Moon's surface brimming with untapped power

Houston Chronicle ^ | December 8, 2002 | MARK CARREAU

[Dog Gone]

Astronauts journeyed to the moon as a display of Cold War technical prowess, but the far-reaching legacy of their explorations may be the discovery of an invisible nuclear power source locked in the gray lunar soil.

The material is helium-3, a rare form of nature's second most plentiful chemical element and a potential radiation-free source of nuclear fusion-generated electricity.

Experts estimate that the most accessible layers of the lunar soil are laced with one million tons of helium-3. Though fusion power generation technologies are far from mastered, 40 tons of the material theoretically would supply the current annual electricity needs of the entire nation. Based on current spot crude oil prices, each ton of lunar helium-3 is worth about $5 billion.

Scientists examining the first lunar rocks the Apollo missions brought to Earth began reporting the presence of helium-3 in the early 1970s, but only over the course of time has its potential begun to be realized.

"Most of the long-term sustaining value of exploration turns out to be serendipitous," said Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, a Harvard-trained geologist who became the only professional scientist among 12 Apollo astronauts to make the 240,000-mile lunar journey. "The same has to be applied to the Apollo exploration of the moon. We did not know at its conclusion the value of helium-3."

Thirty years ago this week, Schmitt joined Gene Cernan and the late Ron Evans aboard Apollo 17 as they lifted off on the last of six missions to carry American explorers to the moon. Evans remained aboard the Apollo command module capsule that circled the moon while Cernan, the mission commander, and Schmitt, his co-pilot, descended to the surface.

Now 67, Schmitt lives in Albuquerque, N.M., home base for his business affairs, including efforts to foster commercial fusion power generation with helium-3.

In 1976, Schmitt was elected to a single term as a Republican U.S. senator from New Mexico. Last year, he sought appointment as NASA's administrator by President Bush, a post the White House instead filled with Sean O'Keefe.

Schmitt's simmering fascination with helium-3 started to crystallize almost a decade ago, when he signed on as an adjunct professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin.

He also established an association with the school's Fusion Technology Institute. The institute was instrumental in sizing up the moon's helium-3 potential in the post-Apollo era.

"It could be the Persian Gulf of the 21st century," said Gerald Kulcinski, a professor of nuclear engineering who serves as the institute's director.

The sun's tremendous radiance is fueled by a sustained internal nuclear fusion reaction, as is the vast explosive power of the hydrogen bomb. Fusion relies on the merging of nature's lightest elements to release energy, including radioactive byproducts.

Traditional utility companies limit their nuclear power production to fission processes, in which heavy atomic particles are split to release energy, including radioactivity.

Most fusion research has been focused on the merging of deuterium and tritium, two forms of hydrogen. Tritium, however, is radioactive and the reaction produces the release of atomic particles that rapidly destroy the protective materials housing the fusion process.

Physicists had long known that scarce helium-3 was a non-radioactive alternative to deuterium-tritium fuels.

Generated by the sun's nuclear furnace, helium-3 is scattered by the solar wind. But the magnetic fields or thick atmospheres that surround the inner planets -- Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars -- shield them from becoming natural respositories.

Over the 4.5 billion-year life of the solar system, the moon has become a catcher's mitt for helium-3 because it lacks shielding.

The significance of Apollo's discovery went largely unnoticed until 1986. It was then that researchers from the Fusion Technology Institute, frustrated by the commercial prospects for power generation using deuterium and tritium, consulted lunar geologists, Kulcinski recalled.

Without lunar helium-3, there is just enough of the material generated as a byproduct of nuclear weapons production for low-level fusion experiments.

But the research has not matured sufficiently to demonstrate that helium-3 fusion can be sustained in ways to produce more energy than the reaction consumes, Kulcinski said. Nonetheless, Schmitt is undeterred.

"Because of the energy value of helium-3, the potential is there to ultimately finance a return to the moon with investors. Then the taxpayer gets a break," he said. "Now, the question is, can you get investors to step up? That is where I come in."

Eventually, Schmitt believes, the nation must weigh the costs and benefits of continued reliance on fossil fuels for power generation versus investments in nuclear fission plants or solar power systems.

