Well, the idea is to produce Helium as a by-product of producing liquid nitrogen. But indeed, the numbers may not work out: About 8 million tons of liquid nitr

Well, the idea is to produce Helium as a by-product of producing liquid nitrogen. But indeed, the numbers may not work out: About 8 million tons of liquid nitrogen is produced per year, growing 5% every year [1], largely from Cryogenic distillation. By mass, the ratio of Nitrogen and Helium in air is about 1e6 [2]. So that means, about 8 tons would be produced, which is 3.5 orders of magnitude away from the current size of the market (like 30 thousand tons). But it may be possible to use non-cryogenic processes [3] to increase the ratio of Helium in the air before separating out the nitrogen. So between the increase of the nitrogen market, the decrease in demand if Helium gets more expensive when traditional sources run out, and better processes, this means that Helium will likely continue to be available for very valuable use cases almost indefinitely. [1] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/liquid-nitrogen-market https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/liquid-n... [2] http://www.uigi.com/air.html http://www.uigi.com/air.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_separation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_separation