JumpCrisscrossHelium Is Hard to Replace
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/helium-is-hard-to-replace
Is there any way to actually produce helium other than nuclear fusion? I would assume not, but I'm not an expert in this field.
And that's where all of our helium actually comes from. Any radioactive decay that emits alpha particles generates helium, since alpha particles are just helium nuclei. When that happens underground, the helium can get trapped. It tends to get trapped in the same places that natural gas gets trapped, so natural gas extraction often encounters helium as well.
Similar to oil and gas (although a completely different mechanism), it takes deep time to accumulate, but can be extracted much, much faster. So although new helium is being generated underground all the time, we can still run out in a practical sense.
It's also formed similarly to oil over millions of years underground if I understand correctly so can be a byproduct of natural gas mining.
It's often found alongside natural gas because the rock structures that can trap methane can also trap other gasses, but the original source is different - thermal decomposition of organic matter for natural gas and radioactive decay, mostly of uranium and thorium, for helium.
I agree that the "accumulation over millions of years" is similar (and similarly a potential problem if we burn through all that accumulation).
Helium is produced naturally by radioactive decay underground. There is no way to artificially produce it in useful quantities.
But we can capture more of it from natural gas wells. Today much helium is just vented off and wasted at wellheads. As the price rises it makes sense to invest in cryogenic helium capture equipment for more wells.
If you have something that emits a lot of alpha particles as it decays, you could surround it with a source of electrons, I suppose. The details would have to be left as an exercise, and I doubt you'd get enough helium to be very useful unless you were dealing with large amounts of ridiculously-radioactive substances.
Same with fusion. Due to the implications of E=mc^2, fusion yields a lot of energy and a uselessly-small amount of matter. There don't seem to be many good ways to get a lot of helium besides either waiting millions of years for it to show up naturally, or carefully recycling what we already have.
Terrestial helium isn't produced by nuclear fusion. It's produced by nuclear decay. As you may know, you get alpha, beta and gamma radiation from decay. Gamma rays are just energetic photos. You typically need thick lead and/or concrete to shield you from them. Beta radiation is high energy electrons. A thin sheet of steel will shield you from those.
And lastly we have alpha radiation, which is just a Helium nucleus. A sheet of paper will generally block alpha radiation.
Some materials are really strong alpha emitters. A good example is Polonium-210 where almost all of its energy from decay is in the form of alpha radiation. This is why Po-210 is so lethal when ingested, which has been used for that purpose [1].
But this means if you produce a lump of Polonium-210, it's basically radiating Helium. The source of almost all of the Earth's Helium is from uranium and thorium decay.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...
> Gamma rays are just energetic photos
They are indeed. The average planet busting Gamma Ray Burst is just a Vogon trying to "get the whole family in".
I really enjoyed this oddlots podcast episode that covered similar points and had a lot of "wat" moments for me, including the US selling off its strategic helium reserves at a loss because politicians labeled it "party baloon reserve", and how long it takes to produce naturally and how hard it is to find, process and transport.
Now There's a Helium Shortage and It Affects More Than Balloons | Odd Lots
Part of the reason there's a shortage is because the US was the main supplier. There was no market incentive for anyone to invest into helium extraction.
It'd be like if the US used it's strategic oil reserve to supply the US with oil at a low price at all times.
A strategic reserve isn't supposed to be used as a supply. The existence of a strategic reserve shouldn't have an effect on the supply of helium except in an emergency. The fact that selling the helium reserve could create a shortage should tell you that it wasn't being used as a reserve but as a supply.
The US was, essentially, artificial subsidizing the price of helium. What's happening now is that people are actually paying the real price of helium.
Exactly right. We may yet find out what happens when someone sells the strategic oil reserve.
Despite all the online rhetoric, and the popularity of mis-naming political movements, sometimes I think the people who hate America the most and want it to fail are Americans themselves.
I think that's broadly true: both sides want America to fail when the other side is in power in order to prove they're right.
The US government decided (maybe correctly, IDK) some years ago that their strategic helium reserves were too high (and thus expensive).
There were several announcements, a lot of discussion, and a long process before they started selling it. It was also a temporary action, with a well known end-date (that TBH, I never looked at). It had a known and constant small pressure over investments, it wasn't something that destabilized a market.
Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast had an episode with a helium producer on the topic recently:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjc6MgUY0BE
* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/now-theres-a-helium-sh...
* https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/now-theres-a-helium-shortage-...
Now There's a Helium Shortage and It Affects More Than Balloons | Odd Lots
I’m not really worried about any potential helium shortage. We are actually really good at extracting it, the problem is purely economics and as soon as prices get to the point where investment is warranted then there will continue to be adequate supplies. The main issue right now is the proper demand increase forecasts do not align with potential investments costs and helium extraction investment does just not make much economic sense given current forecast Helium costs.
For diving, there has been some experimental use of hydrogen as a partial replacement for helium in breathing gas mixtures. This obviously increases the risk of fires and the physiological effects aren't fully understood. But it might eventually be used in commercial, military, and exploration diving for those cases where we need to send humans really deep and using an atmospheric suit isn't an option. Regular sport divers will probably never breathe hydrogen.
Hydrogen, At Last?
In February, Dr. Richard Harris aka Dr. Harry and the Wet Mules conducted the world’s first hydrogen rebreather dive to a test depth of 230 m at Pearse Resurgence, New Zealand. The purpose of the 13 hour dive was to determine the practicality and efficacy of using hydrogen to improve safety and performance of über-deep scuba dives. Harris will present the work up and details of the dive at Rebreather Forum 4 in Valletta, Malta on 22 April. In preparation, we thought it useful to review some of the history and research regarding hydrogen diving. Here’s what you need to know.
For divers, we really should be focusing on building better underwater drones. Remove the risk to human life entirely. You don't need AI either, just a remote-controlled machine with a cable that goes up to the surface. I know there is some loss in dexterity with current robot arms, but building more dexterous system seems like it's not an impossible task.