Can we Harness Energy from Outer Space?

The Earth today is a giant laboratory in which humans are conducting thoughtless experiments which requires a huge amount of energy, but unfortunately, now we are living in a world with depleting energy resources.

People have been searching for clean alternative energy resources for decades to no avail. As soon as one source seems to pass the test, someone uncovers its fatal flaws. Nuclear, wind, solar and hydropower have all been dragged thorugh the mud to some degree. Traditional Nuclear Fission is too risky, winds are not consistent, the sun does not always penetrate the clouds and hydropower dams disrupt natural environment.

It seems like any workable solution is light-years away. Some researchers think the answer to our energy needs rests in the stars. From wind turbines on Mars to helium-3 fusion, researchers are increasingly looking to extraterrestrial sources for Earth`s energy needs.

One of the sources they are looking at is helium-3 to use in nuclear fusion reactions. As opposed to nuclear fission, which splits an atom`s nucleus in half, nuclear fusion combines nuclei to produce energy. While nuclear fusion has already been tested with the hydrogen isotopes deutrium and tritium, those reactions give off the majority of their energy as radioactive neutrons, raising both safety and production concerns. Helium-3, on the other hand, is perfectly safe. It does not give off any pollution or radioactive waste and poses no danger to surrounding areas.

An isotope of the element helium, helium-3 has two protons but only one neutron. When it`s heated to very high temperatures and combined with deutrium, the reaction releases incredible amounts of energy. Just 2.2 pounds (1 Kg) of helium-3 combined with 1.5 pounds (0.67 Kg) of deutrium produces 19 MW-years of energy. Roughly 25 tons of the stuff could power the USA for an entire year.

The only problem is we don’t have just enough quantity of helium-3 just lying around. But conveniently, the moon does. In fact, scientists estimate our lunar rock contains more than 1 Million tons of the element. The energy stored in that much helium is 10 times the amount of energy we find in all the fossil fuels on Earth (Source: Artemis). If we put a cash value on it, helium-3 would be worth Rs.305 Billion a ton in terms of its energy equivalent in oil. (Source: Wakefield).

Now the only question, we are left with, is that how we can extract and use the energy contained by this precious isotope, in order to meet our gigantic energy needs. Ofcourse scientists and researchers are doing their best to harness this mammoth amount of energy from the outer space and the source is without any fatal flaw, as the study suggests so far. If the scientists turns successful then we would be able to meet our energy needs by means of an extraterrestrial source and we would be able to live on Earth in the same way as we are living now, otherwise our planet can see another stone age in the future.