9.7.1 – Fuel supplies issues and the He-3 underpants gnomes

There is also an issue with fuel supplies. Boron (one of the favoured fuels) is not nearly as abundant as Deuterium or even Lithium. Another favoured fuel choice is He-3. This is an extremely rare substance. There may be substantial reserves of it on the moon (deposited by the solar wind), but the density of such fuel is extremely low, well below what would currently be consider in anyway practical or economic to extract with presently available mining technology…..on Earth! Obviously mining the moon for it with currently available mining, and space launch technology is simply a non-starter, thought in the distant future that might of course change……but this isn’t the distant future!

A rough but unfortunately accurate summary of He-3 fusion proposals, see more here 

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