Will someone explain to me how this works?
Do the minors explore their tunnels, talking and gossiping until their voice gets squeaky, and then they know they’ve hit the motherlode?
How do they get the helium out of there?
As I understand it, helium is often found in places where fossil fuels are found. The helium can be easily collected, or drawn off, once equipment is in place and a well is tapped. (No, helium is not really mined.)
“They’re coming to take me away ha-ha, ho-ho, hee-hee, to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time… :)” - Napoleon IV
Yes, it’s found in natural gas deposits. Helium on the Earth comes from the decay of Uranium and Thorium in the Earth’s core (the decay which is also responsible for the interior heat of the planet, and therefore volcanoes and hot springs). I think it’s found with natural gas because the same geologic formations that catch natural gas also catch the helium.
I’m from West Texas, and outside Amarillo is the “National Helium Reserve”. Sounds silly, but He is an important element, and when we lose it there’s no way to get it back. Being an inert gas, you can’t just make some more (until we get fusion figured out). Or we could “mine” in from the sun, which is 25% He.
Well, the sun is a trifle warm.
If we were to harvest helium from, Saturn would probably be the best bet.
“I don’t just want you to feel envy. I want you to suffer, I want you to bleed, I want you to die a little bit each day. And I want you to thank me for it.” – What “Let’s just be friends” really means
“Luckily large volumes of helium are found in natural gases in the United States (especially Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arizona and Utah). Smaller supplies have been discovered in Canada, South Africa and in the Sahara Desert. Helium gas is isolated from natural gas by liquefying the other components at low temperatures and under high pressures. This leaves a mixture of gases that’s 98.2% helium. By passing the gas over cooled, activated charcoal, the other gases in the mixture are adsorbed leaving 99.995% pure helium.”
From Helium
Hey, CurtC, according to one of those “Look at how the gov’t is wasting your money”-type news reports, The National Helium Reserve was established circa World War 1, to make sure that the U.S. would have a supply of helium to use in blimps for warfare. Is this true? Sounds kinda silly to keep it going these days, although I suppose the party stores have to go somewhere for the stuff to put in those metal-foil Pikachu balloons.
–It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
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Isn’t helium the (or one of the) rarest element on earth? If so, why don’t helium balloons cost a fortune?
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I read that the germans knew of the dangers of hydrogen in derrigibles (sp?), but hydrogen was more economical than helium.
“They’re coming to take me away ha-ha, ho-ho, hee-hee, to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time… :)” - Napoleon IV
No, it isn’t. See the above explanation of why there is lots of helium in natural gas deposits.
Helium was plenty cheap for the US, but we didn’t give any to Germany for historical reasons that escape me, so they had to use flammable gas instead. Oops.
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According to Helium,
“The U.S. Bureau of Mines has set the price of Grade A helium at $37.50/1000 ft^3 in 1986.” That’s 3 cents per cubic foot, so not all that expensive. Also party balloons are not pure helium, they contain air-helium mixtures.
The 7 million ft^3 of Helium needed to fill up the Hindenburg would cost over $250,000. Maybe that’s expensive, but it’s certainly not the most expensive part of the vessel. However, on a high-altitude research balloon, it can be the most expensive component.
The U.S. was the only producer of Helium at that time. Since dirigibles had military potential, and with the Nazis on the rise, the U.S. refused to sell Helium to Germany. After the accident they were quick to blame the U.S. for this. Though there is some evidence that the most important factor in the accident was the gasbag material, which was cloth coated with a mild oxidizer.
You’re right, except for one minor nit-pick that I really, really, really tried to stop myself from making:
the decay of U and Th is in the crust, not core.
I’ve also wondered–in a Thomas Gold kinda way–if some of that helium might not be “primordial” He trapped during condensation of the solar system.
The cost of helium fell from $2500/ft3 in 1915 to 1.5 cents /ft3 in 1940. The U.S. Bureau of Mines has set the price of Grade A helium at $37.50/1000 ft3 in 1986.
The U.S. didn’t wan’t to sell the safer Helium to Germany, so Germany used the easy to extract but dangerous hydrogen.
Wrong thinking is punished, right thinking is just as swiftly rewarded. You’ll find it an effective combination.
No problem, folks. We’ll just go there at night. 
Live a Lush Life
Da Chef
Rarest element? Hardly, though it’s not what you would call common. Limiting ourselves to ones that actual do occur naturally, try astatine or francium. I read somewhere that there is about 2 Kg of astatine on the planet at any given instant (the most stable isotope has a half-life of about 8 hours, IIRC). There are several stable elements less abundant than helium, also.
BTW, there is a terrific site for everything you wanted to know, and a lot you didn’t, about the periodic table and the elements:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/chemistry/web-elements/index-fr.html
This site has a LOT of data on the individual elements, including distributions.
On an almost-but-not-entirely related topic, why does breathing helium make voices rise in pitch?
“A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.” – George Bernard Shaw