Mining for Helium 3 on the Moon

thinice · Oct 6, 2005

Lithium melts at about 180 C. Liquid lithium is used as a medium right now at some nuclear power plants.

jatslo · Oct 6, 2005

At what velocity are the charged particles traveling through the medium, and at what resistance? You do realize that I am not talking about molten lithium, right?<blockquote>In reply to:<hr />Lithium melts at about 180 C. Liquid lithium is used as a medium right now at some nuclear power plants.<hr /></blockquote>

SpaceKiwi · Oct 6, 2005

Thanks henry, this is really interesting stuff, I had no idea (obviously). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Who is this superhero? Henry, the mild-mannered janitor ... could be!-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Bring Back The Black! </div>

thinice · Oct 6, 2005

I don't quite understand the difference between condensed and molten lithium.

henryhallam · Oct 6, 2005

Actually a D-D reaction would not produce any neutrons. Each D contains 1 proton and 1 neutron. Each He4 contains 2 protons and 2 neutrons The reaction is D + D = He4 + energy. The only reason tritium is used is that it's a lot easier to fuse a mixture of D + T than pure D. Believe me, D + D does produce neutrons - I've measured them myself! There are three D+D reactions: D+D - /> He3 + n ... this releases about 4 MeV and occurs roughly 50% of the time D+D - /> T + p ... this releases about 3.3MeV and occurs roughly 50% of the time D+D - /> He4 ... this releases about 10MeV if I remember rightly. It is VERY rare and occurs something like once for every five thousand of the other reactions. The "collision cross-section" for this reaction is extremely small. It is true that the cross-section for D+T is rather larger than that for D+D which does make it easier to fuse D+T than D+D.

henryhallam · Oct 6, 2005

Now, liquid lithium is at what temperature? I am looking for sublimate energy or matter to utilize as propulsion, but I need a new zero resistive super-medium that can conduct extreme heat, pressure, and matter. I can't say I totally follow your post, jatslo (what does it mean to "conduct matter"?) but being an alkali metal, Li has a relatively low melting point. It will depend on pressure but a rough working temperature for molten Li is about 500 to 1800 Kelvins. Traditionally liquid sodium is used as a coolant in high power density fission reactors because it has a relatively high specific heat capacity for a metal (about 1200J/K/kg versus water at 4200 and most metals at a few hundred) and a high thermal conductivity (140 W/m/K compared to water at 0.6). The low melting point of 370K makes it easier to handle than other liquid metals, though it's still a bit of a headache! Liquid Li's properties are fairly similar, about twice the specific heat capacity but slightly over half the thermal conductivity. It would still make a pretty good "working fluid" for removing large amounts of heat, at least as long as you have somewhere to get rid of the heat at the "far end" of the heat transfer system. Yes, I realize lithium is metallic; however, if we could convert metallic lithium to lithium gas and then convert that lithium gas into liquid lithium, we could then utilize liquid lithium as a medium other than water, or is the liquid lithium flammable? If you heat a block of solid metallic Li it will melt, become liquid Li. If you heat it (a lot) more it will become gaseous. If you then condense that gas again you won't convert it into anything new and wonderful, just back to the solid or liquid metallic form. Yes, liquid (and solid) Li are flammable. Lithium burns white hot and transmutes; what

barrykirk · Oct 6, 2005

I stand corrected

holmec · Oct 6, 2005

Intersting. What is the process of mining helium 3? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off </div>

jatslo · Oct 6, 2005

holmec · Oct 7, 2005

are we talking just top soil, or soil at a certain depth? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off </div>

henryhallam · Oct 7, 2005

I think it would be mainly in the first couple of cm of topsoil.. I guess you want to find the region which has the greatest "time density" of area exposed to the solar wind.

lunatic133 · Oct 8, 2005

Helium 3 is something I've always been extremely interested in ever since I first heard of it, because clean energy and space exploration are two of my major passions. But as far as I know it hasn't been proven that helium 3 will work in a fusion reactor, as it's never been tested before. I think if we have a reasonable supply of Helium 3 to work from, then perhaps research will be accelerated. "If you build it, they will come." Since we're hopefully going to the moon anyway, we should go ahead and pick some of the stuff up -- though best not to let our sponsor Mr. Bush know about it <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

lunatic133 · Oct 8, 2005

That's actually not a bad idea ... Nobody to get offended on the far side, no moon rabbits to be homeless, and no view from Earth to be ruined. However, I get angsty at the phrase "strip mining" for the same reason that I get excited about clean energy. I think I heard at some point that in certain craters there are glass beads from ancient volcanic erruptions that are filled with various gasses, including helium 3. Perhaps harvesting those would be useful?

