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Researchers Find Game-Changing Helium Reserve In Tanzania (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via CNN: Helium is an incredibly important element that is used in everything from party balloons to MRI machines -- it's even used for nuclear power. For many years, there have been global shortages of the element. For example, Tokyo Disneyland once had to suspend sales of its helium balloons due to the shortages. The shortages are expected to come to an end now that researchers from Oxford and Durham universities have discovered a "world-class" helium gas field in Tanzania's East African Rift Valley. They estimate that just one part of the reserve in Tanzania could be as large as 54 billion cubic feet (BCf), which is enough to fill more than 1.2 million medical MRI scanners. "To put this discovery into perspective, global consumption of helium is about 8 billion cubic feet (BCf) per year and the United States Federal Helium Reserve, which is the world's largest supplier, has a current reserve of just 24.2 BCf," said University of Oxford's Chris Ballentine, a professor with the Department of Earth Sciences. "Total known reserves in the USA are around 153 BCf. This is a game-changer for the future security of society's helium needs and similar finds in the future may not be far away," Ballentine added.
Mineshaft Gap
Why the f*ck are we still wasting this gas on such stupid things as party balloons. Why wasn't this completely verboten years ago.
Then stop pissing it away by undercharging and wasting it on frivolous shit like balloons!
Who does the math on these? How can adding less than 10 years to the global supply be a massive global game changer?
We are eating through this precious non-renewable resources at a crazy rate. And doing silly stuff with it like "Happy Birthday" balloons.
okay the 54Bcf was in "part of the reserve. Still it is a non-renewable resource that we should treat preciously and not capriciously.
Seriously, click bait much? Yes, it is a large find, but at 8 BCF/year it is about 6 or 7 years of supply, that is NOT a game changer for humanity, that is a game changer for the people that will make a fortune rationing it out until we run out of helium.
That's hot air. I can see how you could be confused, though, as they both make balloons fly.
Nice rant about the US and UK pillaging the innocent locals. You seem to have missed the most obvious choice: Local Tanzanian officials will vastly enrich themselves and send their families to the US and UK while leaving nothing for the people.
Comon man.. This is the media err.. Slashdot we are talking about... The headlines sell you know...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I know. Why can't we just collect the exhaust fumes from the sun?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Common in the universe perhaps.. But not so much on the surface where we generally work out our existence...
No worries though.. There are generally other workable replacements to be had for most of He's uses. Just ask Zeppelin about that... Don't worry about that little mishap in Lakehurst...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Up to now helium was found by chance when drilling for something else. This time they worked out a geological model of where to look, and sure enough they found a huge amount the first place they looked based on that model.
That's the "game changer", knowing where to look for helium.
There are generally other workable replacements to be had for most of He's uses. Just ask Zeppelin about that.
We can't just replace He with Pb, idiot.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
The shortages are expected to come to an end
The inability of human beings to think in a term longer than a few months has always amazed me. This doesn't solve the problem, it merely postpones it. Helium escapes unless recaptured. If the rate of generation of helium from alpha decay is less than the rate of consumption, we will run out of helium one day - it's only a question of when.
It's also amazing that we could have a shortage of a material when there are giant balls full of the stuff in the sky. But hey, that's how the cosmos works.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
That was hydrogen, you moron.
We're all playing tiddlywinks now!
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Why would the hicks vote for Hillary?
Yea, nobody remembers that they fire bombed London using those Zeppelin things during WW1 and killed a bunch of people, at least on this side of the pond. Londoners tend to remember that and what happened to them during WW2. All we have is the B&W news reel footage of the incident in Lakehurst NJ and a simple little sign that shows where it took place because not that many Americans died.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
To be fair, they're only trying to be good capitalists.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That's going to be really useful once I finally win the lottery and buy an airship.
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
There are generally other workable replacements to be had for most of He's uses. Just ask Zeppelin about that.
We can't just replace He with Pb, idiot.
