The heart of D-Wave's quantum computer is a chip that is cooled to within a few thousandths of a degree of absolute zero. I knew that researchers had been trying to get to absolute zero, but I did not know they were so close. They will probably never actually get to absolute zero. By the time they have developed a machine that they think removes all the heat energy from an object, someone else will have developed a better thermometer that says, oh, close, but no cigar.
Anyway, researchers have gotten very close to absolute zero, but what is more is that the machine has been commercialized. You can go out and buy a machine that will do this. Of course it is probably very expensive, but they are available. The machine uses a technique called dilution refrigeration.
Business end of a Leiden Cryogenics dilution refrigerator with a D-Wave quantum computing chip mounted on the end. |
Generally speaking when you are talking about radioactive elements, the isotopes with the right number of neutrons are the stable ones, and the ones with too few or too many neutrons are the radioactive ones. Kind of like Goldilocks: This one's too hot, this one's too cold, but this one's just right. Uranium is one example. Uranium 238 is the common isotope (version). U-235 is the one they use in nuclear reactors. The stable one has 3 more neutrons than the active one.
Turns out Helium-3 is just as stable as Helium-4. But where does it come from? How come I've never heard of it before? The answer to the last question is the easiest: I spend too much time reading newspapers and murder mysteries. Where it comes from is a little more difficult. There are two places: 1) the Sun, and 2) Radioactive decay of tritium.
Tritium Decaying into Helium-3 |
The other major source of Helium-3 is the sun. Besides producing heat and light and assorted other radiation, it is also continuously blowing off debris in the form of atoms and subatomic whatsits known as the solar wind. The solar wind includes a certain amount of Helium-3. The sun is not a very good source for us because the Earth's magnetic field deflects most of the charged particles coming in on the solar wind. The moon on the other hand, with no magnetic field, picks up a lot of Helium-3. So if we needed a bunch of Helium-3 we could get it from the moon. We've been to the moon before, so given the will, we could do it again. Getting there is easier said than done, though there has been some talk about it in recent years.
Professor Gerald Kulcinski, University of Wisconsin |
So this could turn out to be very weird. We send spaceships to the moon to establish a processing plant to extract Helium-3 from moon rocks and ship it back to earth to fuel our Helium-3 fusion power plants to generate electricity. As a side benefit, the price of Helium-3 might go down from it's current $500 a liter. Oh, wait, we're getting it from the moon. Transportation costs are going to be horrendous. Price will probably go up, but if using Helium-3 fusion to generate electrical power can be made to work, it might very well be worth it.
October 2016 replaced missing pictures.
October 2017 replace missing picture.
1 comment:
Actually a thousandth of a degree is nothing. Some experiments get to within a millionth.
BTW you might be interested in a different kind of fusion. That could easily burn D-D. Or H-He3 or any of a number of other fuels.
Bussard's IEC Fusion Technology (Polywell Fusion) Explained
Why hasn't Polywell Fusion been fully funded by the Obama administration?
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