Alternative Energy Solution

Published on August 8, 2008 By Artysim In Politics

In the debate over energy policy we keep hearing about how there are no viable alternatives to replace oil, coal and natural gas as fuel sources. Well, I've got a solution.

Invest in space travel. I can tell many readers are now rolling their eyes, but you should know that the Chinese agree with me. In fact, that's where I got the idea from. The Chinese are making serious efforts to get men on the moon in the next decade. And they're not planning on going there just to kick a football around and get their picture taken planting a flag, although those things will undoubtedly happen.

The Chinese are planning on going to the moon for a resource called helium-3. They want to mine this resource, because it has many potential uses for energy. Look it up. Jupiter and it's moons are also swimming in all kinds of energy rich resources as well.

While we worry about securing the last untapped reserves of non-renewable fuels to continue powering our obsolete and inneficient contraptions, the Chinese are planning ahead, long term. That long-term vision calls for the necessity of replacing fossil fuels within the next 30-40 years.

There is no great conspiracy behind this. Why 30 years? Because by that time, the world will have burned through most of the easily recoverable oil on the planet. Yes, there will still be oil around at that time but it'll be the much more expensive, hard to recover type. This will mean that oil will be so expensive in 30 years that we'll be a hurting species if we don't find serious alternate means. Don't believe me? Run the numbers. 1.2 trillion barrels of easily recovered oil on the planet right now, we're burning through 85 million barrels per day as a species. In the next 20 years that's gonna rise to over 100-110 million barrels per day, further quickening our pace of consumption. But anywho, back to the Chinese.

They have no illusion that by sending one ship with a couple astronauts that they're suddenly gonna be able to get helium-3 in quantity and then everything will be great. They realize that to make something like that happen it will take decades of concerted effort, R&D and massive investment. So they're starting now. And we should be doing the same!

Instead, what has become of the vaunted U.S space program? NASA employees have come out and openly stated that Bush's vision to put men back on the moon, then mars and beyond is simply not feasible with the current lack of funding. If you may remember, a couple years ago Bush made a grandiose speech about continued space exploration and sticking with the space program. But then no real funding was provided to make that happen. And the best that NASA can do is go back to a similar concept of their old Apollo ships, just done in redux and dressed up with more modern touches. There are even NASA employees that have come up with proposals and plans for an alternative to the Orion vehicle that's going to replace the shuttle, only to be ignored and shut down.

Basically, the U.S space program is coasting right now. The Orion is going to be a necessary replacement for the shuttle, but little else. What's needed right now is massive investment, not just in NASA but in space exploration in general to catapult us forward into the next age.

The benefits of this would be many, and not limited to just energy policy. Greater employment, advancing technology through R&D (we do have the space program to thank for many breakthroughs) and of course the most important thing, having a goal and a dream that a people and a nation can work towards.

Rather than get down and out and point fingers at each other as to why we're paying so much for gas, we need to collectively admit that it's time to advance. It's time to grow out of our current phase of inneficient technology and adapt.

Rather than fight wars in foreign lands over the control of remaning energy sources on earth, it's time to look elsewhere, and dedicate our efforts to productive, long term solutions rather than destructive, short term ones.

The moon is a good example because there's plenty of resources there and it's the closest. Jupiter and it's moons are swimming in even more resources, and no one is gonna care if we strip mine a lifeless planet (better than poisoning local water tables with mercury and cyanide like we do now).

If you don't think that space exploration is a viable option to our energy problems, go ahead and guffaw. The Chinese are taking it very seriously and backing it up with billions of dollars. While we sit around and point fingers and fight over resources on earth, they're doing the intelligent thing and planning long term. Which is what we should be doing too!

Comments

EL-DUDERINO

on Aug 08, 2008

I couldn't agree more. We need to start looking towards the future. And I definitely agree that we need to invest much more in space exploration, luckily some private companies are starting to do just that, but government funding wouldn't hurt. We need to start looking for ways to exploit the resources of our solar system so that maybe one day we can travel to other star systems. The problem is that the US government has this problem of only being able to see to the next election year rather than 10-50 years down the road. This has resulted in a major hault to any government funded innovation in our country.

Hopefull the private sector will be able to deliver the next big space advances, otherwise we're all screwed.

Nitro Cruiser

on Aug 08, 2008

The Chinese have had fewer people in space that the Mercury project. Lets see if they can get there (the moon) first (I wish them luck). Now back to the energy question - a viable alternative now for oil. Just how much does it cost to fill up your tank with Helium 3? On second thought, don't close down those oil rigs yet.

CharlesCS

on Aug 08, 2008

Interesting concept, but considering we can't even send someone into space without worrying about 2 inches of foam destroying the entire ship, and the fact that it will probably cost more just to get them into space, let alone the moon and then on top of that build some kind of moon base to be able to do this mining of helium 3 not to mention getting it back to us here on Earth. How exactly is this a "viable alternatives to replace oil, coal and natural gas as fuel sources" right now again? Still a decent idea for future advancements, but not for a "right now" solution.

MasonM

on Aug 08, 2008

Actually hydrogen is a much more practical energy source, not to mention much more plentiful.

These are great long term ideas but do nothing to address the immediate energy needs world wide. One can't simply think short term or long term, both are equally valid and should both be addressed. To do otherwise is, in a word, stupid.

Artysim

on Aug 09, 2008

Actually hydrogen is a much more practical energy source, not to mention much more plentiful.

Now back to the energy question - a viable alternative now for oil. Just how much does it cost to fill up your tank with Helium 3? On second thought, don't close down those oil rigs yet.

