Helium-3

Has anybody heard of this Helium-3 stuff? I just watched a show, and they have found a gas called Helium-3 in abundance on the moon. They can make power using this stuff, clean power, using a fusion process. Apparently, the Sun produces this stuff in massive amounts, but it flies right over our magnetic field, out of our grasp. But since the moon has no magnetic field, it gathers in the soil. They want to go strip mine the moon to get this gas. Many people are against this, saying that we should look here on Earth before we go rampaging through the solar system. Others say that this is our only chance of clean power. With recent observations of moon rocks, scientists say that there is more than a million tons of the gas on the moon.
What's your opinion? :/

Hmm. Would environmentalists oppose strip mining the moon? Hmm.

I would be behind the project if the strip mined area was in the shape of the American Athiests symbol. About a thousand miles tall and centered on the massive side (The side that faces us.).

:lol: :thumbsup:

[Choobus]

bollocks. 3He fusion is even harder to initiate than a D-T reaction, and since we can't even do that the whole idea is a crock of shit. Strip mining the moon to make an impossible reaction produce energy that probably won't even be clean anyway? Sounds like a plan from the desk of george W bush.

Choobus wrote

bollocks. 3He fusion is even harder to initiate than a D-T reaction, and since we can't even do that the whole idea is a crock of shit. Strip mining the moon to make an impossible reaction produce energy that probably won't even be clean anyway? Sounds like a plan from the desk of george W bush.

Oh absolutely! Strip mining the moon would be insane. i would only support it to put the american Athiests symbol there. The best thing to do with the excavated material would be to move it to the other side.


More interestingly, I searched teh interwebs and found this, the section of interest is the bolded bit:

The first step involves the fusion of two hydrogen nuclei 1H (protons) into deuterium 2H, releasing a positron and a neutrino as one proton changes into a neutron.

1H + 1H → 2H + e+ + νe
with the neutrinos released in this step carrying energies up to 0.42 MeV.

This first step is extremely slow, because it depends on the weak interaction to convert one proton into a neutron. In fact this is the limiting step, with a proton waiting an average of 10^9 years before fusing into deuterium.
The positron immediately annihilates with an electron, and their mass energy is carried off by two gamma ray photons.

e+ + e− → 2γ + 1.02 MeV
After this, the deuterium produced in the first stage can fuse with another hydrogen to produce a light isotope of helium, 3He:

2H + 1H → 3He + γ + 5.49 MeV

10 to the 9th years! I've always felt the sun was chaotic in it's magnetic plasma form, but horrifically stable. That it would be simply impossible to mickey it with a missile of some other sci fi device to damage it in any way. This would seem to totally support that base gut feeling.

What this tells me is that the universe is unimaginably immense and stable. That the existance of a metanatural force capable of upsetting that stability cannot exist because the energy required to support the entity would exceed the sum total of the universe. i have no math to back that up... it's just a feeling, as such I would certainly not consider that to be a scientific hypothesis.

I'm just throwing out that 10 ^ 9 years number as really big and important.

That's odd. The show I watched had the reaction running in a furnace right before the camera. It was making power while it was being filmed. Maybe you're thinking of a different reaction... or maybe the show was bias. Hmmm... I'll have to research this. I'm not saying your facts are wrong, RM, but could you post a link to where you found that info? It would be very helpful and appreciated. Thanx. :)

[Choobus]

There may have been a reaction, but I bet is was using up more energy that it was generating. And you don't do nuclear fusion in a fucking furnace!

and RM was talking about the process by which 3He ismade, not how it is used to produce energy. That long time is the reason why there is not much 3He around on this planet.

I think I missed something here. How did we get from He-3 and nuclear fusion to "why it's impossible to blow up the Sun"?

[inkadu]

Choobus wrote

There may have been a reaction, but I bet is was using up more energy that it was generating. And you don't do nuclear fusion in a fucking furnace!

:lol::lol::lol:

[inkadu]

Evil_Mage_Ra wrote

I think I missed something here. How did we get from He-3 and nuclear fusion to "why it's impossible to blow up the Sun"?

I think that's just Renaissance Man musing on his favorite way to end life as we know it.

I did some research, and I'm sorry for calling it a "furnace". It is just a pod with lead-lined walls. It creates massive amounts of heat, which is probably why I called it a "furnace".

The fusion reaction involves combining deuterium and Helium-3, and this reaction produces a high-energy proton, which can be used directly to produce electricity through differing techniques. Convertion efficiencies can reach 70%, because there is no need to waste energy via heat to power turbines. They can go directly from proton to electricity. Operating costs are low because of less technical complexity, and only low-level radioactive waste is produced. No air or water pollution. Not to mention, much cheaper. A financial break-even would occur after only five 1000-megawatt plants being built. But, on the other hand, we need to work out the problems of fusion before we begin to do this. If we can, the amount of feul we can get from the moon would last the entire planet 1000 years. I really hope we can work out the kinks of fusion so we can get this going.

[Choobus]

nicely copied from wikipedia, but you forgot the part where is says

wikipedia wrote

Also, the temperatures required for D + 3He fusion are much higher than those of conventional D + T (deuterium + tritium) fusion, so it is unlikely that this type of fusion will be achieved before the problems with conventional fusion are worked out, however long that may take.

I think it's bad. You just know we'd screw up somehow and destroy the moon.

But if we somehow put a "lay-zer" up on the Moon, we could hold the Earth for ransom for one million dollars!!

Method21 wrote

I did some research, and I'm sorry for calling it a "furnace". It is just a pod with lead-lined walls. It creates massive amounts of heat, which is probably why I called it a "furnace".

The fusion reaction involves combining deuterium and Helium-3, and this reaction produces a high-energy proton, which can be used directly to produce electricity through differing techniques. Convertion efficiencies can reach 70%, because there is no need to waste energy via heat to power turbines. They can go directly from proton to electricity. Operating costs are low because of less technical complexity, and only low-level radioactive waste is produced. No air or water pollution. Not to mention, much cheaper. A financial break-even would occur after only five 1000-megawatt plants being built. But, on the other hand, we need to work out the problems of fusion before we begin to do this. If we can, the amount of feul we can get from the moon would last the entire planet 1000 years. I really hope we can work out the kinks of fusion so we can get this going.

Lead melts at about 400 degrees F. Good luck getting that to hold the reaction. First, get a sustainable fusion reaction, which has been "20 years away" for about 40 years. If the moon has any quantity worth mining, it would have to sustain the earth's energy needs for more like a million years to make it worth the trip.

The reason we see suns that are relatively well-behaved is because all the unstable configurations, if any, suffered infant mortailty billions of years ago. The hotter a star is, the faster it is used up, even if it is hugely bigger than our little g-spot.

Methy, does your mommy know you are out playing in the street with the big kids?