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With regards to cryogenic applications: Right now a 500 L dewar of liquid He costs about $500 USD. (more for some locations in EU) You can already buy regener
by kurtosis 17y ago
With regards to cryogenic applications:
Right now a 500 L dewar of liquid He costs about $500 USD. (more for some locations in EU) You can already buy regenerators that capture the boiled off LHe and this can save a good amount of money with some suppliers. If Helium becomes more scarce this type of technology will become much more common.
A larger concern is the scarcity of He3 - This has become very expensive in Europe due to the US's crazy ambition to install thousands of He3 based detectors for people smuggling nuclear bombs into the USA. See http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2549/he-3-and-homeland-security-part-1 http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2549/he-3-and-homeland-securi... for more info. Like other posters I don't understand why the Russians don't step up!
- electromagnetic 17y agoI fail to see the argument here, Neon is readily within peoples price range and is almost exclusively provided by cryogenic fractal distillation. It costs approximately $33/100g and helium presently costs $5.2/100g. Considering the existing neon producers will only have to modify their equipment slightly I doubt the price of helium would ever surpass the price of neon in the foreseeable future.
- cperciva 17y agoAt 1 atmosphere, Neon freezes at 24.5K. This makes it rather ineffective as a coolant.
- electromagnetic 17y agoAnd the relevance of this to using fractal distillation to harvest helium from the atmosphere is?
- cperciva 17y agoI misunderstood your point -- I thought you were suggesting that Neon could be used as a replacement for Helium.