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Comment by CalRobert | Hacker News Reader

Some mention of how dwindling Helium supplies play in to this would be helpful.

IIRC, the price of helium was artificially suppressed for a long time because the US was getting rid of its strategic helium reserve.

Now that they've stopped liquidating the reserve, price signals are starting to work again and helium is again being captured.

I believe its mostly a myth that helium supplies are dwindling. Its a byproduct of natural gas production which is something the USA should be using more of anyway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_production_in_the_Unite...

It's a dwindling resource in the sense that it's not renewable (on human timescales, anyway) or reusable: once it's in the atmosphere, it's effectively gone.

Would expanded civilian nuclear power provide some kind of sustainable helium production as a side effect or do the numbers not work out?

Only if we change to fusion power, which is just fifty years away.

Even nuclear fusion doesn't produce helium in large amounts; a large fusion plant would produce about 2000 liters / day, meaning you'd need 136 years worth of output from one station to fill a single airlander airship.

Same goes for fossil fuels, but that doesn't stop us from burning billions of tons of them per year like we have an infinite supply.

And unlike fossil fuels that are (likely) only found on Earth, Helium is the second most common element in the universe and can be found literally everywhere once you're off planet. Plus we can technically manufacture it from radioactive decay.

> can be found literally everywhere once you're off planet

In the vacuum of space, not enough to be harvested. Presumably the same for asteroids, moons and planets.

Stars have lots and lots of helium, but good luck mining it.

Agreed. This doesn't seem to be a long-term solution, unless they're relying on continually discovering new helium wells.

There are no "helium wells". Helium is extracted as a byproduct of natural gas extraction. Meaning it comes up mixed with natural gas and if the production facilities have the right equipment can be separated from it.

I mean a hole in the ground that has helium in it is kind of a helium well, even if it's polluted with natural gas.

Not all natural gas wells have the same percentage of helium in them[1]. "Helium wells" generally refer to wells that have a high amount of Helium relative to others. Those are the ones you would extract Helium from first.

[1] https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/609e8fe1d34ea221ce3...

Yes, sorry, short-hand. Natural gas comes out of wells, and with it helium. Since we're focussing on the helium, I called it a helium well. Indeed, sometimes helium itself is the target, not the natural gas: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-found-h...

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