The Hunt For Green Helium

Despite being a noble gas, helium has a carbon footprint. We haven't managed to find any helium reservoirs that don't also contain natural gas. But must they? Scientists and startups alike are on the hunt.
Hosted by: Stefan Chin (he/him)
----------
Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: / scishow
----------
Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever: Matt Curls, Alisa Sherbow, Dr. Melvin Sanicas, Harrison Mills, Adam Brainard, Chris Peters, charles george, Piya Shedden, Alex Hackman, Christopher R, Boucher, Jeffrey Mckishen, Ash, Silas Emrys, Eric Jensen, Kevin Bealer, Jason A Saslow, Tom Mosner, Tomás Lagos González, Jacob, Christoph Schwanke, Sam Lutfi, Bryan Cloer
----------
Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet?
SciShow Tangents Podcast: scishow-tangen...
TikTok: / scishow
Twitter: / scishow
Instagram: / thescishow
Facebook: / scishow
#SciShow #science #education #learning #complexly
----------
Sources:
www.ox.ac.uk/n...
www.acs.org/gr...
www.acs.org/ed...
www.blm.gov/pr...
www.wired.com/...
noblehelium.co...
www.nature.com...
Images:
www.gettyimage...
commons.wikime...
www.gettyimage...
svs.gsfc.nasa....
www.gettyimage...
www.gettyimage...
commons.wikime...
www.gettyimage...
www.eurekalert...
en.wikipedia.o...
www.gettyimage...
www.gettyimage...
www.gettyimage...

[@kevinstobbs9134]

I clicked this expecting green-coloured helium and now I feel stupid.

[@elias4571]

Same, I haven't seen the video yet, I don't know what to expect lol

[@theperfectbotsteve4916]

I do to know

[@XerrolAvengerII]

me too 😂

[@katbairwell]

It seems there is a rich vein of "people feeling a bit silly", running through the strata of the SciShow audience today!

[@AuntieDawnsKitchen]

The default use of the name of one of the most common colors to mean “will destroy our civilization more slowly than the alternatives” is unfortunate, particularly given that many green dyes are kinda toxic.

[@Democlis]

Its amaizing how the two most common elements in the entire universe (H and He) managed to be such rare element on earth. At least H reacts to heavier stuff and gets stuck on earth but He is just so hard to come by.

[@NeonVisual]

You also have to consider what the star burned through prior to going nova which seeded the formation of the solar system and the sun.

[@douglaswilkinson5700]

Helium is not hard to come by. Natural gas used to heat homes, power Elon Musk's Starship, etc. has helium as a by product.

[@NeonVisual]

@@douglaswilkinson5700 No it doesn't. You can't get helium from lox and methane.

[@Maverick_Mad_Moiselle]

We can easily make the hydrogen we need though.

[@runningsandwich]

​@@douglaswilkinson5700helium is a noble gas. It is nonreactive and is not a byproduct from any chemical reaction other than nuclear fusion or fission

[@TerkanTyr]

It's so fun to think about how this gas is basically completely nonrenewable when we're done extracting it all.

[@DefnitelyNotFred]

Not until fusion power becomes a thing. Then we can produce it ourselves

[@WalterWhiteFootballSharing]

@@DefnitelyNotFred It will take a LOT of hydrogen fusion to produce enough helium for a kid's party. So not a real solution.

[@drabberfrog]

​@@DefnitelyNotFreda fusion power plant would use more helium than we could ever hope to create with nuclear fusion. Our only option to increase the amount of helium we have access to is to extract it unless you want to wait around for hundreds of millions of years for uranium to produce helium.

[@terencedodson9131]

I thought running out of helium wasn't a concern anymore. Science keeps releasing patch notes and it is hard to keep up to date ....

[@heavensophia9382]

@@terencedodson9131 Maybe you're thinking of lithium.

[@katbairwell]

Why am I deeply concerned that companies from the global north will end up doing the same horrific harms in their bid to monetise African resources as they have for centuries. One need only look to Shell's continued negligence in Nigeria to see that colonialism remains fit and well, when quick profits are to be had.

