Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things."
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64
>The Hindu
>
>Monday, Jan 26, 2004
>
>`Moon plan to give U.S. control over energy sources'
>
>By Vladimir Radyuhin
>
>MOSCOW, JAN. 25. The United States is planning to use the Moon as a source
>of energy fuel that should help it establish ultimate supremacy on the
>Earth, a Russian newspaper said.
>
>An ambitious programme to build a manned base on the Moon by 2020 unveiled
>by the U.S. President, George W. Bush, earlier this month was not a
>re-election gimmick as American and international media described it, but a
>strategic economically project, the authoritative Izvestia newspaper said.
>A lunar base will enable the U.S. to bring back to Earth shiploads of
>Helium-3, a valuable fuel for thermonuclear reactors, which is abundant on
>the Moon but practically absent on the Earth. The newspaper quoted
>academician, Erick Galimov, as saying that a couple of shuttle spacecraft
>can bring to Earth enough liquified Helium-3 to meet all global energy needs
>for 12 months.
>
>"If we had a thermonuclear reactor technology, it would be economically more
>efficient to deliver Helium-3 from the Moon today than generate power from
>fossil fuels or uranium," said Mr. Galimov, who heads the Institute of
>Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
>"Using Helium-3 in thermonuclear synthesis may prove the best way to meet
>global energy needs." The paper draws attention to the fact that the 2020
>deadline Mr. Bush set for building a lunar base coincides with the expected
>construction of a thermonuclear reactor and a global energy crisis. With
>energy consumption in industrially developed countries growing at a rate of
>10 per cent a year, thermonuclear power stations may be the only way to
>overcome an impending energy crux.
>
>"Helium is ideal ecologically-safe fuel for thermonuclear technology," Mr.
>Galimov said. "The cost of bringing Helium from the Moon will be a fraction
>of the price of electric power generated today at nuclear plants." The Moon
>has an estimated 500 million tonnes of Helium-3 trapped in the upper layers
>of the lunar rock, whereas the Earth may have no more than a few hundred kg
>of the isotope, which is moreover embedded deep inside our planet.
>
>The Moon colonisation plan announced by Mr. Bush will "enable the U.S. to
>establish its control of the global energy market 20 years from now and put
>the rest of the world on its knees as hydrocarbons run out," the daily said.
>However, Mr. Galimov believes that Russia can complete with the U.S. in the
>race for the Moon. "Russia can well afford an economically profitable and
>inexpensive project to mine Helium-3 on the Moon," the Russian scientist
>said. "It will cost a mere $25-30 millions to extract Helium-3 by warming
>lunar soil and scraping the isotope from the surface with the help of lunar
>bulldozers."
>
>Copyright © 2004, The Hindu.
>
>
>
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