It turns out, AI is hungry. And not just for data—it’s got an appetite for electricity that would make a Bond villain blush. Some of the biggest tech companies are now cutting deals with nuclear power plants just to keep their servers fed. We’re not talking solar panels and good intentions anymore. We’re talking full-on “power a city for a year or run ChatGPT for six hours” type choices.

And it got me wondering—if this is where we are now, what comes next?

Wind? Solar? Great, but they’ve got limits (and storage issues that still haven’t been solved unless you count “pray for sunshine”). Nuclear? Maybe, if we can keep it safe, funded, and free of 1970s horror-movie branding. Burning more coal is like trying to fix a leaky boat with napalm. So… what’s the next realistic step?

That’s when I stumbled across something that feels like a sci-fi plot twist: Helium-3. An isotope so rare on Earth it might as well be unicorn sweat—but practically soaking the Moon thanks to billions of years of solar wind.

It’s clean, powerful, and doesn’t leave behind radioactive waste. Sounds like magic. But the best part? Countries and companies are already making plans to go get it.

Which, naturally, led to this month’s article: “Mining the Moon for Power.”
It’s a deep dive into Helium-3, lunar mining, and the futuristic scramble to fuel our ever-growing digital lives without melting the ice caps in the process.

If you like your science with a side of fiction and your fiction with a side of “wait, that’s real?”, you’re going to enjoy this one.

Let’s explore what’s next—because if AI is the brain of the future, energy is going to be the bloodstream. And we’re going to need a whole lot more of it.

Leif J. Erickson is a science fiction and fantasy author from a small farming community in west central Minnesota. Using his time wisely when he was a farmer, Leif developed many ideas, characters, and storylines to create over fifty unique first drafts and outlines for stories. From his start in a small town school, to college at North Dakota State University, back to his family farm, then to the bright lights of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and back to his small farming town, Leif has always had a love of writing.

When Leif isn’t writing he can be found with his wife hiking in state parks, canoeing local lakes and rivers, exploring local and regional ghost towns, experiencing museums, or simply reading or hanging out with friends and family. Leif draws on the local nature and ecology to find inspiration for his writing while he also asks what’s possible for technology and the human race, weaving them together for amazing stories that will stay with the reader for years to come. Leif looks forward to having many novel and story releases in the years to come.

You can see all of Leif’s Books here: Leif’s Amazon Author Page