Seven “Myths” About Helium-3 (featuring Kari Byron)

Kari Byron, co-host of The Mythfits podcast and The Discovery Channel’s hit show “MythBusters” 

Misinformation is part of the deal when you’re doing something brand new in technology or science. Even well-understood and proven facts still get misconstrued. For example, a 2022 University of New Hampshire study found that approximately 10 percent of Americans believe the Earth is flat and that the U.S. never landed humans on the Moon.

Interlune’s mission to commercialize natural resources from space, starting with helium-3 from the Moon, is brand new. No one has done this before. 

At $20 million per kilogram, helium-3 is the only resource valuable enough to bring back from space, with applications in quantum computing, national security, fusion energy, and medical imaging. Interlune is developing novel technology aimed at doubling the yearly supply of helium-3 to meet immediate demand while simultaneously establishing its lunar operation. This technology will separate helium-3 from helium on Earth, and notably, not require producing additional tritium.

Despite broad government support, half a billion dollars in purchase orders, and a world-class team of scientists, technologists, and financiers involved with Interlune, pervasive misconceptions persist about the need for and use of helium-3.

Kari Byron, a long-time friend and colleague, gave us her take, “Myths about science exist in part because science is usually pretty complicated, and it takes time for new concepts to be broadly accepted. If super-smart people spend years trying to understand a given concept, we can’t expect everyone else to get it right away. It’s more likely that opinions will continue to be based on outdated information for some time.”

So here are some myths we’ve heard along the way. Let us know what you think. 

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Myth #1: Fission reactors can produce enough helium-3 to satisfy market demand by producing more tritium and allowing it to decay

This is the most pervasive and potentially consequential myth we encounter. 

While it’s possible to produce more tritium and wait for it to decay into helium-3, no one is currently planning to do this, and doing so would cost tens of billions of dollars and take more than 20 years to deliver any helium-3. 

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that decays to helium-3 with a half-life of about 12.3 years. Only trace amounts of tritium occur in nature, and the rest is produced by irradiating lithium in fission reactors. 

It is possible to increase tritium production with existing nuclear reactors; however, new facilities would be required to produce additional lithium, and separate facilities would be needed to extract tritium from it once irradiated. 

Even if we started tomorrow, these facilities wouldn’t be producing tritium until the 2030s, then we would have to wait another 12 years for that tritium to decay into helium-3. 

Finally, due to demand from fusion companies, tritium is even more valuable than helium-3 (about $30 million per kilogram). Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to spend billions creating more tritium, only to wait for it to decay into a less valuable material.

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Myth #2: We can get all of the helium-3 we need from Canada

Canada does produce helium-3 from tritium decay in its CANDU reactors, but it can be purchased by anyone, including China. It’s also insufficient to meet growing U.S. demand. 

Production in Canada has peaked and even if Canada were to build new nuclear reactors, planning and construction would take at least a decade and cost billions of dollars. Once the new reactors were operational, it would take years for tritium to accumulate and another 12 years for it to decay into helium-3.

Rather than compete with other countries, including adversaries, for the existing supply of Canada’s helium-3, Interlune is committed to creating the country’s own domestic supply of helium-3.

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Myth #3: Quantum computers don’t need helium-3

While it's true that all quantum computers need to get cold, some types, like trapped ion and neutral atom architectures, don’t need to get so cold that they need helium-3. 

However, the superconducting approaches being pursued by IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google must be cooled to the extremely low temperatures of under 10 millikelvin (colder than -457 ºF / -272 °C). These superconducting quantum computing systems require specialized dilution refrigerators to achieve such low temperatures, and these refrigerators operate on helium-3. 

It’s not just the hyperscalers that are focused on superconducting quantum computers. More than $1 billion has been invested in Oxford Quantum Circuits, Alice & Bob, Rigetti, and IQM, all companies developing quantum computers that require helium-3.

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Myth #4: There are other ways for superconducting quantum computers to get cold that don’t require helium-3

Currently, there is no alternative to dilution refrigeration for delivering the continuous, low-noise, millikelvin temperature environment required for superconducting quantum computers.

Some technologies show promise in theory, but today, dilution refrigeration is the only option, and that requires helium-3.

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Myth #5: The fusion energy industry prefers deuterium and tritium (DT fusion) as fuel, not deuterium and helium-3 

Nearly all current fusion companies are indeed starting with deuterium and tritium as fuels. In fact, the first commercial fusion energy technology is likely to use DT fusion, as it fuses at the lowest temperature compared to other fuels. 

However, DT fusion has two serious drawbacks for producing fusion energy at scale:

1. As we explained in Myth #1, tritium itself is also extremely scarce and even more expensive than helium-3.
2. DT fusion produces high-energy neutrons that strike the reactor walls and make them radioactive. This renders the reactor unusable in just a few years and leaves radioactive material that must be disposed of. 

By contrast, fusing deuterium and helium-3 produces orders of magnitude fewer neutrons than DT fusion, bringing us much closer to a sustainable, clean energy future without creating radioactive waste.

Helium-3 has been called the “holy grail of clean energy.” The reason why so few fusion researchers are focused on helium-3 is simply that there isn’t currently enough available. 

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Myth #6: Once fusion energy is commercially available, fusion machines will produce plenty of tritium (which decays into helium-3)

DT fusion machines in development will need to breed tritium, but most of that tritium will be used as fuel to produce energy. 

By design, only a very small portion of tritium produced in a DT fusion machine will decay into helium-3 over the 12+ year half-life. However, that resulting helium-3 doesn’t come close to meeting the needs of the quantum computing industry, let alone other applications.

Meanwhile, there are more than a million metric tons of helium-3 waiting for us on the Moon. And that’s why Interlune exists. We will solve this critical material supply chain issue for the long term. 

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Myth #7: Few fusion companies are planning to use helium-3, and one of them is planning to produce its own helium-3

Truth: The operative word here is “planning.” Most fusion companies haven’t written helium-3 into their roadmaps today because there’s not enough available, and what is available is too expensive.

However, Interlune has letters of intent to purchase helium-3 from some of these companies, meaning that if we can supply it, they will use it.

As for fusion companies making their own helium-3, we don’t know enough to know if it is possible to make affordable helium-3 in this way because it’s never been done before. But we do know that their goal is to produce energy, so we stand ready to supply them with as much helium-3 as they need for their business.

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But the real truth is…

Even if we’ve successfully debunked all the myths about helium-3, Interlune still has to go to the Moon and bring it back!

Here’s why we’re confident we’re the ones to do it. Interlune has the team, the approach, and the customer backlog to make this a reality. You can read more about that here in our post The New Moon Race: Why Now?.

Kari gave us one last word of advice: “Sometimes we believe in myths because it’s what we want to believe. That’s why it’s so important to dig deep and question our own assumptions before assuming we know the truth.”

We couldn’t agree more.

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