This investigation refers to a new source of energy called Helium-3. Helium-3 is a rare isotope of Helium, found in very small quantities on Earth. The problem is finding an abundant source of it, which might be the moon where large quantities accumulated over billions of years. There are scientists who opine that Helium-3 could be mined and brought from the moon at a cost-effective price, given that Helium-3 can be so efficiently transformed into energy. Helium-3 is also a cleaner, or even a nuclear waste-free source of energy, depending on the fusion process chosen. What is Helium-3?
Helium-3 (He-3 or 3He) is a light, non-radioactive isotope of Helium with two protons and one neutron. Isotopes are variants of a particular chemical element such that, while all isotopes of a given element have the same number of protons in each atom, they differ in neutron number. Helium-3 is emitted by the sun, and it is very rare on Earth because the atmosphere of the Earth doesn’t let a large quantity of Helium-3 pass. However, the lunar soil has been absorbing Helium-3 for billions of years, and it has significant quantities of it.
Although theoretically helium-3 could be obtained and processed efficiently to produce clean or even nuclear waste-free energy, it is not a readily available technology today. However, the future of Helium-3 is promising and so continued investigation is well warranted.
Where can we get Helium-3 from?
While it can be found on Earth in a natural state, quantities are very low, no higher than 0.000137%. The moon has large quantities of Helium-3, as current analyses indicate that there are at least 1 million metric tons embedded in the lunar surface. About half the Helium-3 is deposited in a portion of about 20% of th...
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... for the effectiveness of other kinds of energy:
• http://phys.org/news/2013-09-world-solar-cell-efficiency.html
• http://www.globalwindday.org/faq/how-efficient-are-wind-turbines/
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The earth is made up of roughly 111 elements and combinations thereof, but only around 90 of the elements occur naturally. In 1789 Martin Klaproth discovered a new element and decided to name it after the newly discovered planet Uranus (Zoellner, 2009). This element called uranium is lithophilic and is the last natural element on the periodic table. It is the 92nd elements, containing 92 protons and an atomic mass of 238.0 grams (Cox, 1995). Uranium comes from the ores of uranite, canotite, and is present in only low concentrations of igneous rocks, such as granite. Uranium can also be seen in some glazes of pottery, as well as in the metals of armor-piercing weapons. This element also contains an extremely long half-life of over four billion years. This means that a majority of the uranium on earth today, is the exact same uranium that was present in the makings of the Earth (Cox, 1995; Thomson, 1963).
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A totally unreactive gas that is colorless and odorless. This element of gas is known to be helium. Helium is found in the periodic table in period 1 group 18 and the atomic number is 2. Helium was discovered in 1868 by Pierre J. C. Janssen he traveled to India to measure the solar spectrum during a total eclipse and came across a new yellow line which indicated a new element and assumed it to be a metal. Fortunately, helium is a noble gas. It is nontoxic and has no known biological function. The name helium is from the Greek name ‘Helios’ meaning sun. It was in the suns corona when helium was first detected. However, helium is from natural gas deposits commercially recovered. Helium gas has many uses it is used to inflate blimps, scientific balloons and party balloons. It is also an inert shield for arc welding, to pressurize the fuel tanks of liquid fueled rockets and in supersonic wind tunnels. Helium is also used in technology such as, computer chip manufacture, cell phones, fiber optic cables, MRI machines, and laser production. When you combine helium with oxygen you create nitrogen free atmosphere for deep sea divers so they can avoid a condition called nitrogen narcosis. Helium is said to be the second most abundant element. Unfortunately, most of it in the Earth’s atmosphere bleeds off into space causing there to be a major shortage of helium. Helium is all around the air, but it is hard to collect. There is only 5 parts of helium to every 100,000 parts of air. With the shortage of helium there are major causes, effects, and solutions.
Uranium was discovered by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, a German chemist, in the mineral pitchblende (primarily a mix of uranium oxides) in 1789.Klaproth, as well as the rest of the scientific community, believed that the substance he extracted from pitchblende was pure uranium, it was actually uranium dioxide (UO2). After noticing that 'pure' uranium reacted oddly with uranium tetrachloride (UCl4), Radioactivity was first discovered in 1896 when Antoine Henri Becquerel, a French physicist, detected it from a sample of uranium. Today, uranium is obtained from uranium ores such as pitchblende, uraninite , carnotite and autunite as well as from phosphate rock , lignite (brown coal) and monazite sand . Since there is little demand for uranium metal, uranium is usually sold in the form of sodium diuranate , also known as yellow cake, or triuranium octoxide).
On average 120 million tons of mass that majorly consists of hydrogen gets converted into helium in 60 seconds. Whereas some of the matter also get converted into energy (144).
Most people think that the costly downside to funding space exploration is a reason to avoid spending money on sciences and instead spend it on problems here on earth, but such funding for space exploration actually promotes economical as well as scientific benefits. Space exploration is an important expenditure for the high cost because of the potential for numerous benefits such as the possibility to find useful resources to cultivate, space exploration and satellites produce many thousands of jobs in our economy, and it creates and discovers newer and better technologies through research and development.
Though it was one of the three first elements (together with helium and hydrogen) to be synthesized in the Big Bang, lithium, together with beryllium and boron are markedly less abundant than other nearby elements. This is a result of the low temperature necessary to destroy lithium, and a lack of common processes to produce it.[34]
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