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***Helium 3

SolvencyFails/Turn

Helium 3 fusion is a lieits slow, doesnt work, and results in more radioactive material

Close 7 (Francis Close is a particle physicist who is currently Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Exeter College,

Oxford. 08/03/07 Fears over factoids (debunks mini black hole fears, He3 as fuel source) http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/30679 JT)

Helium errorsLet me now turn to the helium-3 factoid. At most fusion experiments, such as the Joint European Torus (JET) in the UK, a fuel ofdeuterium and tritium nuclei is converted ina tokomak into helium-4 and a neutron, thereby releasing energy in the process.Nohelium-3 is involved, so where does the myth come from? Enter "helium-3 fusion" into Google and you will findnumerous websitespointing out that the neutron produced in deuteriumtritium fusion makes the walls of the tokomak radioactive, but that fusion couldbe "clean" ifonly we reacted deuterium with helium-3 to produce helium-4 and a proton.Given that the amount of helium-3 available on Earth is trifling, it has been proposed that we should go to the Moon to mine the isotope,which is produced in the Sun and might be blown onto the lunar surface via the solar wind. Apart from not even knowing for certain ifthere is any helium-3 on the Moon, there are two mainproblems with this idea one obvious and one intriguingly subtle. The first problem isthat, in a tokomak, deuterium reacts up to 100 times more slowly with helium-3 than it does with tritium . This isbecause fusion has toovercome the electrical repulsion between the protons in the fuel, which is much higher for deuterium helium-3 reactions (the nucleihave one and two protons, respectively) than it is for deuterium tritium reactions (one proton each).Clearly, deuteriumhelium-3 is a poor fusion process, but the irony is much greateras I shall now reveal. A tokomak is not like aparticle accelerator where counter-rotating beams of deuterium and helium-3 collide and fuse. Instead, all of the nuclei in the fuelmingle together, which means that two deuterium nuclei can rapidly fuse to give a tritium nucleus and proton. The tritium can now fusewith the deuterium again much faster than the deuterium can with helium-3 to yield helium-4 and a neutron .So by bringing helium-3 from the Moon, all we will end up doing is create a deuterium tritium fusion machine, which is the very thingthe helium aficionados wanted to avoid! Undeterred, some of these people even suggest that two helium-3 nuclei could be made to fusewith each other to produce deuterium, an alpha particle and energy. Unfortunately, this reaction occurs even more slowly thandeuteriumtritium fusion and the fuel would have to be heated to impractically high temperatures that would be beyond the reach of atokomak. And as not even the upcoming International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) will be able to generate electricity fromthe latterreaction, the lunar-helium-3 story like the LHC as an Armageddon machine is, to my mind, moonshine.

Reject the affs evidenceit has not been scientifically justified and ruins decision making

Close 7 (Francis Close is a particle physicist who is currently Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Exeter College,

Oxford. 08/03/07 Fears over factoids (debunks mini black hole fears, He3 as fuel source) http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/30679 JT)

Decision making driven by public opinion that is influenced by factoids already has a dire history in the bio-medical arena: thecontroversy over whether to give children a combined immunization against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) being the most recentexample. My advice is that if you see an error in the media, speak out,write to the editors and try to get corrections made. It is an opportunity toget good science in the news.

Fusion Far Off

Helium-3 fusion is too far off to solve any problemsCobb 7/26 (Kurt Cobb, is the author ofPrelude, a peak oil-themed novel. He is also a columnist for the Paris-based science newssite Scitizen and his work has also been featured on Energy Bulletin, 321energy,Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique, EVWorld, and many other sites, founding member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and GasUSA, serves on the board ofthe Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions, 7/26/11, Fusion Delusion and the $6.3 Quadrillion Mining Project,OilPrice.com, http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Fusion-Delusion-and-the-$6.3-Quadrillion-Mining-Project.html)

The potential financial rewards may make it seem possible. But wait! First, we have to perfect fusion using helium-3. Thisis where the public and the media conveniently forget that scientists, some of them quite well-funded, have been workingon fusion energy for 60 years already. And yet, even the most lavishly funded of the current crop of projects,

