Helium shortage & eco welder

[sheepdog 44]

FYI, Helium like chocolate is one of those things people say will be scarce and expensive in the future. Enjoy it while it lasts.

[oil pan 4]

Helium should last as long as natural gas.
The refining capacity must not be able to keep up with demand.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Helium should last as long as natural gas.
The refining capacity must not be able to keep up with demand.

Of course you know helium is not "refined" and it's not renewable. I'm not sure you can extend helium well capacity with fracking either.

[oil pan 4]

Helium comes out of the ground with natural gas.
They refine it by fractional distillation. They compress and cool the gas down to as cold as they can get it and helium is the last remaining gas to still be a gas at the end of the process.

[gone-ot]

...last I heard there is LOTS of helium -- in the middle of the sun -- of course, it's a little difficult to get at, but there's lots there...and has been for billions of years.

[oil pan 4]

If nuclear fusion ever becomes economical there could be a lot of helium produced as a byproduct.

[oil pan 4]

Screw nuclear fusion.
The world will run out of helium before its developed.
Salvation is at hand:
With supplies dwindling, researchers discover a massive helium field in Africa

All the electronics manufactures in asia can buy African blood helium and we can keep our own supply for welding, weapons development and inventing stuff that asia will eventually make cheaper than the US can.

Hydraulic fractured natural gas turns out does not contain much helium. The high concentrations of helium collect in very old gas formations only the oldest on earth. Hydraulic fracturing speeds up the process of forming a gas deposit by a few million years so the helium just hasn't had the time it takes to be created and collected.

Since I last posted I did get my helium bottle filled, came back with "balloon grade helium" in it. Not sure what that means. Could be helium with CO2 or air to "water it down" or it could be 99% pure. If its got air in it then its pretty much useless for welding for me, if its got CO2 in it then I could use it for mig welding if I dilute the CO2 down to about 2% with argon. I could dilute the air down to about 2% and to do mig spray transfer but my 120 volt machine doesn't have enough power to do spray transfer.
I have built a 105 amp tig welder that works perfectly and I am about to complete a second much more powerful 230 amp tig welder. And I am starting to do aluminum. Tig tri mix (which is mostly helium) is great for tig welding aluminum.

[redneck]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Since I last posted I did get my helium bottle filled, came back with "balloon grade helium" in it. Not sure what that means.

Grades of helium: the differences and uses





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[redpoint5]

How does earth have helium in the first place?

I've always wondered how the earth has helium trapped, considering soil and rock is porous, and even Mylar has difficulty trapping helium. How would it have been trapped in the first place, considering denser elements should have coalesced in the center of the earth, while the lighter ones form the atmosphere? Seems improbable considering the earth is constantly churning with convergent and divergent plate movement, along with volcanic activity.

Shouldn't there be a massive ball of gold, uranium, or perhaps osmium at the core of the earth?

[basjoos]

All of the original helium on the earth was lost as the earth cooled, solidified, and was lost from the primordial atmosphere. But helium is a byproduct of radioactive decay and is trapped and slowly accumulates in oil and natural gas pockets located under impermeable layers of rock. In the universe it is the 2nd most common element and is plentiful in the sun and in the atmosphere of the gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, etc.).

The earth's inner core is mostly iron (the heaviest commonly found element since it is the end product of stellar fusion) mixed with other heavy elements. But convective currents in the core would keep the heaviest elements from accumulating there, especially since the closer you get to the earth's center, the less the gravitational pull (it is weightless at the center). Gravitational pull is strongest at the earth's surface and gradually drops to zero as you approach the center of the earth.