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Helium can't run out. Ever. Or actually it can, but in about 10 billion years or so. Helium is alpha particles produced in the decay chain of uranium and thori

Helium can't run out. Ever. Or actually it can, but in about 10 billion years or so. Helium is alpha particles produced in the decay chain of uranium and thorium deep inside the planet. It's being produced continuously, and it seeps upward. It stops in the pockets where other gases stop, and whatever forms there is called "natural gas". Helium is present in all natural gas, but it generally it is in a small enough concentration to not be worth separating. The price of helium is about 100 times the price of natural gas, so if a given natural gas field has a concentration of 1% helium, and you separate that and you sell it, you double your profits. But most often the concentration is 0.1% or lower, so after the additional separation costs it's not worth the trouble. But when you have a field that yields more than 12% helium, you bet it's super profitable to separate it and sell it.

defrost 3y ago
> Helium is alpha particles produced in the decay chain of uranium and thorium deep inside the planet. Throughout the planet, but the overwhelming bulk of Helium that we humans can access comes from the crust layers .. intense pressure limits the seepage for deep helium and the crust is littered with U-K-Th rich deposits that express both radon and helium. > Helium can't run out Human production of usable helium at feasible prices can fall below human demand though, the obvious context missing from and otherwise interesting comment. Demand exceeding supply changes the feasibility bar, but there's still a limit to fresh field sizes and extraction rates. > But when you have a field that yields more than 12% helium But does it meaningfully shift the human supply|demand balnce on the global market, and if so for how long .. this is the relevant resource availability metric.
- credit_guy 3y ago
  > Demand exceeding supply changes the feasibility bar, but there's still a limit to fresh field sizes and extraction rates. Not really. If at 100x the natural gas price, helium is profitable in concentrations above 1%, then at 1000x it is profitable in concentrations above 0.1%. We produce every year several billion tons of natural gas. The helium that we don't bother to separate from the natural gas we produce exceeds the world needs by a factor of 100 easily. But if the price goes up by a factor of 10, we'd instantly find out we have all the helium we need.

defrost 3y ago

> Helium is alpha particles produced in the decay chain of uranium and thorium deep inside the planet. Throughout the planet, but the overwhelming bulk of Helium that we humans can access comes from the crust layers .. intense pressure limits the seepage for deep helium and the crust is littered with U-K-Th rich deposits that express both radon and helium. > Helium can't run out Human production of usable helium at feasible prices can fall below human demand though, the obvious context missing from and otherwise interesting comment. Demand exceeding supply changes the feasibility bar, but there's still a limit to fresh field sizes and extraction rates. > But when you have a field that yields more than 12% helium But does it meaningfully shift the human supply|demand balnce on the global market, and if so for how long .. this is the relevant resource availability metric.

credit_guy 3y ago
> Demand exceeding supply changes the feasibility bar, but there's still a limit to fresh field sizes and extraction rates. Not really. If at 100x the natural gas price, helium is profitable in concentrations above 1%, then at 1000x it is profitable in concentrations above 0.1%. We produce every year several billion tons of natural gas. The helium that we don't bother to separate from the natural gas we produce exceeds the world needs by a factor of 100 easily. But if the price goes up by a factor of 10, we'd instantly find out we have all the helium we need.