March 30, 2012
A World Without Helium?
Somebody better warn Goodyear, and, for that matter, all the blimp operators and welders and hospitals and scientists who use helium. We’re rapidly running out of the stuff, and they’re not making any more of it. The simple fact is that you can’t make helium. We get it from natural gas fields in Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma, where it makes up less than 10 percent of the total volume of gas. The natural gas mixture is super-cooled to separate out the helium, methane and other gases in a process called fractional distillation. It’s present in the atmosphere, but very diffuse.
Photo: Goodyear
Helium was created underground eons ago as radioactive rock underwent natural decay, spitting out alpha particles, which, being made up of two protons and two neutrons, are identical to the helium nucleus. It just so happened that there was a lot of radioactive rock in the gas fields of the Midwest – lucky for us. Anyway, add a couple electrons, which are all over the place, and you can float your blimp.
Oddly, despite its rarity here on earth, where the United States produces 90 percent of the world’s supply, helium as an element makes up nearly a quarter of the mass of the universe, being a major component of stars like our own sun, where it’s created by fusion of two hydrogen atoms – your basic H bomb principle. And there are tons of it in the lunar soil in the form of helium-3, an isotope that’s one key to artificial fusion power.
The Hindenburg had to use flammable hydrogen because the U.S. government considered inert helium to be a strategic material. No helium for Germany. So the Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed. At first, the safety of helium was most valued for airships, but today it’s far more valuable in science, medicine and industry. Liquid helium cools medical scanners, space telescopes, radiation detectors and other instruments that require a cryogenic cooler. An electric arc welding technique that displaces air as the weld is formed uses a stream of helium as the means of shielding the weld. It’s the “IG” in TIG welding, which stands for Tungsten Inert Gas.
So what to do? Higher prices will persuade users not to waste helium on party balloons, and Goodyear already recycles and purifies it whenever it deflates an old blimp. Right now, the U.S. reserves are being sold off at a low price. For flotation of airships, one possibility might be to add some hydrogen to a blend of the buoyant gas the way they blend biofuel into Jet A, but that will take some experimentation to determine its safety. We can only hope they get busy, because some forecasts say we’ll be out of helium in 10 years or so.
There have been additional reserves found in Africa and Asia, so I don’t expect the supply to completely dry up. In fact, anybody with the vision and resources to exploit the new finds quickly will probably make loads of money.
Comment by Stephen Bierce — April 2, 2012 @ 6:30 pm
Great blog post. I have one question: If we’ll be out of helium in approximately 10 years, why are the U.S. reserves being sold off?
Thanks
Comment by Rebecca — April 3, 2012 @ 12:58 pm
I had a flight on a zeppelin last summer, it would be a shame to see these disappear in 10 years….
Comment by Michael Goetzman — April 4, 2012 @ 1:30 pm
I agree totally! Argon should be used instead of He for TIG and MIG welding as much as possible. Party balloons? I for one, can live without those. Blimps? Operators of lighter than air aircraft should do everything possible to reduce annual helium consumption. For cryogenic applications: Use liquid nitrogen, even liquid hydrogen, whenever one possibly can.
Let’s save He for uses where it is indispensible. We should try to avoid using natural gas from fields where it is mixed with helium, or else the government should subsidize separation of He from said gas and store it.
This issue is of sufficient importance for we in the technology and engineering community to lobby congress regarding wise use and conservation of helium.
Comment by Alex Kovnat — April 4, 2012 @ 4:08 pm
“The Hindenburg had to use flammable hydrogen because the” original He-wrapping-H2 cell design was impractical and unprofitable.
“So the Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed.” Five experiments in four labs in two countries have verified the research of Dr. Addison Bain, who showed static discharge passing through the nitrate-doped aluminized fabric ignited it. Last year a helium-inflated Goodyear-leased blimp envelope “caught fire and was destroyed,” as would any air vehicle whose gasoline escapes containment.
The best lift is provided by the safest hydrogen – and using the H2 as fuel draws off impurities, especially O2, which makes combustion possible.
Repeating myths slows solutions.
Comment by Richard Van Treuren — April 5, 2012 @ 11:45 am
Hydrogen may not be as bad as it’s made out to be but helium is safer lifitng gas, with myriad other uses. Helium shortage – and federal stockpile selloff – are typical short term thinking.
For a few years my shortcut between classes and college dorms took me behind the Physics building and the several US Navy surplus helium compressed gas cylinder semi-trailers staged at basement loading docks to supply graduate school research experiments with helium. A lot of low temperature physics, superconductivity and quantum discoveries came from helium study in laboratories, not to mention the value of its industrial roles, and helium use in booster propellant tanks and space telescopes by NASA, ESA, etc.
If I recall right, the federal helium stockpiling program came under fire about 30 years ago as an example of government waste; industry lobbyists & Reagan administration saw it as a burden, not a strategic measure. Just like rare earth mining in USA, now we need to scramble to have a strategic commodity. Are we adding insult to injury by selling our He stockpiles overseas?
Comment by Jay — April 5, 2012 @ 4:16 pm
Not to turn this into a political blog but, if there is only 10 years worth of helium left and the USA produces/extracts 90% of it, why is our government selling it off cheap?
It seems that the coming end of the helium supply would drive up the price that our government sells it for. Especially since a quick internet search showed that a vast majority is being sold overseas to countries that are not exactly the friendliest to the USA.
Comment by Robert — April 27, 2012 @ 1:10 pm
The government started selling off helium back in the 90′s to save money. They figured it was a waste of money to store it; better to sell it off to recoup costs. As usual, short sightedness overcame logic. Maybe they thought helium was only used in party balloons.
Comment by Mike in Hawaii — March 6, 2013 @ 12:29 am