As the climate crisis grows here on Earth, the quest for affordable, reliable, and renewable energy is paramount. Nuclear fusion has been a long-promised solution… but of course, as we all know… fusion technology is always an elusive 30 years away…
BUT thanks to the ever-decreasing cost of space exploration, the solution to practical fusion may be just one giant leap away. It turns out, the moon has massive deposits of an element called Helium-3, an ingredient that holds so much promise, it’s beginning to spark a lunar gold rush among the world’s leading superpowers.
But, is Helium 3 the golden goose we’ve been waiting for? How exactly are we going to use it for energy production? Is this unlikely energy source the key to decarbonizing our energy grids, or some sci-fi plot straight out of an episode of Space Force?We thought these questions deserved a deeper dive today on Two Bit Da Vinci.
We’re all familiar with Helium. It’s that odorless, tasteless gas that makes balloons float and makes your voice sound funny if you breathe it in. Helium is actually the second most abundant element in the universe, right after hydrogen.
Helium is actually the second most abundant element in the universe, right after hydrogen. But the helium we’re used to is actually a particular helium isotope, or variation, called Helium 4 — being that it has two neutrons and two protons. (Grossman, 2020)
Helium-4 is really the only version of the element we experience here on Earth — making up roughly 99.99986% of the planet’s entire helium supply. (Grossman, 2020)
Unfortunately, this Earth-abundant version of helium isn’t the version that’s making headlines. Instead, the golden child is a separate isotope, Helium-3. Like Helium-4 Helium-3 also has two protons, obviously otherwise it wouldn’t be helium, but instead of two neutrons like Helium-4, it only has 1. This primordial variation dates back to our planet’s infancy, forming in the mantle in between the earth’s core and crust. (Grossman, 2020). These days, however, this particular helium isotope is extremely hard to come by on the planet. Helium 3 comes mostly from Solar Winds, but because the Earth is protected by our atmosphere and magnetosphere, those Solar Winds don’t really trickle down to us. (Conconi, 2019)
One scientific report showed that only roughly .01 metric tons of Helium 3 exist on earth, and it comprises only .0001% of the United State’s helium reserves… which… I didn’t even know we had helium reserves. Is that for like… when the President needs to make balloon animals as a matter of national security? (Grossman, 2020)
Helium 3 can come from other sources… in particular the decay of tritium used in thermonuclear warheads… (Warmflush, 2019)
However, unlike the Earth — the Moon has no atmosphere. As a result, it has accumulated massive amounts of helium-3 over billions of years. Conconi, 2019)
Back in 1986, as people were rocking acid-washed jeans and listening to Genesis, scientists were discovering that the moon’s soil, called regolith, contained over one million tons of helium 3. (The European Space Agency, n.d.)
Of course, at the time, space travel was far too expensive to just send a bunch of crews up to dig around in the dirt. But since companies like Space X have brought the cost of space flight down exponentially over the last decade, many nations are beginning to gaze up at the moon… and see dollar signs.
So what’s the big fuss about helium 3?
The main draw is its potential as a fuel for a nuclear fusion reactor!
