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I really wonder what power plants will do with the helium once they get fusion working. Maybe a balloon business on the side isn't such a bad idea.
I mean too much Helium isn’t a problem. It’s one of the few (only?) elements that will just disappear if you don’t do anything with it.
It’s light enough that it rises to the very tip top of the earth’s atmosphere and is then stripped away by solar radiation. That’s why is a depleting natural resource, not because it’s burned or used or anything, but because it just escapes.
It’s one of the few (only?) elements that will just disappear if you don’t do anything with it.
** Lavoisier crying noises **
At the height of the French Revolution, he was charged with tax fraud and selling adulterated tobacco, and was guillotined despite appeals to spare his life in recognition of his contributions to science. A year and a half later, he was exonerated by the French government.
Edit: seems I was wrong about the escape mechanism for helium, it seems the primary mechanism is polar wind escape.
Also, hydrogen can also apparently escape from the Earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape
http://faculty.washington.edu/dcatling/Catling2009_SciAm.pdf
In a perfect world stick it in a secondary reactor and make lithium. But that's obviously even further off than hydrogen fusion.
An MRI scanner in every home!
It takes a lot to get those working and stay running. I am one of the guys that supplies it. Well over 100 liters to even start it.
Dayum. How often do they need refilling? With rebco magnets out there, surprised we're not using more ln2 instead.
Maybe just older machines?
I supply a university with many labs. I route 30 trucks a day. Trends are there. But I'm guessing about once a month? Per lab?
The amount of helium produced is truly miniscule, in the order of a few cubic centimeters. They'll just pump it into the ground somewhere, assuming we ever get fusion working
You don't have to pump it anywhere. Capturing helium is actually the hard part. It's very adept at sneaking through small cracks and flying off into space. Earth's gravity cannot contain it(if it could it would be a gas giant) and pretty much all of it comes from primordial uranium decaying and getting caught in geological features by chance.
Yep that's all true, but they'll pump it into the ground anyways because "venting nuclear fusion byproducts into the atmosphere" is going to go down really poorly with the
"I hate and fear the things I don't understand""anti-nuclear" crowd.