Where has all the HE-3 gone? Where can I get some?

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http://www.thermo.com/eThermo/CMA/PDFs/Various/File_52281.pdf
June 16, 2009
Re: Global He3 Shortage – The Impact upon Products with Neutron Detectors and Our Action Program

Dear Colleagues and Customers:
Since the late 60’s the neutron detector of choice has been the He-3 filled proportional tube. He-3, which has negligible natural abundance on earth, has been readily available as it is a by-product of the large quantities of Tritium provided to support nuclear weapons programs. The reduction in the weapons programs has removed this source of He-3 to the point where the stock of He-3 is insufficient to support the current demand for neutron detectors. The development of a source of He-3 by producing Tritium is characterized by a lengthy time to production and by very high cost and would not be available for at least one year.

At the same time Homeland Security requirements have driven a greatly increased demand for neutron detectors. The statement below is taken from a DOE (Department of Energy) coordinated Neutron Detection Technologies Workshop in which we are participating.

Over the past 5 years, the demand for helium-3 (He-3) for neutron detectors has increased greatly, and the available supply of He-3 is projected to fall significantly short of demand in the near future. The primary reason for the increase in demand is the expanded use of He-3 in neutron detectors for national security, nonproliferation, defense, border security, and homeland security applications. He-3 is the material of choice for neutron detection because of the ease of discrimination between neutrons and gamma rays.

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A need for Helium 3, right now, here on Earth.
- LRK -

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http://introtoeppfall09.blogspot.com/2009/11/helium-3-shortage-causes-scare.html
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Helium 3 Shortage Causes Scare

In recent years there has been technology created that has utilized helium 3 as an agent to detect nuclear bombs. According to The New York Times, the Department of Homeland Security has spent over $230 million to develop better technologies to detect smuggled nuclear weapons, but there has been a sudden halt in the development of these new machines because the United States has run out of supply of the raw material helium 3. Helium 3 is a rather rare form of the element that is generated when tritium decays. Experts say that most tritium production stopped in 1989. Official governmental actors have openly criticized the lack of preparedness for this shortage. Investigations into the matter uncovered research that indicated that the demand for helium 3 "appeared to be 10 times than that of the supply".

If fully developed, the Government planned on "a worldwide network" using the new detection technology that could detect plutonium or uranium in shipping containers. The Government hoped to provide 1300-1400 of these machines at a cost of $800,000 a piece to ports around the world in hopes to deter terrorists from trying to deliver nuclear bombs to big cities. However, these hopes seemed to have been thwarted by the lack of availability of helium 3. Critics argue that although there seemed to be a plentiful amount after the Cold War, researchers should have indicated that although plentiful, the supply would not be sustainable for long term, continued use. Others who did recognize the limited supply however, weren't worried about sustainability, relying on the expectations that new technologies would be developed that would not utilize helium 3 as much, if at all.
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The government has an investment in the use of Helium 3 and needs more.
- LRK -

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http://www.proportionaltech.com/new_site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=143&Itemid=1
He-3 shortage and solutions
Written by Administrator
Tuesday, 01 December 2009 17:42

A critical shortage of He-3 gas has been revealed recently by expert groups (see reports here), who have urged that the government take action towards the development of alternative neutron detection technologies. Such developments are crucial to ensure the continuation of DNDO and DHS efforts to secure the country against radiological and nuclear threats, and also support commercial and research demand for neutron detectors in fields of neutron science, medicine, oil and gas exploration and basic low temperature physics. Currently all large scale applications of He-3 have been placed on hold awaiting a presidential commission decision on the priority of the different areas of need.

Proportional Technologies Inc. is bringing to market a technology for the detection of neutrons that does not require the use of He-3 gas. This development, funded over the past 5 years by the DOE, the DTRA and NIH, uses B-10, a material that is high in natural abundance, and has easy, economical isotopic separation methodology. The patented boron-coated straw (BCS) detector (U.S. Patent 7,002,159) can match or exceed the performance characteristics of typical He-3 tubes, and can support large-scale deployments; as such, it constitutes an excellent alternative to He-3 based detectors in the large scale applications of interest to the DHS and DOE, such as portal monitoring, stand-off detection, and portable devices that represent the greatest drain on He-3 world resources.

