Helium supplies endangered, threatening science and technology

In America, helium is running out of gas.

The element that lifts things like balloons, spirits and voice ranges is being depleted so rapidly in the world’s largest reserve, outside of Amarillo, Texas, that supplies are expected to be depleted there within the next eight years.

…”Helium is non-renewable and irreplaceable. Its properties are unique and unlike hydrocarbon fuels (natural gas or oil), there are no biosynthetic ways to make an alternative to helium. All should make better efforts to recycle it.”

…In addition to the Texas panhandle, helium can be found in small regions of Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma. It is marketed in Australia and Algeria. And Russia has the world’s largest reserves of natural gas, where helium certainly exists. But there is no push to market it, as, for the short term, supplies are adequate, though increasingly costly.

Sobotka believes that Russia will be the world’s major source of helium in 30 years.

The price of liquid helium is about $5 per liter, having gone up more than 50 percent over the past year because of what Sobotka calls “conventional” economics.

Washington University