# A Nuclear Powered Laptop

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-nuclear-powered-laptop/211659>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [November 6, 2003, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-nuclear-powered-laptop/211659 "2003-11-06T05:31:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2003, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-nuclear-powered-laptop/211659/1 "2003-11-06T05:31:13Z")

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Not really, but if thing’s keep going the way they’ve been going, then the [processor will be as hot as a nuclear reactor.](http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/16665.html)

> [@](#):
>
> “No one,” as Gelsinger puts it,“wants to carry a nuclear reactor in their laptop onto a plane”. He acknowledges that Intel has contributed to the general power and thermal issues by sacrificing efficiency for performance in the push for higher frequencies, by designing deeper pipelines, with less gates per pipeline. “We make big fat transistors to drive up the frequency.”

So, I wonder how much juice one of those suckers would draw? I mean, if it’s power consumption is about the same as current chips, but the temp is that high, then one could look at cheaply heating their house in the winter time, ya know?

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**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2003, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-nuclear-powered-laptop/211659/2 "2003-11-06T07:17:03Z")

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And I thought this thread would be about nuclear batteries for a laptop- actually get some decent playing time on them.