[@pauljones9150]

Gotta mistreat someone to keep those profits high We used to have slaves, we still do, just by abusing other countries. Gotta get that AI working, so we can abuse robots instead

[@user-et2dx5du7e]

wagner

[@theKaraProject]

100%. The colonial aspects of this story are troubling.

[@filonin2]

Better not mine that helium then and let everyone who needed an MRI die. Surely Africa will eventually develop itself and sell it's own resources. We can all wait a few hundred years, right?

[@Nota-Skaven]

​@@theKaraProject"companies rushing to explore Africa for new resources" hey I've seen this one what do you mean, it's brand new?

[@ParkerOsmon]

Look around the same area in the mountains where they harvest Mountain Dew. You should find Green Helium in that same area.

[@yellow4563]

Mountain Dew is also a petroleum byproduct

[@AaronLockman]

Helium Green sounds like a green brothers descendant/comic book protagonist in the far future who solves crimes in a cyberpunk city that’s always choked with toxic green mist

[@theperfectbotsteve4916]

that's what I imagined when I saw the thumbnail lol

[@katbairwell]

I now want this comic, please talent people, make it happen!!

[@petersmythe6462]

I think the thing that really shows the problem is the low production rate. You have relatively rare (parts per million of crust) radioisotopes that will produce a few alpha particles during their decay chain, and they have halflives that are completely not coincidentally on the order of the age of the Earth. 6*10^24 kg of planet might have on the order 6*10^19 kg of U and Th. And these might produce 10^11 kg of helium per year. Split 10 billion ways that's 10 kg per person per year, but most of that is stuck inside the Earth's core and mantle for a long, long time, and what does get out often just leaks into space.

[@pdxmusl1510]

I absolutely hate how we use helium for balloons. Its stupid and extremely wastful. I mean.. i know the vast majority of helium use isn't for baloons. But ugh. Still.

[@matthewpepperl]

i know lets use hydrogen for balloons and se how that goes. i think party's may get a bit more exciting. :)

[@BoxStudioExecutive]

Get over it

[@gorilladisco9108]

Man needs entertainment.😎

[@patrickmccurry1563]

It would be FAR more effective in the short and long run to just disallow it to the public. Only allowing it for legitimate medical and scientific need would vastly increase its effective supply.

[@Zertruth]

The moment I found out about the medical and scientific idea for helium I was pissed that we didn't price it so high that balloons aren't feasible. I just think of all the balloons that get loose and never even enjoyed.

[@nickim6571]

@@Zertruth Not to mention the environmental damage of all those released balloons and the mylar ones are even worse.

[@DrBunnyMedicinal]

Agreed! We SHOULD NOT allow it to be frivolously wasted on balloons, even before you factor in the awful effect the discarded balloons have on the environment!

[@toby9999]

Like wasting it in party balloons as others have said. It's so stupid.

[@CephBirk]

Balloons make up a very small proportion of our He consumption. But yes they do have their other downsides as well.

[@Deeplycloseted435]

When I was a kid, at the elementary school fun fair, I inhaled an entire balloon of helium to make my friends laugh, and instead fainted, hitting my face on a bench in the locker room, chipping my tooth. Luckily, my friends thought it was hilarious my tooth was broken. Thats my helium story. Thats all I got.

[@ccgarciab]

Scary tbh

[@makeracistsafraidagain]

I brought home a small tank of nitrous oxide and shared it with some friends. I filled balloons and passed them around… It was a mistake. I gave a safety lecture but one guy wasn’t listening. He grabbed some other friends the next night and took them to his lab to suck right off the big tanks of laughing gas. They were celebrating… One passed out and fell face first into the tank rack, splitting his face and requiring the lot of sutures. The student’s family was all visiting because they were graduating the next morning.

