Lead
The market value of one ton of helium-3 is about $21.75 billion.
This is an imaginary text message in the pocket of Oleg Onesschenko, a member of the Russian Academy of Aerospace Sciences and an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which records the latest market value of helium-3.
Although this is an imaginary text message, it is a reminder that helium-3 is not only a valuable mineral resource, but also a clean energy source.
Due to the important role of helium-3 in nuclear fusion reactions, it is also known as the "future energy star".
Although there are still many technical difficulties in the mining of helium-3, all countries have expressed that they will exploit the lunar resources in the future to realize the exploitation and utilization of helium-3 and promote the development of human energy.
But what is the value of helium-3?
And why is it so precious?
Why is the Moon so rich in helium-3?
1. Noble gas - helium-3.
On the planet Earth, energy resources such as oil, natural gas, coal, uranium, and non-renewable resources such as various metal mineral resources are gradually depleted, which makes human beings begin to look for alternative resources.
Although research on renewable energy is already being explored, many energy resources still face constraints and difficulties.
Take uranium as an example, uranium is a common nuclear fuel, is the main source of nuclear energy, and its nuclear energy can solve the world's energy problems for a long time, but the time that uranium can be used is also very limited.
According to research data from relevant institutions, in just 1,000 years, the world's uranium resources will be completely depleted, which means that the world's nuclear energy will also be gone.
Due to the depletion of energy resources such as uranium, mankind has seen the development of other energy resources.
In this case, helium-3 is favored by scientists and scholars from all over the world, and more and more people believe that helium-3 will become a mainstream energy source in the future.
Helium-3 is a rare isotope, one of the two naturally occurring isotopes of helium, which can be used as a clean energy source and a clean energy source determined by the United Nations.
One of the biggest advantages of helium-3 is its rarity, but helium-3 is very scarce on the earth, according to the data of relevant agencies, the total reserves of helium-3 on the earth are only 225 kilograms.
Moreover, the 225 kilograms of helium-3 are also dispersed in the earth's atmosphere, and the cost of extracting it is also very high, which also makes the threshold for mining helium-3 higher.
But just when helium-3 was hard to find on Earth, people found a very rich helium-3 resource on the Earth's companion, the Moon.
According to the estimates of relevant research institutions, the total reserves of helium-3 on the moon are about 13 million tons, which is nearly 60,000 times more than the reserves of helium-3 on the earth.
And some researchers have calculated through simulations that there may be more helium-3 reserves on the moon.
2. Sources of helium-3.
Helium-3 is a rare gas on Earth, but the Moon has such abundant reserves of helium-3, why is there such a big difference between the same celestial bodies?
Helium-3 was formed in the early stages of the formation of the solar system and is a major component of the solar system's power source, but helium-3 is brought by the solar wind.
In the early stages of the formation of the solar system, the high temperature released by the sun caused the helium and some other elements in the sun to form the solar wind, which carried various elements to various planets in the solar system.
The gravitational pull of the sun will attract various elements in these solar winds, and then form the atmospheres of each planet, and if the planets do not have an atmosphere, the water, helium, helium-3, etc. in the solar wind will be attracted to the interior of the sun by the sun's gravity.
This is why helium-3 exists on other planets such as the Moon, but is scarce on Earth.
Because the earth has a very thick atmosphere, and the atmosphere can block the elements in the solar wind, the phenomenon of helium-3 scarcity occurs on the earth.
But the moon does not have its own atmosphere, so helium-3 can accumulate on the moon.
The existence of helium-3 has been discovered when humans began to land on the moon, so it is only a matter of time before humans have enough technology to mine helium-3 on the moon.
Not long ago, the United States announced that it would land on the moon again in 2024, and also said that it would build a helium-3 mining base on the moon in the coming time.
3. The role of helium-3.
As we all know, helium-3 can be used as a clean energy source, and there is also a nuclear fusion technology related to it.
Because helium-3 is the early stage of the formation of the solar system, it is brought by the solar wind, so people can collect helium-3 on the sun, and helium-3 on the sun is also very abundant.
However, the Earth cannot collect helium-3 from the sun because the helium-3 on the sun is very hot, and the helium-3 on the sun is very difficult to control.
However, on the earth, it is completely possible to synthesize helium-3 artificially through technology, and the synthetic helium-3 is very stable.
Helium-3 nuclear fusion technology is to heat helium-3 at high temperatures, etc., and then rotate at high speed to cause the nuclei of helium-3 to collide, so that it releases huge energy.
And there are no harmful by-products produced in the process, so in this case, helium-3 is also known as the cleanest energy source.
And helium-3 is also very rich in energy, one kilogram of helium-3 fusion energy is equivalent to 160 billion kilowatt hours of electrical energy, which also makes the value of helium-3 rise.
One ton of helium-3 is worth about $21.7 billion, and because helium-3 is extremely rich in energy, helium-3 is also known as the "energy star of the future".
However, mining and utilizing helium-3 is not an easy task, and the cost of mining helium-3 is also very expensive.
Although the earth's energy resources such as oil, natural gas, and coal have become widespread around the world, their costs are very low.
The cost of helium-3 is much more than that, if people want to go to the moon, they first have to develop a spaceship, then they need to adapt to the space environment, and then they need to develop mining tools, all of which are very expensive.
Not so long ago, the United States announced that it would land on the moon again in 2024 and also planned to bring helium-3 back to Earth by 2028, but the US plan to land on the moon was opposed by Russia.
Russia then announced that it would build a helium-3 mining base on the moon by 2024, which also made the competition for lunar resources more and more fierce.
epilogue
As a clean energy source, helium-3 can not only replace traditional fossil energy, but also promote human space exploration.
However, while exploiting the helium-3 resources on the moon, human beings should also pay attention to environmental protection and ecological balance, and try to avoid causing damage to the lunar ecosystem.