OT: ONE TINY DETAIL MISSING
See if you can find the missing piece of this Hindustan Times article.
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 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 year,” said Taylor, who is in Udaipur to attend 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. Some 200 million tonnes of lunar soil would produce one tonne of helium, only 10 kilos of helium are available on earth.
7 Responses to “OT: ONE TINY DETAIL MISSING”
 Comment by Chris November 27th, 2004 at 10:30 am |
For starters, the Space Shuttle, if it ever flies again, can’t get to the moon and back. Also, if we need 200 million tons of lunar soil to get 1 ton of helium, and we need 25 tons of helium for one year of electricity, that means we need 5000 million tons (5 trillion?) of lunar soil. I don’t think that will fit on the space shuttle. |
 Comment by Daryl Cobranchi November 27th, 2004 at 10:52 am |
And fusion reactors aren’t exactly a dime a dozen, either. |
 Comment by Rikki November 27th, 2004 at 4:12 pm |
Even if they built the ‘refinery’ on the surface of the moon, that would require hundreds of billion dollar trips to accomplish. What would the price of the helium be after taking into account *that* overhead? |
 Comment by Nuclear Druid November 27th, 2004 at 5:07 pm |
“…10 kilos on helium on earth.” ND |
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Comment by Daryl Cobranchi November 27th, 2004 at 5:13 pm |
And I’m pretty sure that He-4 is not used in refrigerators. |
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Comment by Dave November 27th, 2004 at 7:09 pm |
Here’s another good write up on the story. |
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Comment by Daryl Cobranchi November 27th, 2004 at 8:57 pm |
Good article. I’m still not clear on the physics though. How does transferring a neutron from H-2 to He-3 produce energy? Where is the mass loss? |