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My physics is rusty, but isn't helium a common byproduct in nuclear fission?

EDIT: OK looked it up, it indeed is but totally uneconomical in practice.

Better get cold fusion working, or find a way to mine asteroids profitably...

Fusion works (in that it successfully fuses atoms) and has since the 1960s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor

You don't get more energy out than you put in, but if your goal is to make helium, that's hardly the point - just about every other industrial process also consumes energy.

The problem is you need to be really close to breakeven or your going to be wasting GWh per lb of helium.

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