I mean too much Helium isn’t a problem. It’s one of the few (only?) elements that will just disappear if you don’t do anything with it.
It’s light enough that it rises to the very tip top of the earth’s atmosphere and is then stripped away by solar radiation. That’s why is a depleting natural resource, not because it’s burned or used or anything, but because it just escapes.
I really wonder what power plants will do with the helium once they get fusion working. Maybe a balloon business on the side isn’t such a bad idea.
I mean too much Helium isn’t a problem. It’s one of the few (only?) elements that will just disappear if you don’t do anything with it.
It’s light enough that it rises to the very tip top of the earth’s atmosphere and is then stripped away by solar radiation. That’s why is a depleting natural resource, not because it’s burned or used or anything, but because it just escapes.
Edit: seems I was wrong about the escape mechanism for helium, it seems the primary mechanism is polar wind escape.
Also, hydrogen can also apparently escape from the Earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape
http://faculty.washington.edu/dcatling/Catling2009_SciAm.pdf
In a perfect world stick it in a secondary reactor and make lithium. But that’s obviously even further off than hydrogen fusion.