A fragile steadiness
The helium we use at this time fashioned from the breakdown of radioactive supplies tens of millions of years in the past and has been trapped in rocks under Earth’s floor ever since.
Helium is normally extracted from these underground reservoirs together with pure fuel, as John Mattill defined in an article from our January 1986 concern: “Helium could be readily separated from the fuel earlier than combustion, however the decrease the helium focus, the upper the price of doing so.”
Typically talking, helium concentrations should be at the very least 0.3% for fuel firms to trouble with it. Such ranges could be present in solely a handful of nations together with the US, Qatar, Algeria, Canada, and South Africa.
Helium shortages are usually not brought on by an absence of helium, then, however the lack of ability of producers in these few international locations to ship it to clients in every single place in a well timed method. That may occur for any variety of causes.
“It’s a very world enterprise, and any time a warfare breaks out someplace, or something like that, it tends to influence the helium enterprise,” says Kornbluth.
One other problem is that helium atoms are so gentle Earth’s gravity can’t maintain onto them. They have an inclination to only, properly, float away, even escaping specifically designed tanks. As much as 50% of helium we extract is misplaced earlier than it may be used, in line with a brand new evaluation introduced by Siddhantakar final week on the Worldwide Spherical Desk on Supplies Criticality.
Given all this, international locations that want quite a lot of helium—Canada, China, Brazil, Germany, France, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and the UK are among the many prime importers—should continually work to make sure a dependable provide. The US is among the largest customers of helium, nevertheless it’s additionally a number one producer.
For many years, the worldwide helium market was carefully tied to the US authorities, which started stockpiling helium in Texas in 1961 for navy functions. As Howland wrote in 1975, “The unique justification of the federal helium conservation program was to retailer helium till a later time when it might be extra important and fewer out there.”
