How Moon Gas Could Solve Climate Change

[Tonitrus]

And a more fundamental question: assuming you have no problem extracting the gas from the rocks (doubt it), and assuming you can economically transport it back to earth, is the technology to generate electricity from Helium 3 ready?

This is actually more of the key.

And the answer is: not even close.

/cue Timmah hysterical disagreement in 1...2...3...

[Monoriu]

So may I conclude that this is a pie in the sky, at least in our life times?

[Razgovory]

How is the Helium 3 gas stored on the moon?  If it exists in the rocks, don't you have to process lots and lots of rocks to get it in the first place? 

And a more fundamental question: assuming you have no problem extracting the gas from the rocks (doubt it), and assuming you can economically transport it back to earth, is the technology to generate electricity from Helium 3 ready?

Yeah, it's stored in rocks.  You would need a fleet of mining vehicles scooping up the upper layer of soil and taking back to some sort of refinery to have it extracted.  Think hundreds of tons of moon rocks to get one ton of He-3.

So it is stored in the rocks.  The next questions are, how deep are these rocks, and how many tons of rocks need to be processed to get sufficient Helium?  Are we talking about surface rocks, or rocks many km beneath the surface?  Can we can a ton of helium 3 from several hundred tons of rocks?  Or several thousand tons?  Or tens of thousands of tons?

Not that deep.  Should be surface rocks and soil.  I took a look and was off by a factor or two.  Think 150 million tons of rock for one ton of Helium-3.  Will we see it in our life times?  Well, that really depends on how long you plan to live.   You should probably consider this "pie in the sky".

[Tonitrus]

Moon Pie in the sky, in fact.

[Monoriu]

I am not buying shares in the East Moon Trading Company. 

[Ed Anger]

Moon Pie in the sky, in fact.

I'll take an RC cola with that.

[jimmy olsen]

How is the Helium 3 gas stored on the moon?  If it exists in the rocks, don't you have to process lots and lots of rocks to get it in the first place? 

And a more fundamental question: assuming you have no problem extracting the gas from the rocks (doubt it), and assuming you can economically transport it back to earth, is the technology to generate electricity from Helium 3 ready?

Yeah, it's stored in rocks.  You would need a fleet of mining vehicles scooping up the upper layer of soil and taking back to some sort of refinery to have it extracted.  Think hundreds of tons of moon rocks to get one ton of He-3.

So it is stored in the rocks.  The next questions are, how deep are these rocks, and how many tons of rocks need to be processed to get sufficient Helium?  Are we talking about surface rocks, or rocks many km beneath the surface?  Can we can a ton of helium 3 from several hundred tons of rocks?  Or several thousand tons?  Or tens of thousands of tons?

Surface rocks.

[Razgovory]

I am not buying shares in the East Moon Trading Company.

They be worth pennies now, but will be worth million a few hundred years!

[The Brain]

How is the Helium 3 gas stored on the moon?  If it exists in the rocks, don't you have to process lots and lots of rocks to get it in the first place? 

And a more fundamental question: assuming you have no problem extracting the gas from the rocks (doubt it), and assuming you can economically transport it back to earth, is the technology to generate electricity from Helium 3 ready?

Yeah, it's stored in rocks.  You would need a fleet of mining vehicles scooping up the upper layer of soil and taking back to some sort of refinery to have it extracted.  Think hundreds of tons of moon rocks to get one ton of He-3.

So it is stored in the rocks.  The next questions are, how deep are these rocks, and how many tons of rocks need to be processed to get sufficient Helium?  Are we talking about surface rocks, or rocks many km beneath the surface?  Can we can a ton of helium 3 from several hundred tons of rocks?  Or several thousand tons?  Or tens of thousands of tons?

Surface rocks.

Fuck yeah.

[KRonn]

Time to start buying up some Moon real estate in expectation of future mining...   

[Syt]

Surface rocks.

No, it doesn't. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WemYkwGjik

[Eddie Teach]

Judging from the falsetto, slow jams may be a better source of helium than rock anyway.