The world is running out of Helium

Giorgio · Post by **Giorgio** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 11:44 am

Pretty interesting:
http://www.physorg.com/news201853523.html

Professor of physics, Robert Richardson from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, won the 1996 Nobel prize for his work on superfluidity in helium, and has issued a warning the supplies of helium are being used at an unprecedented rate and could be depleted within a generation.

Professor Richardson warned the gas is not cheap because the supply is inexhaustible, but because of the Helium Privatisation Act passed in 1996 by the US Congress. The Act required the helium stores held underground near Amarillo in Texas to be sold off at a fixed rate by 2015 regardless of the market value, to pay off the original cost of the reserve. The Amarillo storage facility holds around half the Earth's stocks of helium: around a billion cubic meters of the gas. The US currently supplies around 80 percent of the world's helium supplies.

kurt9 · Post by **kurt9** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 4:30 pm

Which is why we need polywell or some other B11-H fusion, assuming that it is even possible. Of course, even with such fusion, Helium will still be expensive and $3 party balloons will cost $50. However, industrial users of Helium will adjust to the new costs.

Tom Ligon · Post by **Tom Ligon** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 5:01 pm

The source of helium is the same as it was when we built up a huge stockpile ... extract it from natural gas as a byproduct of the production thereof. The US had a huge program to do this, hence our former surplus.

There is no reason why this cannot be done again.

If a Polywell runs at 100 amps and a million volts (100 MW), an amp is 6.24e18 coulombs, two electrons per alpha, 3.12e20 alphas per second at a hundred amps.

Divide by 6.023e23 particles per mole, and you get 5.18e-02 moles, or about 2100 micrograms of helium per second. In one day I get 179 grams of helium per powerplant.

Somebody check my math, but I don't think Polywells will make but a dent in helium demand.

IntLibber · Post by **IntLibber** » Sat Aug 28, 2010 6:04 am

Tom Ligon wrote:The source of helium is the same as it was when we built up a huge stockpile ... extract it from natural gas as a byproduct of the production thereof. The US had a huge program to do this, hence our former surplus.

There is no reason why this cannot be done again.

If a Polywell runs at 100 amps and a million volts (100 MW), an amp is 6.24e18 coulombs, two electrons per alpha, 3.12e20 alphas per second at a hundred amps.

Divide by 6.023e23 particles per mole, and you get 5.18e-02 moles, or about 2100 micrograms of helium per second. In one day I get 179 grams of helium per powerplant.

Somebody check my math, but I don't think Polywells will make but a dent in helium demand.

If the people running the helium extraction program are stopping it, that makes a business case for a private startup to start extracting it from the natural gas pipelines.

I'm sure theres plenty of airship people screaming about the end of cheap helium.

chrismb · Post by **chrismb** » Sat Aug 28, 2010 12:39 pm

hmm... it is not exactly 'a constituent of natural gas', it very much depends on the local stratigraphy. Each and every He atom is an alpha particle from the local rock undergoing radioactive decay. If there is no local radioactive load then there is no helium in your gas. (mostly, U-238, I presume, though I will probably be corrected there if Thorium gives off a lot of alphas or that there are primordial isotopes that have now been and gone due to their decay, like natural plutonium)

I rather think the He availability is a lot lower than you think, Tom, and I remain unconvinced that a fusion reactor would produce enough He to make extraction and reuse viable. [IMHO] We have to be looking at N2 here and higher temp superconductors to match. Liquid H2 or O2 plus neutrons and MV just sounds too much like an accident waiting to happen.

Better still, a fusion reactor design that can make use of permanent magnets.....

I have been a vociferous advocate of protecting He supplies, and my heart sinks every time I see a McD helium balloon!

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Aug 28, 2010 2:10 pm

I have been a vociferous advocate of protecting He supplies, and my heart sinks every time I see a McD helium balloon!

Quoted for agreement.

Giorgio · Post by **Giorgio** » Sat Aug 28, 2010 2:31 pm

chrismb wrote:my heart sinks every time I see a McD !

Quoted for promoting healty food.

D Tibbets · Post by **D Tibbets** » Sat Aug 28, 2010 6:51 pm

Running out of helium? It depends on the numbers you decide to quote.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium

"Diffusion of crude natural gas through special semipermeable membranes and other barriers is another method to recover and purify helium.[77] In 2000[update], the U.S. has proven helium reserves, in such gas well complexes, of about 147 billion standard cubic feet (42 billion SCM). This is enough helium for about 25 years of world use, or 35 years of U.S. use, although factors in saving and processing impact effective reserve numbers.[78][79] It is estimated that the resource base for yet-unproven helium in natural gas in the U.S. is 31-53 trillion SCM, about 1000 times the proven reserves.[80]"

Dan Tibbets

CaptainBeowulf · Post by **CaptainBeowulf** » Sat Aug 28, 2010 10:22 pm

If the supply were to become that constrained maybe we might see the lunar regolith being mined for helium-3...

I wonder how a Polywell would run on helium-3 - has it been discussed?

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sun Aug 29, 2010 3:51 am

Tom Ligon wrote:The source of helium is the same as it was when we built up a huge stockpile ... extract it from natural gas as a byproduct of the production thereof. The US had a huge program to do this, hence our former surplus.

There is no reason why this cannot be done again.

If a Polywell runs at 100 amps and a million volts (100 MW), an amp is 6.24e18 coulombs, two electrons per alpha, 3.12e20 alphas per second at a hundred amps.

Divide by 6.023e23 particles per mole, and you get 5.18e-02 moles, or about 2100 micrograms of helium per second. In one day I get 179 grams of helium per powerplant.

Somebody check my math, but I don't think Polywells will make but a dent in helium demand.

I did a BOE once that said 200 g of B11 a day for 100 MW. So your number is in the right ball park.

kunkmiester · Post by **kunkmiester** » Sun Aug 29, 2010 6:13 am

Helium is 0.1786 g/L according to wikipedia, probably at STP.

DOE* puts US power production at 1.1 million megawatts. This means 1,969,000
grams of He a day would be available if the whole grid was converted.

So, 11,024,636 liters would be produced each day. If the world uses 5.88 billion cubic feet a year, the 142,106,000 cubic feet polywells would make would be 2.4% of global use.

That number would be well into the future, since it would take time to convert, but it's still a lot. Also, you have to look at the price of your commodity, not so much the rarity. I'm not going to do the math on the price of a days production of a 100MW plant, but if it justifies the cost of pulling it out and refining it and stuff, it'll be done.

* http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricit ... acity.html (second to last link)

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sun Aug 29, 2010 7:17 am

He would be so easy to pull out that capturing it makes good sense. You just oxidize the "waste" gases and what you have left is He.