Scientists Discover Unexplained Abundance of Rare Nuclear Fusion Fuel on Earth (vice.com) 87
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Scientists have discovered evidence that a key rare resource, called helium-3, is potentially ten times more common on Earth than previously known -- though the source of all this extra supply remains mysterious, reports a new study. The finding is important because helium-3 could serve as a foundation of limitless clean power for our civilization, but has been seen as inaccessible since it is largely found in outer space locations, especially the Moon. Helium-3 is an isotope of helium, which means it contains the same number of protons as this common element but a different number of neutrons. This isotope is considered a potentially powerful energy source for future fusion reactors, making it a star of science fiction as well as a sought-out resource in the real world. However, while small amounts of the substance are produced by geological processes and from the fallout of nuclear weapons testing, there is thought to be very little helium-3 available on Earth.
Now, scientists led by Benjamin Birner, a postdoctoral scholar in geosciences at the University of California San Diego, have captured evidence for a previously unknown abundance of helium-3 in the atmosphere, which "presents a major puzzle in the helium-3 budget" and "motivates a search for missing helium-3 sources on Earth, especially since helium-3 is considered an important, yet scarce, resource," according to a study published on Monday in Nature Geoscience. Known sources of helium-3 on Earth only account for 10 percent of the surplus, the researchers said. Birner and his colleagues serendipitously uncovered this inferred surplus of helium-3 (3He) while tackling another challenging problem: measuring the overall rise in atmospheric helium as a result of human consumption of fossil fuels. The team pioneered a first-of-its-kind technique for estimating these anthropogenic helium emissions by examining another isotope, helium-4 (4He), which in turn led to the perplexing conclusion that there is some unknown source of helium-3 on our planet. "We only measured the change in atmospheric 4He," Birner said in an email. "However, previous work by other researchers indicates that the helium isotopic ratio of the atmosphere (3He/4He) is roughly stable. Together these observations imply an increase in atmospheric 3He that matches the rise in 4He or we would see a change in the atmospheric isotope ratio."
Helium-3 could be the ideal fuel for nuclear fusion, a potential energy source that mimics the same process that powers stars. Though nuclear fusion may not materialize as a practical power source for decades, assuming it is feasible at all, its potential to provide clean and limitless energy to the global human population makes it a tantalizing area of study. To that end, scientists across fields are likely to be interested in locating this unexplained surplus of helium-3 on Earth that has been implied by the new research. "That increase of 3He is quite puzzling because we don't have a good explanation for the source of this 3He so far," Birner noted. "It's quite an important puzzle to solve also because 3He is an important and scarce resource for nuclear fusion reactors. Based on the reported uncertainties in previous studies of the atmospheric 3He/4He trend, the buildup of 3He looks significant, but our study clearly motivates a closer look at the atmospheric 3He/4He trend."
Now, scientists led by Benjamin Birner, a postdoctoral scholar in geosciences at the University of California San Diego, have captured evidence for a previously unknown abundance of helium-3 in the atmosphere, which "presents a major puzzle in the helium-3 budget" and "motivates a search for missing helium-3 sources on Earth, especially since helium-3 is considered an important, yet scarce, resource," according to a study published on Monday in Nature Geoscience. Known sources of helium-3 on Earth only account for 10 percent of the surplus, the researchers said. Birner and his colleagues serendipitously uncovered this inferred surplus of helium-3 (3He) while tackling another challenging problem: measuring the overall rise in atmospheric helium as a result of human consumption of fossil fuels. The team pioneered a first-of-its-kind technique for estimating these anthropogenic helium emissions by examining another isotope, helium-4 (4He), which in turn led to the perplexing conclusion that there is some unknown source of helium-3 on our planet. "We only measured the change in atmospheric 4He," Birner said in an email. "However, previous work by other researchers indicates that the helium isotopic ratio of the atmosphere (3He/4He) is roughly stable. Together these observations imply an increase in atmospheric 3He that matches the rise in 4He or we would see a change in the atmospheric isotope ratio."
