Mine The Moon For Helium-3 644
Rob Kennedy writes "A story at The Daily Cardinal is reporting that UW-Madison researchers are looking to mine the moon for helium-3 as an energy source, which supposedly would yield about 1000 times more energy per pound than coal. Although there are several hurdles that would need to be cleared, The Associated Press mentions one catch in particular: 'The researchers still are working on building a helium-3 reactor that would produce more energy than it takes in.' Indeed. SciScoop has a more in-depth discussion of the prospect."
This is Neither News nor Stuff that Matters (Score:1, Interesting)
The technical limitations haven't changed in decades.
Step 1 - Make a reactor that is a net PRODUCER of energy.
Energy problem (Score:3, Interesting)
The goal behind using He^3 is that you can transport it. Cool the sucker down, put it into a canister, ship it back to Earth and use it there. Next thing you know, the Middle East doesn't matter anymore. (Please, no politics.)
Again, ignoring the issues of having the stuff explode on reintry, how to get it all back, etc, etc, etc.
But the energy issue really isn't one. Last time I checked, the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere, so solar energy is easier to get to than on Earth. At that point, you can have a system produce all the He^3 you want, and who cares about initial efficiency when you've got Big Old Mr. Sun providing your energy for you?
Just a thought. This is the kind of thing that 100 years down the road could be useful, and I'm probably making bad assumptions, but the idea is still kind of cool.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
Evaporative pumping of He3 can get you to about 250 mK, and using a He3/He4 dilution refrigerator can get one to about 10 mK.
A cheaper source of He3 would be good news, currently it's several hundred bucks for (I think) a liter of He3 gas at STP.
B.S. (Score:2, Interesting)
Any scientist who claims there is unlimited energy on any planet needs to go back to Thermodynamics 101...
This story is nonsense.
Re:On a more serious note (Score:5, Interesting)
Likewise, there is no country on Earth that has the budget to move enough mass either way to affect the Moon/Earth system. Simply ain't gonna happen.
(Earth loses atmosphere all the time, and takes on tons and tons of stardust from outerspace too... nobody worries about that changing orbits or tides.)
So mod parent down for "technically correct" but way overblowing the wrong thing.
Re:Slightly more sarcastical view (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This explains everything! (Score:4, Interesting)
Black Gold in the Gulf [townhall.com]
I'm keeping an eye on both that and this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymeriza
If either one is totally proven, or especially if combined, it could be the end of the world oil problem.
Actually, try the 60's... (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, it was also this high-energy density material that allowed for the creation of mecha, as well as all sorts of exotic space-metals.
In any case, this is an old and well-documented idea. =D
Fuzzy Math! (Score:3, Interesting)
The average space shuttle (as an example of a reusable space vehicle) can carry 65,000 pounds of cargo each flight.
This means that each pound of helium-3 would cost $7,692.31.. and thats just at cost to cover transport from the moon. Not including the initial setup of mining operations and cost of running the facilities to turn it into energy.
Now, as for powering possible MOON colonies, understandable. But for eath? The money would probably best be spent in the (never ending) quest for fusion.
Why fusion when there's solar? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes. (Score:5, Interesting)
(Yes, I know that others have said the same thing- but allow me to expand on this...)
When Chernobyl reactor #4 exploded, it sprayed a radioactive cloud that would have killed everyone for many hundreds of miles around the damn thing if it weren't for the prevailing wind conditions and the local fauna dissipating goodly portions of the radioactive cloud. (To put what we are talking about here in perspective, the soldiers collecting bits and pieces of the moderator debris flung from the reactor recieved their lifetime safe dosage of radiation in the 90 or so seconds they were out picking this stuff up. They all died, by the way, over the following several years with various unusual conditions- as if they were irradiated with a very high radiation dose over several months' time.)
We were lucky with the Three Mile Island incident- had it gone just a little differently, we'd have experienced our OWN Chernobyl.