Perhaps not, but it seems we can replace meaningful dialog with stuff that's not all day long on Shashdot. LOL...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
OK, I asked Zeppelin about global supplies of Helium, and this was the response:
https://youtu.be/DBzuYNK95sM
You are welcome on my lawn.
At $1/cu foot, this could turn Tanzania into a developed country.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
As soon as we get cost-effect fusion energy, we'll have all the helium we could want. Inhale all you want, we'll make more! Long term, I see no real need to stockpile helium.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
We just need to visit the sun AT NIGHT to collect the helium!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Pretty sure Hope Hicks is voting for Trump. She'll probably talk her whole family into doing so as well!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Hydrogen, combined with a rather flammable paint scheme. Mythbusters did this. http://www.discovery.com/tv-sh...
No Helium involved, which if you'll remember your high school Chemistry class, is a Noble Gas (doesn't burn, doesn't react)
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
He seems to know a great deal more about it than you do. The Germans used hydrogen because the US had a monopoly on helium and wouldn't sell them any, thanks to their using zeppelins in WW1. Verstehen Sie?
Somebody marked this -1!? Mod parent up, please! Notate as "funny."
Some people just don't understand completely appropriate humor. That said, the parent is wrong: there will not be even a few Tanzanians that make money from this. The management of the mining company will be American. The life-threatening labor will be performed by Tanzanians not in exchange for money, but in exchange for not being killed, and if they're lucky, for a portion of bread per day, of which the worker will eat a bite and send the rest to his wife and children if they aren't enslaved with him.
Not a game changer.
Helium like any other rarer materials should be handled more careful.
> Nobody ever said Government was smart and foreword thinking about what it does. In fact, most thinking people understand that it's quite the opposite, government is usually stupid, slow, costly and inefficient, a set of traist that gets worse as government gets bigger.
I HOPE my government remains slow and inefficient. Holding public hearings, referendums, etc. is slow and inefficient. Giving the minority opinion a chance to speak their mind is slow and inefficient. It's much more faster and more efficient for a dictator to just declare government policy. Publishing proposed laws before for several days before they are voted on slows things down.
It took from 1993 to 2010, seventeen years, to pass HillaryCare. I like that way much better than the alternative, which can be seen in North Korea, Cuba, and Syria. They don't bother with transparency laws, public bidding on government contracts, etc. That stuff is inefficient.
At $1/cu foot, this could turn Tanzania into a developed country.
BUT - I'm sure that the press conference was hilarious.
Seems kind of dumb.
'In the universe' is not the same as 'on Earth'.
There will never be a shortage of helium. Only a shortage of really cheap helium.
Helium is continuously produced by alpha decay of radioactive materials inside the earth. It exists in various concentrations in all natural gas reserves.
Some of those reserves (e.g. some wells in Texas or the one now found in Tanzania) have unusually high helium concentrations, making production costs much lower. The U.S. government used the Texas wells to set up a strategic reserve in the early to mid 20th century (when zeppelins were still a thing, and later for the space race).
Towards the end of the 20th century, it gradually sold this inventory into the market, effectively subsidizing it with tax paid by americans during the cold war. This created a disincentive for developing the capability of producing helium from lower grade sources. The uncertainty in the market raised prices, based on the perception of an impending shortage.
Without the Tanzania find, the increased price would have eventually convinced someone to invest in the infrastructure for separating helium from lower grade sources, eliminating the dependency on the chances of finding high grade sources.
Of course, if someone *had* done so, he would have been greatly disappointed by the Tanzania find reducing the price hurt the return on their investment. That's the risk of investing.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
It's actually not hard to get helium in any case, just take some radioactive ore and wait awhile. I've got a nice batch of 4-H brewing up from a chunk of uraninite right now. My five-legged cat is keeping three eyes on it right now.
You seem to think that exploitation by foreign corporations and corruption of local officials are mutually exclusive. What basis have you for this assumption?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The Hindenburg disaster was in 1937, there was no Kaiser. There was a hateful, little reichkanzler with a funny moustache.
