Helium 3 collection

[drpl]

There was an excellent programme on a few days ago about the abundance of Helium 3 on the moon, but the technical difficulties harvetsing it would be immense. Since He3 comes from the sun, wouldn't it be easisr to position collecting satellites in an orbit to obtain this chemical (I am thinking about the fluxes involved here)? A few things did come to mind: firstly, I am assuming that the amount of He3 the sun produces is immense. Does anyone have any figures though? Secondly, the He3 would be ionised (?) so electron injection would be needed to form atoms (?) Thirdly, the thrust of the programme was that He3 would be a better fuel than hydrogen isotopes. "Better" in the sense that fewer neutrons would be produced which would cause less damage to the nuclear fusion reactor. All well and good, but has the nuclear fusion "break-even" point been reached yet? I thought it hadn't, but I am out of date <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Best wishes<br /><br />Paul<br />--<br />http://www.paullee.com

 

[fingle]

Re: but has the nuclear fusion "break-even" point been reached yet? I thought it hadn't, but I am out of date <br /><br />Your right Doc, no break even yet.<br /><br />as far as collectors in space, I think the moon has been doing it a lot longer so already has a store of He3 ready to be harvested. <br /><br />personally I think that even if they ever do make fusion process work that it will still be too enormously expensive to harvest and ship back to earth He3. it will probably always be cheaper by a large factor to get it here on earth, from the oceans if I remember correctly.<br /><br /><br />fingle<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[l3p3r]

Chances are we'd just use deuterium anyway? Since it's (relatively) so abundant on Earth...<br /><br />Though I hear He3 is 'cleaner'? (less radioactive casing or some such) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>