The Slow Death of the Internal Combustion Engine

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

What would we call it of we had a 1,000 year supply of some kind of fuel?

The breeders would call it an opportunity to discard all pretense of restraint.

Cons would view it as a challenge to see if Duhmerica can burn it off much sooner than that. It's our patriotic duty you know.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by Taylor95

You just gave me an interesting thought. Perhaps there are some energy resources on the moon or asteroids that might be worth harvesting. If SpaceX perfects their rockets then it might be economical. For instance helium-3 is abundant on the moon.

Won't happen. These are the scifi ideas that give false hope and distract us from making the moves that really will work.

[Taylor95]

Originally Posted by sendler

Won't happen. These are the scifi ideas that give false hope and distract us from making the moves that really will work.

Why not? At 40,000 USD an ounce, someone is bound to attempt it. I don't see why it can't be done. I'm sure many said the same thing about mass producing EVs.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by Taylor95

Why not? At 40,000 USD an ounce, someone is bound to attempt it. I don't see why it can't be done. I'm sure many said the same thing about mass producing EVs.

What is $40,000 an ounce? How is altering the course of a sizeable asteroid and bringing it back to earth even remotely comparable in scope and scale to anything that we use (non-renewable) resources here on Earth for?
.
Not happening at any meaningful scale. ER/EI constrained.

[Piotrsko]

Getting it from there to here is cheap. Can you say gravity well? Getting from here to there is expensive. Gotta have containers to ship it back.

[redpoint5]

Is there even a reactor that works with helium yet? It's a fusion process, right? If so, we don't have those reactors yet.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

Getting it from there to here is cheap. Can you say gravity well? Getting from here to there is expensive. Gotta have containers to ship it back.

Not really. Unless it was already on a collision course. How much mass did we ever bring back from the Moon? Which is right next door and already in orbit around the earth.

[Taylor95]

Helium-3 is 40k an ounce. There is like 1 million tons of it on the moon. It would be relatively inexpensive to build a facility to process the helium-3 from the soil and then to ship it back. Just 1 ton of helium-3 would be valued at 640,000,000 USD.

Edit: actually double that. So 1.28 billion

[sendler]

Originally Posted by Taylor95

Helium-3 is 40k an ounce. There is like 1 million tons of it on the moon. It would be relatively inexpensive to build a facility to process the helium-3 from the soil and then to ship it back. Just 1 ton of helium-3 would be valued at 640,000,000 USD.

Edit: actually double that. So 1.28 billion

Where on the moon? Are there dense pockets? What will we do with it?

[Taylor95]

Originally Posted by sendler

Where on the moon? Are there dense pockets? What will we do with it?

I believe it is everywhere. It is a nonradioactive substance that can be used to generate nuclear energy.

https://m.esa.int/Our_Activities/Pre..._lunar_surface