cuddlyrocket · Oct 9, 2005

This is the classic 'chicken and egg' problem that bedevils proposals for the commercialisation of space. There is no current market for Helium-3, and therefore no commercial firm would invest the large sums to set up a production facility. The only new commercial use of space that seems technologically feasable in the near term is tourism, and it's no coincidence that that's where the private sector is concentrating its efforts.

jatslo · Oct 9, 2005

helium 4 can do magic tricks <blockquote>In reply to:<hr />SUPERSOLID, QUANTUM CRYSTAL, A BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATE IN SOLID FORM---all of these expressions apply to a weird substance observed in a Penn State experiment in which a solid made of helium-4 atoms appears to behave like a superfluid. Moses Chan and Eun-Seong Kim look for signs of bizarre quantum behavior in a tiny disk hung from a slender rod. The disk is filled with a porous glassy material (Vycor), into which helium-4 atoms are inserted. Then the sample is chilled down to a temperature of 2 K and subjected to a pressure of 63 atmospheres. This turns the helium into a solid. The disk containing the now-solid helium residing within the spongelike Vycor is set in motion. The disk gently oscillates like a pendulum and its resonant frequency is recorded. Next the helium-filled disk is cooled further. Below a temperature of about 175 mK a phase change seems to occur. Without losing its status as a solid, the helium now acts like a superfluid. Evidence for this consists in the lowering of the resonant frequency. The oscillation will shift (its spring constant changes) depending on the mechanical property of the disk, and below the special temperature there is an abrupt drop in the rotational inertia of the solid. The solid behaves like a superfluid. It is one thing to visualize a superfluid gliding frictionlessly through the porous Vycor, another thing to imagine a solid moving in this way. How can one solid (the helium) pass through another solid (the Vycor), however porous it might be? Moses Chan (chan@phys.psu.edu) invokes quantum theory to explain what might be going on in the sample. The motion of the supersolid is facilitated by the fact that at very low temperatures atoms in a solid still possess a certain minimum amount of motion, allowed to them by the quantum uncertainty principle. For lightweight atoms like helium, this "zero-point energy" is even larger, and in the poro</blockquote>

marpass · Dec 19, 2005

Extract HE3 from the moon , and send this energy to ISS where a new module combine this natural recurse and produce a new fuel to use in the earth. but how could we measure the security or make controls , of all the proceedings and procedures , exist a mechanism of control, to prevent problems in the systems or humans problems. Have we teams to study each parts of the proyect, audit all problems It is a challenge and i hope it could be a success. Thank very much

marpass · Dec 19, 2005

Extract HE3 from the moon , and send this energy to ISS where a new module combine this natural recurse and produce a new fuel to earth. how could we measure the security or make controls , of all the proceedings and procedures , exist a mechanism of control, to prevent problems in the systems or humans problems. It is a challenge and i hope it could be a success. Thank very much

najab · Dec 20, 2005

Actually, 3 of the 4 most advanced fusion reactors are in Europe. All 4 if you count Russia.

najab · Dec 20, 2005

What's the Z-machine's Q factor?

najab · Dec 20, 2005

What is the Z-machine's Q-factor?

space_dreamer · Dec 20, 2005

How many years away is your Z-machine program from commercial power generation?

grooble · Dec 20, 2005

Isn't the Z and X machine follow up just for nuclear weapon research, and not for actual energy production?

henryhallam · Dec 20, 2005

Isn't the Z and X machine follow up just for nuclear weapon research, and not for actual energy production? EXACTLY! Hit the nail on the head there. The Z machine is an incredible piece of engineering and I'm sure it will do its job very well - but that job is NOT energy production and the design is useless for that. The Z machine is intended for nuke research (to maintain weapon stockpiles without being able to conduct actual tests, they use a combination of big expensive computers and big expensive physics experiments). It is also used to conduct some experiments relevant to astrophysics, i.e. what happens inside neutron stars etc. It is used to do some RESEARCH into problems which affect fusion-for-energy but as a device and as a class of devices it can never directly be used for that. BTW, I have some idea what I'm talking about (The IEC fusor is equally useless for producing energy)

holmec · Dec 20, 2005

Sounds and looks really cool. What I like about it is its 'domino' effect, so to speak, in getting fusion reactions. That is it uses bursts of electicity to make magnetic field that implodes gas particle, very cool. But then in the center is where the fusion happens when the particles race at each other at "a million miles an hour" and there is a "a capsule of deuterium" in its center. Perhaps this may be the economically sound way to produce fusion. But that is yet to be seen. Maybe we will come up with better methods to do the same thing. Technique may be the key to the whole fusion problem. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off </div>

nacnud · Dec 20, 2005

How would you go about getting a steady energy suply out of a Z-machine then?

Mining for Helium 3 on the Moon

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