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http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/30679http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/30679http://preludethenovel.com/http://www.scitizen.com/screens/usersPage/userSummary/sw_userDisplay.php?idUserDisplayed=863&sign=02cd303b5f9a176c4a2eedcd15000f51http://www.energybulletin.net/http://www.321energy.com/editorials/cobb/cobb020508.htmlhttp://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/21/9789http://mondediplo.com/2006/05/08energyslaveshttp://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=11920http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=11920http://www.aspousa.org/http://www.communitysolution.org/problem.htmlhttp://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Fusion-Delusion-and-the-$6.3-Quadrillion-Mining-Project.htmlhttp://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Fusion-Delusion-and-the-$6.3-Quadrillion-Mining-Project.htmlhttp://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/30679http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/30679http://preludethenovel.com/http://www.scitizen.com/screens/usersPage/userSummary/sw_userDisplay.php?idUserDisplayed=863&sign=02cd303b5f9a176c4a2eedcd15000f51http://www.energybulletin.net/http://www.321energy.com/editorials/cobb/cobb020508.htmlhttp://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/21/9789http://mondediplo.com/2006/05/08energyslaveshttp://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=11920http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=11920http://www.aspousa.org/http://www.communitysolution.org/problem.htmlhttp://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Fusion-Delusion-and-the-$6.3-Quadrillion-Mining-Project.htmlhttp://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Fusion-Delusion-and-the-$6.3-Quadrillion-Mining-Project.html

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the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), explains on its website that "[t]he timescale to commercialfusion therefore extends until at least the middle of this century...." All this should tell us that the technical hurdles toproducing commercial electricity from fusion may never be breached or at least not in any time frame that matters to aworld whose main sources of energy, fossil fuels, will certainly peak and begin declining before mid-century and likelymuch sooner.

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Fusion Requires Fossil Fuels

Fusion reactors will rely on fossil fuel use

Cobb 7/26 (Kurt Cobb, is the author ofPrelude, a peak oil-themed novel. He is also a columnist for the Paris-based science newssite Scitizen and his work has also been featured on Energy Bulletin, 321energy,Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique, EVWorld, and many other sites, founding member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and GasUSA, serves on the board of

the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions, 7/26/11, Fusion Delusion and the $6.3 Quadrillion Mining Project,OilPrice.com, http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Fusion-Delusion-and-the-$6.3-Quadrillion-Mining-Project.html)

The potential financial rewards may make it seem possible. But wait! First, we have to perfect fusion using helium-3. Thisis where the public and the media conveniently forget that scientists, some of them quite well-funded, have been workingon fusion energy for 60 years already. And yet, even the most lavishly funded of the current crop of projects,the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), explains on its website that "[t]he timescale to commercialfusion therefore extends until at least the middle of this century...." All this should tell us that the technical hurdles toproducing commercial electricity from fusion may never be breached or at least not in any time frame that matters to aworld whose main sources of energy, fossil fuels, will certainly peak and begin declining before mid-century and likelymuch sooner. In addition, many of the services that are necessary to ITER are currently powered by fossil fuels--though onemust admit that ITER's location in France means it is more dependent on the power generation of conventional fissionreactors than it would be elsewhere. But even those fission reactors are heavily dependent on fossil fuels for their servicing.To the already long, complex logistics chain for reactors, the proponents of the helium-3 fueled version of the fusion

reactor hope someday to add mining on the Moon. Of course, it is in the nature of humans to dream. And, theirtechnological dreams have been made manifest in many ways in the industrial age. But the fulfillment of those dreams hasbeen largely due to the wide availability and low cost of energy resources, the vast majority of them from fossil fuels.

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http://preludethenovel.com/http://www.scitizen.com/screens/usersPage/userSummary/sw_userDisplay.php?idUserDisplayed=863&sign=02cd303b5f9a176c4a2eedcd15000f51http://www.energybulletin.net/http://www.321energy.com/editorials/cobb/cobb020508.htmlhttp://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/21/9789http://mondediplo.com/2006/05/08energyslaveshttp://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=11920http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=11920http://www.aspousa.org/http://www.communitysolution.org/problem.htmlhttp://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Fusion-Delusion-and-the-$6.3-Quadrillion-Mining-Project.htmlhttp://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Fusion-Delusion-and-the-$6.3-Quadrillion-Mining-Project.htmlhttp://www.iter.org/http://preludethenovel.com/http://www.scitizen.com/screens/usersPage/userSummary/sw_userDisplay.php?idUserDisplayed=863&sign=02cd303b5f9a176c4a2eedcd15000f51http://www.energybulletin.net/http://www.321energy.com/editorials/cobb/cobb020508.htmlhttp://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/21/9789http://mondediplo.com/2006/05/08energyslaveshttp://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=11920http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=11920http://www.aspousa.org/http://www.communitysolution.org/problem.htmlhttp://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Fusion-Delusion-and-the-$6.3-Quadrillion-Mining-Project.htmlhttp://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Fusion-Delusion-and-the-$6.3-Quadrillion-Mining-Project.htmlhttp://www.iter.org/