While I'm all for improving Fission reactors, the risks are still WAAAAY high for when something screws up (and invariably it does...) and the ash from the current fission designs is too damn dangerous to keep about and we've got no good way of disposing of it in a safe manner.
Why Work In A Gravity Well? (Score:5, Interesting)
A better design would be a sol-centric orbital platform, say in Mercury's L-5 point, collecting solar wind via magnetic trap (the "ram-scoop" idea) and using an on board mass spectrometer to separate the components, which are then bottled for use, storage or shipping. In that orbit, there'd be sufficient solar power to run all that.
Set up a veritable merry-go-round of solar sail craft to go pick up and return the He3, and whatever else you want, and pay nothing in fuel costs. So what if they're slow. They're cheap. Build lots. Build *them* on the moon, or better, out of asteroids. You don't want these things slamming into Earth? Don't nuke 'em, smelt 'em.
Gerard O'Neill gave us lots of good ideas. We'd do well to remember that he didn't get them from professional scientists and engineers with reputations to make and maintain. He got them from undergraduates, whose class project it was to think these things up. Having a reputation to lose to your less foresightful colleagues sure puts a damper on innovation.
Great book (Score:3, Interesting)
It talks a lot about this kind of thing.
Re:This explains everything! (Score:2, Interesting)
"And if we could get a monopoly on that (Helium-3), we wouldn't have to worry about the Saudis and we could basically tell everybody what the price of energy was going to be," said Pike.
This demonstrates complete arrogance by the US. It's one thing to think that to yourself and amoungst fellow cabinet members, but you don't go and say something like that to the f'ing reporters!
The thing that pisses me off more about this yahoo article is a statement made two paragraphs above:
Among companies that could cash in on Bush's space plans are Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp., which do big business with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as well as with the Pentagon (news - web sites).
To me, this basically means that we the American taxpayers are going to invest billions of dollars into developing a moon base and not see any return from it - the above companies will. It sounds a lot like GW's scam when he built the stadium for the Texas Rangers using taxpayers money and then cashed out for big personal gain [bushfiles.com] - only this time he's using federal funds and screwing all of America.
Anything is possible, with just a few snags (Score:4, Interesting)
So let's see, the only thing in the way of their plans is this silly little law of physics that says energy in must equal energy out. period. you can't create energy, you can't destroy it.
On the same line, getting to the galaxy next door is right around the corner, we just need to figure out how to go 10,000x the speed of light.
Oh, and immortality is close too, we just need to get around that "death" thing.
Gimme a break.
Re:Sure, Chernobyl was harmless... (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.worldprocessor.com/images/chernobyl.
The red area is the spread of radiation from Chernobyl after the meltdown. Now you CANNOT say that something of that magnitude only caused a handful of deaths. That's a decent chunk of the fsckin' planet there!!! Given that dispersion, it would only take... what... three or four more "industrial accidents" to irradiate the entire globe for the next few millenia.
Contrast this to fusion, which is *NOT* a chain reaction like fission is. If something were to go wrong at a fusion plant, the reactor could be immediately shut down. Hell, damage to the reactor itself would prevent fusion from occuring and most likely cease the fusion reaction itself.
There's a reason for a push to make fusion work. It's not only cheap and plentiful, it's SAFE.
Re:What I Wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)
And not for the (apparently) obvious reason that Helium is lighter-than-air.
(you see, it's only 'lighter' when/because it has lower density for the same volume)
In order for this to be a profitable enterprise, you'd pack the He3 as densely as possible into the return vessel.
So now you have (a) approaching engineering weight limits for return vessel (b) approaching structural integrity limits (ie maximum pressure) for return vessel (at least, for parts thereof).
I for one would not be looking for smack-down landings in the middle of some relatively unpopulated landmass.