[@lethauntic]

That sounds pretty epic to be fair

[@AndSendMe]

Scary, because the body doesn't tell you when you're out of oxygen, it just tracks excess CO2. So these faintings may have been the brain shutting down from lack of oxygen. The only reason they'd be alive in that case is because their body kept breathing and got the oxygen it needed. In situations where an odorless heavier-than-air gas has filled a space people have died without knowing something was wrong, just...lights out.

[@foxgluv]

Thank you for sharing. Made me smile :)

[@KingCruz456]

Not me seeing the title of the video and thinking of a green colored helium gas

[@Chris_winthers]

To be fair, the thumbnail also has something that could arguably be considered to be a gas cloud and a bunch of green

[@anyascelticcreations]

You had me at "the obligatory Gandalf reference". Okay, you had me before that. But you really had me then. 😅

[@matthewcox7985]

Insert Taco Bell reference, "This gas must not pass... Not here..."

[@keithmichael112]

I love that the initial response to finding the first well was apparently to try to set it on fire? Simpler times.

[@CaTastrophy427]

back before the days of Darvaza's gate to hell...

[@jeanjaz]

It wasn't unusual to set up a methane torch because methane is so flammable. Leaving it to leak all over can cause a lot more damage if there is a spark or someone smokes a cigarette. Imagine a natural gas leak in your house.

[@ernestcline2868]

Helium Green is People!

[@beaker_guy]

That... was terrible. ... 😂

[@Chris_winthers]

Hank green helium

[@janetf23]

👍for Nitrogen, ubiquitous bringer of all the things

[@d4rk0v3]

Our quest for helium will eventually take us to the moon, at least for helium-3.

[@alanjenkins1508]

The amount of energy we would generate by fusing helium-3 from the moon would be enormously exceeded by the amount of energy we would consume extracting it. So no.

[@d4rk0v3]

@@alanjenkins1508 One, you're wrong. Solar is abundant on the moon. The energy cost to harvest, process it, tank it and transport it back to Earth will be offset by not only solar, but the much lower gravity on the moon meaning transporting it back could be done in significant volume. Two, you're wrong again for assuming fusion is the only motivation. Helium-3 is increasingly harder to find and isolate on Earth and is used in medical equipment. There is more than enough reason.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@d4rk0v3 Helium 3 as an energy source is interesting. Since Fusion Energy is not possible yet, outside of nuclear energy which is the opposite and highly dangerous. You just need a very big battery which can be built on the Moon. Space travel is interesting but war will come with that new frontier, sadly. Both between nations and corporations. I would be wise on both fronts. Governments and Corporations can end up being a pain to evolution. The humans race should be wiser than today's era.

[@spamotron1178]

This feels like half an episode. Even these proposed "green," helium deposits are completely non-renewable and IIRC drilling for anything has environmental consequences. Sci-Show is usually much better at giving the complete picture than this.

[@Broockle]

Helium waste from a fusion reactor would be pretty green... One of these days

[@nightthought2497]

Clicked expecting environmentally conscious helium, got Green (TM)(C)(R) Helium instead.

[@dannygjk]

of course helium is non-renewable, it's an element we can't make it in a lab.

[@NeonVisual]

For comic value, I read that in my mind in a high pitched voice on helium.

[@paraceratherium255]

@@Broockleyesssssss exactly what I was thinking

[@ryanblystone5153]

Thank you

[@cfltheman]

It is shame that we don't have fusion yet. Not only we will have energy but helium as a by product. All without a carbon footprint.

[@ffarkasm]

Then I think we would have a large surplus of helium. What do we do with it? And anyway how do we get so much hydrogen?

[@Chris_winthers]

​@@ffarkasm1: no, we wouldn't get that much helium from it. 2: water

[@MaxJ.ProfessionalLilGuy]

@@ffarkasm 1) Breathe it in to make our voices funny sounding 2) The Hydrogen Store

[@CMUrecyclemania2008]

The implication of this episode’s Patreon shpiel that, in the absence of either lights or cameras, the SciShow team would still continue presenting interesting science facts to a dark and otherwise empty room is, quite frankly, delightful.

