When you pop a balloon, the helium floats to space and is lost into the solar wind forever. Unlike every other element we could run out, and nobody cares. (Helium is important for a lot of serious things, too)
There’s more pressing issues, of course, but if you want one that’s very unknown compared to it’s long-term significance, there you go.
It’s abundant on the moon. It can be mined. There’s another space race going on. We don’t hear about it because the west isn’t winning. And we’re in the middle of another cold war where propaganda must control the narrative.
Last I heard, the West was still on course to be on the moon first (again).
On the moon there’s specifically small but valuable amounts of adsorbed Helium 3, which is far rarer yet on Earth. It’s not going to displace the normal Helium in use.
I have goodish news. We aren’t going to run out of helium any time soon.
Based on current rates of helium consumption the US alone has something like 250+ years of stored helium. We pumped a porous mountain full of all the helium we could back in the 60s and it’s been kept stable since.
We still have no alternative to helium in a few of its most important use cases, but there is price where the helium we haven’t bothered collecting will become cost effective to go get. Those untapped reserves are estimated 3-10 times what we have ever used.
I’m also fairly certain that we will have figured out a way to produce helium in the next hundred years. We know how it came to exist naturally it’s really just the matter of someone being crazy enough to try and replicate those underground conditions and spend the money on the project.
I have faith that helium is a solvable problem for the human race.
Because of how entirely permanent this is, it pays to look far - like millions of years. That’s what it took to accumulate.
We know how it came to exist naturally it’s really just the matter of someone being crazy enough to try and replicate those underground conditions and spend the money on the project.
How that works is just normal radioactive decay. The conditions aren’t actually important.
It’s probable we’ll be able to make a bit with fusion, but the amounts will be small. IIRC we also collect some from decaying radioactive things in manmade settings, but again, it’s hard to beat an chunk entire planet underneath a salt dome. Next options are harvesting it from space (but it’s really spread out) or a gas giant (but there’s stupid amounts of gravity).
When you pop a balloon, the helium floats to space and is lost into the solar wind forever. Unlike every other element we could run out, and nobody cares. (Helium is important for a lot of serious things, too)
There’s more pressing issues, of course, but if you want one that’s very unknown compared to it’s long-term significance, there you go.
It’s abundant on the moon. It can be mined. There’s another space race going on. We don’t hear about it because the west isn’t winning. And we’re in the middle of another cold war where propaganda must control the narrative.
Last I heard, the West was still on course to be on the moon first (again).
On the moon there’s specifically small but valuable amounts of adsorbed Helium 3, which is far rarer yet on Earth. It’s not going to displace the normal Helium in use.
I have goodish news. We aren’t going to run out of helium any time soon.
Based on current rates of helium consumption the US alone has something like 250+ years of stored helium. We pumped a porous mountain full of all the helium we could back in the 60s and it’s been kept stable since.
We still have no alternative to helium in a few of its most important use cases, but there is price where the helium we haven’t bothered collecting will become cost effective to go get. Those untapped reserves are estimated 3-10 times what we have ever used.
I’m also fairly certain that we will have figured out a way to produce helium in the next hundred years. We know how it came to exist naturally it’s really just the matter of someone being crazy enough to try and replicate those underground conditions and spend the money on the project.
I have faith that helium is a solvable problem for the human race.
Because of how entirely permanent this is, it pays to look far - like millions of years. That’s what it took to accumulate.
How that works is just normal radioactive decay. The conditions aren’t actually important.
It’s probable we’ll be able to make a bit with fusion, but the amounts will be small. IIRC we also collect some from decaying radioactive things in manmade settings, but again, it’s hard to beat an chunk entire planet underneath a salt dome. Next options are harvesting it from space (but it’s really spread out) or a gas giant (but there’s stupid amounts of gravity).
The sun has shitloads, we could mine the sun!
Just take a scoop out and bring it back. Should be easy right? Lol