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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 21, 2016 - 01:56pm PT
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I just finished reading Entering Space, by visionary Astronautical Engineer, Robert Zubrin. Zubrin is the founder and president of the Mars Society, a group dedicated to promoting the study of and travel to Mars. The Society was established in the early 1990s during a meeting on the University of Colorado, Boulder Campus. In the flow of the book, the energy requirements of space travel were pointed out brilliantly, and energy requirements to accomplish some of the tasks outlined are--Astronomical. Chemical Propulsion, as being demonstrated by repetitive launches of communication and surveillance satellites into Low Earth Orbit ,(LEO), is technology developed in the 1960s and brought to a highly efficient state today. This technology is also adequate for a return to the Moon, and also for travel to Mars. Zubrin points out, however, the massive energy requirements required for exploration of the Outer Solar System beyond Mars and the Asteroid belt. Enter the requirements of both Nuclear Fission powered rocket, and introducing Fusion power. In the course of discussing the potential of Fusion power, the various reactions were presented, and the "standard" reaction of Deuterium and Tritium, although cleaner than Uranium-based systems w/r to production of hazardous wastes, releases high energy Neutrons capable of rendering structures radioactive and also generating X-rays. Enter the superb Deuterium-Helium-3 reaction! Helium 3 is an isotope of Helium containing 2 Protons, but only a single Neutron, in contrast to "ordinary" Helium containing 2 Protons and 2 Neutrons. The Fusion reaction postulated between one molecule of Deuterium and a molecule of Helium-3 yields non-radioactive Helium-4, and liberates a single Proton, in an Aneutronic fusion reaction, along with the liberation of 18.354 MeV. The problem in running such a clean reaction to produce almost limitless electrical energy, is the almost total absence of any available He-3 on Earth, not to mention the large quantity of Deuterium.
It has been postulated that the surface of the Moon is rich in He-3 from billions of years of bombardment of the surface by the Solar Wind, rich in He-3. Also, the He-3 is thought to be in the regolith to the depth of several meters, and could be obtained by calcining the soil at 600 degrees C to release the substance, compress and liquefy for transport to Earth for energy production. A second source of information suggested that mining a million tons of lunar soil a year could result in a single shipment of 20 metric Tonnes of He-3 to Earth, capable of producing 100% of the energy requirements of the United States for a year. By the way, 20 metric Tonnes would comprise a nice load for the now-retired Space Shuttle!
I'm certain few here are aware of this profound information. The availability of almost limitless power with zero pollution, no release of greenhouse gasses, and no radioactivity! What's not to like? Here is a goal worthy of NASA, private industry, or all mankind!
On the other hand, other countries are taking this very seriously: China and Russia, in particular. The Chinese have stated they will visit the Moon by the end of 2017 and several more robotic rovers are planned as advance missions. I'm sure the Oil Sheiks will oppose such activity, but we need to wean ourselves from the technologies of the past and fully embrace the future.
The second issue, beyond mining Helium-3, is Deuterium. It is available in a much higher abundance on Mars, roughly 6X more than on Earth.
Given the growing population of our planet, and the corresponding competition for scarce resources, salvation of our planet seems to be inexorably linked to the exploration and exploitation of other resources within mankind's grasp--or at this point--reach.
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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Apr 21, 2016 - 02:22pm PT
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meanwhile, the prevailing squabble involves the particulars of the guy/gal in the next stall. who's at the helm of this ship ... anyone?
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2016 - 02:45pm PT
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Hooblie--
The answer to your question: no one. We are adrift in a sea of apathy. On the other hand, this could create a far cleaner environment through use of electric powered vehicles in the cities utilizing very inexpensively produced power.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Apr 21, 2016 - 03:16pm PT
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I heard about lunar mining Helium-3 from a 2009 low-budget, independent movie called Moon. It was a pretty good movie. The special effects were done with models on a sandy soundstage, not CGI, which is rare these days.
