氦3融合能源：2050年的国家势在必行
A presentation given to Congressman Bill Paxon
The world population will increase to ten billion people by the year 2050. By that time we will have exhausted all of the 7 trillion barrels of oil, equivalent to any kind of economically recoverable fossil fuel on earth. We will have run out of places to store the toxic wastes from our nuclear fission reactors. We will have no alternative resource but fusion energy.
The physics of present fusion energy, involving the fusion of deuterium and tritium in a thermonuclear reactor, the TOKAMAK, is approaching resolution but problems of reactor materials survival remain, which will probably take 30 years to work out. This is due to the very destructive neutrons generated in the reaction process.
In contrast, helium-3 is a completely clean source of energy. Two helium-3 atoms are fused in a thermonuclear reactor to produce normal helium and energy. The fuel is non-radioactive, the process produces no radioactivity, and the residue produces no radioactivity. It is the perfect energy source. However the helium-3 reaction takes place at 10 times the temperature of the TOKAMAK. It will probably take 10 to 20 years to work out the physics of containing the reaction.
地球上有很少的氦气-3，只有在地球形成时留下的那个，以及我们从那时起我们在反应器中制造的一些额外量。它是从阳光的核反应产生的，在太阳风中来到我们。没有土地在地球上，因为它被地球的磁场转移了。但是月球上的土地。月亮装满了。据估计，月球上有十倍的氦3能量作为我们的化石燃料的总历史库存。25吨的氦3（一个班车装载）将在1993年提供美国总能源的总需求。班车载荷的价值约为250亿美元，这将每桶7美元等同于石油。
But to mine it on the moon and to get it here we will need a space station by 2000 AD and a permanent human resident colony on the moon by 2010 AD. The by-products of processing ore on the moon will provide enough necessary materials like oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc. to make the colony self-sustaining.
But if we want to get there by 2050 AD, we will have to start now!
版权所有1996 Prometheus，转载许可