Helium-3 could be the ideal fuel for nuclear fusion, a potential energy source that mimics the same process that powers stars. Though nuclear fusion may not materialize as a practical power source for decades, assuming it is feasible at all, its potential to provide clean and limitless energy to the global human population makes it a tantalizing area of study. To that end, scientists across fields are likely to be interested in locating this unexplained surplus of helium-3 on Earth that has been implied by the new research. "That increase of 3He is quite puzzling because we don't have a good explanation for the source of this 3He so far," Birner noted. "It's quite an important puzzle to solve also because 3He is an important and scarce resource for nuclear fusion reactors. Based on the reported uncertainties in previous studies of the atmospheric 3He/4He trend, the buildup of 3He looks significant, but our study clearly motivates a closer look at the atmospheric 3He/4He trend."
It's *ALWAYS* 20 years away (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's *ALWAYS* 20 years away (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you seen the experiments going on? They are sustaining fusion reactions for significantly longer than they have in the past. This idea that something isn't going to take longer than a single human lifetime is so pessimistic and short sighted. It doesn't come to fruition in your lifetime therefore it will never exist.
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for the personal observer, if it doesn't come into fruition in his lifetime, than indeed, it does not exist
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The accountants and media talk about what can be done in a 20-year timeframe, because that is the limit for funding, or public interest.
You simply don't hear from the less optimistic, or those talking about longer time-frames. At least not in Western popular culture.
correct: You *ALWAYS* hear about 20 years away.
90 years ago, Einstein said ''there is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. That would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.'' That sort of c
Re:It's *ALWAYS* 20 years away (Score:4, Interesting)
They are sustaining fusion reactions for significantly longer than they have in the pas
Yeah, this is great progress. If they keep it up like this, we will have practical nuclear fusion in about 20 years!
Kidding aside, the skeptic has history on his side here:
Fusion proponents, he notes, also estimate that commercial applications of their work are at least 20 years off. [latimes.com]
- April 19, 1989
A feasibility study is about to start and it could be in commercial service within 10 years. [bbc.co.uk]
- May 7, 1999
"Fifty years ago, they said we were fifty years away from nuclear fusion for general electric power," says Joseph V. Minervini, a nuclear engineer at MIT and member of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project. "We're still decades out." [wired.com]
- Aug 1, 2000
I suspect design and construction of a large-scale commercial plant will take at least a decade once we reach the point of having a working prototype that can sustain a reaction and a way to capture it. Since we don't have those things yet, the clock hasn't even started ticking.
I hope that tomorrow somebody publishes a "we did it!" paper and that clock starts. In the meantime, the skeptics have ample evidence that we should be patient, not overstate our position, and stay the course. :-)
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> Kidding aside, the skeptic has history on his side here (April 19, 1989):
Oh, it goes back way further than that! In 1958 John Cockcroft said ZETA would be commercial in 20 years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZETA_(fusion_reactor)
Keith Brueckner predicted breakeven in five years in 1969:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KMS_Fusion
All the ICF people were saying that at the time (nuckolls, Kidder, Basov), they thought they had discovered the magic sauce. Turns out: no.
Literally *everyone* thought the toks wou
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they are sustaining fusion reactions for significantly longer than they have in the past.
FYI; the BEST actual fusion results was a whooping FIVE SECONDS in a device built for testing only.
You might be getting confused by the announcement about the Chinese managing to set a record 17 some minutes at 70million degrees, a new record. Which ignores the fact that actual Fusion needs 100 million degrees 24/7 to be useful.
Sustained, controlled fusion is still decades off at best.
Granted, someone might have a Eureka! breakthrough tomorrow and actually get it working in a few years. Then its just a ma
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This is because the number "20 years" has no real, quantitative meaning. Essentially it just means "we're not working on anything specific in that direction right now" (i.e. not hitting the market within the next 5-10 years), "and we're not planing to work on anything after this" (i.e. not hitting the market within the next 10-20 years either).