[@anemoneyas]

i dont think you can really call a nonrenewable resource "green"

[@filonin2]

Helium is constantly renewed through nuclear decay in the Earth. Where do you think it comes from? It is not renewable in that it will eventually run out, but the Sun isn't renewable by that standard, and nothing is.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

It's political talk to call it "green" so it puts this ordeal into skepticism knowing the political connection. That sad... It's a non renewable Helium atom with no carbon foot print, different from the usual Helium productions. Which means, this is not "green" but a stall in planetary extinction. It doesn't even improve Earth's atmosphere for life sustaining systems. Imagine a cup of water... You're not saving the world when you run out of water and the cup is empty regardless. You've changed nothing but only to satiate your thirst... That is the truth behind politics. Gone are the days where humans fought for actual problems rather than what they desire out of selfishness. The world shouldn't be as it is now. Mankind has wasted time. Perhaps Humanity will learn a bit of humility when they lose half of their existence. Just a warning... It's been eternities for me.

[@rojopantalones9791]

Green as in more environmentally friendly because they're not cracking open a natural gas pocket to get the helium out.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@rojopantalones9791 It's non renewable, so it isn't Green when it's a FINITE resources to begin with. Your planet still dies out regardless. You've changed nothing of Fate.

[@nBasedAce]

Gandalf says "You shall not pass, gas!"

[@christoffussenegger9377]

I completely miss the more critical point: Despite being the second abundant element in the universe Helium is very rare and effectively non-renewable on Earth. As soon as it is set free into the atmosphere it escapes into space. The Helium we find underground today accumulated over many millions of years from radioactive decay. Future generations may call us foolish to waste this rare ressource for party ballons.

[@alexanderstone9463]

There are four ways to make Helium without Natural Gas or non-renewable Helium deposits: 1. Make Tritium from Lithium in a nuclear fission reactor, or from Deuterium in a Heavy Water fission reactor. Than let the Tritium decay over the next decade or so into Helium-3. 2. Use fusion to make Helium. We might not know how to make fusion produce more energy than it consumes, but irrespective of that it always produces Helium. 3. Distill Helium from the air. Helium is the sixth most common element in the air. There isn't a lot of it; only about 5.24 ppm or 0.000524%. This technique has been discussed before. 4. Get it from outer space where there's a lot more of it. As an aside, on the internet I've seen many people dismiss the idea of getting any resources from space on account of cost. But you must remember that while it costs a lot to send things to space, and maintain them in space, it costs either much less or virtually nothing to send things back to Earth. Especially since minerals and gasses are not sentient, and can therefore be brought to Earth using such techniques as "lithobreaking." But I digress, compared to the other options this probably wouldn't be profitable. I could only ever see it being done for "strategic" reasons by countries that had already established a presence in Outer Space for some other reason.

[@Kelticfury]

You need to follow the Hulk around if you want to collect green gasses.

[@matthewcox7985]

Especially if he stops by someplace that serves a lot of beans... 😁

[@BryonElliott]

Please do an episode as to why party balloons are such a reckless and irresponsible waste of helium, one of Earth's most precious and important resources. Thank you for being responsible.

[@mailasun]

In Hank’s home. Hank Green’s helium

[@dougthomson5544]

Ubiquitous? Maybe a bit of an overstatement. The stuff is becoming ever more rare.

[@bazpearce9993]

There's plenty of helium on the Moon, if we can establish an outpost. As well as many other materials we could use.

[@Merennulli]

I'm eagerly awaiting the high pitched voices of those working the first lunar helium-3 mine announcing the first shipment to Earth.

[@commmander]

I can see future generations being justifiably flabbergasted at how we utilize non renewable resources, assuming we give them a chance to exist.

