Nick Fretz

8 May 2025

Our world increasingly stands at the precipice of catastrophe. Despite long-standing concerns about the impact of climate change and frameworks signed in 1992, 1997, and 2016, the developed world continues to blow past its emissions targets. A 2024 United Nations report found “a massive gap between rhetoric and reality,” noting that without severe course correction a “debilitating” level of warming would ensue. What’s more, 2024 marked the first year that global average temperatures surpassed 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, a threshold which the Paris Agreement had sought to avoid. The deleterious effects of this warming have been well-documented, and need not be rehashed here. Yet, despite persistent alarm bells, in the United States alone emissions effectively held flat in 2024, and according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration emissions are projected to increase during 2025. In short, our present course for climate action has failed. If we want to prevent climate catastrophe, it is time for a radical course correction—one which means going to the moon. To save our future, we must harness nuclear fusion as a sustainable energy source, leveraging lunar resources, particularly helium-3, to mitigate climate change and redefine our approach to energy production.

For the past century, nuclear fusion has captivated scientists and other researchers as a promising yet eternally elusive breakthrough in the quest for new forms of energy. The power generated by the fusion process is staggering, as it harnesses the same reactions that fuel the Earth’s sun, potentially providing nearly limitless energy through a self-sustaining reaction. From the earliest days of nuclear research, the practical possibility of fusion was not in doubt. In the early 1930s, researchers at Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory successfully demonstrated nuclear fusion for the first time. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Edward Teller focused on the possible military applications of fusion technology, and the world’s first fusion-powered weapon was successfully tested in 1952. However, for decades the real dream of fusion power lay in its possible civilian applications. Successful civilian fusion power emerged as a mainstay of science fiction—and for good reason. Beyond its power output, fusion energy would also mark a dramatic shift in global climate emissions. 

Existing nuclear power infrastructure is not completely carbon-free, but it does produce significantly fewer emissions than other forms of power, at less than one-quarter of the output of gas and less than one-tenth the output of coal. Even without fusion, a more nuclear electric grid would mark a sea change in global emissions. The emissions that current facilities produce are created indirectly, through processes such as plant construction and the extraction and transportation of uranium ore. This point is critical: because nuclear fission is not self-sustaining, it requires a steady supply of uranium to keep power plants online. The promise of nuclear fusion is that once a plant can be spun up, it would reduce our emissions even further. 

The persistent stumbling block to achieving our fusion-powered dream has been, ironically, power. Unlocking the immense energy of nuclear fusion requires immense energy of its own. While fusion weapons were developed in the 1950s, the only means to generate sufficient power to trigger the reaction was to set it off with a fission reaction. In essence, we had to build a smaller, weaker nuclear bomb to trigger a larger reaction. The scale of power necessary for triggering nuclear fusion has made it cost-prohibitive for civilian application. Past experiments, such as the Joint European Torus in the 1990s, required more energy to heat the fuel than the reaction provided. The decades-long goal of fusion research has been to reach the breakeven point, and in recent years progress has been made. In 2021 and 2022, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory became the first to achieve breakeven. 

If you have made it this far, you may be asking, what does all of this have to do with the moon? 

Fusion power has three possible fuel sources: deuterium, tritium, and helium-3. Current research is overwhelmingly oriented around deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion. This is partly because D-T fusion requires less power to trigger a reaction than helium-3 (3He). The bigger stumbling block to 3He adoption is simply availability: naturally occurring 3He in the Earth’s atmosphere exists at around 7.2 parts per trillion. Methods have been hypothesized for capturing it from other sources, but are too cost-prohibitive to be viable. While 3He might be rare on Earth, the moon is a different story. Solar winds have deposited greater than one million tons of 3He into the lunar regolith. Estimates of 3He abundance on the lunar surface vary across studies and potential landing sites, but exist in a range of 1.4 to 50 parts per billion. For comparison to Earth’s reserves, it may be helpful to reorient this into parts per trillion: between 1,400 and 50,000 ppt exist on the lunar surface—even at the lower bound, an over 19,000% increase in abundance. Yet if D-T fusion is already the more practical option, why should we expend resources on going to the moon for its abundance of 3He? 

For one thing, tritium is radioactive, and the D-T fusion process burns off as much as 80% of its energy as neutrons. These free neutrons produce radiation, which in turn irradiates other materials it contacts (a process known as neutron activation). There are clear health risks associated with radiation, and one of the biggest issues with current nuclear power is nuclear waste. Our best effort so far at managing waste byproducts has been to bury them deep underground, but the selection of waste sites has proven politically controversial and scientists remain concerned about marking waste sites as hazardous into the far future. By contrast, 3He is aneutronic, meaning it would produce no neutron radiation. A pure 3He-3He reaction would yield no radiation, and while a D-3He reaction would still produce some radiation, it marks a substantial reduction from D-T fusion—releasing only 5% of its energy as free neutrons versus 80%. Helium-3 powered fusion is thus an environmental holy grail: not only would it enable the world to avert our current climate catastrophe, but it would reduce concerns about nuclear waste disposal, all while producing dramatically more power than other forms of clean energy. It is, in short, the perfect power source.

