The Oil Drum

28 comments on The problems of natural gas supply

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Everett on November 15, 2005 - 2:28pm

I am wondering if, along with our North American natural gas crisis, we are also looking at an associated helium crisis.
Helium is generated by alpha particle decay of radioactive elements in the Earth, and is trapped in the same formations as NG. Almost all helium production is from separating He from NG. Most helium production is from around Amarillo, TX. If those fields around Amarillo are seriously depleted, is that all she wrote for helium?

Just think, in one or two decades, MRIs, blimps, space craft, particle accelerators, low-temperature physics, tokamaks, and deep sea diving mixtures may all be gone or greatly restricted because of a lack of helium.

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Whitehall on November 16, 2005 - 3:38pm

I've dabbled in helium extraction so know a bit about it.

Most (all?) helium is extracted from natural gas wells where it is a dilutant that lowers the heating value of the gas. While helium is almost never enough on its own to make the untreated gas non-commercial (max 7% or so, usually 1% or less), there are usually co-mingled non-combustibles like nitrogen that are also present. Nitrogen is expensive to remove and is seldom done unless there is a lot of gas to amortize the big cyrogenic plants required.

The bottom line is that helium is often from non-commercial-grade gas resources that can't be sold and won't burn. They are two different markets.