I've always found it a little surprising how unthinkingly we use helium, when it really is in short supply on the planet. Party balloons are fun, but at some point I do expect the price to rise to the point at which it will only have industrial uses (including for space activities). It could certainly liven up parties if we switch over to hydrogen balloons...

There's plenty of helium to be mined out in the solar system, but it would be an interesting challenge to import it back down into the gravity well. I suppose it would just be done in pressurized tanks.

So... does this mean we have to start spending money on the Helium Reserve again? :P

Sam,
An interesting (but not yet economically feasible) potential source for helium is the earth's heterosphere. Out beyond about 200km, the relative concentrations of different components of the "atmosphere" start changing rapidly. At 450-500km for instance, helium is over ~5% of the mass floating around at that level. If someone is able to make something like Paul Klinkman's atmospheric gatherer concept work out, it might be possible at some point to economically harvest that. The reality is that in spite of the atmosphere being very tenuous at that altitude, a scooper scoops out many cubic kilometers per year per m^2 of surface area. If the efficiency of the scooper can be made high enough (and if launch costs go down low enough, etc) it might be feasible. More importantly, it might be feasible a lot sooner than say mining helium from Venus or the outer gas giants.

Just a crazy thought.

~Jon

I like this sentence:

"Students will recognize that systemic oppression exists in our society."

This is demonstrably true. The University of Delaware Residential Life program is part of society. It has a system. And it is oppressive.

If I went through the program I would agree with this statement wholeheartedly.

Yours,
Wince

Please delete the above. Wrong comment thread.

If we extracted He from the troposphere, it would currently require about 10% of the US electricity production to power the separation, at the current rate of He consumption. However, more expensive He would reduce demand greatly (replacing He with Ar in applications requiring inert gas, for example); if demand goes down by a factor of 10 then the energy cost is around 1%. The economy could absorb this without enormous trauma.

Before we did that, we'd probably go looking for new helium wells. Helium accumulates even in regions without the organic sediments that produce natural gas; helium only requires trapping formations so it doesn't escape. So I imagine wells would be bored in continental interiors with igneous and metamorphic rocks that would be poor targets for fossil fuel production.

Helium might also be produced as a byproduct of 'dry rock' geothermal, which involves also involves drilling deep wells -- and radiogenic heat and helium production are closely related.

Hey, if hydrogen fusion ever works out, we'll be making helium.

Sure, it'd be expensive as hell as helium production, but as a side-effect of power generation it's basically free.

(Don't know the numbers, and I'm sure it wouldn't be much helium per facility per year, but it's some. We need never be out of helium, though it might get very expensive, in the worst case.)

Don't know the numbers,

Not much at all. The net overall reaction in a DT fusion plant would be:

D + 6Li --> 2 4He

(with some less important secondary reactions). A 1 GW(e) fusion plant would produce maybe .7 tons of 4He per year. Even at the current somewhat elevated price for 4He, this would only be a few tens of thousands of dollars per year.

Don't know the numbers,

Not much at all. The net overall reaction in a DT fusion plant would be:

D + 6Li --> 2 4He

(with some less important secondary reactions). A 1 GW(e) fusion plant would produce maybe .7 tons of 4He per year. Even at the current somewhat elevated price for 4He, this would only be a few tens of thousands of dollars per year.

Hm... is there a helium futures market? It seems like that'd be a good way to get current prices in line with future expected shortages.

The helium we use in party balloons is mainly junk helium - lots of methane and other contaminants in there. This is going to be an interesting case study in market pricing of a fossil resource. The junk helium wasn't worth distilling to a purer grade, so is relatively cheap in consequence. That distillation cost might end up looking pretty good as the supply runs out.

A helium shortage kind of hits near and dear to my heart because it could spell the end of deep diving with tri-mix. Hydrogen could be a replacement for the helium, but the flammability of the mixture is going to make it a lot trickier than helium. Either that or divers will have to take the chance of a lot of narcosis before they get to a safe depth to breath the mix.

All helium starts as 'junk helium'. There are no pure helium wells. PSA can purify it to three or four nines, cryogenic separation to five nines or beyond.

The current price spike in helium is capacity related. Existing helium purification plants in the US are running at full capacity, and overseas capacity (in Qatar, for example) is on-line yet in sufficient amounts.

The world trend toward LNG will make more helium available, since if the gas is being liquefied anyway it may become economical to extract the helium even at a starting concentration as low as .05%, I understand.

Jon: Not all economics on this blog comes from me.

Rand: Nothing runs out. Harder to access sources just become economical as easily accessible supplies run out driving relative price rises. Just like petroleum products or energy in general.