Oh, the stupid, it burns.
Helium shortage threatens time-honored Nebraska tradition | Dr. Saturday – Yahoo! Sports http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/helium-shortage-threatens-time-honored-nebraska-tradition-152527242–ncaaf.html
Face palm! Unfortunately, there’s this nagging little detail about the noble gas, Helium, one of the most stable and chemically inert elements there is.
Helium is a result of radioactive decay. I don’t think global warming is powerful enough to overcome the forces in the nucleus of an atom yet.
On Earth it is thus relatively rare—0.00052% by volume in the atmosphere. Most terrestrial helium present today is created by the natural radioactive decay of heavy radioactive elements (thorium and uranium), as the alpha particles emitted by such decays consist of helium-4 nuclei. This radiogenic helium is trapped with natural gas in concentrations up to 7% by volume, from which it is extracted commercially by a low-temperature separation process called fractional distillation.
How hard could this have been to look up?
BTW Methane CH4 (Natural gas) is lighter than air, maybe they’ll switch to that and endure the caterwauling for releasing a GHG about 20 times more potent than CO2.
h/t to Marc Morano
UPDATE: Maybe the National Helium Reserve will be brought to bear in this crisis. Who knew?
The National Helium Reserve, also known as the Federal Helium Reserve, is a strategic reserve of the United States holding over a billion cubic meters (1E9 m3) of helium gas. The helium is stored at the Cliffside Storage Facility about 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Amarillo, Texas, in a natural geologic gas storage formation, the Bush Dome reservoir. The reserve was established in 1925 as a strategic supply of gas for airships, and in the 1950s became an important source of coolant during the Space Race and Cold War.
h/t to Chris Horner
WSJ Aug. 10, 2012 – Giant Helium Reserve Awaits Likely Closure (My comment # 6)
Helium is one substance for which there is NO SUBSTITUTE for many types of superconducting devices. It is the only substance that can be liquid at low enough temperatures to allow certain metals and alloys to superconduct.
Liquid hydrogen can be for some materials that will superconduct at above 20 deg k, but that it is too warm for many of the best manufacturing alloys. Hydrogen is dangerous to handle as it is explosive as a gas in a wide range of air mixtures.
Liquid Neon (27 deg K) is safe, but warmer still.
There are several high temperature superconducters that can be cooled by the fourth coldest substance, Liquid Nitrogen at 77 deg K But these ceramic, High Temperature superconductors are much harder to manufacture into superconducting magnets than the metals alloys that can superconduct with helium.
Helium on Earth is the radio active decay of uranium and thorium over millions of years of that accumulate in porous rock natural gas traps.
The only bright side is that if we squander our He found in Natural gas traps, we can probably still obtain He by Fracking “Hot” Shales. “Hot” is a term used for high gamma ray shales with relatively high concentrations of radioactive uranium and thorium. Maybe technology will come to the rescue again. Won’t be cheap, but it’s a way won’t run out of helium.
1. I wonder if Dr Saturday actually asked Big Reds the reason for the shortage?
2. How long did it take Alexander Feht to find out about the closure?
3. How many more times will journalists be extremely lazy and just attribute everything gas related to “global warming”?
And in Australia, environmentally sensitive folks decry the release of helium balloons at funerals and other such functions. The argument is that they are blown out over the Pacific Ocean where they fall and add to the pollution, being eaten by turtles etc. Urban myth has it that the record flight was a balloon that made it to Vanuatu- doubtful, as they should continue to ascend until they burst.
Ken
timetochooseagain says:
August 16, 2012 at 12:15 pm
Can someone explain to me how you can run out of an element?
Some very basic laws are the law of conservation of mass which basically says mass cannot be created or destroyed, but merely transformed into different compounds. Then there is the law of conservation of energy that says energy cannot be created or destroyed but can be transformed into different types of energy. Then with Einstein’s equation E = mc2, these laws are combined into one that basically says (mass + energy) cannot be created or destroyed. There is no law that says helium cannot be created or destroyed. As a matter of fact, different stars in the universe create helium from hydrogen and destroy helium to produce heavier elements and release energy in the process.
As far as the earth is concerned, helium is created by nuclear decay, but as noted by someone else, it reaches escape velocity high up in the atmosphere. The reason is that if we have a mixture of gases at the same temperature, their kinetic energy is the same. The formula for kinetic energy is E = 1/2mv2. So helium, with a mass of 4, has to go a lot faster than diatomic oxygen with a mass of 32 in order to have the same temperature.
The ability of a gas to escape depends on its temperature as well as the strength of the gravitational field. Jupiter for example has a larger gravitational field and is also colder than the earth. As as result, Jupiter is able to hang on to its helium.
