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15 min ago 2 min read
Pulsar Helium will evaluate potential helium-3 recovery at its Topaz project in Minnesota alongside US aerospace and resource development firm Lunar Helium-3 Mining (LH3M).
Under the evaluation agreement, the companies aim to assess the technical feasibility of using LH3M’s helium-3 separation, concentration, recovery and associated processing technology to recover the rare isotope from Topaz project gas.
Helium-3 that is available today is obtained from the natural decay of tritium and is extremely rare on Earth.
Pulsar Helium said independent laboratory analysis of raw gas samples from its Jetstream 1 well confirmed helium-3 concentrations, but only at approximately 11.2 to 11.9 ppb.
The programme will start with a desktop assessment of Topaz gas-composition, isotopic and analytical data, followed by LH3M preparing a proposed laboratory evaluation.
However, it comes amid wider questions around the viability of helium-3 recovery.
Richard Brook, CEO of helium consultancy Garrison Ventures, previously told gasworld that trace amounts of helium-3 are found mixed in with helium-4, but only at around 150 ppb.
Pulsar Helium said the helium-3 evaluation agreement is driven by quantum computing and national security applications, with fusion representing a longer-term opportunity.
Chris Salvino, CEO of LH3M, said, “We see a collapsing helium-3 supply chain just as quantum computing is moving toward commercial scale.”
However, Brook estimates that the current global annual demand for helium-3 is less than 5kg, given there are no operational commercial fusion reactors worldwide.
An annual supply of 5kg satisfies the current demand from the two main users of helium-3, neutron detectors and dilution refrigerators used for quantum computers.
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