MRI machines need thousands of liters of liquid helium to function. Health care workers say they can’t afford any disruptions to the helium supply chain.
  • Gurfaild
    100·
    9 months ago

    It does somewhat renew itself due to alpha decay, but that probably isn’t fast enough to matter.

    • user134450English
      70·
      9 months ago9 months ago

      from the wiki article on Helium:

      an estimated 3000 metric tons of helium are generated per year throughout the lithosphere.

      I think the main issue here is not that we are loosing helium on a planetary scale but that the easy to reach helium from gas wells is wasted. We will never run out of helium at our current rate of consumption before the sun goes nova, if we consider all sources on earth, but it will get a lot more expensive and the supply will get less steady.

        • user134450English
          60·
          9 months ago9 months ago

          oh i must have missed a few orders of magnitude there. 6Mt of helium is a ridiculous amount though … what is all that used for? according to WA that is about the water volume of the three gorges dam at STP

          Edit: just read the report, wow, more than a quarter of all the helium is used just for “breathing mixes” which i assume means its for scuba diving.

          • Square Singer
            40·
            9 months ago

            There’s quite a large amount of the usage which could be labelled “for fun”.