Even though a the He3 wouldn't "go up in flames" a critical rupture of the pressurised vessel would be a significantly loud and dramatic event, not to mention fabulously expensive (ie because you've wasted one expensive return shot with zero He3 to show for it)
Re:Why Work In A Gravity Well? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why do we need to process anything out there? Scoop up your regolith and ship the whole damn package back to earth. Moon based "catapults" or mag lev systems would probably work fine, and let the Earth's grav pull them in.
Process it all on Earth, or even better, in LEO. That way we have fuel waiting in orbit for vehicles and they don't have to haul it up with them. They carry just enough fuel to get into LEO then stop by the nearest "gas station" and fill back up. HUGE energy savings right there. So we get our cheap(er) space fuel and Earth gets some nice new power supply.
Re:Back to Earth (Score:3, Interesting)
Um... we're the densest chunk of anything in the star system and the biggest gravity sinkhole within 150E6 km. We're living on a great big bullseye. Ever wonder why the far side of the moon has many more craters than the near side? Better yet, ever wonder why we have this monsterous moon to begin with?
The "hard" part of the moon-to-earth journey is bleeding off the kinetic energy of the moon's orbit, but even that is insanely easy by earth standards. Blow the dust out of a WWII surplus 16" gun, send it up there, and you can have regolith coming back here at rates measured in tons per hour (if not per minute). Hey, if the SHARP project could use one to send payloads into space from earth...
Don't like the start-up cost of sending up something that heavy? Build one on-site instead. Harvest iron from asteroid impacts, smelt it with reflecting mirrors (what's the carbon content of your typical iron asteroid, anyway?) and fire it off using hydrogen obtained locally (where you don't have to worry about catching it before a crushing atmosphere squeezes it up out of reach). You end up with a light gas gun where you don't even need to worry about the speed of sound to begin with.
(Yeah yeah, you could probably use magnetic induction, etc, but you need an earth-shattering "kaboom!" even if you only get to hear it through your feet
Re:In other news (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:In other news (Score:3, Interesting)
Which is nice because lunar aluminum, silicone, etc will be what we build virtually any big orbital structure out of. Why import steel from Earth? Foamed aluminum (simple to make on the moon) is almost as strong, and much cheaper to get than terran steel. If we can find some iron (possible, even if its just remnents of meteors) that's easy to mine, Lunar Steel stands to make a killing as well.
When I think of the moon's future I think of Detroit (in its hayday) or Osaka, the moon is going to be the hub of space construction. Everything from ships, to satelites, to space stations. Invest early people, it'll be worth it in the long run.
It's Really Sady (Score:2, Interesting)
It's really sad that this is the year 2004 and completely safe pebble-bed reactor fissions plants combined with nuclear waste recycling (using the byproducts for more nuclear energy) are not putting the oil companies out of business.
Forget all the BS and hyperbole that you hear on TV and movies, you know the propaganda is really working when they have the young engineers convinced that one of the most marvelous energy technologies of the 20th century has been torpedo'd by the elite until we run out of fossil fuels or choke to death on the carcinogenic pollutants saturating our atmosphere.
Have you people forgotten that France, Japan and many other nations run mostly on fission? Hell, practically the entire US Naval fleet (including submarines obviously) runs on fission.
Which is more reasonable -- pebble-bed reactors that can be highly safe and secure or fossil fuel wars that kill people by the hundreds of thousands? Do the numbers.
At least with pebble-beds you can isolate the contaminants inside golf-ball size balls that prevent the reactor from ever going critical. You can also concentrate all your security on the production facilities instead of playing Big Brother and forcing everyone to have automobile-cavity-searches for polluting components.
The waste can be recycled until practically nothing is left, but you can thank President Carter for signing the bill that has doomed us all to a future of fossil fuel dependency because that bill prevents the recycling of nuclear fuels. This also forces current nuclear plants from reducing the waste to sub-hazardous levels and planting the really hot stuff in Nevada.
With all of the "myths" FAQs out there, someone needs one on Nuclear Power Myths.
