Helium‑3: Further Reading

Hel­lo, I’m nov­el­ist Chris Orcutt. Chances are, you’ve come to this page after hear­ing me on my radio inter­views. Dur­ing these inter­views, I have talked about the alter­na­tive fuel source helium‑3, oth­er alter­na­tive ener­gy sources, moon min­ing, frack­ing, and a pos­si­ble con­spir­a­cy between the U.S. gov­ern­ment and the fos­sil fuels indus­try to pre­vent helium‑3 inno­va­tion.

I have also talked about my lat­est mys­tery nov­el, A Truth Stranger Than Fic­tion, as well as my oth­er nov­els. If you’re inter­est­ed in buy­ing any of my books, please go to my Buy Books page, or click on any of the links above for descrip­tions and excerpts.

As I men­tion dur­ing my inter­views, I am not a sci­en­tist. I am a nov­el­ist, and I’ve writ­ten pro­fes­sion­al­ly for 25 years—as a nov­el­ist, jour­nal­ist, short sto­ry writer, scriptwriter, play­wright, tech­ni­cal writer and speech­writer. I orig­i­nal­ly stud­ied chem­istry in col­lege with the inten­tion of becom­ing a foren­sic sci­en­tist, but lat­er changed my major to phi­los­o­phy. To learn more about me, check out my About Chris page.

In doing research for A Truth Stranger Than Fic­tion, I found a lot of mate­r­i­al about helium‑3 and the oth­er sub­jects in my nov­el. Some of that mate­r­i­al appears below as PDFs (as well as in two blog entries: 1. a helium‑3 and oil time­line, sug­gest­ing a pos­si­ble U.S. gov­ern­ment and fos­sil fuels indus­try con­spir­a­cy; and 2. “Helium‑3, Alter­na­tive Ener­gy and the Chi­na Prob­lem”), so you don’t have to take my word on these sub­jects as gospel. I encour­age you to read this source mate­r­i­al for your­self and come to your own con­clu­sions.

As a nov­el­ist, my job is not to win peo­ple over to my way of think­ing on a giv­en issue; my job is to raise impor­tant ques­tions and start a con­ver­sa­tion. And the best, and least threat­en­ing, tool I have at my dis­pos­al to do this is fic­tion, pre­sent­ing these issues in an enter­tain­ing and com­pelling format—something I think I’ve accom­plished in all of my nov­els, but par­tic­u­lar­ly in A Truth Stranger Than Fic­tion. I hope you enjoy these mate­ri­als (in descend­ing chrono­log­i­cal order) for fur­ther read­ing.

Thank you,

Chris Orcutt

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Articles on Helium‑3, Fusion and Moon Mining

“Lock­heed Mar­tin Claims Sus­tain­able Fusion Is With­in Its Grasp,” eWeek.com, 2015.

“The Front Run­ners in Fusion Ener­gy,” OilPrice.com, 2015.

“Chi­na Space­craft Enters Orbit for Pos­si­ble Min­ing Mis­sion,” Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Times, 2015.

“Chi­na Makes Its Move to the Moon,” Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can, 2015.

“Bil­lion­aire Teams Up With NASA to Mine the Moon,” NBC News, 2015.

“Russ­ian Firm Pro­pos­es $9.4B Moon Base for Min­ing,” CNBC.com, 2015.

“Moon Min­ing: What is the Pay­off,” MiningGlobal.com, 2015.

“Helium‑3 Amaz­ing Facts,” Amaz­ing Facts, 2014.

“Chem­istry on the Moon: The Quest for Helium‑3,” 21st Cen­tu­ry Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy, 2014.

“The Pow­er of Helium‑3,” Exec­u­tive Tech­nol­o­gy Review, 2014.

“Helium‑3 Pow­er Gen­er­a­tion,” ExplainingTheFuture.com, 2014.

“For­get Plu­to, Comets or Mars—Let’s Go Back to the Moon,” Wash­ing­ton Post, 2014.

“Moon Pow­er: China’s Pur­suit of Lunar Helium‑3,” The Diplo­mat, 2014.

“The Glob­al Race to Har­ness the Moon’s Resources,” CNBC.com, 2014.

“Moon Min­ing: Fool­ish­ness or the Future of Ener­gy,” Bakken.com, 2014.

“LPAC Week­ly Report: The New Par­a­digm for Mankind” (video overview of helium‑3 sci­ence), LaRoucheP­AC Sci­ence Research Team, 2014.

“Could Helium‑3 Real­ly Solve Earth­’s Ener­gy Prob­lems,” Revolution-Green.com, 2013.

“Min­ing on the Moon for Renew­able Ener­gy,” AZOCleanTech.com, 2013.

“Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma on Space Explo­ration in the 21st Cen­tu­ry,” NASA.gov, 4/15/2010.

“Is Min­ing Rare Min­er­als on the Moon Vital to Nation­al Secu­ri­ty,” Space.com, 2010.

“Min­ing the Moon,” MIT Tech­nol­o­gy Review, 2007.

“The Esti­ma­tion of Helium‑3 Prob­a­ble Reserves in Lunar Regolith,” Lunar and Plan­e­tary Sci­ence, 2007.

“Future in Fusion,” The Cap­i­tal Times (Madi­son, WI), 2006.

“Min­ing the Moon,” Amer­i­can Sci­en­tist, 2006.

“NASA Plans Per­ma­nent Moon Base,” New York Times, Dec. 2006.

“Race to the Moon for Nuclear Fuel,” WIRED.com, 2006.

“Pres­i­dent Bush Deliv­ers Remarks On U.S. Space Policy—Transcript,” NASA.gov, 1/14/2004.

“Bush Backs Goal of Flight to Moon to Estab­lish Base,” New York Times, 2004.

“Bush Unveils Vision for Moon and Beyond,” CNN.com, 2004.

“Using Lunar Helium‑3 to Gen­er­ate Nuclear Pow­er,” Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son, 2001.

“The Trou­ble with Fusion,” MIT Tech­nol­o­gy Review, 1983.

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Articles on Fossil Fuels, Fracking and Related Topics

“U.S. Issues Warn­ing Over Bakken-sourced Oil,” TheGlobeandMail.com, 2015.

“Bakken For­ma­tion,” Wikipedia.com, 2015.

“Chem­i­cals Used in Frack­ing,” AllenStewart.com, 2015.

“His­to­ry of Elec­tric Cars,” EdisonTechCenter.org, 2015.

“Land­mark Study Finds No Evi­dence that Frack­ing Pol­lut­ed Water,” Pocono Record, 2014.

“Update: NY Rules Against Hydrofrack­ing,” Pough­keep­sie Jour­nal, 2014.

“Oil Isn’t Cheap—At Any Price,” Los Ange­les Times, 2014.

“Frack­ing Chem­i­cals May Make Oil Extra Explo­sive,” Grist.org, 2014.

“USGS Releas­es New Oil and Gas Esti­mate for Bakken,” USGS.com, 2013.

“North Dako­ta’s Explo­sive Bakken Oil,” TheGlobeandMail.com, 2013.

“Hub­bert’s Peak in the 21st Cen­tu­ry,” Princeton.edu, 2011.

“Ford, Edi­son, and the Cheap EV that Almost Was,” WIRED.com, 2010.