Thursday, December 13, 2007

Will this be the answer for our future energy needs, Science Fiction shows us how again?



For any true sci-fi fan, you already know about this, but didn’t know it was for real. When you look at the communicators on Star Trek, and today’s cell phones, Sci-Fi had it right. If you remember in Star Wars, Lando operated a gas mining operation, what were they mining? In Battle Star Galactica , they had to mine asteroids for fuel for their engines.

Well folks, the Chinese and Russians don’t think this is science fiction anymore. What if there was an unlimited supply of a new energy source only three days away and 7 tonnes supplied all the electrical energy for the entire US for one year.

And the best part, the new energy source is not radioactive. Well folks you gotta read about this stuff.

Helium-3 (He-3) is a light, non-radioactive isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron, which is rare on Earth; it is sought after for use in nuclear fusion research. More abundant helium-3 is thought to exist on the Moon (embedded in the upper layer of regolith by the solar wind over billions of years) and the solar system's gas giants (left over from the original solar nebula), although still in low quantities (28 ppm of lunar regolith is helium-4 and 0.01 ppm is helium-3).[1] It is proposed to be used as a second-generation fusion power source.

The helion, the nucleus of a helium-3 atom, consists of two protons but only one neutron, in contrast to two neutrons in ordinary helium. Its existence was first proposed in 1934 by the Australian nuclear physicist Mark Oliphant while based at Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory, in an experiment in which fast deuterons were reacted with other deuteron targets (the first demonstration of nuclear fusion). Helium-3, as an isotope, was postulated to be radioactive, until helions from it were accidentally identified as a trace "contaminant" in a sample of natural helium (which is mostly helium-4) from a gas well, by Luis W. Alvarez and Robert Cornog in a cyclotron experiment at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in 1939. [2]

Now I already hear you naysayers, “on the Moon” yup, and guess how it’s processed? You scoop it up at 1/6 earth gravity and you squeeze the rock and dust of the moon surface. Guess what you get? Two components He-3 for fuel, but you also get H2-O, WHAT! That’s right folks, you get water. The by product is a compressed building block called, you got it a Brick!

Now all you chemistry nerds out there, if you pass electricity through water what do your get? Right, you strip off the Hydrogen and you get Oxygen. This is how our submarines produce Oxygen to stay under the water indefinitely.

So lets see, we have got unlimited solar energy on the moon for power. Everything is 1/6 the weight, we have building materials, we have water, we have oxygen, we have minerals, we have soil. HUMMMM

The Russians and the Chinese want to begin operations in 2020, and neither of these countries have been much concerned about killing people to get things done. So the US had better knock off this war in the Middle East for OIL, and start spending our grandkids money to get back to the moon.

Oh and if any you thought I forgot about Lando? We could build a Gas mining platform in lunar orbit, using the lunar elevator system, then tow the platform to Jupiter’s moons. There we could extract the gas directly.

All this would likely take 100 years to complete, but what a goal.

Mark

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought your readers would be interested in looking at these energy technologies and EPS's theoretic base for ball lighting.

Aneutronic Fusion: Here I am not talking about the big science ITER project taking thirty years, but the several small alternative plasma fusion efforts.

There are three companies pursuing hydrogen-boron plasma toroid fusion, Paul Koloc, Prometheus II, Eric Lerner, Focus Fusion and Clint Seward of Electron Power Systems

Vincent Page (a technology officer at GE!!) gave a presentation at the 05 6th symposium on current trends in international fusion research , which high lights the need to fully fund three different approaches to P-B11 fusion

He quotes costs and time to development of P-B11 Fusion as tens of million $, and years verses the many decades and ten Billion plus $ projected for ITER and other "Big" science efforts

Here are the links:

http://www.electronpowersystems.com/

U.S., Chilean Labs to Collaborate on Testing Scientific Feasibility of Focus Fusion http://pesn.com/2006/03/18/9600250_LPP_Chilean_Nuclear_Commission/



However, short of a Energy "silver bullet" like fusion , Here is a fully DOABLE technology


Time to Master the Carbon Cycle with Terra Preta Soil Technology;

The integrated energy strategy offered by Charcoal based Terra Preta Soil technology may
provide the only path to sustain our agricultural and fossil fueled power
structure without climate degradation, other than nuclear power.

The economics look good, and truly great if we had CO2 cap & trade in place:


Terra Preta soils I feel has great possibilities to revolutionize sustainable agriculture into a major CO2 sequestration strategy.

I thought the current news and links on Terra Preta soils and closed-loop pyrolysis would interest you.

UN Climate Change Conference: Biochar present at the Bali Conference

http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/steinerbalinov2107


SCIAM Article May 15 07

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=5670236C-E7F2-99DF-3E2163B9FB144E40



After many years of reviewing solutions to anthropogenic global warming (AGW) I believe this technology can manage Carbon for the greatest collective benefit at the lowest economic price, on vast scales. It just needs to be seen by ethical globally minded companies.

Even with all the big corporations coming to the GHG negotiation table, like Exxon, Alcoa, .etc, we still need to keep watch as they try to influence how carbon management is legislated in the USA. Carbon must have a fair price, that fair price and the changes in the view of how the soil carbon cycle now can be used as a massive sink verses it now being viewed as a wash, will be of particular value to farmers and a global cool breath of fresh air for us all.

If you have any other questions please feel free to call me or visit the TP web site I've been drafted to co-administer. http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/?q=node

It has been immensely gratifying to see all the major players join the mail list , Cornell folks, T. Beer of Kings Ford Charcoal (Clorox), Novozyne the M-Roots guys(fungus), chemical engineers, Dr. Danny Day of EPRIDA , Dr. Antal of U. of H., Virginia Tech folks and probably many others who's back round I don't know have joined.



Also Here is the Latest BIG Terra Preta Soil news;

ConocoPhillips Establishes $22.5 Million Pyrolysis Program at Iowa State 04/10/07

Mechabolic , a pyrolysis machine built in the form of a giant worm to eat solid waste and product char & fuel at the "Burning Man" festival ; http://whatiamupto.com/mechabolic/index.html



Erich J. Knight
540-289-9750
shengar at aol.com

M. Simon said...

There is a fourth company pursuing proton Boron fusion and they have serious funding:

Here are some links and info that you might find useful:

Bussard Fusion Reactor
Easy Low Cost No Radiation Fusion

It has been funded:

Bussard Reactor Funded

The above reactor can burn Deuterium which is very abundant and produces lots of neutrons or it can burn a mixture of Hydrogen and abundant Boron 11 which does not.

The implication of it is that we will know in 6 to 9 months if the small reactors of that design are feasible.

If they are we could have fusion plants generating electricity in 10 years or less depending on how much we want to spend to compress the time frame.

BTW Bussard is not the only thing going on in IEC. There are a few government programs at Los Alamos National Laboratory, MIT, the University of Wisconsin and at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana among others.

The Japanese and Australians also have programs.

If you want to get deeper into the technology visit:

IEC Fusion Technology blog

Start with the sidebar which has links to tutorials and other stuff.

Anonymous said...

what good news. we need to get away from the republicans and their oil addiction.

we need to return to protecting mother earth above the interests of corporations.

good post