
China Plans to Strip Mine the Moon for Rare Helium-3 - mrfusion
http://www.immortal.org/4376/china-plans-strip-mine-moon-rare-helium-3/
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FatalLogic
Interesting, but...

China's "plans" really means the chief scientist of the Chinese Lunar
Exploration Program said Helium-3 could be a potential energy source. There's
no real evidence of any formal "plans" in this article.

As far as I know, the only economically viable business model that makes use
of Lunar Helium-3 is as fuel for fusion reactors. According to Wikipedia[1]
this means _second generation_ fusion reactors. But nobody even has a workable
first generation fusion reactor yet.

Original source is the Daily Mail.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3)

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hga
Indeed, although it needs to be pointed out that in theory, it's very possible
1st generation fusion reactors will be economically unviable, since the
neutrons they produce will steadily transmute them, that is, turn their atoms
into different and generally radioactive elements, decaying and then
destroying their ability to function, leaving piles of radioactive junk.

The interest in Helium-3 is due to the fact that it can be anutronically fused
(although I've read there's doubts about being able to effectively extract
energy from such a reactor). So Helium-3, _and strip mining the moon!!!_ has
been thought about for a _long_ time.

Heck, it's part of the background for one of the major anime franchises that
started in 1979, _Mobile Suit Gundam_. In that, through magic physics, they
have "refrigerator sized" fusion reactors, but they must be fueled by Helium-3
because the magic physics isn't neutron proof (little is). So the "Jupiter
Energy Fleet" plays a role modeled on the Arabs/OPEC of the '70s, pulling the
strings behind most of the conflicts of the Universal Century timeline.
(Paptimus Scirocco is an Arab as viewed by a group of Japanese animators in
1985, his hair style is much less crazy if you know that.)

I mention this to point out how long it's been generally known we're likely to
need a lot of Helium-3 for fusion reactors, i.e. entering popular culture
three decades ago.

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mrfusion
Can't we produce enough Helium-3 to build and test reactors like this?

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gambiting
If Wikipedia is to be believed, we would need a substantial amount of Helium-3
to make a working reactor. At the moment, the US produces a mere 8kg of
Helium-3 per year(and that's 60,000 litres!).

Apparently a litre can sell for as much as $2000, so even if the Chinese
brought it back from the moon (I really wonder how, if 8KG take 60,000 litres
of space, are they planning to bring back 20 tonnes??) they would still make
profit.

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jerf
It is extremely unlikely they could profit, because if they raise supply price
would drop like a rock. I doubt there's much demand for Helium-3 predicated on
prices lower by even two orders of magnitude to support a raise in supply, and
that's probably being pretty generous in terms of how cheaply it could be
supplied. Unless Helium-3 can actually be used to perform real fusion in the
real world, in which case the seller would have an opportunity to capture the
suddenly _immensely_ greater value of Helium-3, there's no reason to go get
until the fusion systems are running in the real world.

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gambiting
From what I understand, there is enough demand even without using it for
fusion - in medical scanners and such. But yeah, I am not completely convinced
you could make money by mining it from the moon.

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jerf
There's _huge_ demand for liquid Helium... but that's Helium-4. It has its own
supply issues coming in the future, but at the moment is relatively plentiful,
and even when we run out we probably won't be willing to go to the Moon to get
the tons upon tons of Helium we use. See the graph here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium#Applications](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium#Applications)
showing the breakdown of the 47 million cubic meters of Helium used in the US
in 2013. Helium-3 demand is much smaller, since, well, it has to be.

It's not _quite_ on topic, but whynot... here's my analysis of what it would
take to create all the helium we use via fusion:
[http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2922](http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2922)

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spikexxx
Wasn't this the basic plot of Iron Sky?
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034314/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034314/)

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robinduckett
Also Moon.
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182345/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182345/)

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tribaal
Completely off-topic, but if you haven't seen Moon, do it.

It's an amazing movie.

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slouch
It is a very good movie, but also a total downer.

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beachstartup
it's also extremely slow-paced, so be aware of that.

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DennisP
This seems a little crazy given that if you can do He3 fusion, you can also do
D-D fusion, which makes He3 (half the time directly, otherwise it makes
tritium which decays to He3). Fusion startup Helion is aiming to do it that
way, saying only 6% of the energy would be released as neutron radiation.

Also of course, plain old fission reactors can produce He3, probably much more
cheaply than attempting to harvest it from the moon.

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sp332
Unless you put the reactor on the moon! :)

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32faction
This isn't happening anytime soon. China's next mission is Chang'e 5 which
plans to launch in 2017. Its a robotic sample return mission and probably a
validation/verification mission to make sure and confirm the Helium 3 is in
quantities that can turn a profit before even seriously considering a mining
mission. Even after that mission, the Chang'e 6 mission will follow after
that, building upon the success of the Chang'e 5.

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danielweber
Just like the US "Plans To" go to Mars in 30 years.

Before Helium-3 fusion works, first we need to get D-T fusion working.

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ansible
Or... any kind of fusion to be practically net-energy positive. As in, not
only are we getting more energy out than is needed to fuse, but also being
able to capture enough of it to power the reactor continuously. I think we are
a long ways off from that.

I'd like to see an expansion of research into Thorium reactors and other more
intrinsically safe fission designs.

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larssorenson
Frankly I would be excited to see a relief for our energy crisis fuel
exploration of "the next frontier." It really is the future of humanity to
perfect (or at least improve upon) space travel, even if only for industrial
purposes, and having a (sort of) realistic goal that will return profits could
very well be the spark we need to get support behind it from budget writers.

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aganders3
> _But it also included a substance that the report indicated could be of
> “even greater user” to our civilization, a substance which could
> revolutionize energy production._

They put this typo in quotes just to shame the (likely non-native English
speaking) author? This kind of shit in pop-sci articles is getting pretty
tired.

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Symmetry
I'd bet on us needing He3 for all the helium dilution refrigerators keeping
our quantum computers cool before betting on it as an energy source.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilution_refrigerator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilution_refrigerator)

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ginvok
This made me remember an old game called Dark Colony.

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harisamin
wow…so interstellar wars/conflicts for resources is really not that far
off…time to start playing starcraft to train for the future :)

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Igglyboo
Isn't there some sort of treaty that prevents stuff like this? China probably
wouldn't even follow it however.

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passive
Is that birthday grade?

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damon_c
Yeah, wondering the same thing...

And how will they bring it DOWN from space? Won't they need to attach heavy
weights to it to get it to fall through the atmosphere?!

\-- (just kidding...)

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GrinningFool
Not at all, that's just the first phase of their plan. The second phase is to
use it in place to lift exploratory space vessels off the surface of the moon,
and beyond the bounds of the solar system.

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spiritplumber
How do the Moon Nazis feel about it?

Seriously, the article is about as factual as Iron Sky.

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click170
Hilarious movie though. The person who played Sarah Palin as US president was
hilarious, each country's space ships, the iPod that ran the space ship, the
albino-ized black guy... One of my favourite comedies of the year for sure,
though I haven't found a trailer that does the movie justice yet.