"I have gradually come to the conclusion that the mining of lunar soils and the extraction of helium-3, as well as several important byproducts for use in space, is probably a winner from an investment point of view, and also, I think, from a political point of view," he said.

The process of extracting helium-3 involves the temporary raising and heating of the lunar soil, a procedure that generates significant amounts of water, another much-valued commodity on the final frontier.

[fone]

||| "Because of the energy value of helium-3, the potential is there to ultimately finance a return to the moon with investors. Then the taxpayer gets a break" |||

Ultimately + taxpayer gets a break = not in our lifetime.

Although, I've no problem with lunar exploration, as long as it puts some Americans to work, and not just the Chinese..

[JRandomFreeper]

Despoiling Mother Gaia isn't enough for these techno-barbarians? They have to despoil Luna as well?

Disclaimer: For those that are humor impaired, the preceeding paragraph was so heavily sarcastic that some of it dripped on the keyboard.

/john

[Dog Gone]

No doubt, though, there would be a movement opposing it on just those grounds.

[crypt2k]

If Helium-3 were in demand NOW, this might be
workable.

[Joe Hadenuf]

bttt

[Jhoffa_]

Oh wow! Now all we need is a big wire!

(I bet Tom Daschle sounds like he's on helium-3 when he's really mad)

[Joe Hadenuf]

The money wasted and invested into the ISS would have be well spent on this endeavor and others on the lunar surface.

[Mark]

...may be the discovery of an invisible nuclear power source locked in the gray lunar soil.

Stop this right now! Nuclear? No way! Protesters pay= $20.00/day + a joint---- time to organize!

[Righty1]

Better file an EIS. Can't we all just agree that the moon needs to be left in its' natural state for "all" to enjoy? After a green CA tourist asked me in all seriousness if coyotes would harm a dog puppy I've put them on my better dead for their own good list.

[Tokhtamish]

So this might be the space potato.

Discovering the potato in America revolutionized food production in Europe because it can be grown in soil too poor to support grain. Potatoes doubled European food production. I knew that there would be something discovered out there that would revolutionize life on Earth as radically as the potato did.

[JRandomFreeper]

asked me in all seriousness if coyotes would harm a dog puppy

I've lost several pups, several cats, a prize winning New Zealand White doe and her litter, and dang near a prop on a Cessena 150 (it was running across the taxiway, chasing a rabbit right before sunrise) to coyotes.

Shoot, shovel, and shutup.

/john

[longshadow]

I am developing a process to create Helium-3 using the digestive tract operating of a secret recipe involving beer, garlic, and Fig Newtons, based upon my revolutionary Quantum Theory of Flatulence.

This process will make free-energy a reality, and will avoid the need to go to the moon (or anywhere else other the local convenience store) to get Helium-3.

I am setting up a company to license this amazing technology to create Helium-3 so that the world will benefit from free-energy. Licensing agreements must be executed, and payment rec'd, before disclosure of the details of how my process works will be made similtaneously to all licensees via the internet.

My amazing Helium-3 process is the result of 2 years work by over 400 visionary researchers, including many top-rank scientists, none of whom I will identify. They have been working in secret in my basement laBORatory, refining the perfect recipe for the production of this wonderful, energy-producing, environmentally friendly gas.

Since this discovery was overlooked by mainstream scientists, they will naturally be envious of what we have accomplished, so there is no point in publishing our findings in a reputable scientific journal; they would refuse to publish revolutionary work like this. We instead will publish vague pronouncements on the internet, devoid of any meaningful details, but full of peppy-sounding words and phrases honed by our cracker-jack Public Relations flacks. They will even insert an occasional vague religious allusion, using phrases like "scripturally inspired" and "spiritually motivated," to dupe religiously-minded people into wanting in on the action. Then we will sit back and watch what people on the internet say, and we will update our website frequently to delete material that tips people off to the fact we are running a scam, and replace it with new material proven to suck in the suckers.

These license agreements are going to sell like hot cakes, so be sure to fill out your application and include a cashier's check in the amount of $5,000 ea. (payable to our bankers in the Cayman Islands) for whatever continent you want exclusive rights to. It doesn't matter if someone else has already purchased the rights to the same territory; we intend on selling as many licenses as we can, regardless of overselling; if the airlines can do it with seats, why not us?

