Global helium shortage in prospect as US reservoir in line to close next month

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/19/helium-shortage-us-reservoir-texas

by ljf • 13 years ago

30 49 13 years ago

rocky1138• 13 years ago

I wonder if they can harvest Helium from spent nuclear fuel in any great quantity to combat this.

BWStearns2• 13 years ago

The article says it results also in the production of natural gas. A more efficient (due to ubiquity) solution seems to be ensuring its capture at gas production sites.

fluidcruft4• 13 years ago

MR folklore that I've never bothered to corroborate says:

We like helium because it doesn't react with anything. That also means we can't easily extract it from anything--you have to extract everything else until only helium remains. This is a ridiculously expensive process.

The large underground domes that trapped natural gas in Texas also trapped the helium that resulted from millennia of radioactive decay within the Earth. Getting helium from that sort of a deposit is comparatively inexpensive.

In the early 20st century, we believed helium airships were going to become important military weapons, and we started to stock pile helium as a strategic reserve--Texas natural gas producers were mandated to extract the helium and give it to the government for storage and eventual military use rather than vent it into the atmosphere.

Later we got airplanes, and airships became a thing of the past like dodos. And since we had a large store of helium, it was available for research and science and balloons. Cool things developed. For MR this meant high-fields generated by superconducting magnets.

But of course maintaining a large stockpile of helium is also expensive. And what does the public know about helium? Why are we wasting our money on balloons and funny voices and besides if scientists say it's important, then it must be the devil's plaything.

So along came the Gingrich-era House and the Contract with America. Congress stopped the economically-crushing over-bearing regulatory burden of helium trapping that was crushing Texas's natural gas competitiveness.

Congress also decided to simultaneously make a few bucks by selling of the helium reserve at cut rate prices, killing any chance of economic incentives developing a secondary market for helium. You can't simultaneously cut funding for science and jack up the prices of helium, that would be one straw too far! Thus the large US reserve was to be sold off at very low prices.

Texas natural gas producers thereby had little incentive to catch the helium themselves as they plowed through the easy natural gas supply, so it was vented. And the Texas dome natural gas was extremely easy to mine, so production skyrocketed after being freed from the shackles of government regulations.

Now that we've moved through the domed natural gas, we're going after the harder to reach natural gas via fracking.

lostlogin• 13 years ago

It would be cheaper and easier I suspect to put a big funnel over MR quench pipes every time big maintenance or ramping job is being done. I've seen 4 quenches on 2 magnets in the last 4 years. This was a rough patch though as I haven't seen any others. Other local scanners have had a few too. I'm not sure what re-purifying costs, lots I suspect. Recycling may become more common as prices rise. It does seem that super conduction at somewhat higher temperatures isn't too far away and helium prices will surely drive this.

beedogs• 13 years ago

I still can't figure out why it was all sold off in the first place. It seems like an incredibly shortsighted decision.

sliverstorm4• 13 years ago

The reserve was running a big cash deficit.

Of course, it seems to me like the right action would be to try to increase the market price. It is clearly more valuable than its current price, and the US reserve was providing more than half the world's helium for a while.

xradionut• 13 years ago

Considering the state of the US government, it's either incompetence or fraud. I wouldn't be surprised if Goldman Sachs had warehouses full of dewars of helium...

jimmcslim• 13 years ago

If this is true, why we continue to allow helium to be used for something as frivolous as party balloons baffles me. Clearly the true market price of helium is not being charged? Or is the reality of 'peak helium', and the availability of new sources, harder to understand? (e.g. here in Australia we have significant natural/coal seam gas resources, presumably an 'abundant' source of helium?)

Also, if helium is the most abundant element in the universe, is there a practical, economical way to harvest this from space; I'm envisioning some sort of solar-sail powered scoop sucking up helium for return to earth in a heat-shielded flask parachuted into the oceans.

freyrs3• 13 years ago

It's rather alarming that the only reason helium balloons are so common is that it is being sold at prices that don't reflect it’s scarcity due to government subsidies.

