Posted on 11/26/2004 9:20:04 AM PST by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
Udaipur, November 26 -- A potential gas source found on the Moon's surface could hold the key to meeting future energy demands as the Earth's fossil fuels dry up in the coming decades, scientists said on Friday.
Mineral samples from the Moon contained abundant quantities of helium 3, a variant of the gas used in lasers and refrigerators as well as to blow up balloons.
"When compared to the Earth the Moon has a tremendous amount of helium 3," said Lawrence Taylor, a director of the US Planetary Geosciences Institute, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
"When helium 3 combines with deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen) the fusion reaction proceeds at a very high temperature and it can produce awesome amounts of energy," Taylor said.
"Just 25 tonnes of helium, which can be transported on a space shuttle, is enough to provide electricity for the US for one full year," said Taylor, who is in the north Indian city of Udaipur for a global conference on Moon exploration.
Helium 3 is deposited on the lunar surface by solar winds and would have to be extracted from Moon soil and rocks.
ping
What? You're not buying this tripe...er, I mean, science?
Contract it out to Taco Bell.
How much moon soil and rock does it take to produce 25 tons of helium?
Really?!
Mike
I've heard that the gas from Uranus is even better
ROTFLMAO
With an energy source as described, it seems as of the moon would be an ideal location for the beginning of an interplanetary mission to Mars and beyond.
Ooops, I forgot to mention the amount of jobs lost by this outsourcing to the moon.
Yippie, more jobs to outsource!
Before we spend milti-billions trying to mine energy from the moon how about the democraps and a few republicans in congress get a backbone and lift drilling restrictions off of (gee let's say)the East and West coasts of the lower 48 as well as Anwar in Alaska
How do you even weigh a ton of helium when it wants to float away, off the scale?
i agree. Yet we should call the moon for america.
First of all, let's see someone convince me that we can ever run out of "fossil fuel". After all, Titan has a hyrocarbon atmosphere, so how many dinosaurs died there?
We wont run out, but demand will push prices to the stratosphere in the coming decades.
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