helium-3 Helium-3 from regolith!

[Madbro]

Hello, greatest developers and players! (•ω•)/

Our scientists (I mean, in real world) have proved existance of Helium-3 in Moon regolith. Which is a very efficient possible power source when we have colony on the moon.

I think our dupes can do that too - just need some further research!

Helium-3 can replace uranium that many players don’t prefer. It’s relatively a lot safer and it’s a strong stuff.

I have my Helium-3 Extractor proyotype blueprint as attachment (although I have to admit it looks like scrap-made stuff). Outputs helium-3 to ventillation system.

With, my description about the Helium-3 boiler. It must be supplied with water or being half-submerged in water.  Takes in helium-3 from ventillation system (and consumed in production). Produces same mass of steam - fixed at 110 °C.

Hope everyone likes it. (•ω•)

Comment please (•ω•)/

[Ainsley4ever]

It's an interesting idea and I like it, but I see two major problems:

The first is that helium-3 is not formed at the same time as regolith. It comes from the solar wind and must accumulate on the surface of a planet for several million years before you have enough to do something with it. And since the surface is continuously renewed, it will be difficult to find any. 

The second is that you can't do anything with helium alone. Helium is an inert gas, so it will not react with anything at all. The only way to get energy from it would be by nuclear fusion. There are different elements that do well with helium 3, but fusing helium-3 nuclei with deuterium nuclei (a hydrogen isotope) is the one that produces the most energy. Except that for this process to occur, it is necessary to heat the mixture to more than 800 million degrees Celsius... Not only would the energy costs be huge (and the infrastructure too), but in addition the waste heat (normally used to heat steam) could melt the entire asteroid if you mess up somewhere. Anyway, if your boiler magically manages to work despite all this, expect to see it output superheated plasma rather than steam  . 

 

 

But after all, it's Oxygen not Included, the game where you erase heat and duplicants pee several kilograms of water, so I say anything is possible ;D !