MAGZine• 13 years ago

Hydrogen is the Universe's most abundant element.

Helium is a product of Hydrogen that has undergone fusion. We'll be able to manufacture Helium when Nuclear Fusion becomes a reality on Earth.

jerf2• 13 years ago

I've pondered that before and realized it could be problematic, so hurray, you've finally prompted me to run the numbers.

A fusion reaction that starts from 4 hydrogen atoms (with no neutrons) produces one atom of helium. Let's just ignore the fact that this is a very hard reaction to do, even by fusion standards, and let's just ignore how the energy comes out and deal with raw amounts. Let's produce 1 mole of helium, which according to Wolfram Alpha, is .025 cubic meters of helium at standard temperature and pressure [1].

To produce that mole of helium, we need 4 moles of hydrogen. According to Wikipedia [2], 4 atoms of hydrogen combine to produce 26.7 MeV of energy. So the production of that 0.025 cubic meters of helium produces 26.7 MeV times Avogadro's Number of energy, which Google [3] conveniently converts to Joules for us without asking: 2.6 × 10e12 joules.

Wikipedia [4] says annual hydrogen consumption was 15 million kilograms per year in 2000. Let's roll with that, because whynot. Helium's atomic mass is 4.003, let's just call it 4, so the number we just ran in Joules was for 4 grams. So we have to multiple that Joule count by 3,750,000,000, yielding 9.75 × 10e22Joules of excess energy to produce the world's helium use for 2000. Human energy consumption in 2000 (because why not stay consistent) was 117.687 petawatthours, which is 4.23 × 10e20 joules.

So, to produce the amount of helium we used in 2000, if I've got all my numbers correct (and it's been a while, but the tools I'm using here handle units automatically so that's a plus for my chances of being right), would produce as a byproduct approximately ~230 times the amount of energy humans consumed in that year.

That's actually enough energy to be a serious problem, even before we discuss the fact that it comes out as positrons and gamma rays. (And neutrinos, but that's not a problem.)

In conclusion, we are not about to start producing helium from fusion, even if we could.

[1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=volume+of+1+mole+of+hel...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star#Nuclear_fusion_reaction_pa...

[3] https://www.google.com/search?q=26.7+MeV+times+Avogadro's+nu...

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium

fixxer5• 13 years ago

Till then, we can just skim it off nat gas. Thank you shale!

Problem SOLVED!

mrb• 13 years ago

Obviously party balloons only represent a tiny fraction of worldwide helium use. And helium prices tripling do not have much influence because there is so little helium in a balloon. Nobody cares if the cost to fill up a balloon raises from $0.01 to $0.03 at wholesale prices.

sudomal• 13 years ago

It's one of those situations where people will look back and wonder why this resource was wasted, when we knew it was finite. They won't have a concept of commercial value and will find it difficult to understand that justification.

jcampbell12• 13 years ago

Yeah, one deep water diving session uses several hundred party balloons worth of helium per breath.

Also, i can't imagine not letting kids play with something lighter than air. Helium balloons should be considered mandatory educational supplies for small children.

fluidcruft4• 13 years ago

From what I've heard, party balloons often use nitrogen nowadays. Helium has become too expensive and the consumer won't notice the difference until a few days after the sale (if at all).

ginko• 13 years ago

Pure nitrogen basically has the same density as air (Composing 80% of it). So a party balloon filled with nitrogen wouldn't float.

meepmorp• 13 years ago

I've got a 2 year old, and just judging by parties I go to, nitrogen isn't being used in party balloons very much (at all?).

And, hey, why not just use air?

zik• 13 years ago

"Party gas" is partly nitrogen and partly helium. Nitrogen by itself doesn't have lift.

fixxer5• 13 years ago

Helium can be harvested from natural gas, so there isn't a shortage in absolute terms. This is a technicality of the reserve's debt structure and a shitty path towards privatization that never developed.

rch• 13 years ago

I don't think the reporting on this is properly emphasizing the fact that there is actually an impending helium shortage. What I've read so far makes it seem like a bureaucratic error of some kind.

aaron6952• 13 years ago

To be honest a secret part of me hopes it'll happen so airship technologies will be forced to use hydrogen rather than helium.

