From Confederation Handwiki

³He (a.k.a. Helium 3) provides clean and effective fuel for nuclear fusion engines. It is usually mined from the upper layers of gas giants.

Helium3 mining

Extracting ³He from the upper layers of a gas giant (the only commecial source available) was done using skimming aerostats in 2062-2090 ^{(tNA:5) (2CE)}. Afterwards these were replaced by the more effective cloudscoops, aspiration facilities anchored to an asteroid in very low orbit ^(2CE).

Helium3 mining is typically done by Edenists, attended by a proportional number of bitek habitats, but the Kulu Kingdom and some of the independent habitats have their own operations.

(out-of-character)

The text below contains discussions or references written in an out-of-character style and it may be not canonical.

The books use the spelling "He₃", but this is an incorrect way to symbolize the isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron, as indended. "He₃" would be a molecule composed of three Helium atoms (just like well known O₃, ozone, or O₂, regular oxygen), which is not even possible in practice.

External links

• ³He Fusion (English Wikipedia)
• Lunar Helium-3 as an Energy Source in a nutshell (The Artemis Project website)