There will be plenty of helium when Bussard Inertial electrostatic confinement reactors are running on p- B11. It is the waste product. I guess you could use them to make it even if they didn’t provide energy break even.
oh noes. Peak Helium
“At current production rates of about 2 billion cubic feet per year, the reservoir could continue to produce helium for five to six more years.”
This is from the Popular Mechanics article.This is potentially a much bigger problem than a silly remark about football!
My local council has passed a ban on the release of helium balloons, so think yourself lucky you can even do this.
The national helium reserve – helium shortage in pre-war Germany was the reason they used Hydrogen to fill their airships, which is why the Hindenburg was a giant explosion looking for somewhere to ignite. The Germans didn’t have the production facilities to produce helium that the US had (and has).
This is a regular occurrence — every four years caused by the US election cycle. As party conventions approach commercial helium stocks are depleted in preparation for massive helium balloon events. Stock are further depleted during the actual campaign with a final spasm of helium balloon binging at the inaguration. Stocks will recover end of the first quarter next year and remain abundant for another three years.
My memory is a bit hazy on this, but I seem to remember reading some time ago a critic of industrialization at the dawn of the industrial revolution claiming that the fires of industry powering factories, locomotives, smelters, etc would eventually consume all the oxygen in the atmosphere. Since planetary suffocation would be an epic catastrophe, all these fires must be extinguished and the industrial revolution stopped cold.
Now I do not know if this critic really existed or ever made such statements, but it seems to follow the standard alarmist thread,,,
Bit harsh, brc: the Germans ran a reliable long-distance airship service for many years with an excellent service record, despite using hydrogen. The loss of the Hindenburg has never been fully-explained and there were strong suspicions of sabotage. The cost of helium made it prohibitive for all but the US.
/sarc
You’re winning the war on CAGW and you’re too tired to tell?
[resuming:] sarc/
Thanks Dr. Leif, not least for notation akin to that which I learned at H. G. Rickover’s knee.
@Jakehig Actually, painting the outer shell with paint that contained enough iron and aluminum to essentially make it thermite didn’t help. That was the conclusion of the German investigation.
@Werner Brozek, Most helium is produced from natural gas wells, the helium released in the atmosphere is of such a low concentration that “distilling” it out would be major expense. Kinda like shredding a book. The pieces are still there, but good luck putting them back together again.
How could there be a Helium shortage ? It basically doesn’t react with anything, and the stars make it all the time.
Gotta be plenty of Helium .
@WernerBrozek and ShrNfr
Atomic number nor distillation have anything to do with Helium loss….it is terminal velocity [not ‘thermal velocity’ as above] due to Helium buoyancy. With a Specific Gravity of 0.16, it accelerates to faster than gravitional attraction and is never returned to Earth. Helium is a STRATIGIC material used in “Heli-arc Welding” to prevent Hydrogen embritlement in Alunimum welding as well as in superconductors. One must wonder the wisdom of frivilous waste of this one time only resource. It is produced, along with inert Radon that has a half life of 3.8 days, ONLY from nuclear decay and neither is around for long. [fusion produced Helium may never be a manmade reality]. A pound of Radon becomes 1/8 ounce in 21 days and SPIKES in underground deposits just prior to volcanic eruptions and Earthquakes….indicating VARIABLE Earth fission rates, causing variable HEAT and variable subterrarean pressure. Matter is never created or destroyed….so the ‘other’ neutrons & protons from fission go on to produce ‘other’ elemental atoms. Some ‘elemental’ Hydrogen, Carbon and Oxygen atoms then go on to produce “Natural Gas”. The reason there is CH4 under every rock you frack….is that Earth is an Elemental Petrol Production planet.
Its sad that global warming alarmism has gotten so crazy that we don’t know whether or not the author is trying to be funny or serious.
This hits close to home for me, the laser machines I sell need Helium to operate. When there’s a shortage the competition selling solid state lasers makes a bid deal of this. Here is what actually happened:
When the US government decided in 1996 to sell their reserves by 2013, they ended up keeping the prices artificially low. So low, that it’s not financially worthwhile for gas drillers to capture the helium released as a byproduct of their operation so they let it go. It’s lost in the atmosphere and it escapes to space.
When the US government raises their prices, or sells out the reserves the price will go up by 2, 3 or 4 times and it will be worthwhile to capture again. By the way, Air Products is opening three new helium plants over the next year outside of the USA. The supply shortage will end when the price goes up a bit.
