Future of Helium price?

[scubafanatic]

Makes sense. Given your GUE/UTD background, what do you see to be the future of standard gases? These agencies push Helium right after 100 ft mark, where a lot of people (including myself to some extent) do not find it necessary. The Tech-1 diver often ends up diving the same wrecks at 120 ft depth while paying three times more in standard gases. Would these agencies open themselves up to deep air? Or would they start pushing CCR training right after 100? Tech-1 on open circuit seems to lose its market appeal as economics of the dive turn against it.

The tech agencies will never prioritize saving money, like the Pentagon, the solution to any problem is throw More money at it, the gold-plated solution is their go-to option.

 

[scubafanatic]

Helium is of course a non-renewable resource.... Eventually, we'll run out of the stuff; another 50 years or so...

We probably have a few centuries worth left of natural gas from which helium is derived, so helium won't run out for a while yet, but that's not to say it won't become prohibitively expensive eventually. Here in Texas the natural gas is so abundant the oil companies often just flare it off or sell gas at a financial loss, oilprice.com had recent stories where gas companies are actually paying users to take the natural gas off their hands!

 

[runsongas]

I thought helium was/is already extracted from natural gas ? There aren't giant helium pockets being mined, helium is a trace 'contaminant' trapped within natural gas reserves and separated out from the natural gas if/where the helium concentrations make economic sense. Nobody drills a helium well, they drill for natural gas and separate off the trace helium as a byproduct.

Problem is you need to build a capture plant which takes years to build and to be profitable. Historically, that only has been for fields that naturally have a high fraction of helium but most are less than 1%. It helps a bit if the pipeline is LNG, since that helps boost the helium percentage for the input stream and decreases the cost to capture.

 

[PfcAJ]

Deep air, no never. Much more likely to transition to CCR sooner, which GUE already did by relaxing the Tech2 prerequisite. (Now you only have to be T1 to take GUE-CCR).

Barf.

 

[rjack321]

Barf.

I think it's silly too. Especially since you could at least take the 60m course and (at a minimum) be qualified for 2 deco gasses.

 

[Chidiver1]

As someone currently looking at taking tech very soon this sucks.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

I think it's silly too. Especially since you could at least take the 60m course and (at a minimum) be qualified for 2 deco gasses.

Sorry you lost me. What is silly? Doing 60m dives on open circuit and paying for the rising helium?

 

[1atm]

Sorry you lost me. What is silly? Doing 60m dives on open circuit and paying for the rising helium?

No, I believe he says it’s silly that GUE lowered the entry requirements for the CCR course from previously Tech2 to Tech1, and instead split the CCR class in two. Not sure if it’s a big issue as before and after it’s three course to get to CCR deep (T1+T2+CCR-old vs T1+CCR1+CCR2). New version gives you more time on the machine before you go deep, old version gives you more multi bottle skills. But let me qualify that I’m only T1/C2 so it’s only an unqualified onlookers opinion.

Regarding Helium, I believe it’s only a short term issue with a short term price spike. Helium consumption by divers is negligible and irrelevant as far as the Helium market is concerned, but other uses aren’t. It would be crazy to take MRI / MRT away from the medical sector (which is the biggest User with the biggest lobby), and similarly silly to take NMR away from basic research and chemists. These are some of the biggest advances of mankind in diagnostics and there isn’t a simple replacement in sight. For those reasons alone, together with the price spike, sooner or later someone will invest in a capture facility and we will be good to go again.

 

[taimen]

I think it's silly too. Especially since you could at least take the 60m course and (at a minimum) be qualified for 2 deco gasses.

Silly, maybe. But the rising helium prices (and increasing popularity of rebreathers) have already led to very few people left diving oc tech. Thus it is very difficult to find buddies to dive oc tech when working towards advanced oc tech training. That active group doing OC T2 level dives or even more advanced T1 doesn't exist anymore. At least in my area. What we have is a very active and growing rebreather diving community.
How I see this is that training agencies should really focus on developing ways to train safe rb tech divers from single deco gas oc divers. Exactly what GUE is doing. Possibly not the best way to train, but might be the only option to keep (tech) diving communities alive.
I may be biased, prehaps oc tech situation is not that bad elsewhere yet.

 

[Billy Northrup]

I thought helium was/is already extracted from natural gas ? There aren't giant helium pockets being mined, helium is a trace 'contaminant' trapped within natural gas reserves and separated out from the natural gas if/where the helium concentrations make economic sense. Nobody drills a helium well, they drill for natural gas and separate off the trace helium as a byproduct.

You are very correct, what I meant to say was extracting from wells with less yield may become more feasible. .