So it's "maybe in 20 years" a.k.a. "...but it's a cool thing to do, so I sure hope so much I'll get to be around to see it that I'm essentially trying to will it into
Re:It's *ALWAYS* 20 years away (Score:5, Funny)
"Though nuclear fusion may not materialize as a practical power source for decades" And that is the rub. I'm 52 and practical nuclear fusion has *ALWAYS* been 20 years way. Until I see something that might change it, talk about getting HE3 is premature.
Exactly. Scientific research without immediate commercial applications is useless and should be banned for wasting money and resources. No one should be investigating HE3 until a reactor is ready to go.
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20 years ago, it would have been obvious you're being sarcastic. Nowadays there are enough fools that I don't really know.
He3 worse than Deuterium (Score:2)
No one should be investigating HE3 until a reactor is ready to go.
No, nobody should be worrying about He3 because we have a far better fuel readily available which is why, as far as I am aware, none of the attempts to make a fusion reactor are focussing on helium-3.
Deuterium-tritium fusion only requires temperatures of ~100 million degrees and deuterium is readily available and tritium is easy to make with a neutron source...like any functioning nuclear reactor including fission-based ones. So you do have to question why we are worrying about He3 which requires temper
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> The only advantage of He3 reactors is that it would not produce neutrons so the reactor would remain largely unactivated. However, since reactor vessels are made of "light" elements
Huh? They're made of *extremely* expensive stainless steel. With modern magnets pushing way past 15T, it is unlikely there is any other practical material.
Lots of theory about how one *might* construct one out of light materials, precisely zero actual designs, and precisely zero actual research in this direction.
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Extremely expensive? Compared to what? You're talking about a facility that I assume would cost hundreds of millions to billions of dollars to construct; how much of that would be the cost of stainless steel?
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They're made of *extremely* expensive stainless steel.
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It's an interesting mystery to solve where the He-3 comes from
Without commercial use, it's a waste of money to even contemplate it. Who cares if it doesn't advance commerce.
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It's not premature - a resource that people thought was exceedingly rare now seems to be less rare than previously thought, this means that reactor designs based upon said fuel source may now be more economically viable than they were originally, which in turn will trigger more research into those types of reactors. That doesn't necessarily mean that we'll see a viable fusion reactor in our lifetimes, but it certainly has an impact on the research directions, one of which may advance the scientific state of
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The prospect of near-free, limitless energy is way too unappealing to those in power who use the cost of energy as a weapon to subjugate people. Fusion will never be a thing unless it can be used to make enormous profits for the oligarchs.
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Are these the same people that are installing wind and solar at rates that make them the fastest growing power sources in the history of mankind? You know, the sources that is near-free (literally the cheapest form of any sort of power ever) and it literally falls from the sky for free?
Those are the people that find "near-free, limitless energy is way too unappealing"?
Deuterium Fusion (Score:3)
this means that reactor designs based upon said fuel source may now be more economically viable than they were originally
But He3 reactors will still be much less viable than deuterium-based reactors which require a temperature 8 times lower than He3, burn a fuel we can readily extract from ocean water and could be run in such a way as to produce helium-3 while generating power....which is why all the fusion reactor work I'm aware of focuses on deuterium fusion.
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The problem is that while nuclear fusion would be wonderful, there are plenty of alternatives that already exist and which provide nearly guaranteed returns in much shorter timescales.
Given that climate change is now an urgent issue, and we have solutions to it, it's difficult for governments to justify spending huge amounts of money on fusion research.
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The problem is that while nuclear fusion would be wonderful, there are plenty of alternatives that already exist and which provide nearly guaranteed returns in much shorter timescales.
We have plenty already, the best of these being nuclear fission. For reliability, cost effectiveness, and safety is the best alternative we have. Once the new reactor designs are in the field we can start fazing out coal and gas faster than ever before.