Secondly, other nations have begun to mobilize in pursuit of lunar resources. The Chinese government has multiple missions planned over the next five years. Although 3He mining is not part of their publicly stated goals for these missions, past missions have retrieved lunar samples. Experts describe China’s space policy as oriented around “access to the vast material and energy resources of the inner solar system[32].” Moreover, Chinese researchers are pursuing their own fusion power projects and have made substantial breakthroughs[33]. Given the prospects of 3He fusion, it is plausible that these programs will converge. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency has unveiled plans for a lunar outpost[34][35], and has contracted a Hungarian corporation to explore lunar resources[36]. In 2023, the director of Roskosmos, the Russian space agency, invoked the prospect of lunar mining, arguing that, “the race for the development of the natural resources of the moon has begun[37].” While many of these missions are seeking other resources, such as the possible presence of ice water, one mission explicitly seeks to pursue helium-3: in December 2024, Japanese corporation ispace unveiled a plan to mine for lunar 3He[38]. Even in those missions not focused on 3He, they represent a paradigm shift in space exploration—one which policymakers must prepare for, and fast.

Space policy is largely governed by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Established during the Cold War, it defines space as neutral territory, prohibits the militarization of space, and precludes any nation from claiming sovereignty over celestial bodies “by means of use or occupation, or by any other means[39].” The emerging race for lunar resources will undermine this paradigm. The moon hosts a litany of resources[40][41], including various metals and rare-earth elements. Control over valuable resources is contentious in our terrestrial context; historically it has motivated many wars. Given the economic prospects involved, nations will not be eager to share access evenly. Moreover, there are concerns about which nations control which resources: if a hostile nation like Russia monopolized the most abundant sites of 3He, they would not be willing to trade it to the United States, and vice versa. With multiple nations beginning to exploit lunar resources, economic and geopolitical realities will push nations into a “Scramble for Luna” that will define the future of space.

To be clear, the United States is making plans for a return to the moon. The Artemis program is expected to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in 2027[43] and establish a lunar outpost[44]. The stated goal of these missions is outward-looking: the long-term goal of Artemis is to establish a foothold for future Mars missions[45]. The pursuit of science in other parts of the solar system is noble and should be encouraged, but ignoring our stellar backyard is short-sighted—politically, economically, and most crucially, climatologically. 

To be clear, even if we were able to mine and return helium-3 to Earth starting tomorrow, it would not be viable for mass-scale adoption. Despite the breakthroughs at Livermore within the past four years, commercial fusion power is not yet within reach. The added challenges posed by 3He fusion will require additional research and development, yet choosing to wait for it to become viable on its own would be a disaster. Given the rarity of 3He on Earth, the capacity for experimentation with it is limited. Access to lunar 3He would enable researchers to adapt fusion technology to the challenges it poses, thus establishing the idealized clean energy faster. Our global climate crisis is counting down against borrowed time, and every minute of delay in developing promising technologies is a minute or more of future catastrophe. Moreover, given the emerging race to capitalize on lunar resources, choosing to delay in exploiting the moon for a Mars-focused policy risks lunar 3He being claimed by other nations first. By the time viable 3He fusion technology is developed, the critical fuel would be spoken for.

Federal policymakers thus must act swiftly to enact a multi-pronged approach:

First, Congress must direct NASA to pursue helium-3 resources and provide funding for this initiative. Lawmakers should reverse recent budget cuts proposed by the Trump administration[48] and reapportion that money towards mission planning, spacecraft design, and personnel training while consolidating lunar activities under a unified framework—possibly a Lunar Resource Office within NASA. This consolidation would enhance oversight of resource extraction, ensure alignment with international agreements, and promote sustainability. Additionally, the funding must prioritize research and development for advanced mining techniques, efficient 3He storage and transport, and continued support of 3He-fusion reactor research to expedite commercial viability.

Second, the executive branch must lead international negotiations to establish a treaty addressing resource allocation in space. This treaty should involve not only America’s allies, but also Russia and China, necessitating compromises to ensure cooperation. With the Outer Space Treaty facing obsolescence amid resource competition, it is crucial to define how resources will be shared and disputes managed peacefully. In the absence of such a treaty, we run the risk of disputes over lunar seas escalating into earthbound wars. The treaty should delineate resource zones to prevent monopolization, and could dedicate regions rich in helium-3 for cooperative international missions. Such a treaty should also strive to maintain sustainability and international monitoring to safeguard the long-term viability of lunar resources.

Fusion generators and mining the moon may sound like science fiction, but that future is closer to reality than ever. So, too, is the havoc, devastation, and displacement of runaway climate change close to becoming our shared future. While the best time to act was decades ago, there is still a chance to take decisive action and prevent the worst from coming to pass. The latter half of this century could be marked by more wildfires, more severe storms, more flooding, and mass migration; or it could be marked by tearing open lunar craters in the name of perpetual clean energy. The choice should be clear: to save the Earth, sacrifice the moon.

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