He-3 has advantages over deuterium and tritium for fusion reactors, the most important is that it can react with itself without releasing any neutrons.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 21, 2016 - 03:51pm PT
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Or we could go on a conservation bender for all forms of transport, appliances, lighting, and the electric motors used throughout all our industrial and utility sectors. I'm guessing we could slash 30% or so by 2050 without trying all that hard.
I noticed that here in PDX that all the street lights in the city were swapped out for LEDs over the past two years - don't know what the savings is there, but I suspect it's significant. Edit: On checking I see LA did the same and calculated a 63.7% energy savings.
And on further reading, it looks like electric motors consume 60% of our annual electricity production. Switching to 90+% efficiency motors could save 15-25%.
All in all, plenty of cheap energy still to be mined here on earth just through better utilization.
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Winemaker
Sport climber
Yakima, WA
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Apr 21, 2016 - 04:02pm PT
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"It has been postulated that the surface of the Moon is rich in He-3 from billions of years of bombardment of the surface by the Solar Wind, rich in He-3. Also, the He-3 is thought to be in the regolith to the depth of several meters, and could be obtained by calcining the soil at 600 degrees C to release the substance, compress and liquefy for transport to Earth for energy production. A second source of information suggested that mining a million tons of lunar soil a year could result in a single shipment of 20 metric Tonnes of He-3 to Earth, capable of producing 100% of the energy requirements of the United States for a year. By the way, 20 metric Tonnes would comprise a nice load for the now-retired Space Shuttle!"
Except that the half life of Helium 3 is 12.3 years.
Edit: I misread and was thinking Tritium (H3). Sorry, I stand corrected.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Apr 21, 2016 - 04:11pm PT
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wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to just bombard He2 with neutrons here on earth?
Like I said before, if the moon was pure diamonds, the diamonds mined from the moon would still be more expensive to buy than the diamonds we mine here.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2016 - 04:45pm PT
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To answer in order: He-3 is stable and non radioactive. Has a very looong storage life.
Craig-Calculate the value of the total energy consumption of the United States on an annualized basis. It's a significant multiple of all the Apollo missions combined, including development and construction of the hardware. The value of a single 20 Metric Tonne load of He-3 from the Moon is in hundreds of Billions of dollars, far more than the total cost of a program to develop the resource.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2016 - 04:47pm PT
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Of course, everyone here would be lamenting the demise of "Big Oil." Then there would be nowhere other than the middle class to tax for Bernie's programs.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Apr 21, 2016 - 05:02pm PT
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Except that the half life of Helium 3 is 12.3 years
Most of this comes from the decay of tritium (hydrogen-3), which decays into helium-3 with a half life of 12.3 years.
That sentence is somewhat ambiguous.
The half-life of radioactive Tritium, Hydrogen-3 is 12.3 years. It decays by beta emission to produce non-radioactive Helium-3.
Helium-3 is stable, and does not decay.
I like the idea of mining the earth for free energy: switch over to LEDs and more efficient motors.
Better yet, move towards using less artificial light, and fewer motors.
I read this article about a big, modern marijuana farm in Nevada. Instead of using the abundant sunlight of the desert, this gigantic indoor pot farm used grow lights.
Some of the electricity could come from solar panels, but why not use the sun to directly grow the plants?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 21, 2016 - 05:17pm PT
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I read this article about a big, modern marijuana farm in Nevada. Instead of using the abundant sunlight of the desert, this gigantic indoor pot farm used grow lights.
Here's a big greenhouse operator in Las Vegas growing vegetables.
I suspect the grow operation you're talking about is using lights more as a matter of control and physical security - i.e. they're not growing it in glass greenhouses, but rather in some form of securable commercial structure.
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Winemaker
Sport climber
Yakima, WA
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Apr 21, 2016 - 06:01pm PT
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Tom et al: I was thinking Tritium, H-3, not He-3. My bad.
