China is going to mine the Moon for helium-3 to assert dominance in space

in china •  3 years ago 

"HONG KONG : Nestled in 3.82 pounds of moon soil is what China hopes could be the answer to fueling its future."
https://www.livemint.com/science/news/chinas-quest-for-space-power-starts-with-moon-dust-11639483104928.html

"China's Chang'e 5 module returned last year with the first lunar samples gathered since 1976, it brought a tiny piece of potential treasure: a lentil-sized rock of helium-3 - thought to be a potential fuel for fusion energy"
https://news.yahoo.com/equilibrium-sustainability-scientists-measure-moon-221959391.html

"The He-3 isotope is extremely rare on Earth, but exists in abundance on the Moon, and the Chinese leadership has already begun an ambitious program to acquire it. About three-fourths of China’s energy is now produced by coal-fired power plants, but a typical coal train of more than a kilometre long, carrying 5,000 tonnes of coal, would be replaced by just 40 grams of He-3, dramatically reducing transportation costs. Just eight tonnes of He-3 in fusion reactors would provide the equivalent energy of one billion tonnes of coal, burned in power stations. China’s plan to bring back He-3 from the Moon will benefit not only the Chinese, but all mankind, just as any scientific breakthrough anywhere in the world has always done."
http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/space-on-earth/everyday-life/china-helium-3-program/

"It has been calculated that there are about 1,100,000 metric tons of helium-3 on the lunar surface down to a depth of a few meters, and that about 40 tons of helium-3 – enough to fill the cargo bays of two space shuttles –could power the U.S. for a year at the current rate of energy consumption. Given the estimated potential energy of a ton of helium-3 (the equivalent of about 50 million barrels of crude oil), helium-3 fuelled fusion could significantly decrease the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, and increase mankind’s productivity by orders of magnitude."
https://thediplomat.com/2014/06/moon-power-chinas-pursuit-of-lunar-helium-3/

"The implications are obvious: If the Chinese successfully establish a lunar mining colony and begin producing electricity on Earth from helium-3 fusion, they will become the most powerful nation on Earth, and could hold that position for the next 10,000 years—as long as the helium-3 supply holds out.

More importantly, abundant helium-3 energy on Earth would revolutionize the entire world economy"
https://orcutt.net/weblog/2015/02/05/helium-3-alternative-energy-the-china-problem/

"CHINA is hatching a master plan to use samples taken back from the Moon for nuclear fuel as it seeks to assert dominance in space."
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1536128/china-news-space-race-lunar-rocks-moon-nuclear-fusion-change5-helium-3

China is going to mine the Moon for helium-3 fusion fuel
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/197784-china-is-going-to-mine-the-moon-for-helium-3-fusion-fuel

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