never heard of the nuclear lighthouses before.

Hi, thanks for the interesting report. Sorry for my bad english. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Estonia soon became independent. There were at least 60 lighthouses on the North coast of Estonia. Almost the entire coast was a Soviet military zone. Newspapers reported that the lighthouses were powered by nuclear generators. Does anyone know what happened to them? Did the Russians take them with them or were they destroyed? The island "Naissaar" near Tallinn was full of abandoned sea mines and cannon shells, a few years ago they were visible on Google Maps. Near Naissaar was Soviet Union's largest nuclear submarine base, Paldiski.

Me: hey it's a lovely day Simon: there's nuclear lighthouses in the arctic Me: fuuuu...

Awesome episode, Simon!

I think this is the first video in quite some time that I've literally never heard of the subject before. Like, I know a lot of planes and infamous weapons but a nuclear-powered lighthouse? Frikkin' Soviets just gonna send it!

Thank you simon these devices have so much potential.

Welcome back, this is Mr. New Vegas. Residents of novac were treated to a surprise light show when Aniva Lighthouse unexpectedly began firing lasers.

Glaciers and sea ice have been melting the last 18,000 years, coincidental with the expected affect of the Milankovitch cycle.

Please do a video on the French palace of versailles

Wonderful Job thank you.

That was good, thanks for sharing.

7:42 hated throwing grenades at these on call of the dead zombies

Something: **Exists** Russia/Soviet Union: let's put a nuclear reactor in it

Love see next version videos about rtgs use electricity

Whoever wrote this script must be a guy with kids, because the puns are definitely dad-level in this video. Well done.

Great video! A bit hyperbolic though to show a mushroom cloud visual while you’re talking about dirty bombs. People tend not to understand the huge difference between a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material and an actual nuclear explosion.

Holy Cow! I suggested this topic. You actually did it!

Lighthouse in the artic? Well... Time for the casting call... *Call of the Dead flashbacks intesify*

12:10 RTGs make super bad choice for dirty bombs. What you want to find in Cesium irradiation capsules because its a sand like material. If you blow up an RTG you would only have to pick up a handful of the fuel which is super easy to find with a Geiger counter. Oh and you have to do this in less than an hour or you will be dead from radiation poisoning. That's the real reason we have not seen a dirty bomb. Anything radioactive enough to put in a bomb will also kill anyone in the room assembling it. Radiation suits dont protect you from anything other than contamination so you dont have to scrub off the top layer of skin you still get the full dose of gamma rays.

I didn't know about RTGs. Very cool stuff.

8:34 "study staturn" lol

😂 Oh, what could go wrong?!

The reason we haven't had any incidents of dirty bombs is that radiation is not detectable to human beings so there's no danger sense at all until it's far too late. So naturally the process of attempting to build such a device proves to be fatal long before construction of the device itself can be completed.

There is an episode on "plainly difficult" on the fate of three Georgian men who found 3 RTGs in the Caucasus mountains and used them to stay warm in their camp.

RTG "RADIOACTIVE DANGER" Metal thieves "It's free real estate"

Looks like Simon has been sticking the heed into something with his lumpy nugget. Great video as always.

Come on Simon! Do both or either Bagger 293 or the Bingham Canyon Copper mine! They are both mind boggling in scale!

Another scary nugget of engineering from mother Russia. Do a mega project on the Causeway Bridge in Louisiana. It'd be cool to see what you could dig up that some might not know.

8:35 "Suddy Staturn"

Northwest Passage. Great song.

Again, an interesting but scary bit of information!

Fascinating!

Good video 👍

In one of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan books there's a part that terriost go to one of the nuclear powered lighthouses to steal the nuclear material. Hopefully it will never happen IRL.

Northwest passage is a internal route as your are going through Canadian islands.

Cool. The battery stuff alone would be a good side project

aniva lighthouse is one of the coolest things ive ever seen!

awsome vid

How to reach net-zero in America : "Russia are going to benefit massively from global warming"

Super interesting!!!!

Something exists. Soviet Russia: Put a nuke in it!

Wow this is very interesting! 😯🤩🤩👍👍 Seriously.

Pretty sure that was the plot of a Clancy novel...Dead or Alive?

7:19 where nuclear battery talk starts

Please talk about the sea dragon and The Horten H.XVIII 18 Flying Wing

NASA can only use RTGs in a few missions per decade because they simply don't have as much high quality material that is enriched enough. If nuclear energy research would progress more, we would also have much more deep space missions to our outer planets.

You could do video on New Zealand’s Waitaki hydro scheme

“Thank you global warming?” HOW DARE YOU!

Video request: Lake Vostok in Antarctica.

3:35 The shipping passage was not open during "just the winter months" it was open during the summer months.

Awww Now i know where the Light house in Rust comes from .Thanks

That was my thought, dirrty bomb. THANK GOD These people who do that HATE THE COLD and didnt know about this some 50 years ago

Nuke light houses? Now I heard everything and its great

Soviet Arctic Nuclear Lighthouses.... 4 words that should never be said in a sentence together.

Do the Boeing Bird of Prey next!

Wonder if they ever tried to put the rtgs under the floor, wire up a rebar reenforcemrht cage around the rtgs and then pour the concrete around/over them, cementing them in place? They don't have any moving parts, it would be practically impossible to remove them, but it's something capable of being done every 20 years

From what I remember, there are some minecraft and rimworld mods that add RTGs!

7:15 just to get to the actual story.

6:28 Any RUST players immediately recognize that lighthouse lol

Okay, you got me to laugh with the "radiate enthusiasm" comment. Thumbs up.

Very interesting

Thank you for this video. How about the proposed tunnel/bridge from the Russian island of Sakhalin to the Japanese island of Hokkaido?

Love this kind of stuff 😂

It feels like I'm watching someone speed read a narrative for something that could be interesting and then stops for a commercial break halfway through.