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Money spent on finding substitutes for Helium 3.
- LRK -

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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6712/is_33_244/ai_n45231171/
Helium-3 Shortage For Radiation Portal Monitors Is Severe, DHS Warns
Defense Daily, Nov 18, 2009

By Calvin Biesecker

The White House has convened an interagency policy committee to address the nation's shortage of Helium-3 (He-3) gas used in a variety of applications, including neutron detector tubes that are part of radiation portal monitors (RPM), and decided in September that no new He-3 will be given for RPM production for now, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told Congress yesterday.

The shortage of He-3 is "severe," Dr. William Hagan, acting deputy director for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), told the House Science Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight. Demand will "outstrip supply by a factor of 10," he said.

He-3, which is a non-radioactive gas given off as a byproduct of tritium decay--tritium being a key component in nuclear weapons--is required to produce currently deployed RPMs and the next-generation systems, called Advanced Spectroscopic Portals (ASPs). The gas is also a critical component in medical imaging systems, the oil and gas industry and high-energy research.

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A number of uses for Helium 3 and not enough to go around.
- LRK -

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/us/23helium.html
Shortage Slows a Program to Detect Nuclear Bombs
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: November 22, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has spent $230 million to develop better technology for detecting smuggled nuclear bombs but has had to stop deploying the new machines because the United States has run out of a crucial raw material, experts say.

The ingredient is helium 3, an unusual form of the element that is formed when tritium, an ingredient of hydrogen bombs, decays. But the government mostly stopped making tritium in 1989.

“I have not heard any explanation of why this was not entirely foreseeable,” said Representative Brad Miller, Democrat of North Carolina, who is the chairman of a House subcommittee that is investigating the problem.

An official from the Homeland Security Department testified last week before Mr. Miller’s panel, the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Science Committee, that demand for helium 3 appeared to be 10 times the supply.

Some government agencies, Mr. Miller said, did anticipate a crisis, but the Homeland Security Department appears not to have gotten the message.

The department had planned a worldwide network using the new detectors, which were supposed to detect plutonium or uranium in shipping containers. The government wanted 1,300 to 1,400 machines, which cost $800,000 each, for use in ports around the world to thwart terrorists who might try to deliver a nuclear bomb to a big city by stashing it in one of the millions of containers that enter the United States every year.

At the White House, Steve Fetter, an assistant director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the helium 3 problem was short-term because other technologies would be developed. But, he said, while the government had a large surplus of helium 3 at the end of the cold war, “people should have been aware that this was a one-time windfall and was not sustainable.”

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Where might I go to find more Helium 3?
Could it be on the Moon, that Moon that we have been there, and didn't develop a paying industry.
- LRK -

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http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/proj?rm=he3
Lunar Mining of Helium-3

There is no doubt that one of the most difficult problems that a peaceful world will face in the 21st century will be to secure an adequate, safe, clean, and economical source of energy. Existence of lunar helium-3, to be used as fuel for fusion reactors, is well documented; verified from numerous Apollo and Luna mission samples, current analyses indicate that there are at least 1 million tonnes em

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Helium 3 on the Moon. Hmmmm, I thought we were going to go check that out but I guess planting a flag is enough, been there.
- LRK -

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http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/LEA/whitepapers/Van_Cleve_nac_he3_abstract_01.pdf
PREPARING THE GROUND FOR A HELIUM-3 ECONOMY FROM A POLAR LUNAR OUTPOST.
J. VanCleve1. 1Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. (1600 Commerce St.,
Boulder CO 80301, jvanclev@ball.com)

