this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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Can I remind everyone that it is impossible to produce helium in a practical way?
It is literally only produced through a fusion reaction, and that happens in stars and in incredibly tiny quantities in fusion reactors.
Whenever it's released, it basically just floats away into space and is lost forever.
It’s also produced (slowly) through radioactive decay underground where it becomes trapped with other gasses. That’s the reserve we’ve been working with.
The one we can mine is drawn off together with natural gas, and was produced over geological timescales as product of alpha decay of uranium
Sun has been doing it for millions of years and it's a big dumb ball of energy.
Incidentally...
Is it practical? No. Is it producing any Helium right now? No. Is it probably just a big investor scam? Sure. But still more practical than trying to conquer Iran.
That doesn't actually sound like they intend on producing usable helium though. That sounds like they intend on doing a really difficult and expensive fusion reaction to produce helium 3, which they will then use in a cheaper and easier to do fusion reaction, and the end result of all of that should be electricity and no net new helium since it's expensive and rare AF and they need it all to make the whole process remotely plausibly profitable.
Jupiter contains lots and lots of Helium that just needs to scooped up from the atmosphere.
So we just need to get rid of all helium and all billionaires will be gone?
If you get rid of all the helium you don't have computers or medical imaging anymore.
But I could become a billionaire when my old computers become worth a fortune since there are no new computers!