Today, the most common elements used in fusion reactors are hydrogen isotopes deuterium, with one neutron, and tritium, with 2. One major problem with these elements, though, is that during the fusion process they release radioactive neutrons that can damage the containment vessel. Then there’s the Tritium itself which is also radioactive, which makes it difficult to deal with and dangerous… kind of like the song Radioactivce by Imagine Dragons. (Whittington, 2021)
Helium 3 is also an element that can fuse with deuterium, creating only helium and charged protons as byproducts, with little to no radioactive particles! (Whittington, 2021)
But the best part about helium 3 is its energy density. It’s estimated that roughly 25 metric tons of the stuff, roughly 25% of the cargo capacity of a Space X Starship, would be enough to fuel the entire United States for a full year! Think about how many Two Bit Da Vinci videos you could watch with that much energy! (Whittington, 2021)
According to a 2017 study from the Institute of Fusion Technology at the University of Wisconsin, the amount of energy generated by helium 3 could be up to 250 times greater than the amount of energy needed to fly to the moon, extract it, AND send it back to Earth! This kind of power density has many researchers excited about the possibility of meeting the world’s energy needs for centuries! Conconi, 2019) (L. J. Wittenberg, et. Al, 2017)
Not to mention, scoring dibs on the moon’s helium-3 reserves could mean billions of dollars for whoever controlled it. This is why for many nations, the moon is looking like a big old pot of gold. (Conconi, 2019). So far the only country that has made serious leeway in mapping out the moon’s helium-3 is China. This was actually a major plot point in the Netflix series Space Force. I’d say “spoiler alert,” but I don’t think anyone actually watched that show…
China’s Chang’e 4 mission, launched in 2019, was sent out with the primary goal of locating and mapping out helium-3 deposits, positioning China to potentially corner the market on the Moon. (Caroll et al., 2021)
This could pose a pretty serious threat to US national security. Monopolizing the moon’s helium 3 could position China as the premier economic power. Not to be outdone, the US Nuclear Corp, together with Solar Resources Corporation, has agreed to acquire 500 kilograms of lunar Helium 3 between 2028 and 2032. However, the nuts and bolts of the mission — such as how and when they will go and exactly how they will mine the helium — have yet to be worked out. (Whittington, 2021). Even India is getting in on the action. The Chandrayaan 2 space probe is also set to land on the lunar surface in the near future with one of its objectives being to locate helium 3. (Conconi, 2019)
But, as all these nations shoot for the moon — both literally and figuratively — are they really just gearing up to shoot themselves in the foot?
That’s where things get interesting. See, while helium 3 holds enormous potential, it’s questionable whether we could ever actually reach that potential.
Theoretical physicist Frank Close says the whole helium 3 fusion concept is pure “moonshine.” According to Close, deuterium reacts up to 100 times more slowly with helium 3 than it does with tritium. This would require much higher melting temperatures. In that process, Close says, the deuterium would be more likely to fuse with itself, thus forming tritium anyway, and end up reacting as it would in a conventional fusion reactor. (Conconi, 2019) Gerald Kulcinski, director of the Institute of Fusion Technology at the University of Wisconsin, says that the energy required for a deuterium-helium 3 reactor would be roughly two to three times higher than the standard deuterium-tritium reactors. (Conconi, 2019). And that’s just in a conventional fusion reactor, such as ITER, the international fusion project underway in France. We’ve done a whole video on fusion reactors which you can check out here. ITER will weigh three times as much as the Eiffel tower and reach temperatures of 150 million degrees centigrade — about 10 times hotter than the Sun’s core!
A similar design for helium fusion would need to be even bigger and require even higher temperatures. (Conconi, 2019) (How Hot Is the Sun? | Cool Cosmos, n.d.)
One of the biggest issues right now is that very few people on Earth have successfully made a viable fusion reactor with a net power output using conventional methods. If a helium 3 reactor is even possible, it is likely, you guessed it, 30 years away or MORE. (The European Space Agency, n.d.)
As of right now, there’s not even a guarantee that enough helium 3 could even be mined from the Moon to elicit any serious study into the isotope as a fusion fuel. While the element is abundant on the moon, it still resides within the moon’s soil. Extracting it would require a process of scooping it up, then separating out the useful elements and storing them for later use. (Whittington, 2021) If you watched our video on Nouveau Monde Graphite, you know that even “high” concentrations of an element could be roughly 5%, and require huge amounts of processes, and energy to refine to high concentrations.
Still, even outside of energy applications, helium-3 could prove vital in a number of other spaces, in particular for use in MRI machines as a way to help doctors examine patients’ lungs. (Conconi, 2019). So what’s the verdict? At this point, it’s really hard to say. While we all love the idea of fusion energy, and certainly hope to see it realized someday — our planet is in a really precarious position right now. While a helium-3 reactor could hold loads of energy potential, we’re going to see major strides both in nuclear fusion and space mining and refining infrastructure before it can even really become a true energy contender.