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Thursday, August 23, 2007 Mining the MoonLab experiments suggest that future fusion reactors could use helium-3 gathered from the moon. By Mark Williams
At the 21st century's start, few would have predicted that by 2007, a second race for the moon would be under way. Yet the signs are that this is now the case. Furthermore, in today's moon race, unlike the one that took place between the United States and the U.S.S.R. in the 1960s, a full roster of 21st-century global powers, including China and India, are competing. Even more surprising is that one reason for much of the interest appears to be plans to mine helium-3--purportedly an ideal fuel for fusion reactors but almost unavailable on Earth--from the moon's surface. NASA's Vision for Space Exploration has U.S. astronauts scheduled to be back on the moon in 2020 and permanently staffing a base there by 2024. While the U.S. space agency has neither announced nor denied any desire to mine helium-3, it has nevertheless placed advocates of mining He3 in influential positions. For its part, Russia claims that the aim of any lunar program of its own--for what it's worth, the rocket corporation Energia recently started blustering, Soviet-style, that it will build a permanent moon base by 2015-2020--will be extracting He3. The Chinese, too, apparently believe that helium-3 from the moon can enable fusion plants on Earth. This fall, the People's Republic expects to orbit a satellite around the moon and then land an unmanned vehicle there in 2011. Nor does India intend to be left out. (See "India's Space Ambitions Soar.") This past spring, its president, A.P.J. Kalam, and its prime minister, Manmohan Singh, made major speeches asserting that, besides constructing giant solar collectors in orbit and on the moon, the world's largest democracy likewise intends to mine He3 from the lunar surface. India's probe, Chandrayaan-1, will take off next year, and ISRO, the Indian Space Research Organization, is talking about sending Chandrayaan-2, a surface rover, in 2010 or 2011. Simultaneously, Japan and Germany are also making noises about launching their own moon missions at around that time, and talking up the possibility of mining He3 and bringing it back to fuel fusion-based nuclear reactors on Earth. Could He3 from the moon truly be a feasible solution to our power needs on Earth? Practical nuclear fusion is nowadays projected to be five decades off--the same prediction that was made at the 1958 Atoms for Peace conference in Brussels. If fusion power's arrival date has remained constantly 50 years away since 1958, why would helium-3 suddenly make fusion power more feasible? Advocates of He3-based fusion point to the fact that current efforts to develop fusion-based power generation, like the ITER megaproject, use the deuterium-tritium fuel cycle, which is problematical. (See "International Fusion Research.") Deuterium and tritium are both hydrogen isotopes, and when they're fused in a superheated plasma, two nuclei come together to create a helium nucleus--consisting of two protons and two neutrons--and a high-energy neutron. A deuterium-tritium fusion reaction releases 80 percent of its energy in a stream of high-energy neutrons, which are highly destructive for anything they hit, including a reactor's containment vessel. Since tritium is highly radioactive, that makes containment a big problem as structures weaken and need to be replaced. Thus, whatever materials are used in a deuterium-tritium fusion power plant will have to endure serious punishment. And if that's achievable, when that fusion reactor is eventually decommissioned, there will still be a lot of radioactive waste. |
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Returning to the Moon
05/13/2008
Comments
lowilliams on 08/23/2007 at 2:36 AM
17
We need fusion YESTERDAY! We should be working hard to exploit boron 11 plus proton fusion. It is more nearly radiation free than a mix of deuterium and what ever else. There is gobs of boron and protons available right here on earth.
Siphon on 08/23/2007 at 6:06 AM
94
dwalters on 08/29/2007 at 2:27 PM
1
David Walters
lschuber on 08/31/2007 at 10:06 AM
13
Fusion may never prove generally practical on earth. The materials engineering problems seem insurmountable from an economic perspective. Niche applications seem likely, but we are still probably more than fifty years from it. In the mean time, fission is proven and cost effective. Only political and psychological barriers remain. We have about a century of fossil fuels that we will consume, and during that time, we will improve fission and move to more reliance on it. The most probable source of our energy 150 years from now is likely not yet imagined. And if Aubrey proves prescient, perhaps we will be alive to see it. ;-) (For what little it is worth, I expect to live 50 to 60 more years, which will be long enough to see many new fission power plants go online in the U.S. but perhaps insufficient to see a commercial fusion power source of any size.)
Siphon on 10/13/2007 at 5:03 PM
94
Nuclear cheap? Well we have all witnessed that lately, with up to 80% subsidies thrown around you should know where it's at.
And you can't build enough of them to matter anyway.
siiix on 10/05/2007 at 10:32 AM
1
ctommey on 08/23/2007 at 9:02 AM
1
Gblaze43 on 08/23/2007 at 12:09 PM
4
Make sure you go here to get more info on Bussards work.
http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/
GWOC on 08/23/2007 at 5:06 PM
1
Who changed the specs of the universe? Last I checked, Tritium's half-life was ~12 years, and gave off a beta particle as it decayed. Did beta particles suddenly become more dangerous?
nascent on 08/23/2007 at 9:43 PM
6
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission keeps the stuff tightly license and regulated. The NRC will inspect a prospective commercial licensee's place, and every molecule of tritium or tritiated compounds that will be used has to be accounted for. No use or storage in residential zones is ever permitted. The state of Illinois sued a power company for release of tritium last year.
http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2006/03/20/3/index.html
jdien on 08/24/2007 at 2:23 PM
2
PhilKC on 10/08/2007 at 10:20 PM
1
Bussard is a pioneer in Inertial Electrostatic Containment fusion. Focus Fusion is another interesting idea, and so is Colliding-Beam fusion. While we can't be sure that any of these will work, they are all a lot more promising than the tokamak. If they do work, we will have 100 MW power plants that will fit in your living room. It is a disgrace that DoE has supplied no funding for any of these. The Colliding Beam work is fortunate to have the support of Paul Allen, but the other two are essentially stymied for lack of $3 or $4 million.
