![]() The space industry uses it in sensitive satellite equipment and spacecraft, and Nasa uses helium in huge quantities to purge the potentially explosive fuel from its rockets. Liquid helium is critical for cooling infrared detectors, nuclear reactors and the machinery of wind tunnels. There is no way of manufacturing it artificially, and practically all of the world's reserves have been derived as a by-product from the extraction of natural gas, mostly in the giant oil- and gasfields of the American South-west, which historically have had the highest helium concentrations. ![]() Helium is made either by the nuclear fusion process of the Sun, or by the slow and steady radioactive decay of terrestrial rock, which accounts for all of the Earth's store of the gas. The experts warn that the world could run out of helium within 25 to 30 years, potentially spelling disaster for hospitals, whose MRI scanners are cooled by the gas in liquid form, and anti-terrorist authorities who rely on helium for their radiation monitors, as well as the millions of children who love to watch their helium-filled balloons float into the sky. The law stipulates that the US National Helium Reserve, which is kept in a disused underground gas field near Amarillo, Texas - by far the biggest store of helium in the world - must all be sold off by 2015, irrespective of the market price. Scientists have warned that the world's most commonly used inert gas is being depleted at an astonishing rate because of a law passed in the United States in 1996 which has effectively made helium too cheap to recycle. Back to basic economics.It is the second-lightest element in the Universe, has the lowest boiling-point of any gas and is commonly used through the world to inflate party balloons.īut helium is also a non-renewable resource and the world's reserves of the precious gas are about to run out, a shortage that is likely to have far-reaching repercussions. While the world’s production of the gas has held steady of late, demand for it worldwide has increased, with countries including China and Russia wanting more of the gas than ever. Its National Helium Reserve, located in Helium City, USA, otherwise known as Amarillo, Texas, went on the auction block in 1996 and private producers have not made Helium a priority. The United States has not helped with the situation. In part that’s because there are so few producers and in part because its fate is tied closely to natural gas production, and carbon fuel markets are notoriously volatile and affected by geopolitics perhaps more than any other commodity. And because it’s so light, it can escape earth’s atmosphere, and good luck tracking it down in space.Īnd helium is getting scarce, which also means it’s getting more expensive. It’s outrageously expensive to get it from the air, so just about all of our Helium is a by-product of natural gas extraction, though there are only a handful of refineries that collect the gas. Even though it is the second most common elements in the universe, it’s also the second hardest stable element to keep track of. The first thing to know about Helium is that it’s hard to get and hard to keep. Just how bad is the situation? And are there any alternatives? Are airships an endangered species? But today there is a worldwide Helium shortage. It’s used in MRI machines and semiconductor manufacturing and cooling-it’s critical to the large hadron collider at CERN as well as, oh yeah, airship operations. It’s the stuff of childhood birthday balloons and weird chipmunk voices, but it’s got some critical uses, too.
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