[@The_Scattered_Man]

Not to make light, but I had expected more puns about green krypton(ite)... or at least mention of Tars Tarkis (yeah, NOBODY is gonna get that ... except the ghost of Carl Sagan) 😊

[@meganofsherwood3665]

Hey, I got it! Helium is a beautiful city and the crown jewel of Mars!

[@RickySTT]

And when that helium deposit is discovered in Tanzania, I hope the profits stay in Tanzania.

[@filonin2]

If only Tanzania had the ability to mine it, but they don't. They will have to hire foreign companies, which is why they do.

[@RickySTT]

@@filonin2 And this is how extractive capitalism maintains the status quo of the haves and have nots.

[@kevinlane1219]

I thought by "Green" it meant "Renewable". I mean in my opinion, airships are so graceful and quiet, as opposed to helicopters and airplanes. And if one could produce helium without having to locate natural gas deposits, then airships could become popular again. But now, I fear our best chance of producing helium would be nuclear fusion, unless someone can capture the helium from Alpha Decay, isolate it and safely store it.

[@FullMetalFeline]

I agree! I'd love to live in an airship future! If the helium issue could be solved, airships present a very environmental alternative to planes and helicopters. They're beautiful, I'd love to see them in the skies, it's my dream to ride in one one day. Likewise I wondered if a fusion powered future could be possible, helium could be made cheaper as the waste product from that.

[@MorphSenior]

So if helium is trapped under the ground, is earth a giant balloon 🤔

[@MaekarManastorm]

Nope , it's unicron

[@b1ff]

No, it’s a giant rock-covered metal ball.

[@paulfoss5385]

Yes, that's how it floats in space.

[@JacobMerrill]

chirped pulse amplification -> Hydrogen -> boron collider

[@mrcuttime22]

I know it's outside the scope of this short video... but what is the effect of all the helium that escapes into our atmosphere? Anything to worry about there, even though it's non-reactive?

[@FullMetalFeline]

I don't think it hangs around in the atmosphere, its too light, it escapes into space.

[@jonatanromanowski9519]

Go Go Sci Show!

[@jonathanedelson6733]

We won't run out of Helium. What we will run out of is cheap pre-concentrated Helium. The amount of Helium in the atmosphere is far more than humans use. But it is very diffuse and difficult to concentrate. This makes the atmosphere an expensive source of Helium. However we already have the technology to extract and concentrate Helium from the air. We use the tech to extract Neon. So don't think 'we will run out of Helium', instead think 'Helium will get much more expensive' and figure out how to conserve it from that context. Jon

[@sriracha_sauce]

Green, Helium, is my favourite hidden Green brother

[@alexisflory6496]

Since it can be a fission product we could probably gather it from uranium mines, or areas with large amounts kf similar materials.

[@TheReaverOfDarkness]

Don't you mean the world's second green helium source? The first major source was green to collect initially, but after we bottled up the entire reservoir and realized the helium was leaking out of the bottles, we stuck it in concrete so *now* it isn't green to take out of storage, not to mention storage is dwindling. I assume if we find another helium reservoir, we will not drain it all at once, but instead will tap it and only pull enough to meet demand?

[@huldu]

Just extract the helium from the Sun not sure I see a problem. Put a big straw in it and gather as much as you need. 😀

[@MurseSamson]

It's in the fusion reactors, keep working on it. 👍

[@nmgg6928]

Shout out to everyone who misunderstood the title myself and seems quite a few of us lmao

[@ashtiboy]

theres also nuclear fission byprodcuts for makeing green hiluim. its eather that or havsting it from the solar wind in outer space as well. well untill nucear fusion. nuclear fisson can help with the green helium be made far faster as part of the nulcear byprodcuts in the nuclear waste can also be repossrest in multable ways while being safly contained while also being used to power rtgs and nulcar sterling engines for extra power.

[@UncleManuel]

Green helium? Easy: just paint the helium bottle green. 😁😜🤘

[@General12th]

Hi Stefan!

[@SurmaSampo]

Helium fracking coming soon to an African basin water supply near you!

