“A dream. It’s perfect”: Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America::For a century, the U.S. Government-owned the largest helium reserve in the country, but the biggest exporters now are in Russia, Qatar and Tanzania. With this new discovery, Minnesota could be joining that list.
yeah it’s distilled off from nitrogen-heavy natural gas, like you could do with nitrogen-heavy gas without helium, or even air. all three processes are done commercially. the issue is that helium bearing natural gas is limited in supply and getting low enough temperature at latter stages of helium refining and liquefying requires bespoke facility. this part is hard