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We have plenty already, the best of these being nuclear fission. For reliability, cost effectiveness, and safety is the best alternative we have. Once the new reactor designs are in the field we can start fazing out coal and gas faster than ever before.
I've been reading this for years, but have yet to hear of one of the new reactor designs coming online. I'm all for getting into some safer solutions, but can you point us to a newer design that has actually come to fruition?
we can start fazing out coal and gas faster than ever before.
You mean, "we can start phasing out coal and gas..." unless you were intending to disturb or disconcert coal and gas after new designs are in the field....
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I've been reading this for years, but have yet to hear of one of the new reactor designs coming online.
Thanks to FUD and the lies the nuclear kooks out there spread, it takes years to design a new reactor. But now all you have to do is a simple search on google for new designs and you will see that many of them are off the drawing board and in the approval and testing phase.
I watched a video the other day from youtube about a micro reactor where as small scale micro reactor, date this year, is about to go into small scale testing.
You just have to look for them.
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"Though nuclear fusion may not materialize as a practical power source for decades"
And that is the rub. I'm 52 and practical nuclear fusion has *ALWAYS* been 20 years way. Until I see something that might change it, talk about getting HE3 is premature.
A while back I saw an article about how nuclear fusion always being 20 years away was based on funding not dropping off at a significant rate. Not sure how much of that is true vs we just didn't understand the problem well enough to define the work (and technology) necessary.
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This graph [wikimedia.org] is what you're looking for. Fusion is always decades away because we never put in the time and effort (a.k.a. money) to do the necessary research.
Exactly, thank you!
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> based on funding not dropping off at a significant rate
Yeah, the fusion nerds love to drop this meme whenever anyone points out the 20 years. It's BS.
You have to understand the history here. In 1968 the Soviets announced their tokamaks had outperformed everyone by 10 to 100 times and had clearly and easily broken the Bohm diffusion limit. No one believed them. So they invited a team from the UK to check, and sure enough, it worked.
What resulted was the "tokamak rush". Within a year you had new projects
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nuclear fusion power is 8 minutes away and always has been.
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.... has *ALWAYS* been 20 years way.
It's just a number people use when they know something can be done but don't know how long it will take.
Get over it.
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The reason you see this so pessimistically is because you only heard part of the quote, and assumed that was it.
The quote years ago was "if we put this much funding into fusion, it will be x years away." There is even a chart that shows the various funding levels, but I wasn't able to find it quickly. The amounts of funding that the whole world has put into fusion is in the level on that chart of "never fusion." The world has not put the money in that would be needed to achieve fusion in a reasonable ti
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> I'm 52 and practical nuclear fusion has *ALWAYS* been 20 years way. Until I see something that might change it
Read the recent news. Private industry is involved now and some blokes in the UK did away with the TOKAMAK boondoggle and are commercializing a miniature version of the H-Bomb technology now. They have a working prototype and are currently building a test grid-scale reactor.
Look into how Lincoln Labs conspired with John Kerry and Hazel O'Leary to try to extend that 20-year gravy train foreve
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World socio-economic events of late are pushing governments to rethink nuclear energy, we have new reactor designs just waiting to be rolled out [technologyreview.com]while Fusion is being "baked."
We can have more fission reactors online within 5 years that's 1/4 of the time and will have a useful life for at least 30 to 40 years.
What has to happen is the political climate needs to change to streamline the approval process and reduce the legal hurdles power companies have to overcome when doing these kinds of projects. That woul
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In 1920 we had only barely figured out the basic chemical components of DNA, and were still several decades away from figuring out its structure, and then another several decades away from devising tools and methods to examine its sequence, and then another few decades away from having the medical/population data to begin heavily matching specific sequences to phenotype expressions.
