
Helium shortage has ended, at least for now - lnguyen
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.20200605a/full/
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sandworm101
>> a Colorado State University chemist who orders a 60-liter dewar every 8–13
weeks to fill his 8-tesla superconducting magnet.

So... absolutely no recapture of this used helium? I wouldn't be throwing
stones at party balloons. Seriously, the concept of helium as a _disposable_
gas is the root of the entire price problem. _Hopefully_ the price will rise
to the point that capture and recycling become more cost effective.

>>A new, $110 000 liquefier at the University of Idaho is expected to recycle
most of the helium needed for three NMR magnets, an electron paramagnetic
resonance magnet, and a Mössbauer spectrometer, says Blumenfeld. As an added
benefit, the new machine will enable the university to purchase its helium in
gaseous form instead of liquid, for a substantial cost savings, he says.

110K? That is dirt cheap for nearly any industrial process. Industrial baking
ovens can cost more. Why are such things not standard with every device
needing substantial amounts of helium.

~~~
s1dev
$100K is a lot of money for some experimental low temperature labs. The other
issue is that vibrations from compressor units can interfere with sensitive
experiments like scanning tunneling microscopy. Helium is expensive enough as
it is that I think most labs would like to recycle it, but there are
drawbacks.

~~~
toomuchtodo
If helium is a precious resource (it is), we should use federal dollars to
incentive better management and recycling of it by academic and research
users. Very similar to how we incentivize energy efficiency with grants and
tax policy.

~~~
bhk
The price of helium should be the incentive.

~~~
toomuchtodo
It should be, but the market is distorted :/

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valuearb
There has never been a helium shortage. It’s just more costly than scientists
would prefer. If they were willing to pay even more, massive more amounts
would be available.

~~~
perilunar
"Recurrent helium shortages and high prices have led some academic researchers
to install liquefiers to recycle helium that boils off from their
instruments."

Yeah, it can't have been a real shortage if they were just letting it boil
away.

~~~
myself248
Similarly, I've heard of HVAC systems that just use city water for cooling. It
comes in cold, dump heat into it and let it run down the drain.

Running like that all the time seems unconscionable, but it makes a lot of
sense as a backup while the primary is down for repair, as a very cheap-to-
install but wasteful-to-run system that would be appropriate for short
durations only.

~~~
anewdirection
Airconditioning is still a luxury to the world. Not sure running clean,
treated drinking water down the drain for comfort is ever worth it.

~~~
amluto
There are plenty of hot places with enough fresh water supplies that trying to
conserve water is of dubious value.

The problem with fresh water isn’t the overall supply of fresh water. It’s
getting it to communities that need it, when they need it, and distributing it
without contaminating it.

------
Havoc
And it'll improve. There was a helium find with absolutely insane natural
concentrations in South Africa recently.

>Helium is found within natural gas in concentrations typically up to 1% by
volume of the gas released; however, the updated reserve review shows that the
latest well drilled in the Virgina project contains a concentration of almost
11%.

[https://m.miningweekly.com/article/south-africa-to-become-
ei...](https://m.miningweekly.com/article/south-africa-to-become-eighth-
country-to-export-helium-by-2019-renergen-2018-03-12)

~~~
laser
But if this reserve is 6-25 billion cubic feet, that’s probably just a drop in
the bucket as annual global production is 15-20 billion cubic feet and US
reserves are over 700 billion cubic feet.

~~~
gorkish
If you are discussing US natural gas reserves, PUDs are three orders of
magnitude higher at over 700Tcf. Going beyond this, some estimates put
unproven unconventional supplies at over 700Tcf in-place in the Anadarko basin
alone. Considering we haven’t really been hell bent on hunting for gas in the
last decade, the true extent of the supply may be radically larger still.

Helium is abundant; it’s prices simply haven’t ever stayed high enough to
warrant wider extraction from the gas supply. The last time we did that we
produced the strategic helium reserve which has basically fed our consumption
for 60 years!

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BurningFrog
If you're old enough, you might have noticed a pattern.

1\. BIG NEWS: Resource X is running out!

2\. Years later: BIG NEWS: Resource X is miraculously not running out!

I'm _not_ saying that always happens and nothing ever runs out. But it's
common enough that I put these in the "I'll believe it when I see it" file.

No one ever sold a paper or a click on a "THINGS ARE PROBABLY OK!" headline.

~~~
gxon
If the boy cries wolf, but nobody else sees it, how do you decide if the boy
was mistaken/lied or if the act of the entire town waking up scared the wolf
away?

~~~
gxon
To expand on this, it's tempting to dismiss those warning of doom and gloom
when you start to notice a pattern of the doom never materializing.

But we should also be aware of the possibility that those warning of doom and
gloom activate people's minds to severity and risk of the problem. Because
more people are aware and paying attention, we collectively take action to
mitigate the risk and the worst case never happens.

A great example is our response to a pandemic. The response that creates the
least amount of damage might look like a major over-reaction and people will
start to question those who raised alarm with such intensity.

How do we deal with this meta problem?

~~~
BurningFrog
"Why are you dieting? You're not fat!"

...is a version of this fallacy. Rationalists probably have a name for it.

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exabrial
This might be painful for scientists to hear but they actually _need_ helium
prices to rise (No pun intended). It's the best way to make sure the substance
isn't wasted.

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nayuki
Once humanity is able to fuse hydrogen atoms into helium, we'll have more
helium than we'll know what to do with.

Also, why is everyone measuring helium in volume (litres, cubic feet)? This is
highly dependent on temperature and pressure. Why not state quantities in
terms of mass?

~~~
btrettel
> Also, why is everyone measuring helium in volume (litres, cubic feet)? This
> is highly dependent on temperature and pressure. Why not state quantities in
> terms of mass?

