Considering the danger represented by the climate changes and the global warming phenomena scientists and businessmen worldwide started to look for alternative energy sources. Besides the wind power or the nuclear energy is has been recently taken into consideration a new power generating substance: helium 3.

What exactly is helium 3? Helium 3, an isotope of helium, a gas used to inflate balloons, has a nucleus with two protons and one neutron. The solar wind, the rapid stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun, strikes the planets and their sattelites in the solar system and thus helium 3 is deposited in the superficial soil (also called regolith). As the Moon’s atmosphere is not very dense this flow of particles easily penetrates the gas layer and reaches the ground. Over millions and billions of years that adds up. But for its denser protective gases layers the Earth would have been under the direct action of the Sun too thus being contaminated by toxic products.

Louie Alvarez and Robert Cornog discovered helium 3 in 1939 but it was only 1957 when it drew the attention of researchers. It has been estimated that only a few hundreds pounds exist on Earth, most the by-product of nuclear-weapon production. Experts estimate that there are about 1 million tons of helium 3 on the Moon, enough to provide the world with power for thousands of years from now on. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load (25 tons) could supply the entire United States’ energy needs for a year, according to Apollo 17 astronaut and Harrison Schmitt.

The advocates of this energy source support the idea of building reactors based on the reaction of deuterium and helium 3 even in the middle of a big city. It is said that the fusion reaction using this gas is very efficient and it releases very little radioactive by-products. This gas could also be used for powering spacecrafts.

Commercially unfeasible

The US goverment and some European countries as well have studied the energy potential of the Moon. And yet it is highly unlikely that any government or group of states will spend the money necessary to go to the Moon and establish a base on it to support scientific research or the construction of the first production facilities. Hopefully the next few years will witness a media campaign to support the enterprise in the context of the global warming and the lack of terrestrial resources. Human society is straining to keep pace with its ever increasing energy demands which are expected to increase eightfold by 2050 as the population swells toward 12 billion. The moon and its resources just may be the answer.

At the moment the most important aspect that prevent the exploitation of the lunar resources is the money. The long term investors have to consider spending a lot of it for 10 to 15 tears before any adequate return of investment. Companies in the field of energy production are reluctant to consider investing in such an enterprise. The other element that encourages skepticism is the lack of appropriate technologies. The fact is that once applied for economical purposes – not only in labs – and used on large scale these technologies become very expensive. Both proponents and skeptics have to consider that for example to produce 70 tons of helium 3 one million tons of lunar soil would need to be heated to 800° C to liberate the gas.

If successful the researchers’ efforts to find new alternative resources on the Moon could pay off the interested investors but as we said before nobody is prepared to invest money in soap balloons and the Moon in the sky.