[@2l84t]

Guess when they found red oxygen , green helium was the obvious next choice. Researchers weren't Canadian by chance?

[@TheRilluma]

2:53 and we are still decades away from actually using it. fuckin humanity

[@royalnovember66]

We're gonna need a green lantern then

[@dragonshivers2836]

Green helium? Here I though it only came in clear form ;D

[@rossfriedman6570]

How do we know underground helium pockets exist?

[@AceSpadeThePikachu]

How feasible will it soon be to harvest helium from space? Like from lunar regolith or even the solar wind?

[@Rabcup]

Stefan always reminds me of Arthur idk why

[@ack7]

Simple, just go to Jool and pick up some of the helium there, that should be some nice green helium (I know green helium actually mean’s helium harvested without any harm done to the environment)

[@bohdanburban5069]

Recommended reading: "The Deep Hot Biosphere" by Thomas Gold.

[@Toastmaster_5000]

What about the helium collected from radioactive decay?

[@johncochran8497]

All of the helium available on Earth is from radioactive decay. The real issue is how slowly it's produced. For instance, let's take Uranium-238. It decays to Thorium-234 via by ejecting an alpha particle (Helium nucleus). But it's half-life is 4.47 billion years. So, it takes quite a while to produce an usable amount.

[@filonin2]

@@johncochran8497 Yeah, but there are 40 trillion tons of it in Earth's crust alone.

[@planellas6]

As an analytical chemist some more Helium would be nice... 99.999999% pure helium cylinders are like 600 a piece :(

[@p.0-npcg.248]

Now all the popular stuff is getting a "green" prefix or a "+" suffix, soon even space will be green+ or even x, I mean it will be called just a single Unicode character "X"

[@TheChrisLeone]

All these gosh darn kids huffing all the helium

[@wuhoolife]

IDK why, I thought this was the AI intro for secret invasion.

[@matthewabln6989]

If you feel strongly about fossil fuels, or in this case helium, don't use them. It really is that simple.

[@beefymcskillet5601]

My mind read the title as The Hunt for The green October

[@peterd9698]

A google suggests there is about a hundredth as much helium in the atmosphere as CO2. Assuming we master the massive job of satisfying all our carbon requirements by extracting it from the atmosphere, as agriculture already does, perhaps we could satisfy our comparatively merger helium requirements as a byproduct.

[@spiderdude2099]

Finally…green helium

[@Magmafrost13]

This is also why we're not actually in any danger of running out of helium, contrary to what years of fear-mongering would have you believe. There's loads of helium, we just dont actively extract only helium because we've always gotten more than enough as a byproduct of natural gas extraction.

[@DenkouNova]

I wonder, is S.R. Foxley still a President of Space? Been a while since I heard that name.

[@annacid7192]

Yea

[@FullMetalFeline]

Would be nice if we could invent sustained fusion already, then we'd have helium as the waste product from that

[@diekrahe.]

Grelium

[@TheQwuilleran]

"Is this?? Is this what allows pirates to flip the script and head to the netherworld?" I say to the clickbait title card and title

[@v8soarer1991]

It's in the famous "Green Lantern"

[@argoneonoble]

Biggest waste of helium : the Thanksgiving Macys Parade

[@duncanfeyd4056]

We have created self-sustaining fusion recently....that means we already have "Green helium".

[@JNCressey]

what self-sustaining fusion that we've created are you refering to? sounds interesting

[@filonin2]

No we did not, and even if all the world's power came from fusion it would still only make half the helium we need today.

[@duncanfeyd4056]

@@JNCressey it doesn't sustain for very long, but the sheer fact that we are capable of fusion at all means we can produce helium.

[@JNCressey]

@@duncanfeyd4056, but, by whom and by what process did this happen?

[@duncanfeyd4056]

@@JNCressey you're already on KZbin. Search for it. The scientists in the videos will do a better job than I will of explaining it.

[@James4Games]

Green helium created the Hulk

[@patrick247two]

Party balloons are so important.