-- Make America hate again!
At $1/cu foot, this could turn Tanzania into a developed country.
Ah, don't be silly. It's better for the country if the money goes to private enterprise. The government will benefit much more if the gas is extracted and sold by a company that pays practically zero tax than if it was owned and sold by the people of the country. If Shell get to extract it for a pittance, they'll be far better off than a "developed country", they'll be a developing country. See the difference?
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Nice rant about the US and UK pillaging the innocent locals. You seem to have missed the most obvious choice: Local Tanzanian officials will vastly enrich themselves and send their families to the US and UK while leaving nothing for the people.
OK, so the fact that they get rich by collusion with white-country-based multinationals and the tacit approval of white-country governments is all incidental, and we can absolve the white money machine of all culpability? Do you really reckon it's OK to give bribes, and the only people in the wrong are those that accept them?
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Clearly you know fvckall about the real Africa.
Bribes are the only way to get things done, it's part of their culture(s) and they see nothing wrong with it.
Which is why they look so surprised when they get caught out, because as far as they are concerned it's business as usual, which it usually is.
So a very select few get super filthy rich, while the rest continue living in abject poverty.
Welcome to Africa!
Although to be fair, it happens elsewhere as well, it's not just in Africa, Russia is apparently just as bad (but I wouldn't know personally).
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
As a geologist I have actually prospected for helium. The only reason there even appears to be a shortage, is that the US Government is still manipulating the price, and using an artificially low price to restrict the market. Natural gas fields are the major source of helium today, and many natural gas fields contain anywhere from a fraction of 1% to several percent helium. As helium is generated in the Earth by radioactive decay it migrates upward, often to be trapped in the same geologic structures that natural gas is trapped within. Gas shale reservoirs may be the only major gas reservoirs that do not contain much helium. Due to US Government controls on the helium reserve and the market, the price, and the supply have both not been a function of a true market. Federal dumping of National Helium Reserve stock into the market depressed the price of helium so much that it was being used as a cheap substitute for argon and other gases that have a much less limited supply. Now we have auctions, with a limited supply being sold, but still enough to destroy the market for new sources. Once the US Helium reserve is sold off, natural gas processors are likely to start capturing the helium they presently waste due to the economics of removing it from natural gas. Other countries have huge reserves as well, including Qatar 10.1 Billion cubic meters Algeria 8.2 Bcm Russia 6.8 Bcm Canada 2.0 Bcm China 1.1 Bcm And any country that produces natural gas has a potential addition to the supply. Sorry, but we will not be running out any time soon. It is true that once released to the atmosphere, helium will leave the planet, but if the price goes up enough, that waste is less likely to occur.
For a short 7 years if the reserve is all that it's cracked up to be and if consumption doesn't increase (ha! not a likely behaviour from our species).
Wow--a bit overly-serious much?
"Conservatives" really like to fuck with laws around that.
There were still people going to jail for that when I started university. Many of the "conservatives" pushing various bedroom red tape are much older than I am.
Bribes are the only way to get things done, it's part of their culture(s) and they see nothing wrong with it.
The question is: was it a part of their culture before white Europeans first bribed them?
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Britain took Tanzania from the Germans in world war 1. Carrying a gunboat across about 600 miles of land to sail on Lake Tanganyka was one of the more insane aspects of that war.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
"New High-Grade Helium Discoveries in Tanzania"
There's a datum for those who were debating the level of purity that is necessary for economical recovery and purification.
The comment about "serendipitous discovery" on the back of petroleum is ... interesting. Since there certainly is exploration work going on in the area (what can I say that's in the public domain? Well, this conference was very worth attending.) But when they finish their abstract with this :
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Hmm, well there was "Lebola" which must be paid to the family of the bride, but they have that in a lot of other cultures as well (dowry etc).
So I actually can't say if it existed before the white plague, I just know how it's done NOW.
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.