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Where do you get all that helium?
by cmrx64 10y ago
Where do you get all that helium?
- Tade0 10y agoI don't know, maybe from the 175 million cubic meters produced annually? For a 300km, two lane stretch you'd require around 7.5mln cubic meters - sure, that's a lot, but it's not an impossible amount.
- jschwartzi 10y agoI think GP was asking: how do you get the helium from thousands of wells spread throughout the continent to the pump stations in California? Surely there are some logistical challenges involved in that.
- D_Alex 10y agoHelium, for the time being, is a non-renewable resource, and there are concerns of a helium shortage for important applications like cryogenics. It is probably not a good idea to use helium as you suggested.
- toomanybeersies 10y agoSo almost 5% of global production of Helium? Add to that the fact that helium tends to leak at a much higher rate than any gas, and that sounds prohibitively expensive. Especially since the current price of Helium is artificially low, and it's not a renewable resource at current extraction rates, so the price is not going to remain so low in the future.
- tjalfi 10y agoThe US government has been stockpiling it since 1925 in the National Helium Reserve (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve).