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Comment by excalibur | Hacker News Reader

Good thing there isn't a global shortage of extractable helium.

There isn't. There is a robust market in Helium, and its price represents the cost of bothering to recover the large quantities that are produced (and generally vented) as a by product of oil extraction. We could have much more helium if we wanted to pay for it, but it's not worth it.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/06/18/were-rea...

https://www.wired.com/2016/06/dire-helium-shortage-vastly-in...

> In 2014, the US Department of Interior estimated that there are 1,169 billion cubic feet of helium reserves left on Earth. That’s enough for about 117 more years.

I would consider 117 years a pretty significant shortage.

Proven oil reserves have been at more or less 30 years for the last 60 years. So, take the 117 with a grain of salt. Especially since a significant amount of that helium is sourced from oil.

Maybe in 100 years we will have fusion power plants everywhere producing Helium. :)

We will need something because fossil fuels are not sustainable. In 100 years we should be pumping much less oil than we do today. This also means finding substitutes for all of the byproducts of oil production.

Fusion plants in the 1GW range will have at most a couple of grams of fuel in them at any given time (though looks like ITER expects to use 250 KG per year collectively - still though, not a lot).

Those are the reserves we currently know about, extractable with current technology and at current prices.

You do realize that it's rational to make conclusions based on available evidence, right?

Yes, but that's similar to worrying about running out of whales in the second half of the 1800's.

People will store helium if there's a risk of shortage.

That's how markets work.

Additionally, a huge field of Helium was discovered this year in Tanzania [0], drastically increasing the amount of Helium we have available to extract.

[0] http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36651048

Well said. Let's, for a moment, take a step back, and appreciate the fact that there is no global shortage of extractable helium.

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