I've always considered the false safety issues with hydrogen and the fact you can instead use, safer but expensive helium have held it back.

No facts of figures to support my reasoning though.

bartonfink2• 13 years ago

False safety issues with hydrogen? That's a pretty extraordinary claim in the light of ample chemical and historical evidence of the dangers of hydrogen gas.

aaron6952• 13 years ago

As compared to petrol dangers?

Something lay people (And children in many states) handle all the time and sit on top a huge tank of every time they go driving.

Just saying hydrogen dangers are way over rated and it's hurt progress, and part of that is because there is a safer replacement, even though it's very expensive.

jevinskie• 13 years ago

A $1.4bn (£900m) debt is due to finish being repaid to the US treasury by the end of this month and under current law, federal funding will then stop, terminating operations.

It sounds like the facility in Texas would shut down due to lack of funding, not a lack of material? If that is the case, the helium at the facility doesn't magically disappear overnight. Though it may slowly leak...

georgemcbay• 13 years ago

FTA: "the spot price of liquid helium had jumped to $25-30 a litre from $8 last year."

Still way cheaper than printer ink, at over $5,000 per litre!

marco_salvatori• 13 years ago

So What? The US is a supplier of helium. The US may get out of the market. Prices will rise until other suppliers expand output. Overall, in the long term, the helium market will work fine just like the other markets we dont need the US government to supply.

ethanazir• 13 years ago

Are we actually scuttling a productive resource so that other interests can improve their profit margin?

sliverstorm4• 13 years ago

Firstly, helium don't grow on trees. There's a limited supply on Earth.

Secondly, allowing the market price of helium to shoot up for foolish bureaucratic reasons is short-sighted, selfish, and doesn't really do anyone any good.

Lagged2Death• 13 years ago

Been a looming problem for years:

http://www.metafilter.com/94959/We-Are-Running-Out-Of-Helium...

The Helium Privatisation Act required the reserve to sell enough helium to pay off its debts by a given deadline, then close. The resulting glut has kept the price low.

http://phys.org/news201853523.html

I don't know why they didn't instead just sell the reserve in its entirety for the amount of the debt, or for more. If the goal was to get the government out of the helium business (a dubious aim, if it's really as strategic an asset as all that) that would have done the job immediately and eliminated years of market distortion. But I guess any upheaval that resulted would be easily tied to the government officials who were around at the time.

Helium is a byproduct of natural gas production ... Demand for helium has risen, driven particularly by Asia's booming manufacturing industry.

A cynic might wonder if a closing date known 19 years in advance was designed partly to ensure that American petrochemical industry had time to develop the infrastructure required to take maximum advantage of any price shock.

namlem2• 13 years ago

While there may be corruption afoot, part of the reason they couldn't move the entire supply at once is because it's so hard to store. Helium can seep through a steel tank without difficulty. The US government keeps its helium in an old mine dug out of very dense rock. Apparently it is one of few facilities capable of long term helium storage.

eru2• 13 years ago

Why not sell the whole hole?

hawkharris• 13 years ago

It's a shame that Americans of the future will miss out on the childhood pastime of making your voice sound really, really funny.

westicle• 13 years ago

Maybe they'll just have to switch to Sulfur Hexafluoride.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-XbjFn3aqE

fixxer5• 13 years ago

Energy dependent. Helium dependent. We might have to export more democracy to make up this deficit.

eru2• 13 years ago

Thanks to shale oil and shale gas, there's not much left of US outside energy dependency.

fixxer5• 13 years ago

We still import 36%. Not saying that isn't impressive...

http://science.time.com/2013/09/05/americas-oil-boom-wont-ma...

Global helium shortage in prospect as US reservoir in line to close next month

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