Helium 3:The Next Great Energy Source Makes Space The New Wild West

originally posted by: FormOfTheLord
So it would appear the Helium 3 race is back on unless there is a way to shrink the deuterium waste. . . .

Well yeah, but the runners are still milling around the starting blocks.

A good, detailed book about the science, engineering, economics and physics of lunar He3 mining and fusion is called Return to the Moon. The author knows a lot about the subject: He is Harrison Schmitt - The only scientists who has actually walked on the Moon.

deuterium is still a clean fuel compared to a normal fission reactor's waste. you only have to sequester deuterium fusion waste for about 30 to 100 years you can even arrange for the fusion side chains to make valuable if nasty byproducts by lining the chamber with special materials for example lithium to tritium.

and besides in terms of technical challenges deuterium is likely to be one of the first successful fusion chains. the others are harder. some much harder. Boron fusion needs 30 billion degrees and reactor vessel pressures that causes most materials to explode. compared to Boron reactors other fusion reactors are easy bake ovens.

originally posted by: lasthope
reply to post by SpartanKingLeonidas

 

We are mining helium 3 right now and we have has a base on the moon for 30 years and mars 15 years
how many of you here are ever going to wake up to this!

I'll believe it when I see it.

Absolutely zero proof of it having happened.

Our world leadership can barely pull their heads out of their asses.

No way they can unite for space mining or colonization.

Yet.

This He3 thing is still speculation.
Just science talk.
Since not one power source on the planet uses He3 why do we need to spend billions to mine it from the Moon?

originally posted by: samkent
This He3 thing is still speculation.
Just science talk.
Since not one power source on the planet uses He3 why do we need to spend billions to mine it from the Moon?

its not. the science behind it is sound. The energy released from the various fusion chains are known as are the energy requirements for getting it to happen are known. the only thing remaining are technical challenges like how to deal with plasma doing what it wants instead of what the researchers want. furthermore fusion has already been demonstrated. that is not in honest contention. furthermore a form of technical break even has already been achieved though it is not the definition of break even that is touted WRT fusion reactors. They did in fact get more energy out than went into the collision and heating but not more when the internal losses in the machines are considered.

i remember when they shouted about break even a while ago:

www.livescience.com...

the initial headlines was less honest than that. quite sensationalist. they strongly implied that real break even as understood by everyone familiar with fusion had happened.

Could this be our next big fuel? I think going to the moon to mine helium 3 may take alot of work, the big question is, is it worth it?

What kind of energy would it take to extract He3 from the surface of the Moon? That would be my first question on this. We cannot even efficiently extract Gold from seawater, and although He3 is abundant on the moon, in reference to Earth, it is in way less physical concentration. Just what would it take to obtain 25 tons of He3 in a reasonable amount of time?

a reply to: charlyv

25 tons would go a very long way. Considering the energy equivalency to, say, oil. The cost might well be worth it.
If there were a way to use it. But there isn't. Yet.

a reply to: Phage

Have we ever built a small scale reactor that mixes He3 with deuterium and produced energy? I mean really small scale, to show the possibility of building something workable.

a reply to: charlyv

Nope.
Not even a sustained deuterium reactor and a helium reactor would be more problematic.

It works on paper. So far, that's it.

a reply to: Phage

Wow, that in itself makes it an extremely tough sell for investors.
"We have this great stuff, but we cannot show you what it can do."

originally posted by: charlyv
a reply to: Phage

Wow, that in itself makes it an extremely tough sell for investors.
"We have this great stuff, but we cannot show you what it can do."

Yeah you would think there was some working kind of reactor that could proove that it would be a worthwhile venture to mine the moon for the stuff.

Did anyone ever get to the bottom of the ROC (Resnick, O'Neil, Cramer) Consortium claims about them having mineral rights?

I remember the whole h3 on the moon thing blowing up and subsequently it was alleged that ROC ( an interesting trio) had exploited a loop hole which forbid land ownership on the moon but allowed mineral rights reservation IF you could get there, mine it and return without killing yourself or anyone else in the process.

The conspiracy angle was that these 3 had insider knowledge about systems to facilitate access but I can't remember if it was ever debunked (A : That ROC exists, B: ROC actually filed or C: That there was a loophole in the first place).

originally posted by: charlyv
a reply to: Phage

Have we ever built a small scale reactor that mixes He3 with deuterium and produced energy? I mean really small scale, to show the possibility of building something workable.

No. There were some promising experiments but the research seems dead in the water.

originally posted by: charlyv
a reply to: Phage

Have we ever built a small scale reactor that mixes He3 with deuterium and produced energy? I mean really small scale, to show the possibility of building something workable.

the problem with that idea is the following:

No fusion chain has been achieved that way. the closest thing to that is the technical break even announced a year or so ago and that wasn't even the break even watchers of fusion are hoping for.

What we have in fusion are little incremental achievements. things like first magnetic field configuration verification, first plasma containment, temperature and pressure milestones, first fusion, first technical break even of fusion chain, and finally first net systemic break even. once this is done you get to the final proof reactor followed by a commercial pilot plant.

some fusion schemes have reached the first technical break even. but the rest are further back in the development process. some are at confinement or first plasma. others are working up the confinement and temperature phase with some with fusion achieved.

so when you say He3 fusion has not been achieved using those criterion none have achieved final prototype demonstration reactor. none. but that does not allow a reasonable person to say fusion is unproven. it's not the same thing. all of the mainstream theoretical fusion chains are real in the sense that we know what has to go in and what has to come out and are based on well known physics facts.

the closest thing in fusion research to a fusion chain that is unverified and has a little whiff of the kooky is that "high density deuterium combined with muons swapped out for real electrons" thing that got announced last week. that one may just be fringe science despite it's academic source. it is two shades of improbable. first because the density and secondly due to the muon thing. no one knows how you could realistically do either. maybe they know something we don't but absent the critics complete ignorance of how to get deuterium densities approaching a white dwarf level or in particle physics for to make weird atoms en mass quantities they and their paper are full of poop to use the scientific term.

ok sorry for the meandering. long story short: He3 Fusion itself is not merely theoretical. it is valid science. there is no reason to doubt it will happen. but He3 is not is not is not something we can only get on the moon. we can make it cheaply here in our reactors. reactors that we will be making anyway for other fusion chains. far cheaper than going to the moon for it.

originally posted by: charlyv
What kind of energy would it take to extract He3 from the surface of the Moon? That would be my first question on this. We cannot even efficiently extract Gold from seawater, and although He3 is abundant on the moon, in reference to Earth, it is in way less physical concentration. Just what would it take to obtain 25 tons of He3 in a reasonable amount of time?

not enough to justify moon infrastructure and lift systems and ground infrastructure. He3 is going to be a byproduct of some of the other fusion reactors we are also making. in that case moon mining it only makes sense if the fuel is not going to be used on earth. use it for reactor on the moon for facilities there for other reasons. or use it to fill up space stations or large space craft. but it is not justifiable in terms of terrestrial uses because terrestrial sources are going to be cheaper.

a reply to: stormbringer1701

Thanks for your excellent comments on the steps required to prove out an He3/2H reactor.
We should not even entertain the mechanisms for getting He3 until we can prove that we can use it.

I thought this was interesting on Helium 3 and fusion.



Fusion Power and Helium-3

There are at least two fusion chains that produce helium three directly and at least one that produces helium VI that decays to helium III.

Given this do we really need lunar Helium III other than for in space usage?

also helium three is not the only aneutronic fusion fuel. Hydrogen Boron is another.

plus i checked up on that dense deuterium muon thing. it turns out it's not kook science. it's real. and it too is aneutroninc.