We Discovered Helium 150 Years Ago. Are We Running Out?
The atmospheric noble gas concentrations, in ppmv:<p>Helium 5.24<p>Neon 18.18<p>Krypton 1.14<p>Argon 9340<p>Xenon 0.087<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gly.uga.edu&#x2F;railsback&#x2F;Fundamentals&#x2F;AtmosphereCompIII.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gly.uga.edu&#x2F;railsback&#x2F;Fundamentals&#x2F;AtmosphereComp...</a><p>Krypton is rarer in the atmosphere than helium (by molar&#x2F;volume concentration), though more abundant by mass. Krypton is commercially produced by atmospheric separation. I would therefore expect helium sourced by air separation to cost <i>roughly</i> 1&#x2F;4-1&#x2F;5 the cost of krypton production, per liter, or 4-5 times as much per gram. A quick search on Google shows krypton at 65 cents per liter in the early 2000s (according to an article about windowpane gas filling). An Alibaba search indicates that 10-15 cents per liter may be more typical now.<p>If those krypton prices are accurate, and I haven&#x27;t made any major mistakes with my helium ballparking, I would expect that applications like helium filled hard drives would see only a tiny cost increase should they be forced to use helium separated from the atmosphere. I think that most cryogenic cooling applications would have to move to closed-cycle reuse of helium. I don&#x27;t know about welding and leak testing.<p>EDIT: &quot;The Energy-Related Applications of Helium&quot;, 1980 report from Los Alamos National Laboratory, specifically considers helium production from atmospheric separation and from lean natural gas streams in section X.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.osti.gov&#x2F;servlets&#x2F;purl&#x2F;5141581" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.osti.gov&#x2F;servlets&#x2F;purl&#x2F;5141581</a><p><i>A.W. Francis has discussed the recovery of helium from the atmosphere by conventional methods. He predicts that, for helium produced from the atmosphere as a by-product from air separation plants, the cost would lie in the range of $200 to $300 per Mcf in 1973 dollars (over ten times present
cost).<p>...<p>To go further and separate helium by similar techniques but with helium as the primary product would raise the cost by more than another order of magnitude to about $7000 Mcf in 1980 dollars.
</i><p>Apparently one Mcf is 28,317 liters in SI units. That&#x27;s 24.7 cents per liter of helium from the atmosphere in 1980 dollars, or 80 cents per liter in CPI-adjusted 2018 dollars.