I am sorry to report that Bob Bussard died yesterday, which will presumably slow IEC fusion even more.
NobleKripton on 08/24/2007 at 9:48 PM
2
One possible solution to revive IEC fusion research is to pin those naysayers down on what the energy balance threshold is, then offer a DARPA style contest with a fat $$ award going to that team that exceeds it. Perhaps something like 1 watt-hour output of protons / He3 for a kilowatt-hour input of electrical energy would warrant an the first award.
NobleKripton on 08/25/2007 at 3:18 PM
2
One possible solution to revive IEC fusion research is to pin those naysayers down on what the energy balance threshold is, then offer a DARPA style contest with a fat $$ award going to that team that exceeds it. Perhaps something like 1 watt-hour output of protons / He3 for a kilowatt-hour input of electrical energy would warrant an the first award.
Gaetano Marano on 08/28/2007 at 1:10 PM
55
I think that fusion energy researches are a GIANT WASTE of TIME and MONEY (several Billion$$$ so far) since the (cold/hot/semi-hot) fusion is ONLY a scientific curiosity that NEVER will have any commercial applications, NOT EVEN if a fusion machine will (finally!) reach a stable, "self-sustained" reaction, because we DON'T NEED any fusion reactor AT ALL as explained in this article:
http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/003moonhelium.html
At the (enbarrassing) scenario of the (failed) fusion research, now, somebody (scientists, newspapers, space forums, etc.) have added the "Lunar Helium-3" factor/dream/illusion (something like the lunar poles' water...) despite it's ONLY a THEORY so far, since there is NO EVIDENCE that our moon hides a so giant He3 treasure!
There are only some scientits who "believe" that... 1. the He3 from the Sun STILL is on the moon surface, after BILLIONS years... 2. millions meteorites crashed on the moon have just "disseminated" the He3 on the surface rather than (as appears more logical) SLINGED this very light element in Space... 3. then, we can (really) find ONE million tons of He3 on the moon!
Then, they "believe" that, mining tons of Lunar-He3 and bring them to earth, will be "so easy and cheap" that He3-He3 energy could WIN on prices against oil, methane, coal, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, biofuels and geothermal energy!!!
well, just to inform them... EACH moon mission will cost (at least) $9 billion (including the shared R&D and fixed costs) to bring back to earth LESS THAN 100 kg. of moon rocks at a price of $90,000,000.oo per kg.!!!
.
nascent on 08/28/2007 at 5:48 PM
6
And yet the US possesses the lunar soil samples brought back by the Apollo missions as hard evidence that He3 does still reside on the moon and those samples are precisely how this moon-mining scenario began.
Gaetano Marano on 08/29/2007 at 12:02 AM
55
do you have a NASA source of that? (with the exact amount of He3)
of course, the lunar regolith could have some "traces" of He3 and other gases... but we are talking of ONE MILLION tons for indutrial extraction!
.
nascent on 08/30/2007 at 12:00 PM
6
lschuber on 08/31/2007 at 10:24 AM
13
Gaetano Marano on 08/30/2007 at 9:52 AM
55
a Google.Groups.Space user has found this excellent article about the Helium-3:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/30679
.
nascent on 08/30/2007 at 12:19 PM
6
Other paths to fusion - not mentioned here - include Bussard's 'Polywell' (a variation of IEC) and collisional fusion, developed at UC Irvine.
However, I'm curious. Given that you bring up Frank Close's argument as if the TR piece here didn't describe it in some detail, did you even read and understand the TR article here before you started arguing with it?
Gaetano Marano on 08/30/2007 at 3:20 PM
55
nascent said: "...is the same article by the same Oxford physcist, Frank Close, that the Tech Review piece here..."
you're right
nascent said: "...did you even read and understand the TR article here before you started arguing with it..."
of course, I've read the article when it was published (august 23) but without open all links and I've not re-read it again the day of my last comment (august 30) so I forgot some parts (I read several articles every day)
about "understand"... consider that english is not my mother language, so it's difficult to understand everything I read...
about the "inertial electrostatic confinement"... there is any WORKING machine yet???
.
nascent on 08/30/2007 at 10:21 PM
6
Look, I can understand scepticism about something like the ITER fusion project, which is impractically large - the size of an aircraft carrier - in order to address a number of nearly impossible problems. That's why the possibility of alternative, non-Maxwellian paths to fusion -- far cheaper, smaller, tabletop technologies -- is worth at least considering. IEC is a technology with a long provenance, going back to Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television --
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/15723
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_electrostatic_confinement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnsworth-Hirsch_Fusor
There are also other alternative approaches besides IEC --
http://www.ap.columbia.edu/SMproceedings/7.EmergingConcepts/7.Physics.pdf
edingirl on 11/22/2007 at 7:34 AM
1
dutch on 06/21/2008 at 8:08 AM
2
Another Hopi prophecy warns that nothing should be brought back from the Moon -- obviously anticipating the Apollo 11 mission that returned with samples of lunar basalt. It this was done, the Hopi warned, the balance of natural and universal laws and forces would be disturbed, resulting in earthquakes, severe changes in weather patterns, and social unrest.
Hopi prophecy states that World War III will be started by the people who first received the Light -- China, Palestine, India and Africa. When the war comes, the United States will be destroyed by "gourds of ashes" which will fall to the ground, boiling the rivers and burning the earth, where no grass will grow for many years, and causing a disease that no medicine can cure.
Go fusion.. go...
IronSun on 06/27/2008 at 9:58 PM
2