In recent years China has launched a remarkable plan not only to land on the Moon in the near future, but to industrialise it. On the Moon, however, which has a weak magnetic field and no atmosphere, He-3 over the eons has been deposited in signifi cant quantities. He-3 is emitted from the Sun and carried throughout the Solar System by the solar winds, but is repelled by the Earth’s magnetic field, with only a tiny amount penetrating the atmosphere in cosmic dust. He-3 accounts for just 0.000137 per cent of Earth’s helium, while the rest is He-4. The nucleus of each has two protons, but He-3 is lighter because it has only one neutron, while He-4 has two. The Moon, on the other hand, has reserves estimated at between one and five million tonnes.” There are two stable isotopes of helium on earth, He-3 and He-4. Professor Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP), has said that the Moon is so rich in He-3, that this could “solve humanity’s energy demand for around 10,000 years at least.” While talking about the Moon’s reserves of iron and other metals, Ziyuan particularly drew attention to He-3, which he called “an ideal fuel for nuclear fusion power, the next generation of nuclear power.” He added, “It is estimated that reserves of helium-3 across Earth amount to just 15 tonnes, while 100 tonnes of helium-3 will be needed each year if nuclear fusion technology is applied to meet global energy demands. The Moon-“Persian Gulf” of the Solar System Human civilisation now and in the foreseeable future already requires orders of magnitude more energy, while per capita energy consumption must also rise dramatically, if we are to eliminate poverty and transform industry, agriculture, transport and water management everywhere. Moreover, China is not alone in needing huge new supplies of energy.
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. Just eight tonnes of He-3 in fusion reactors would provide the equivalent energy of one billion tonnes of coal, burned in power stations. 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. 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. China is now leading the world into an industrial and scientific revolution, the sheer scale of which will of necessity soon require an entirely new form of energy, never before mastered on Earth: controlled thermonuclear fusion power, using helium-3 (He-3) as its fuel.