As I understand it, Plutonium-238 is used to provide power through heat generation in radioisotope thermoelectric generators. My question is... how hot is a pellet of Plutonium-238? Does the heat generated go down as the PLutonium-238 pellet approaches its half life?
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As correctly noted in the comment of @BowlOfRed, the temperature of any energy source depends on how well that energy is retained. You can burn out a 60 W incandescent bulb in a few seconds by burying it in a big box of vermiculite insulation.
The power output of Pu-238 is about 0.5 watts/gram, with a half-life of about 87.7 years. At the end of the 87.7 years, the power output is still 0.5 Watts/gram, but there's only half as many grams of Pu-238 left in the original pellet. The rest has changed to U-234 which, with a half-life of 245000 years, doesn't contribute much to the energy output. More fun facts at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238
DJohnM
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