Helium-3 would be used for fusion, actually, not to go into your gas tank. Yep, there sure is a lot of hydrogen out there, but here on earth there is an energy deficit to get it- we have to expend more energy to get hydrogen than we get out of using it. And helium-3 is extremely rare on earth, so much so that we synthesize it in a process involving tritium.

How exactly is this a "viable alternatives to replace oil, coal and natural gas as fuel sources" right now again? Still a decent idea for future advancements, but not for a "right now" solution.

I never said that this was a "right now" solution. For this to be feasible will take a couple of decades. The Chinese realize this so they're rolling up their sleeves now and getting down to business. Meanwhile we lollygag around griping about how we need to drill for more oil and then we'll worry about long-term solutions later!

maudlin27

on Aug 09, 2008

Why spend money on it now, when it's not needed? It would cost a fortune, use up lots of fuel just to get the spacecraft up there, and likely not be worth considering for hundreds of years. If that money was instead invested into renewable energy, then the whole problem could be solved sooner, and for much less!

I mean consider the fortune spent by NASA over the years to land on the moon, or launch various shuttles/probes etc. to far off planets. What have we got to show for that? What benefits has it provided? I mean there's obviously value to satellites and the like, but how is being the first to land someone on the moon, or some other random planet of any benefit? My own opinion is their budget should be cut and the money used elsewhere where it can make more of a difference. Let the chinese spend a fortune on it if they want to, and then in 50+ years if it turns out the information becomes useful, chances are that at least some of their research would have become common knowledge and so make the costs of it a bit cheaper!

Eagle Seven

on Aug 10, 2008

I worked at NASA for two years helping (in a minor way) to lay the groundwork for a Lunar Mining vehicle/module, and can say with great certainty that

1. You're right, he Moon is the most plentiful source of Helium-3 we have access to. (and, in short, Helium-3 is an optimal candidate for nuclear fusion fuel)

2. We're more likely to get hydrogen fuel cells working before we develop a functional fusion reactor (a stable tokamak reactor, for instance).

3. When we finally do develop a Fusion power plant, there will be a mad race to the moon to mine He-3 ASAP.

Considering those three points, it doesn't seem very practical to have Apollo-Mission levels of funding to NASA right now.

On the other hand, please tell your Senators to pump more money into NASA, I'd love to work there again!

stevendedalus

on Aug 11, 2008

These are great long term ideas but do nothing to address the immediate energy needs world wide. One can't simply think short term or long term, both are equally valid and should both be addressed. To do otherwise is, in a word, stupid.

I'm with you there. Since when this nation can't multitask?

Paladin77

on Aug 11, 2008

The Chinese are planning on going to the moon for a resource called helium-3.

Once again your fingers run where you understanding fears to tread.
Do you know what H3 is used for? Do you know how it will power anything? H3 is an element rare on earth due to our atmosphere. It is hoped to be in large amounts on the moon. It is theoretically used to power a fusion reactor. Fusion reactors are like little suns, they produce about the same amount of power as a nuclear reactor but far safer unless you have a runaway reactor in which case we have a serious problem. Think of the heat and radiation of the sun produced here on Earth. Not good if you lose control of it. Theoretically speaking a teaspoon of H3 will run a fusion reactor for a few years maybe a few decades. It has not been proven that it will work in the real world. Hell, we only fired up a fusion reactor three times and each time they had shielding problems. The radiation coming off that thing was so powerful that the stuff that leaked through the cracks in the doors was lethal within a few dozen feet of the lead doors. I know this is a minor problem and can be fixed in time but once again you want to stop producing the fuel that will get us to the moon to get the H3 before we even have a workable fusion reactor. Then you are stuck with the same issues of a nuclear power plant. You can’t put one in your car, bus, train, and airplane. In time you may be able to put one in a home, but you are still 50 to 100 years away from that happening. And again you are stuck with a finite energy source. We don’t know how much is on the moon, and once it is gone we have to wait for the Sun to form more of it. Oh by the way the Moon is leaving the Earth so even if there is plenty we still only have so long before the moon leaves Earth orbit. And since you pin your hopes on fusion we will all have fusion reactors and the fuel supply goes away what do you propose to do then?

Just for the record there are a bunch of scientists at NASA that are working on H3 and its uses and have been working on it since the 70’s when H3 was discovered on the moon. Your proposal is not new, it is not being ignored, and it just is not possible to mine something from the moon until we get there. Sorry I read the paper on an H3 proposal to NASA 2 years ago and the proposal was 5 years old then. There are only four places in the Solar System where we might find H3 Mercury, our moon and the two moons of Mars.
THE ARTEMIS PROJECT is a private company that proposes to go to the moon and mine H3. They believe there is a billion tons of the stuff on the moon. And if all calculations are correct and we can get 100% efficiency of its use we can power the planet for ten thousand years before the fuel is exhausted. This sounds great for fundraising, but we have yet to build a reactor that runs on H3, have yet to do more than toy with it because as it stands now they use electricity to get the reaction started and have only had sustained reactions for 30 seconds at a time.

You see it is not just the Chinese that are going after the stuff, the Russians have a private company planning the same thing as well as the US Government.

Please don’t quote me too hard on any of this I am going off a report I read a few years ago and have not checked to see how good my memory is.

Paladin77

on Aug 11, 2008

Post script
We would be getting it right now if the democrats had not cut the missions to the moon because they needed the money to pay for social programs and the war in Vietnam. Mr. Kennedy said we go to the moon, he got killed so we went to the moon to honor him and once that was done they killed it because they were not interested in the science at the time, they still are not interested, they are interested in style over substance. So whatever is shiny and cool looking to the public is where our tax dollars will go. I don’t mean to put down the democrats it happened to be they were in power and wanted to kill the project after Neal and Buzz walked on the moon.

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