

Cringe…
AI slop?
Plutonium-238’s half-life is 87.7 years, Americium-241 is 432.6 years. Which… is almost 5 times longer, so… not sure why that’s cringe?
With an atomic number of 241, it’s hardly small.
I believe they’re referring to the fact that it’s not an element of major topic. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of it.
I think this could be compelling given that tech continues to get more power efficient. I don’t know the numbers, but if we were to launch the same tech that’s on Voyager 1/2 today, would we be able to do that with 1/5 the power? If so, those probes could likely still have all their instruments running if they used Americium.

Last year? They’ve been a cartel for far longer than that… The early 2000s there were multiple indictments including some executives serving time in jail. Early 2010s the EU fined the cartels. Then even in the late 2010s there was a suit over price fixing… They’ve just gotten better at their cartel operations to dodge litigation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal