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The U.S. just sold its helium stockpile. Here’s why the medical world is worried. (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 10 months ago by Five@slrpnk.net to c/news

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[–] Gurfaild@feddit.de 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It does somewhat renew itself due to alpha decay, but that probably isn't fast enough to matter.

[–] user134450@feddit.de 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

from the wiki article on Helium:

an estimated 3000 metric tons of helium are generated per year throughout the lithosphere.

I think the main issue here is not that we are loosing helium on a planetary scale but that the easy to reach helium from gas wells is wasted. We will never run out of helium at our current rate of consumption before the sun goes nova, if we consider all sources on earth, but it will get a lot more expensive and the supply will get less steady.

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But we are consuming about 6 million tons per year (https://www.chemanalyst.com/industry-report/helium-gas-market-578).

The 3000 tons are just a drop in the water and it's pretty much impossible to get to all that.

[–] user134450@feddit.de 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

oh i must have missed a few orders of magnitude there. 6Mt of helium is a ridiculous amount though ... what is all that used for? according to WA that is about the water volume of the three gorges dam at STP

Edit: just read the report, wow, more than a quarter of all the helium is used just for "breathing mixes" which i assume means its for scuba diving.

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 4 points 10 months ago

There's quite a large amount of the usage which could be labelled "for fun".