Fuggin Bizzy: As a last resort, could He be manufactured by fusing H?

Technically, it's theoretically possible. But with current fusion technology this would be like buying new PCs to extract the gold and sell it.

We do have helium deposits, but my concern is that we have a growing energy crisis yet the rate of growth for helium demand (combined with dwindling supply) means it might become more profitable to pay people to destroy the methane (by basically flaring it off) just to get to the helium. Most of our power plants run on methane. Free market resource management is all about selling off your seed corn with winter coming. Absolutely no foresight whatsoever.

It baffles me how economists think scarcity is a GOOD thing. It angers me how they paint the GI Generation's foresight as a government failure. If we get to the point where He reserves are so precious we need to start making it again, we've already lost -- especially considering we had to waste the stuff to get there. Like just about every other damn thing they touched, the GI Generation gave their progeny a hugely valuable gift and Baby Boomers pissed it away. Honestly life will go on -- helium isn't as crucial to our infrastructure as, say, fresh water -- but the folly and derp are just depressingly illustrative of our society. It just goes to show nothing is so sacred that we won't piss it away in the most shamefully wasteful ways imaginable. I mean, yeesh, we took care of buck-a-gallon gasoline like it was a problem!

Lost Thought 00: There is nothing Helium can do that Hydrogen can't.

Except be inert.

Felgraf: namatad: PANIC!
helium balloons whargl

Um, the lack of helium is more concerning than "ZOMG NO MORE BALOONS".

Helium is kiiindaaa critical to a lot of research and medical equipment, some of my own research included, because it's the easiest, safest way to get things down to cryogenic temperatures. Liquid Nitrogen only goes down to 70K. Liquid Hydrogen... is asking for trouble. Liquid Helium gets down to 4K.

Helium is really, really important.

Lost Thought 00: There is nothing Helium can do that Hydrogen can't.

NERD FIGHT!

namatad: At what point does the massive increase in natural gas production produce a massive increase in He production?

When we collect the gas just to extract the precious helium, and burn the rest off because money can't be made off it.

You generally don't want private interests controlling long-term resources. Yes, when government rations resources it forces a lower standard of living. THAT'S THE POINT. A lot of our habits are unsustainable, consuming generations' worth of resources in a very short time. This is because businesses insist on making their buck in years if not months. The helium we pissed away is gone forever.