UDAIPUR: A potential gas source found on the moon’s surface could hold the key to meeting future energy demands as the earth’s fossil fuels dry up in the coming decades, scientists said on Friday.

Mineral samples from the moon contained abundant quantities of helium 3, a variant of the gas used in lasers and refrigerators as well as to blow up balloons. “When compared to the earth the moon has a tremendous amount of helium 3,” said Lawrence Taylor, a director of the US Planetary Geosciences Institute, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

“When helium 3 combines with deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen) the fusion reaction proceeds at a very high temperature and it can produce awesome amounts of energy,” Taylor told AFP.

“Just 25 tonnes of helium, which can be transported on a space shuttle, is enough to provide electricity for the US for one full year,” said Taylor, who is in the north Indian city of Udaipur for a global conference on moon exploration.

Helium 3 is deposited on the lunar surface by solar winds and would have to be extracted from moon soil and rocks.

To extract helium 3 gas the rocks have to be heated above 1,400 degs F (800 degs C). Some 200 million tonnes of lunar soil would produce one tonne of helium, Taylor said, noting that only 10 kilos of helium are available on earth.

Indian President Abdul Kalam told the International Conference on Exploration and Utilisation of the Moon on Wednesday that the barren planet held about one million tonnes of helium 3.

“The moon contains 10 times more energy in the form of Helium 3 than all the fossil fuels on the earth,” Kalam said.

However, planetary scientist Taylor said the reactor technology for converting helium 3 to energy was still in its infancy and could take years to develop.

“The problem is that there is not yet an efficient type of reactor to process helium 3. It is currently being done mostly as a laboratory experiment. Right now at the rate which it (research) is proceeding it will take another 30 years,” he said.

Other scientists said the reactor would be safe in terms of radioactive elements and could be built right in the heart of any city.

Global cooperation: Scientists from leading space nations closed a conference on moon exploration here Friday with a call for global cooperation to achieve a permanent human lunar base by 2024.

The Udaipur Declaration said the moon must be used for the benefit of mankind and recommended short-term steps, such as communication infrastructure for navigation and a Lunar Internet, to be taken up with space agencies.

“It laid the roadmap for future explorations with a step-wise approach starting with joint scientific analysis of the data from current and previous lunar missions,” said Bernard Foing, executive director of the International Lunar Working Group, a public forum sponsored by the world’s space agencies. Future lunar missions are currently planned by the United States, Europe, China, Japan and India.

“The next step is to put (robotic) landers on the moon from 2010. All the nations can cooperate also on building an international robotic village which can test new technologies, advanced robotics and to prepare for man-tended missions,” Foing told AFP.

Most of the countries plan to use the moon as a technology testbed for deep space exploration, especially the journey to Mars. More than 200 delegates from 16 nations including the top five who are planning lunar missions attended the conference in the northern Indian city of Udaipur.

“The declaration also focused on the utilisation of resources on the moon and how to live on its surface. In the future we are looking to have more exchange of scientists among different nations,” Foing said. “The technology working group has said we should set common standards all over the world for lunar systems such as communications and transportation. There will be lots of discussions in the future on this,” he said.

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