This problem appears way more often than I'd like. In measuring gas flow
through valves there's a quantity called "standard cubic feet per minute". The
only problem is that there is no uniformly agreed upon standard reference
temperature and pressure!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_cubic_feet_per_minute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_cubic_feet_per_minute)

It's even worse than described on Wikipedia, as I've found at least one valve
manufacturer claims that the reference pressure is the pressure they used
upstream of the valve, not something near atmospheric as Wikipedia claims is
typical:
[http://btrettel.nerfers.com/archives/72](http://btrettel.nerfers.com/archives/72)

Whenever I get a valve I either have to do my own flow tests or call the
manufacturer and hope I get someone who knows a thing or two about their
testing procedures.

As you said, the entire issue can be avoided by simply specifying mass or
moles. I don't quite know why people don't do this, but I suppose it speaks to
the power of tradition. Far too few people think about if what they are doing
makes sense.

~~~
wrycoder
The number of moles in a liter of liquid helium is essentially constant over
the temperature range of the liquid state. LH is bought by the liter.

------
riobard
I'm wondering what's the effect of helium-filled hard drive causes on the
demand?

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blantonl
Fun fact, if you've ever driven from Texas to Colorado, you'll pass the
largest Helium producing plant in the US just a few miles north of Amarillo,
TX - on, aptly named Helium Plant Road.

When the whole shortage made the news, I had heard that the plant was for
sale, and I actually talked with my wife and joked that we could buy the plant
and corner a significant portion of the Helium market. LOL! I thought it would
be pretty cool to own a significant part of the production of a single
element.

------
KenoFischer
Still super expensive though! I guess at least it's available again. I
remember doing some liquid helium experiments in class in college just as the
helium crunch started. The department didn't seem very happy suddenly having
to spend hundreds of dollars extra just to let some undergrads play with it. I
wonder if they discontinued that particular experiment.

------
alex_young
I’m glad the conversation has evolved from “we’re running out of helium”.

We’re only running out of helium if we’ve quit extracting fossil fuels.

Helium is a byproduct of extraction, and is most commonly vented into the
atmosphere because it’s not commercially viable to process it due to its low
price.

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imjustsaying
Awesome, one of the costs of sattelites should get cheaper now.

------
mycall
> "some producers have recently been injecting helium into the reserve’s
> underground dome"

This would be an interesting facility to see photos of.

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econcon
what's the cheapest gas I can buy for Tig welding shielding as a hobbyist on
razor thin budget?

~~~
corty
Nitrogen or CO₂. But you will not be happy with it, there is a reason more
expensive mixtures are preferred. Also, the required protective gear against
the NOx and added postprocessing of your workpiece more than make up for the
gas price...

The cheapest way overall is actually the commonly used Argon. Its just not
cheapest if you just stare at the price of the gas alone.

~~~
exabrial
Interesting. It is the third most abundant gas in the atmosphere,; more than
water vapor and carbon dioxide actually according to Wikipedia. It is produced
via fractional distillation. We really should be using this stuff instead of
helium where possible. I'm guessing it's density makes it more of a renewable
resource than helium.

~~~
corty
We do use it where possible. But at higher temperature like for welding,
Nitrogen is no longer inert. And liquid nitrogen is too warm for the things
you need liquid Helium for. Other alternatives are usually even more expensive
or dangerous. You would never use liquid O₂ for cooling if you can avoid it...

~~~
corty
Ah, maybe you meant CO₂, it is similar to N₂ in all those aspects. Just even
more reactive, warmer in liquid form than even nitrogen. And in addition never
liquid at atmospheric pressure and actively poisonous to humans. So usually
worse than N₂.

There are just a few applications where its used that I know of: Dry ice,
environment-friendly coolant, sparkling drinks and killing lifestock.

~~~
BenjiWiebe
Actually, I'm pretty sure exabrial was referring to argon.

~~~
exabrial
Yes I was referring to argon. Rereading my comment made more sense in my head.

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Zhenya
If this work is important to the US, they should tax recreational use of
helium to drive demand down.

~~~
catalogia
Would that actually accomplish anything? As far as I'm aware, welders and
divers use many times more helium than clowns.

~~~
tinus_hn
It’s so much easier to point and look down on someone else for their
supposedly wasteful behavior though!

~~~
DonHopkins
It's so much easier to point and look down on CLOWNS!!!

~~~
kmill
So is the helium shortage the origin of the sad clowns in The Sims?

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autodidactic
Do people not realize that you can extract helium in the air? Granted current
methods are somewhat inefficient, it's totally possible to do with today's
technology.

~~~
TwoBit
I'm totally ignorant, but I thought helium atoms rose to the top of the
atmosphere any flew away.

~~~
booi
no you're right, it's not economically feasible to "extract" helium from air
and it does rise.

~~~
VBprogrammer
According to a quick Google, it's in the air at a concentration of 5ppm. For
loose comparison sake, this is like pumping out an Olympic sized swimming pool
to extract 10 litres of the good stuff. You certainly won't be doing that to
fill children's balloons.

~~~
coronadisaster
> this is like pumping out an Olympic sized swimming pool to extract 10 litres
> of the good stuff

Sounds line gold mining... I'm sure they'd do it if needed for scientific
purposes... or if they discover some health benefits to heliumtalk

~~~
gliese1337
Note that the price of gold is much higher than the price of helium.

If helium prices rise high enough, then yes, we will extract it from the
atmosphere. And scientists will be sad because the they won't be able to
afford as much of it anymore.

~~~
coronadisaster
It might be a lot cheaper to filter one cubic meter of air then it is one
cubic meter of dirt... But either way, one day it could happen