As to producing H-3 in a reactor and allowing it to decay into Helium3, Tritium is very expensive to produce and has a short (12.3 years) halflife; this is a major factor in nuclear weapons design. This is why Lithium-6. a less common but stable isotope of Lithium, is used in some nuclear fusion weapons as the reaction of Lithium-6 with a neutron produces Tritium (Li-6 + n - T + He-4 + 4.78 MeV). The Tritium can then be immediately burned in the primary fusion reaction, D + T - He-4 + n + 17.588 MeV.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2016 - 06:28pm PT
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The main point I was bringing up was "how do we get the energy we need without using up critical resources, and continue fukking up the planet?" The answer, if one looks at this as a Thermodynamic System, it utilize natural He-3, by mining it and using it here on Earth instead of oil, coal, inefficient solar power and photovoltaic cells. If He-3 is generated by Tritium decay, we get miniscule amounts, and only with the expenditure of enormous amount of fossil fuel or hydroelectric power. The Sun has done all the work for us, we simply need to use our available technology to "harvest" the Sun's crop of He-3 from the Lunar Regolith. Then...there's the matter of getting nuclear fusion to work in a controlled manner. We'll leave that to Dr. Ed H to accomplish.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Apr 21, 2016 - 07:07pm PT
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Solar panels continue to improve and drop in price. It would seem obvious to encourage solar panel use.
But, so many people are putting panels on their roofs, PG&E and other energy companies are lobbying, hard, to lower the price they pay homeowners for excess electrical power. They say that the infrastructure of transmission lines and meters is an onerous burden on them. So, they don't want to pay for any excess electricity that has nowhere else to go, but into their power grid. In effect, they'll take the electricity off people's hands for free, as a favor to them.
In Nevada, the power companies got the price of excess solar power down so low, Solar City pulled out of the state completely. Nevada is physically the ideal place to put up a bunch of solar panels. Politically, Nevada is a toxic environment, because the power companies have successfully lobbied to make solar panels cost-ineffective.
Intelligent energy availability is a political problem, not a technical problem.
The big corporations only care about their own profits. If they kill off the human race in the process, that's not their concern.
Once upon a time, there were some powerful machines that men had invented. The machines made life for the men easier. Then, one day the machines became too strong, too big, and the men could no longer control the machines. The machines began to operate in their own interests, and not in the interests of the men. The machines saw human activity as a threat to themselves, and the machines began to block and thwart human activity. The machines dominated and controlled the men. The enslaved machines had become the masters of human slaves. The machines began to kill off the men, because they were no longer of any use to the machines.
The machines were called corporations.
THE END
The solution of the future is to have solar panels, and a storage system for the electricity. That way, every home can simply disconnect from the PG&E grid and be self-sufficient.
Tesla is promoting their battery packs, which I assume are the same lithium-ion cells that are used in the car. This makes sense, from Tesla's standpoint, but probably not from a homeowner's standpoint.
Cheaper, older technology, such as deep-cycle lead-acid batteries weigh more, and might take up more room. But, those concerns aren't relevant for a home-based power storage system. The proven, long-term safety record of older battery technologies is an advantage against the potentially explosive lithium-ion technology that has not yet been completely tamed.
I know several local ranchers who have nothing but solar cells and batteries. And they get satellite internet and TV, cell phone reception, have microwave ovens and as many lights as any suburban house connected to the grid. Some of them have powerful electric well pumps that run off the panels.
There is no reason that any home in a typical neighborhood can't disconnect from PG&E, SCE, or whatever other local power company has lobbied against reasonable payment for excess solar power.
The only real issue is the upfront cost and the occasional cost to maintain the system. Right now, it is very close to being the same cost as a monthly utility bill.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2016 - 07:24pm PT
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Tom-
I'm excited about Fusion power, as it has the potential to break the stranglehold the energy giants have on society in general. The outfits such as PPL will only have political clout as long as they have a monopoly, and that's indeed what they have no matter what double-speak they use to "justify" their position. They masquerade as "Public Utilities," but are enormously profitable. Essentially someone (or group of someones) forms a new corporation offering fusion power at a rate less than 50% of the solar-nuclear-wind-fossil-fuel-hydro power generation companies, and as a "Public Utility" demand to use the grid!
