Soviet Nuclear Lighthouses

Interesting video from the BBC on autonomous lighthouses built by the Soviets that were powered by small nuclear batteries.

I didn't know nuclear batteries were a thing. It seems like they basically convert heat released from radioactive material decay into electricity. From Wikipedia:

An atomic battery, nuclear battery, radioisotope battery or radioisotope generator is a device which uses energy from the decay of a radioactive isotope to generate electricity.  Like nuclear reactors, they generate electricity from nuclear energy, but differ in that they do not use a chain reaction. Although commonly called batteries, they are technically not electrochemical and cannot be charged or recharged. In comparison they are very costly, but have an extremely long life and high energy density, and so they are mainly used as power sources for equipment that must operate unattended for long periods of time, such as spacecraft, pacemakers, underwater systems and automated scientific stations in remote parts of the world.