And now, after several rounds of "several decades later", the only reason you can't order a customized human baby is because ma
It's not so much the years as the projected funds (Score:2)
I once read an article by, I think, a major fusion researcher who has been in it since the early years. I think the "20 year" prediction was based on the condition of "...if current levels of funding in relation to the economy continues" What of course happened was that the powers that be had short attention spans, and the fusion research funding has been cut down to a trickle since the early days. The basic model was that if the funding were cut in half, it would take twice as long (at least). However,
The source is obvious (Score:2)
Obviously, the unexplained source of Helium-3 in the atmosphere is that it leaked from the fuel tanks of the spacecrafts that were crashed here by Xenu 75 million years ago. Duh.
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You're thinking of Heilium-3. (stupid moon nazis...)
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testing or aliens? (Score:2)
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Boss had to buy a new load of 70 litres (at normal pressure) of He3 for $$$$. Was a bit grumpy but not one to bear a grudge.
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so it's possible someone is secretly testing a lot of weapons.
No, it's not. Nuclear weapons have unique signatures that are delectable on a global scale. Surface tests have signature light flashes and gamma wave emissions that are detectable from space. The planet is being scanned by dozens of satellites for these signatures.
Underground tests have a unique seismic signature that is detected from anywhere on the planet. At one time geologists where using the shockwaves from nuclear test on other side of the planet to map the interior of the planet.
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> that are delectable on a global scale
Especially when you dip them in soy.
just need an pack of hommers to run the plants! (Score:2)
just need an pack of hommers to run the plants!
Did they draw the wrong conclusion? (Score:3)
"We only measured the change in atmospheric 4He," Birner said in an email. "However, previous work by other researchers indicates that the helium isotopic ratio of the atmosphere (3He/4He) is roughly stable. Together these observations imply an increase in atmospheric 3He that matches the rise in 4He or we would see a change in the atmospheric isotope ratio."
Wouldn't the more likely scenario be that the ratio of 3H3/4He isn't as stable as the other study suggested?
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They kind of acknowledge this in the available abstract on the Nature study:
Given that previous observations have shown that the ratio between helium-3 and helium-4 in the atmosphere has remained constant, our results also imply that the concentration of helium-3 is increasing. The inferred rise in atmospheric helium-3 greatly exceeds estimates of anthropogenic emissions from natural gas, nuclear weapons and nuclear power generation, suggesting potential problems with previous isotope measurements or an inc
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Yes, the people who do this for a living fucked up the entire study. Thank god slashdot armchair scientists are able to call them out.
The rent is too damn high (Score:2)
Correlation suggests at least... (Score:5, Interesting)
Correlation does not imply causation, but it does strongly hint that there is at least a common cause. E.g. ice cream consumption correlates with drowning because both increase in response to high temperatures.
If the isotope ratios are holding roughly steady despite our known increased release of He4, it *could* be that an unknown source of He3 just coincidentally increased to keep pace, but smart money is that there's some unrecognized link between the two. I assume they've double-checked that we're not actually releasing a bunch He3 that we just assumed was He4, but perhaps He4 is transmuted into He3+?(H2? 2H1?) when hit by cosmic rays? Similar to how C14 is the result of N14 being hit? An increase in atmospheric He4 _would_ translate directly to an increase in such transmutation events.
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Hmm - or perhaps it's H-2 that transmutes to He-3? After all H-2 is naturally occurring, and is released proportional to the amount of oil and natural gas released, which is likely at least roughly proportional to the amount of He-3 released from the same wells.
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"Caused" is perhaps a strong word, but it's absolutely the driving force behind the relationship.
Most people drown when swimming - and when do most people swim? When it's hot out.
Similarly, the amount of ice cream eaten increases also dramatically when it's hot out. It's a much less popular treat in the winter.
The resulting correlation between ice cream consumption and drowning is one of the classic examples used to illustrate "Correlation is not causation."
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Indeed first port of call needs to be to investigate the actual isotope ratios in the Helium that is being pissed away into the atmosphere.