[@elliotyong2331]

Greenium, if you will.

[@xbadjokerx]

YOU SHALL NOT GAS!!!

[@bruceliu1657]

I wonder if there is any in the nuclear decay in powerplants.

[@FNLNFNLN]

Or maybe you shouldn't fill party balloons. What with helium being a limited and critically important resource and all that.

[@nitricoxidegod]

🎈

[@capt.bart.roberts4975]

Bugger, I've been sat here nearly to the end, and the penny dropped. Green, not the colour!

[@capt.bart.roberts4975]

😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹

[@Ldysith84]

Lol I clicked thinking this was going to be something astronomical detecting helium as green light from a new telescope 😅 I’m dumb

[@JAGFG42]

Fusion right?

[@paulfoss5385]

Fusion reactors work with the densest energy source we have any chance of using, so they don't work with very much gas and their helium output is very low.

[@blue5659]

Is it not possible to send a satellite to a lagrange point in earth's umbra and run a compressor perpetually to compress the solar wind, and extract helium from it? Maybe even tritium and he3

[@jonathanseibert8832]

If this information is true, saying that helium has a "large carbon footprint" is very misleading at best. And arguably just untrue

[@Morberis]

So, today's nuclear waste storage is tomorrows bonanza helium mine

[@YraExalgaSkgs]

Sounds like we just need to dig deeper. Or just mine a rock floating around in space, like... maybe an asteroid?

[@orientalshorthaircats]

lifehack: it would be greener to say no to the baloons

[@dominikdobrotic8298]

Byproduct of a fusion generator?

[@artor9175]

Once we figure out stable fusion power generation, we can make our own helium from scratch!

[@filonin2]

Fusion would make very little helium by mass. A 1000 MW plant would only make about 250 kg per year of helium. Humanity uses 15000 times as much power per year so if all of our energy was created through fusion we would still only make 3750 metric tons of helium when the world uses 7675 tons per year. So we could only potentially make half our current usage, and we'll be using more.

[@drg9812]

I can't do helium, but if you give me some beans I can make a bit of methane for you

[@RD9_Designs]

Ok, so green helium is a pocket of helium without accompanying greenhouse gases.

[@jeanjaz]

And without using carbon based energy to extract.

[@jaguarguitar]

Are there practically alternative gases for balloons that float in air, other that helium? Hydrogen is flammable and thus, a bit of a safety hazard.

[@user-et2dx5du7e]

well, nitrogen is a bit lighter than air? then you have chlorine...

[@jaguarguitar]

@@user-et2dx5du7e Chlorine is not a safety hazard?

[@Xadov]

If you mean for indoor use, no. However, outdoor balloons filled with hydrogen are really not that dangerous

[@douglaswilkinson5700]

​@@XadovAsk all the people who died in the Hindenburg in 1937 -- a hydrogen filled blimp -- about safety.

[@user-et2dx5du7e]

@@jaguarguitar i meant it as a joke

[@zach11241]

You’ve seen The Hunt for Red October Now see.... The Hunt for Green Helium

[@TheWolfHowling]

Could we not continue to harvest from natural gas fields as well? Process the gas, extract the Helium, return the Hydrocarbons back underground.

[@MisterTengu]

YOU SHALL NOT PASS GAS!!!

[@coreymerrill3257]

Unlike green helium , brown methane is easy to find . ( 😂how many of you thought they were talking about color and not environmentally sound sourcing?)

[@meganofsherwood3665]

Me!

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Color... Yes. Environment wise... No. But honestly... Green Helium is non renewable. You're just using a finite matter that will run out inevitably. And it doesn't improve the environment.

[@coreymerrill3257]

@@meganofsherwood3665 in this day and age ,I'm just super proud of all who can admit it!

[@coreymerrill3257]

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 proud of you who can admit it!

[@coreymerrill3257]

@@meganofsherwood3665 kzbin.info/aero/PL7A1F4CF36C085DE1 Your reward !