The Helium-3 Supply Ramp
How the fuel supply grows from the first bred grams to fleet-scale demand: breeder output first, lunar helium-3 as fleets exceed it.
Matching supply to demand over time
Burner demand grows in steps — a small test-burner draw around 2032, then fleet-scale demand around 2036 and beyond. Supply must lead demand. The breeder produces the first helium-3 (~1.97 kg/yr class per unit, from ~4 kg/yr tritium), and the breeder fleet is sized to the burners it feeds.
The three sources in priority order
- Breeder-bred helium-3: the only near-term source, domestic and controllable
- A growing breeder fleet: scales fuel with the number of breeders built
- Lunar helium-3: a multi-decade reservoir for demand beyond the breeder fleet
The gap in perspective
A single commercial unit needs ~400x today's domestic supply, so the ramp is steep. The honest position is that fleet-scale burner deployment is gated on this ramp, not the other way around.
The ramp is steep because the starting point is so low: today's domestic helium-3 is measured in small quantities, while one commercial unit needs about 400x that supply. Supply must therefore lead demand at every stage, which is why the breeder fleet is sized to the burners it feeds and why lunar recovery, however distant, is kept in the plan as the fleet-scale reservoir.
See the fuel gate and lunar dependency.