The future is fission generated hydrogen fuel that powers our cars. If you have religious issues with fission you can even create your own hydrogen with solar panels made by BP, Shell, Kyocera or a bunch of other OEMs.
Spread the word. Nuclear power can still rescue us. Don't believe the myths. Grow a pair and think big. If you keep thinking like sheep you are dooming the planet and your children to endless war and pollution.
Go out and learn some damn physics people.
Sheesh.
Re:Why Work In A Gravity Well? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes. Consider initially getting it out of our gravity well a constant. Getting it back down into another safely (one without atmosphere for aerobraking) would be expensive in energy terms. Getting it out of the moon's gravity well would be less expensive, but not free by any stretch.
"Why do we need to process anything out there? Scoop up your regolith and ship the whole damn package back to earth. Moon based "catapults" or mag lev systems would probably work fine, and let the Earth's grav pull them in."
Why? To keep the pollution out there. To lighten the load that has to be lowered back down the well to Earth. To make use of whatever can be made use of on-site. To prevent He3 from outgassing from the regolith during handling and transport.
"Process it all on Earth, or even better, in LEO."
Just as long as the processing occurs in a minimal gravity well, it can be shipped around easily. Sure, gas stations in LEO, geosynch, any of the Lagrange points, and why not? And remember, just because orbit means microgravity, it does not mean it's outside a gravity well.
Re:Here we go again... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why Work In A Gravity Well? (Score:2, Interesting)
Plus by constructing on the moon we don't have to provide the same basic support frame. We use the moon, at a lagrange point we have to build much more.
Lowering the material back to earth doesn't take any energy on our side, getting it into the Earth's gravity well does. The Lagrange point may have equal pull from different solar bodies but you still are going to dip into at least one on the way out and over to the Earth. That's going to take considerable energy.
If the H3 doesn't outgas on the moon it is not going to magically outgas on the transport. In the short term, any losses due to outgassing durring handling is going to be minimul and easily offset by the cost of boosting processing equipment out of LEO.
That's where the massive equipment is, why push all that out ot the moon or out to a lagrange point? Use the least amount of fuel and put those in LEO. I never said LEO was outside of the well, if it was it would require energy to bring the material to the processing in LEO and that would negate one of the points of putting them there, the minimal effort to bring material to them. You just use the earth's own well for you instead of fighting it.
Re: Mining the Moon for heavy minerals (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know whether it would be more cost-effective to send aluminum up from the Moon's surface, or to capture iron-rich asteroids.
My guess is that steel structures would provide more protection from solar radiation, etc., and so they would be preferable to aluminum for habitats.
Re:In other news (Score:4, Interesting)
Keyword here is "yet". I know that for the past 40 years people have been saying "fusion is just 5 years away", but this time it really does look possible. The newest research fusion reactor is expected to be the last research fusion reactor. Because they believe that the next one will be commercial. Right now research reactors are getting 99% efficiency (meaning it takes only 1% more energy than they produce to keep the reaction going). The new research reactor is planned to be quite a bit larger than all the previous ones, there's a good chance that simply scaling up will push them over the edge to power surplus. Fusion will happen, and it will happen in our lifetimes. Weather the US is leading the way or not is a totally different question.
I never said it'd be a short term investment, just that it'd be worthwhile. Invest early and your grandchildren will thank you. If Colombus had sold stock it wouldn't have paid off early, but the ultimate payoff would have been incredible.
Ahem, I preseume this is because I said "Lunar Steel", then later mentioned that it would be chaper than "terran steel"? WTF? Personally I think saying "moon steel", and "Earth steel" sounds (simply due to the sounds of the words) dumb. More to the point, what did NASA call its *MOON* lander? If you said "LEM", you win the prize, and what did LEM stand for? Why *LUNAR* Exploration Module. Gee, those stupid sci fi freaks at NASA, no one will ever take them seriously. Sheesh...