Please check back frequently for new updates, and the address the company will soon be moving to in a country with no extradition treaty with the US....

[Lokibob]

I have seen serious estimates that a shuttle bay load of H3 would/could power the entire U.S. for a year.

There is a lot of research going on now using h3.

[Lokibob]

 

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/226053.stm

 

Wednesday, December 2, 1998 Published at 01:59 GMT


Sci/Tech

Moon map aids discovery

The red indicates an abundance of helium-3 on the Moon's surface

By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse

Future prospectors on the Moon may be assisted by an intriguing new lunar map developed by scientists in Arizona and Hawaii.

It shows places where the element helium-3 can be found in the lunar dirt. Helium-3 is rare on Earth, but more common on the Moon.

Its importance lies in the fact that it could be an efficient fuel for nuclear fusion reactors.

Fusion reactors are still under development and it will be many decades, if ever, before they provide power commercially.

But they have many advantages over conventional nuclear reactors in that they produce far more power and produce much less radioactive waste.

Today's design of fusion reactor uses tritium as a fuel, an isotope of hydrogen extracted from sea water. But Helium-3 would be even more efficient and produce even less radioactive waste.

Solar wind

The helium-3 found in the lunar soil comes originally from the Sun. A stream of particles from the Sun, called the solar wind, contains helium-3 which is deposited on the Moon's surface.

Some regions of the moon will be more abundant than others

Many scientists believe that energy is the key to the exploration of the Moon and the development of its resources.

The factors taken into account by the researchers in mapping the likely abundance of helium-3 in a given area of the Moon are the exposure age of the Moon's surface matter, or regolith; the amount of helium-3, arriving from the Sun in the solar wind and the titanium content of the lunar soil.

Older regions of the Moon's surface should be better sources of helium-3 because they have been exposed to the solar wind longer and contain greater amounts of fine-grained aggregates that absorb helium-3.

Taking this into consideration, the scientists estimate that the greatest amounts of helium-3 will be found on the far side in the maria, or "seas," of the Moon.

Helium-3 could also be found in near side areas where high concentrations of titanium dioxide help trap the isotope.

Energy efficiency

Even though helium-3 is more abundant on the Moon than on the Earth, it is still very rare amounting to only 4 or 5 parts per billion in the lunar soil.

To extract one tonne of helium-3, it is estimated that 200 million tonnes of lunar soil would have to be processed. That is equivalent to mining the top 2 metres of a region 10 kms square.

Some scientists believe that in the future it could be worth it. It would only require 25 tonnes of helium-3 to provide all the power that the United States needs in a year.

Energy calculations suggest that the energy gained from Helium-3 mined on the Moon and shipped back to Earth would be 250 times that used to obtain it.

When the first lunar colony is established, perhaps in 20 years time, it is likely to be positioned near the Moon's south pole, near the so-called 'Peak of Eternal Light.' This mountain is in perpetual sunlight so solar panels on its slopes would provide constant energy.

Later colonies may move down onto the older lunar plains and set up strip-mining factories to extract helium-3 as well as hydrogen which can be used as a rocket fuel.

[Uncle George]

California Governor Davis is going to submit a bill Monday to run an extension cord from the moon to tap that free power to ease the 100 billion red ink. His frind Gore gave him the idea after he arrived back from China.

[VadeRetro]

That looks fantastic, and yet I can't shake the feeling I've seen it done already.

[PatrickHenry]

Count me in! I have long been a proponent of Flatulence Power^tm. I am impressed by your marketing scheme, having seen it used by other reputable enterprises. For example: Genesis World Energy. I congratulate you on your vision.

[JRandomFreeper]

I take it that you are a doubter? LOL! Great screed. Heinlein included H3 fusion in some of his fiction.

It may or may not work out, but it is actually out there in the mainstream.

/john

[FReepaholic]

>....Although, I've no problem with lunar exploration, as long as it puts some Americans to work, and not just the Chinese...<<

Unfortunatly, only the Chinese have a lunar exploration program in the works.