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Why the World Is Running Out of Helium
jamie writes "The US National Helium Reserve stores a billion cubic meters of helium, half the world supply, in an old natural gasfield. The array of pipes and mines runs 200 miles from Texas to Kansas. In the name of deficit reduction, we're selling it all off for cheap. Physics professor and Nobel laureate Robert Richardson says: 'In 1996, the US Congress decided to sell off the strategic reserve and the consequence was that the market was swelled with cheap helium because its price was not determined by the market. The motivation was to sell it all by 2015. The basic problem is that helium is too cheap. The Earth is 4.7 billion years old and it has taken that long to accumulate our helium reserves, which we will dissipate in about 100 years. One generation does not have the right to determine availability forever.' Another view is The Impact of Selling the Federal Helium Reserve, the government study from 10 years ago that suggested the government's price would end up being over market value by 25% — but cautioned that this was based on the assumption that demand would grow slowly, and urged periodic reviews of the state of the industry."
Maybe if we had economists, instead of socialists, writing articles about markets...
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Yeah, we can permanently destroy water to create electricity. Great plan. No such thing as Peak Hydrogen.
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I live in Amarillo Tx, what this article fails to mention is all the helium we still have here, We shut down refining after we had enough stored, we didn't stop because we ran out of helium to refine. Our plant is still here waiting to be used comes the time to gather more. It's good to know people can make up stories about resource and how little we have left to stir up some sort of reaction. Now if oil disappears, worry.....
Just because we have enough for now, doesn't mean we have to piss it away like cheap beer.
No wonder I call that state Texass after moving out.
Or how about the whales that die every time an apostrophe is abused and shoved into a perfectly good possessive to make a needless contraction? Huh, feeling smug now, Mr. Apostrophes Everywhere?
A swing and a miss.
Yes like T Boone Pickens and Al Gore Neither of whom stand to make money from a climate/energy crisis!