Introduction: Helium-3, deposited by the solar wind in the lunar regolith, may potentially be used as fusion power for terrestrial electricity and deep-space propulsion[1,2]. It could be a key resource in selfsustaining interplanetary economy, since the establishment of controlled d-3He fusion would endow this resource with a value of roughly $3M/kg, assuming that fuel comprises 20% of the cost of $0.10/kWh electricity. There are no terrestrial sources of 3He sufficient to sustain industrial-scale use. The value of a Helium-3 deposit, like that of any other mineral resource increases more rapidly than linearly with concentration. While the highest solar wind flux is found in Farside equatorial regions, mature, titanium-rich soils of the Nearside maria retain more of the solar wind, with the net result that the Nearside maria yielded the best 3He concentrations in the Apollo samples. Concentrations may be significantly higher in undisturbed regolith[3], giving the best lunar regolith an energy density about half that of gasoline. The polar
regions are expected to be relatively barren of 3He, because of low solar wind exposure [4] and poor soil retention; so at first glance the Solar Polar lunar outpost recommended by NASA’s Lunar Architecture Team (LAT) is unpromising for the characterization and development of this potentially important resource.However, there are several reasons to consider the value of a polar outpost in preparing for the large scale extraction of 3He:

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Besides Neutron detectors, Helium 3 might just help solve our energy problem.
I am sorry, there just isn't enough to go around.
- LRK -

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http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/pubs/wcsar
Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics (WCSAR) Report List

WCSAR reports cover the FTI discovery of lunar helium-3 and explore
lunar mining feasibility and the helium3-fusion connection; 1987-1993.

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Who might go to the Moon to scrape up some Helium 3. Doesn't look like that will be NASA.
Maybe those civilian space enthusiasts will find there is money in them thar lunar hills.
Send in the robots and a technician or two.
Scrape up enough to make do.
Do it for me, I tell you true.
- LRK -


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http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=10924
STATUS REPORT
Date Released: Thursday, November 6, 2003
Source: Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

RETURN TO THE MOON

A return to the Moon to stay would be at least comparable to the first permanent settlement of America if not to the movement of our species out of Africa.

I am skeptical that the U.S. Government can be counted on to make such a "sustained commitment" absent unanticipated circumstances comparable to those of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Therefore, I have spent much of the last decade exploring what it would take for private investors to make such a commitment. At least it is clear that investors will stick with a project if presented to them with a credible business plan and a rate of return commensurate with the risk to invested capital. My colleagues at the Fusion Technology Institute of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Interlune-Intermars Initiative, Inc. believe that such a commercially viable project exists in lunar helium-3 used as a fuel for fusion electric power plants on Earth. Lunar helium-3, arriving at the Moon as part of the solar wind, is imbedded as a trace, non-radioactive isotope in the lunar soils. There is a resource base of helium-3 about of 10,000 metric tonnes just in upper three meters of the titanium-rich soils of Mare Tranquillitatis. The energy equivalent value of Helium-3 delivered to operating fusion power plants on Earth would be about $4 billion per tonne relative to today's coal. Coal, of course, supplies about half of the approximately $40 billion domestic electrical power market.

A business and investor based approach to a return to the Moon to stay represents a clear alternative to initiatives by the U.S. Government or by a coalition of other countries. A business- investor approach, supported by the potential of lunar Helium-3 fusion power, and derivative technologies and resources, offers the greatest likelihood of a predictable and sustained commitment to a return to deep space.
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Too bad we have already been to the Moon.
I thought I was going to see more activity before I died.
- LRK -

Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Schmitt
Harrison Hagan "Jack" Schmitt (born July 3, 1935) is an American geologist, a former NASA astronaut, University Professor and a U.S. Senator for one term.

He is the twelfth and last of the Apollo astronauts to arrive and set foot on the Moon (crewmate Eugene Cernan exited the Apollo Lunar Module first). However, as Schmitt re-entered the module first, Cernan became the last astronaut to walk on and depart the moon. Schmitt is also the only person to have walked on the Moon who was never a member of the United States Armed Forces (he is not the first civilian; Neil Armstrong left military service prior to his landing in 1969).

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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