The Future Energy Source?

The new Corporate Overlords of the Carter & Burgess, Jacobs Engineering, continue to amaze me with the breadth of their reach into really interesting fields. I may ultimately be made redundant, but this company is into some cool shit.

Yesterday as I'm making my way to the parking garage, I met a C&B employee on the elevator who went straight into a discussion of Helium 3 and how Jacobs is heavily involved with the research to make Helium 3 a future energy source. Helium 3 is very clean and can put out a tremendous amount of energy using very little of the product. There's one small problem with Helium 3, it's really only available on the moon.

Here's the lowdown from the article linked above:

Scientists estimate there are about1 million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the world for thousandsof years. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load or roughly 25 ton scould supply the entire United States' energy needs for a year

The scientists say getting a Helium 3 manufacturing facility up would cost around six billion bucks, which is a War in Iraq rounding error.

While we're on the topic, I don't understand why West Texas isn't covered with giant windmills. This is bleak countryside that could easily be used to generate mega-megawatts. I'm sure there are cost of production issues that make it less favorable in the short-run than petroleum, but the wind is not going to stop, which should lead to favorable payback period calculations.