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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Latest News
Russia withdraws from 25-year-old weapons-grade plutonium agreement
Russia’s lower house of Parliament, the State Duma, approved a measure to withdraw from a 25-year-old agreement with the United States to cut back on the leftover plutonium from Cold War–era nuclear weapons.
G. L. Kulcinski, Harrison H. (Jack) Schmitt
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 4 | July 1992 | Pages 2221-2229
Technical Paper | Special Issue on D-He Fusion / D-3He/Fusion Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29717
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The moon contains an enormous energy source in 3He deposited by the solar wind. Fusion of only 100 kg of 3He with deuterium in thermonuclear fusion power plants can produce > 1000 MW(electric) of electrical energy, and the lunar resource base is estimated at 1 × 109 kg of 3He. This fuel can supply > 1000 yr of terrestrial electrical energy demand. The methods for extracting this fuel and the other solar wind volatiles are described. Alternate uses of D-3He fusion in direct thrust rockets will enable more ambitious deep-space missions to be conducted. The capability of extracting hydrogen, water, nitrogen, and other carbon-containing molecules will open up the moon to a much greater level of human settlement than previously thought.