Iran’s attack this week on Qatar’s natural gas export facility threatens to disrupt not just world energy markets but also global technology supply chains because the helium it produces is crucial for a range of advanced industries.
Best known as the gas that makes party balloons float, helium is also a key input in chipmaking, space rockets and medical imaging.
Qatar supplies a third of the world’s helium, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, but the nation had to halt production shortly after the war erupted three weeks ago. The latest Iranian strikes against the region’s energy producing infrastructure have added to supply worries, with Qatar’s state-owned gas company saying it would crimp helium exports by 14%.
I didn’t realize the world’s supply of helium was almost totally a byproduct of LNG extraction. If we manage to completely abandon fossil fuels are there other sources that we don’t exploit now because it’s not economical? Would we still need to extract LNG to get helium? What would we do with the useless LNG?
You’re pretty much always going to need LNG or Oil for something or other, it’s never going to go away 100%. There are applications/processes/technologies that can’t be electrified.
Yeah, we’re always going to need plastics, metallurgical coal, and some LNG but if we’re not extracting it anywhere near the current volume to meet energy needs would we meet the world’s helium needs, and if not I wonder what we would do with all the LNG as a byproduct of helium extraction?
They’ll extract the helium then pump the hydrocarbons back down. Extracting helium from the moon is going to be big business some day. Its loaded with helium 3 which is the best helium. Would be a waste to be used in anything but fusion reactors but that might be the only helium available. Then there’s also the possibility of companies running fusion reactors not as a power source but as a means of element production.
We’ll have mostly transitioned to renewables long before we can haul helium back from the moon.
China will likely start lunar He3 extraction within 10 years. I’ll still be driving the same car unless the US government gives me a EV for my shitbox. There’s still a minimum of 3 more years of trump.