Helium shortage, Bah humbug

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/helium/mcs-2012-heliu.pdf


This is a look at FY20011's use of helium, you tech guys sucked down 80,000,00 cubic feet of helium, and the government is selling at 50% of market value, private sellers have to buy just as much government gas as they can make. Making their costs artificially low. There is no actual shortage, just interference in the market. There is a well known phenomena in resource management, as you need something, you find more and more of it. Oil is a wonderful example. In the 1920's, everyone thought we would run out of oil in a few years, and we're still worried about running out. The Helium shortage is just that, market forces are taking over the price of helium. Since the price has been artificially deflated for so many years, it seems like a shortage, but once the market takes over, a balance will be reached, and prices will stabilize. I'm not technical, and won't be for a few years yet, but I don't believe I'll be forced to use hydrogen for trimix dives.

Based on my AMEX bill, I think I personally bought all of that helium from my LDS ;-)

You are limited to 2.5% in the mix when adding hydrogen. Only seen it used in special navy applications. I don't see it being a good offset for the He "shortage".

Crude neon is a more likely candidate.

In a cruel irony Australia throws away a lot of helium by venting it out of our gas wells. It's not currently economical to capture and separate it. We do have one facility that has enough in the gas to make it viable, and this is all sold under contract to china. So divers pay a premium for imported He from the US. Frustrating when we pay 5 times what you guys do.


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Well, you won't always find more of something if you need it, since there is a finite amount of all things on earth.

However, while oil-derivatives get chemically destroyed (burned), He simply gets diluted into the atmosphere - it's obviously all around us, just only a fraction of a %. Someone should design a solar powered He accumulator to put up behind dive shops in sunny places.

I didn't know that Oz He is imported - I just moved to Australia and hope to do some tech here soon, that's not good news.