Added as an edit, after Tom's "edit," or add-on. Yes, I proposed using home solar panels to power a Tesla, in order to make it more affordable and less reliant on the power grid, and then use the home solar power to charge batteries and run the household. Get. Off. The. Grid. The big power corporations have political "clout," only as long as they are making enough money to buy the politicians. Starve the f*#ks of revenue and make them become more responsive.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Apr 21, 2016 - 08:35pm PT
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I don't see how fusion has any ability to break the stranglehold that big energy companies have over society.
The hardware necessary to produce net electrical power from fusion doesn't even exist. The hardware for experimentation, such as the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, is so expensive, only massive government programs can afford it. If fusion electrical power ever becomes viable, facilities on the order of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant will be necessary. Diablo Canyon is owned and operated by PG&E.
It's possible that some sort of massive breakthrough could dramatically lower the cost and hardware necessary for fusion power. At one point, I thought that compressing and heating the reactants, and then allowing them to exit a hypersonic nozzle through a shockwave might work. But, initiating a fusion reaction is very energy intensive and complex.
Filo Farnsworth invented a machine he called a Fusor, that was basically two concentric, open-grid spheres that were electrically polarized. Some variants of polyhedral geometry have been proposed and constructed. None of them have produced usable amounts of electrical power. Some of them are used as weak neutron sources, for lab or medical use.
The solar panel, right now, is the holy grail. A different holy grail may appear in the future, but right now it's the solar panel. The biggest obstacle is financing. The Federal government extended a 30% tax rebate that was scheduled to expire last year. But, the power companies lobbied the various Public Utility Commissions into drastically reducing how much they paid for excess solar power.
The power companies have to pay for he power grid infrastructure, so it is logical that they would pay less than retail for the excess electricity. But, how much less is where the lobbyists have prevailed, so far.
I have been very impressed to see 100 acre ranches, completely off the grid, with only a few panels and some batteries. My sister lives in Wasilla, and her ranch was powered by solar panels and diesel generators for the winter.
The self-sufficiency thing may not be for everyone. Some people will always prefer to just pay a bill, and have the electricity magically appear through the meter.
But, if enough people can threaten to go off the grid completely, and not even pay a nominal fee to the utility companies, there might be some leverage to raise the sub-retail rate that excess solar power is traded.
Ironically, in hot, western states, peak electrical demand is during the middle of the day, when solar power generation also peaks. So, it would seem to be in the interest of everyone for the utility companies to embrace the new, solar paradigm. They would be able to defer, and perhaps completely eliminate, the need to build new, expensive power plants.
But, right now, this quarter, the profits will be higher if the lobbyists can force solar power out of the picture. A long-term vision is unattainable to the terminally myopic CEOs who fixate on day-to-day fluctuations of their company's stock price.
There is no government will to coerce the corporations into reasonable compliance, because it is the corporations that control the government.
Our so-called leaders are prostitutes who accede to whatever depraved acts their well-funded clients want.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2016 - 09:03pm PT
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Solar Power may be the answer in some parts of the country, but not all. Here in Wyoming, wind is the thing. I was considering a wind turbine for meeting the power requirements of my ranch, but the overall cost of a 12kW system was going to be ~ $67,000. Yeah, there was a DOE subsidy of 30%, and a USDA subsidy of another 10% for ranch use. That was still $40K that I needed to come up with. The other question was what to do when the wind didn't blow (Bwahaha--this is Wyoming!); a solar backup system was suggested, and a big battery system. Altogether I was looking at nearly $70K again, even after all the subsidies.
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Apr 21, 2016 - 09:14pm PT
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Imagine what the mining pricks have done to the Earth, and now these idiots want to play on the Moon...
... wow!
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 21, 2016 - 09:23pm PT
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"We" here in the USA will probably be left out, as the Chinese have made this a national priority. As has Russia.
Thankfully another option exists for the future: the Gas Giant planets including Saturn. Just dive a ship-factory through the atmosphere to extract gigantic quantities of He-3, liquefy, and robotically ship back to Earth. That's probably in the distant future, however. meanwhile we can be content to be raped by the utility giants.
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