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Comment by NickM | Hacker News Reader

> helium can easily be produced by nuclear reaction

I think you may need to rethink your use of the word "easily" there.

There are some good comments here, which explain why satisfying current demand for helium via fusion is nowhere near practical: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/12r2s7/helium_i...

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Helium is also a product of nuclear decay/fission.

That's how we got the big stockpiles in the first place.

Helium is produced naturally in any radio isotope that undergoes alpha decay.

No the big stockpile was paid for by cold war stockpiling, and it's cheap now because congress has mandated a sale of a huge quantity with no floor price consideration for that cost.

Yes that stockpile we got was mainly from US and later Russian cold era nuclear weapon production and research.

What's your point exactly?

The Strategic Helium Reserve is a consequence of WWI and the desire to not be subject to shortages of Helium for lighter-than-air craft during wartime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve

The strategic reserve is for Helium 4 primarily, were talking about Helium 3 which is a rare isotope of Helium.

That's untrue. The stockpile comes from gas fields -- helium is mixed in with some natural gas deposits, and can be extracted from it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_production_in_the_Unite...

That's incorrect, you are confusing between Helium-4 and Helium-3.

The main source for Helium-3 which is the one we are in shortage of was and is the US nuclear weapons program primarily through the decay of tritium.

https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41419.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium#Helium-3_and_tritium

As near as I can tell, you are the only one discussing helium-3 and its shortage. Maybe everyone should be talking about helium-3, but unfortunately they are not. Suggestions?

No, there is actually a global shortage of Helium-4 as well.

What is this congress that imposes Helium prices worldwide?

Grandparent comment means the US Congress, which does legislation.

US Congress decided to sell off the US stockpile. Since they're selling lower than anyone else can produce, they're basically the only source. Therefore, they are the global supply and they are setting worldwide prices.

Without knowing how the rate of production compares to the rate of depletion, this is meaningless. Oil is continuously produced by decaying life interacting with geological processes, but that doesn't matter when it's being used many orders of magnitude faster than that happens.

The main source for Helium 3 was an is the US nuclear weapons program, primarily the stockpiles of Tritium which produces 8000-10000 liters of Helium 3 each year.

The increased demand post 9/11 primarily by the federal government (He3 is used in neutron detectors) combined the reduction of the US weapons program caused a shortage.

Here is the FAS report from 2010, it's not the only report on the matter but it is very detailed. https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41419.pdf

Yeah, but Helium 3 is a totally different beast with different uses. Helium 4 is far more abundant and that's the one people are using to fill balloons and cool MRIs and purge lines and all the rest.

>> Helium is produced naturally in any radio isotope that undergoes alpha decay.

Why not call it helium decay, since alpha particles are just helium nuclei? Or is this a case of "alpha particles" being named that before we knew what they are?

Yes.

Beta decay is positrons, and gamma radiation is just light. Hence why we call the energetic end of the spectrum "gamma rays".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_decay

Beta decay is electrons.

Yes.

Alpha Decay is just a low mass form of cluster decay.

Because He nuclei are not the same as He atoms since they are not electrically neutral. Also, they generally have higher energy after being released from the larger Uranium or other atomic nucleus which causes them to behave differently from an He nucleus that wasn't released as an alpha particle. This all is important in terms of tracking what happens to subsequent decay reactions.

I think we're talking about alpha decay gaining a few electrons here, not fusion.

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