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Helium can be easily retrieved from the atmosphere by fractional distillation. It leaks up into the atmosphere from the radioactive core of the Earth and forms
by WildUtah 10y ago
Helium can be easily retrieved from the atmosphere by fractional distillation. It leaks up into the atmosphere from the radioactive core of the Earth and forms naturally from solar radiation in the upper atmosphere, keeping atmospheric concentration high enough.
We get gasses like Argon and Neon the same way all the time. There is no helium crisis and there will never be a shortage in the next billion years.
The situation where Helium is much cheaper than Neon may end but there will always be plenty for industrial and science uses, even if balloons get more expensive.
- dharma1 10y agoWhat would it cost if extracted from air, considering only five parts per million are helium? The number I've seen is 10,000 times as much as currently. Solar radiation producing helium in the upper atmosphere - how would you extract it from the upper atmosphere? I would have thought it doesn't mix with lower atmosphere due to atmospheric escape.
- ars 10y agoCombine it with CO2 extraction (you'll get CO2 anyway so you might as well do something good with it) and the money to do it might be there.
- bduerst 10y agoHow many tonnes of CO2 would you get per ton of He? Market price for pure CO2 is only about $160 per ton. Market price of helium is like $45,000 per ton or something like that.
- freehunter 10y agoSerious question: how do you weigh something that is lighter than air?
- lhecker 10y agoJust put it into a gas cylinder (it doesn't even need to be compressed or anything). ELI5 version: It might be lighter than air, but that just means that it will "float" ontop of heavier things - like oil ontop of water. But all those things still obviously have a certain weight. If you put it into a cylinder it will thus under the influence of gravity still weigh down onto it, which then can easily be measured.
- thaumasiotes 10y agoWhat's the mechanism? It can't just be separation from the atmosphere -- if you fill a balloon with helium, it will get lighter, not heavier. Same thing if you fill a cylinder that sinks in water (perhaps because it was already full of water) with atmospheric air; it may well start to float. Suppose you have a balance scale with a "cylinder" full of air on one side. You pump out the air and put in helium. What happens to the scale?
- lhecker 10y agoThat's because the weight of the gas cylinder is relative and you got the point of reference wrong: The base weight is when it's a vacuum inside the cylinder, because otherwise it doesn't even displace the air which you don't want to measure for your reference weight, making it appear heavier. Whatever you add inside the gas cylinder now will make it heavier and the difference you get is the weight of the gas.
- thaumasiotes 10y agoWhile I appreciate the answer, it's not a great explanation of the balloon example, since a balloon starts out effectively containing nothing. The problem there is that as you add helium, the volume of the balloon increases. I'm a little more comfortable with saying we do some weighings in a vacuum (say, to determine the density of air at a given pressure) than with saying we'll start with a cylinder that contains a vacuum. For example, our 40kg cylinder, when airtight and containing vacuum, will weigh less than a 40kg object should, and I think that muddles the example.
- shkkmo 10y agoIf we let the market price of helium go up (paired with the carbon credits), could CO2 extraction from the atmosphere become an economically feasible way of counteracting global warming?
- empraptor 10y agoI don't know the answer to that, but just wanted to mention you would want the market price to include the cost of storing the captured CO2. EDIT: never mind. if anyone was buying this at market value, it doesn't make sense for the buyer to store it indefinitely.
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- AKifer 10y agoHelium in the atmosphere could not be depleted but its' extraction is still expensive while a rig where you can extract it from the rocks might be cheaper. It's all about extraction and processing engineering, let's see what would happen in the next few years. I remember about the soviets that were drilling in the Kola peninsula and the mud they get from it literally boiled hydrogen and helium, but that was too expensive.
- zymhan 10y agoCan you actually extract a significant amount of Helium from atmospheric air? I was under the impression that it was far more likely to escape into space because it's so much lighter than the other gasses in our atmosphere.
- Symmetry 10y agoLosses to space is the reason we have relatively so little but in absolute terms that's still a huge amount. Helium makes up 5 millionths of the atmosphere. EDIT: Thanks for the correction.
- logfromblammo 10y agoOne half-millionth is 2 ppm. Half of one-millionth is 0.5 ppm. Wikipedia says the concentration is 5.2 ppm.
- droopyEyelids 10y agoPlus, like the article mentions, it's often found in natural gas fields. However, we just vent that helium into the atmosphere because it's not profitable to separate and collect it.
- _rpd 10y agoRight. Most He comes from fractional distillation of natural gas. Some natural gas pockets have up to 7% He. This is where cheap He comes from. Most natural gas pockets have a lower concentration, but they will always be more economical sources of He than the atmosphere or nuclear fusion. The "peak He" prediction has the same flaw as the "peak oil" prediction. Helium may get more expensive, but we will not in any sense "run out."
- gozur88 10y agoYep. There will always be enough helium for MRI equipment. But at some point there won't be enough to fill balloons at your kid's birthday party unless you're very wealthy.
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- eru 10y agoOr just use hydrogen.
- delian66 10y ago1) Mixes of hydrogen and oxygen are highly explosive 2) Hydrogen tends to leak with ease even from metal containers (hydrogen molecules are the smallest). 3) There is a tradition to use lighted candles at birthday parties. 1 + 2 + 3 makes for a disturbing (although admittedly fun) combination. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce6imsXTkGQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce6imsXTkGQ
- 10y ago
- jsprogrammer 10y agoMost helium is used for neither industry nor science, but for personal medicine. That is why the article describes this find as life-saving.
- walrus01 10y ago> Helium can be easily retrieved from the atmosphere by fractional distillation Technologically, yes... But the last time I looked into this it is extremely costly in terms of energy (ratio of megawatt-hours consumed by equipment vs. the amount of helium you can compress into tanks). Not very dissimilar from saying "Hydrogen can be easily retrieved from sea water". Yes, it can, it just takes an immense amount of electricity to run the electrolysis process. So unless you are located next to a $100 million photovoltaic plant covering a large section of desert, or are located somewhere else that electricity is incredibly cheap (hydroelectric plants on the Columbia river), it's questionable if the economics work out.
- teraformer 10y agoAlthough, you'll constantly hear from proponents of nuclear energy, that a nuclear plant can product "nigh-limitless" (!) amounts of electricity, somehow they never do. But supposing they did produce the absurd amount of energy they could potentially create, would a purpose-built nuclear powered hydrogen plant be capable of obviating any hydrogen deficit, and eventually create a surplus? And then, so too, with helium, via a separate process?
- rbanffy 10y agoUses like this are perfectly suited for PV or wind. You run your Hydrogen or helium (or desalination) plant when there is generation and stop when there is none.
- teraformer 10y agoNo way. No way. PV and wind are perfectly suited toward essentials because they are sources of energy we'll never feel guilty about. We should use and perfect methods of energy extraction that are conscionable, so that we have ideals methods of providing for ourselves. Meanwhile, to produce surpluses, and exploit gains for experimental luxuries, use riskier methods. This balances the premise of the risk, such that you don't push the risk taking too far, out of desperation for a necessity. Rather than worry about a power failure at a hospital, accept a negligible decline against production targets at a plant, and temporarily shut down the pile, for safety's sake, whenever needed. No?