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Devils advocate but if all natural gas use was made obsolete by nuclear or some magic renewable... we’re still going to mine natural gas for the helium then as
by SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
Devils advocate but if all natural gas use was made obsolete by nuclear or some magic renewable... we’re still going to mine natural gas for the helium then as the primary product.
Just like imo we’re going to use every drop of oil for plastics, lubricants, composites, military and legacy applications.
- OJFord 7y ago> if all natural gas use was made obsolete by nuclear or some magic renewable... Helium is a by-product of nuclear fusion. Magic indeed!
- marcosdumay 7y ago> Helium is a by-product of nuclear fusion. Fission too. Yet we are not collecting it. It's not clear if the same problems will apply to collecting it from fusion.
- tapland 7y agoHelium is a by-product of fission, but the product of fusion. The formation from alpha-particles around fission reactions (and the amount being like 100g/year?) makes it not very worthwhile to collect.
- OJFord 7y agoWhat's the distinction between product and by-product then? I called it a 'by-product' because it's not the product we're actually aiming for, not the point of the exercise - if oxygen were produced instead (by whatever science-ignoring magic) we wouldn't mind.
- tapland 7y agoBut in Fusion what we are doing is intentionally creating helium. It's the mechanism we want. In fission it's a byproduct in that it's not our main intention.
- marcosdumay 7y agoWill fusion produced helium be cleaner than fission produced one? The answer looks very simple until you remember it is produced inside a container, that may of may not contaminate it.
- mcv 7y ago> "we’re still going to mine natural gas for the helium then as the primary product" I don't see why. The US has for quite some time been trying to get rid of its helium reserve. Helium has plenty of interesting uses, but it's not valuable enough to justify mining natural gas just for the helium.
- jml7c5 7y agoThe price of helium will rise as the supply is used up. Does helium/natural gas mining simply cost too much to make up for any reasonable change in price?
- dec0dedab0de 7y agoOnce the US gets rid of it's helium reserve wont helium become much more valuable?
- saagarjha 7y agoI’m hopeful we’d figure out a way to make strong alpha emitters or fusion feasible before then.
- ben_w 7y agoIt’s an interesting question: given current tech, which is a cheaper source of helium? 1. Fusion 2. Fission byproducts 3. Catching the solar wind 4. Mining the atmospheres of gas giants
- chii 7y agomining the gas giants. The amount of matter in fusion, or created by fission byproducts is minuscule. unless we do so much fusion that the absolute amounts become close to the amount of natural gas.
- hutzlibu 7y agoWith current tech? none really
- ben_w 7y agoPerhaps “less expensive” would have been a better way to phrase it…
- simias 7y ago>[...]given current tech[...] >1. Fusion I appreciate your optimism but unless you're talking about harvesting the fallout of fission bombs fusion probably won't be a practical source of helium for quite some time. As for harvesting gas giants imagine the costs involved to send a ship close enough to one of these monsters to harvest a significant amount of helium, then manage to escape the gravity well and make it back to us. That would probably be end up being the most expensive substance on earth.
- Retric 7y agoITER would produce 150kg of helium a year in steady state operation. It’s not clear how close to that’s it’s going to be, but it’s going to be producing some helium unlike those other methods mentioned. Of course that’s currently only worth ~6,000$ so it’s not being collected. But, if that’s the only option at 100,000x current prices it might be used. Hypothetically, if 30% of the world’s electricity was generated by fusion they would be producing ~350,000 kg of helium per year. Still well below current production, but also not an insignificant amount.
- faeyanpiraat 7y agoIf we mine the same amount of gas, and discard the natural gas part, then shouldn't the price of helium go up?
- reportgunner 7y agoSorry, but how does one discard natural gas ?
- ashildr 7y agosee [Wikipedia: Gas flare](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_flare https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_flare)
- smcl 7y agoI would simply collect the helium (e.g. in a net, or tupperware box) and discard that which is not helium or place it carefully back where I found it
- de_watcher 7y agoPut it in a yellow bin.
- hwillis 7y ago> Just like imo we’re going to use every drop of oil for plastics, lubricants, composites, military and legacy applications. Still a pretty open question. Those uses are powerfully subsidized by the fuel applications- aside from military use, all the things you listed add up to <2% of all oil. There is a massive oversupply. Oil processing involves reforming molecules catalytically into other forms of hydrocarbons. It's not just separation. If fossil prices increased substantially, it would be very difficult to predict if natural hydrocarbon sources would be cheaper. Natural oils are quite cheap but narrowly distributed, unlike crude oil, and form different mixes when reformed by various processes. The bottom line you should take away is that we absolutely don't need oil. We could replace it totally with natural sources using essentially our current product chain (eg steam cracking facilities) at a very reasonable cost. It's far and away the smallest problem with not using oil. To put that in context, it's a smaller problem than making steel without coal/coke, which is a solved problem. India makes nearly all their steel with natural gas. I'll also point out that silicones are much better products for most lubricant and plastic/rubber uses. Oil is cheap and usually inferior, except for most engineering plastics.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago> I’ll also point out that silicones are much better products for most lubricant and plastic/rubber uses. Oil is cheap and usually inferior, except for most engineering plastics. Oh? What industry are you in and do you have a source for that statement? Because you see car oil synthetics are preferred over mineral maybe? Because 20 years in automotive and composites says that’s full fantasy. Just ONE example off the top of my head, carbon fiber, is almost entirely oil. It’s a oil derived plastic that’s burnt and spun and burnt again while being treated with more oil. It’s non-recyclable and pretty damn dirty, I’ve yet to see a carbon that was oil free, but please let me know when you have found one!
- pmoriarty 7y ago"I've yet to see a carbon that was oil free, but please let me know when you have found one!" Well, off the top of my head, there's diamond and charcoal. Not to mention the carbon that's in all living things.