Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Snatch_Pastry t1_je1llzf wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Is NaCl relatively common in the galaxy/universe? by PHealthy

We're not even close to depleting earth's supply. It's just that years ago, it stopped being economical to bother capturing it as it comes up with natural gas. Uranium decay creates the helium deep underground. So when it gets expensive enough, they'll rebuild the capture and separation equipment.

14

[deleted] t1_je1mkbo wrote

[deleted]

1

platoprime t1_je1nq84 wrote

The important point doesn't change though. We can tap tons of wells of helium that we didn't tap for natural gas because there was too much helium. The price just has to go up to make that profitable. We're not going to run out of helium any time soon.

6

javanator999 t1_je1nrmv wrote

Qatar is currently producing about 1/3 of the total helium production from its natural gas production. It could produce more if the price was higher.

Helium in natural gas isn't that rare, it's just that the very low prices we've had for years don't make it economical to extract.

4

Snatch_Pastry t1_je1og05 wrote

Interesting. He's not shitting about the cost of doing by air separation, though, he may actually be underselling it. I used to work in air separation, and various companies have tried going after the rare gasses, like xenon and helium. You're dealing with so few molecules that keeping the in/out flow in the columns stable is nearly impossible.

3