Helium-3 has been discovered on Gold Hydrogen’s South Australian tenement – but what is it and why have influential writers called the gas “a national security issue for the United States”?
Most Australians will only have heard of Helium-3 after Gold Hydrogen last week announced it had found the gas on the Yorke Peninsula with levels confirmed up to the magnitude of 901 ppt. The more standard Helium-4 was also recorded at the site at up to 36% purity, but with Helium-3 selling for 140,000 times the price of Helium-4, there was widespread excitement.
Helium-3 is the key ingredient in a revolutionary form of energy development – fusion energy.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology-backed Commonwealth Fusion Systems is the first company in the world to have fused Helium-3 with two other ions to form energy. It would be a near carbon-free fuel source able to be produced safely and at scale.
In a recent article in Foreign Policy News, writer Richard Carroll explained the value of fusion energy.
“Fusion is the source of the Sun’s energy. In contrast to the fission reactor, which splits atoms, a tokamak (fusion reactor) fuses atoms to release energy.
“Unlike the fission reactor, a fusion tokamak does not emit dangerous radioactive waste, and if there is a malfunction in a tokamak, the energy being created called plasma, short circuits, and become water. In contrast, a malfunction in a fission reactor generates radioactive waste and pollution,” his article said.
Think nuclear energy, without the risks.
Other companies have since tested the fusion energy technique and the race is now on to commercialise it – hence the focus on Helium-3.
“The current uses of He-3 have been confined to the use for medical imaging technology, and since 9/11, it is also used in neutron radiation detectors,” Carroll wrote.
“With the expanded use of He-3, the demand has outstripped supply, leading to a shortage of the element. Charles Ferguson, the president of the Federation of American Scientists, has said that the shortage of He-3 has created a ‘…huge national security problem’.”
That’s because the biggest potential source of He-3 is the moon, where 1.1 million metric tons of it are estimated to be present.
And therein lies the problem. The only company mapping He-3 fields on the far side of the Moon is the People’s Republic of China. The Chang’e-4 mission was launched in 2019, and its primary mission is to map the location of He-3 deposits.
Could China corner the market for He-3 if successful in its lunar endeavours?
“This is clearly a national security issue for the United States, and indeed the world,” the article said. “If China were to gain a monopoly of the He-3 available on the Moon, China would power itself into the premier economic power on Earth.”
Full article here.
Meanwhile, He-3 is also sought after for nuclear fusion energy plays, with this article from as far back as 2022 reporting breakthroughs in ways to potentially produce mass amounts of carbon-free energy.
Gold Hydrogen’s announcement of its Helium-3 find garnered it significant coverage across scientific and investor publications.
Energy News Bulletin covered it here; Investing.com had this to say; while there was also coverage on Tradingview.com and Small Caps.
Our investor relations partner Proactive interviewed managing director Neil McDonald (link here).