How much does liquid helium cost?

[Mark R]

This thread is pre-VB. Probably lost his count in the switch.

MarkR now knows lots more about MRIs too... :thumbsup:

I remember discussing them with him.

I suppose I might as well resurrect the relevant thread, then.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2155454

 

[Jeff7]

There is no helium in air. Any helium in the atmosphere rapidly escapes into space.

The only source of helium on earth is natural gas.

...that doesn't make me feel any better about peak-helium. :\

 

[PlasmaBomb]

So I'd guess then that the concentrations of helium are higher in the natural gas deposits, which makes it more worthwhile to distill it out, right? (Versus distilling it out of plain air.)

Yeah the concentration in air is something like 0.0005%, commercially helium had been coming from natural gas deposits that contain helium volumes of 0.3% (600 times greater abundance), and they were drilling for the gas anyway...

 

[PlasmaBomb]

...that doesn't make me feel any better about peak-helium. :\

All we have to do is wait for the raidioactive decay to replenish the underground supplies...

May take a few hundred million years...