The fact that it’s an element and there is a finite amount trapped in the earth will eventually cause a peak helium problem. But nobody knows how far out that is. Them’s the facts. Here’s two good articles.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/med-tech/why-is-there-a-helium-shortage-10031229
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/22/the-cost-of-funny-voices-helium-shortage-sends-prices-soaring/
Terminal velocity is normally associated with falling objects into an increasingly thicker atmosphere, that over come gravitational acceleration due to wind resistance. Escape velocity is the outbound component to overcome gravity, but it is useful to consider outbound terminal velocity which would not be a constant. The terminal velocity of Helium atoms would be subject to temperature, barometric pressure, humidity and even lunar position. None of these factors could reduce the required escape velocity. The entire Universe is on a one-way path to a uniform distribution of Hydrogen and Helium atoms….at about zero Kelvin….which is a chilling distant future. Since this is yet another government ordered pump-and-dump, you’ve got to wonder how many Congressmen got the “insider trading memo” on Helium futures ?
Fred McMurray and Disney had the answer to the Cornhuskers’ dilemma way before there was even an ozone hole for the He to escape through. Flubber Gas!
Faux Science Slayer says:
August 16, 2012 at 6:41 pm
@WernerBrozek and ShrNfr
Atomic number nor distillation have anything to do with Helium loss….it is terminal velocity [not ‘thermal velocity’ as above] due to Helium buoyancy.
I do not agree with the above. From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity
The definition of terminal velocity is:
“In fluid dynamics, an object is moving at its terminal velocity if its speed is constant due to the restraining force exerted by the fluid through which it is moving.”
So if a human fell out of a plane, the human would accelerate down until the force of air resistance upward is equal to the force of gravity downward. At that point, no further acceleration occurs and the body is said to have reached terminal velocity. Helium loss in the upper atmosphere has absolutely nothing to do with terminal velocity.
Now as for ‘thermal velocity’, I used the term ‘escape velocity’, but thermal velocity is:
“The thermal velocity or thermal speed is a typical velocity of the thermal motion of particles which make up a gas, liquid, etc.” See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_velocity
So I could say that when the thermal velocity is equal to the escape velocity, and when this escape velocity occurs so high up and in the direction away from Earth, the helium can escape. It DOES have a great deal to do with atomic number. To illustrate, an ozone molecule whose mass is 48 and whose temperature is the same as that of a helium atom, will NOT escape, even when a collision forces it to go away from Earth where the molecules are very sparse. But the helium atom, whose mass is only 4 would escape.
As for buoyancy, that concept applies to objects in water, but not to individual gas molecules. If it did, you would never see chlorofluorocarbons high up in the stratosphere. Mind you, helium would get up there faster from the ground, but once there, helium can escape, but the chlorofluorocarbons cannot escape.
(P.S. I have an engineering degree and have taught physics and chemistry for 40 years. Of course that does not mean I cannot make a mistake. : – )
The helium in the Cliffside field was originally found in gas wells in Kansas. The largest present reserves of helium, something like 20 times that in the Cliffside reserve, are found in gas wells in two fields in Wyoming. Exxon runs a separation facility at LaBarge, Wyoming. These wells also have an anomalously high fraction (up to 60%) of carbon dioxide. There are wells also in Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico that have anomalous levels of carbon dioxide, but I am unsure about the fraction of helium they contain. The coincident occurrence of helium and carbon dioxide suggests that the source of gas is the Earth’s mantle. If so, the helium is probably primordial, though I suppose some could have come from radioactive decay.
Faux Science Slayer says:
August 16, 2012 at 7:42 pm
The terminal velocity of Helium atoms would be subject to temperature, barometric pressure, humidity and even lunar position.
I would only agree that: “The terminal velocity of a feather would be subject to temperature, barometric pressure, humidity and even lunar position.” But an individual atom is not subject to friction that can slow it down. Its speed is determined by its own most recent speed and the orientation and mass and speed of the most recent molecule it collided with.
The CO2 that Exxon gets from its natural gas fields in the Wyoming Range is used to enhance (repressurize) depleted oil fields throughout Utah and Wyoming. They are also one of the largest Helium producers in the world. When the Fontenelle fire went through the Wyoming range recently, burning over 60K acres of timber and sage, it put several of the wells Exxon has out of commission. I do not know whether they are back up and running. There was some shortage with these wells shut in during the worst of the fires. Helium is a big deal for Exxon. I understand not many are aware of this as it is completely out in the boondocks. Even the mentioned LaBarge isn’t that close to the Exxon facility, Kemmerer is closer. Opal is closer yet, all 68 people!
The little town of Opal is host to one of the largest natural gas hubs in the western United States, and trucks / railcars are constantly filling with propane there. There was even a case of domestic terrorism there as someone was planning on bombing the local terminal.
8000 GW of fusion power could double the world’s production of He and go a long way towards a petroleum free / green house gas free economy.