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Valuable, valuable helium-3 can be mined on the moon and used for fuel after we put a lightweight, working fusion reactor there with enough personnel and spare
by zunzun 8y ago
Valuable, valuable helium-3 can be mined on the moon and used for fuel after we put a lightweight, working fusion reactor there with enough personnel and spare parts to run it (puff,puff,inhale).
- Symmetry 8y agoHelium-3 is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. Deuterium/Tritium is a lot easier to fuse and is what pretty much everybody working on the problem is looking at. If, later, we were able to get get helium-3/deuterium fusion working that would be great because then there wouldn't be any neutrons created reducing the already modest fusion nuclear waste problem to zero. But that's still a ways off.
- the8472 8y agoWell, the gamma rays produced by fusion can still photo-desintegrate various elements which in turn leads to secondary neutron radiation and unstable isotopes. I don't know what the cross sections of those interactions are but it's not quite zero.
- gweinberg 8y agoAs I understand it, if you have conditions that allow deuterium-helium3 fusion you will always get some deuterium-deuterium fusion. So the number of neutrons produced is way less than D-T or pure D-D fusion, but it is still a significant problem.
- apendleton 8y agoAgreed about He3, but it's not just D/T; there's at least a bit of money going onto p/B11, as a way of sidestepping the problems of neutron embrittlement. I think TAE is working on it?
- pier25 8y agoAnd some clones to oversee the operation
- glennonymous 8y agoAnd a robot Kevin Spacey to prevent the clones from revolting.
- pier25 8y agoI'm glad someone got the reference :)
- thicknavyrain 8y agoInterestingly, the corporation robot/A.I. doesn't seem to put up much resistance at all in Moon, and IIRC even actively helps the main character to escape. I'm really glad they subverted that particular Sci-Fi trope.
- DennisP 8y agoThere's little need to mine the moon for He3, because it's easier to get net power from deuterium fusion, and the output of deuterium fusion is He3 (and tritium which decays to He3). There's some neutron radiation from deuterium fusion, but that's probably easier to deal with than sifting through millions of tons of lunar dirt.
- dTal 8y agoNot likely: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2834/1 http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2834/1 tl;dr He3 mining the moon is more of a sci-fi trope to justify moon colonization than a practical proposition.