Cue Sam Rockwell ... (Score:2)
So Sam Bell can simultaneously work on the Earth *and* Moon [wikipedia.org] ...
I don't think I understand the value of 3He here. (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole point of nuclear fusion (aside from the lack of spent radioactive fuel) is that unlike fissionable materials, the fuel for a fusion reactor is plentiful, in fact, Hydrogen is still the most common atom in existence.
If fusion fuel is going to be as difficult to obtain as fission fuel, and if we're still going to have to deal with management of irradiated reactor components, I'd say a lot of fusion's charm is starting to wear off. Nuclear power is absolutely going to be a large part of the overall energy picture going forward, but proponents will need to stop making pie-in-the-sky promises about cheap, clean, nearly effortless energy generation. We'll never move on to fusion power until we acknowledge and address the shortcomings.
Re:I don't think I understand the value of 3He her (Score:5, Informative)
With HE3 its potential is that it's easier to get going and also aneutronic [wikipedia.org] and therefore can produce energy directly rather than through a thermal conversion process.
Why is Helium-3 better than Deuterium for fusion energy production? [stackexchange.com]
Deuterium/heavy water fusions is the process we think of when people talk about pulling fuel out of the ocean but it seems that is more complex but that is what ITER is going to be attempting once it's built.
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*on Earth.
There's plenty of the stuff on the Moon as well as in the gas giants. So depending on how/where we scale up solar exploration, it's not at all scarce.
Aneutronic minor Advantage (Score:2)
Compare that to the 8 times higher temperature required for He3 vs. D-T fusion and the abundance of the fuel and that's why D-T fusion is the one being researched. Once we manage to achieve t
Re:I don't think I understand the value of 3He her (Score:5, Informative)
The traditional deuterium + tritium fusion process leaves the reactor radioactive. Using 3He you get no radiation, only a proton that dumps its kinetic energy into the containing electro-magnetic field to produce electrical energy directly. The downside is that you need a lot more heat to 2H + 3He fusion.
Another option is deuterium + 3He, which also produces electricity directly (instead of heat to make steam to drive a turbine). Another advantage is that it can be controlled with electrostatic fields, so you don't need massive high power magnets. Again though, it needs extremely high temperatures, much higher than the classic D-T type fusion that is being worked on today.
Theoretically it could be incredibly valuable, but we don't know how to build a helium-3 reactor. There are a few ideas but they are all highly theoretical.
Coronal Mass Ejections? (Score:5, Interesting)
It could be that the amount of Helium is being added from an external source. When coronal mass ejections from the sun hit the earth, maybe some of that material is captured into the atmosphere.
I don't have access to a lot of full text articles, but looking at some abstracts from papers, it seems like some of the CME events have a 10:1 ratio of He3 to He4.
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Well (Score:2)
That maybe kind of squelch is one of the reasons to get back to the Moon
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Great! (Score:1)
It would be dreadful if we had to fight a war with mere fission bombs.
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We already have fusion bombs...
Like Elon said (Score:2)
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4 words: Single point of failure.
Quantity please??? (Score:2)
Pons fleischmann and volcanoes (Score:2)
The cold fusion guys published an interesting paper back then ( somewhat overshadowed perhaps by the more famous anomalous electrochemical cold fusion heat paper ) that reported the detection of H3 isotope in gases emitted by volcanoes. Anyone remember that?
I do not think it means what you think it means... (Score:3)
"The finding is important because helium-3 could serve as a foundation of limitless clean power for our civilization"
Limitless? Isn't it limited by the amount of Helium-3 you can get? We produce enough already (by product of of having enough nukes to blow up the world) to create proof-of-concept prototypes. When those materialize I'll get excited about finding a lot of helium-3 earth side. Then we can talk about somehow scooping out of the solar wind, too...
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It's doesn't matter (Score:2)
They'll blow it all into balloons anyway.