Dwindling helium supply

A professor at Washington University stated that helium is being depleted rapidly and the supply will be over with in the next eight years. Science & technology without helium is unthinkable. This article reviews the status of availability of helium world-wide and refers to the effort made indigenously to extract helium from Indian sources.

K.S.Parthasarathy





Science Tribune April 25, 2008


Dwindling helium supply
K.S. Parthasarathy
During the first week of this year, Prof Lee Sobotka at Washington University warned that helium is being depleted so rapidly in the world’s largest reserve, outside of Amarillo, Texas, that supplies are expected to be depleted there within the next eight years.
“Helium is nonrenewable and irreplaceable……… unlike hydrocarbon fuels (natural gas or oil) there are no biosynthetic ways to make an alternative to helium”, he clarified. It is a rare gas with many properties critical to several applications in high technology.
As helium does not become radioactive, it is a good coolant in nuclear reactors. Helium is the primary coolant in Pebble Bed Modular Reactors, innovative reactors of 165 MWe, being installed in South Africa. Helium is used as cover gas in the Indian pressurized heavy water reactors
Helium being non-flammable is a safer gas to fill balloons than hydrogen. It is an ideal inert gas shield for arc welding. In some countries, helium is cheaper than argon, another gas used for the same purpose. Helium is an excellent protective gas in growing silicon and germanium crystals.
It is the pressurizing agent of choice for liquid fuel rockets. Helium is a leak detection agent to identify extremely tiny leaks. Helium’s role in nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry is unique. A world without helium is unthinkable!
Helium may be of primordial or radiogenic origin. NASA’s Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite provided some evidence of helium gas left over from the big bang.
Uranium-238 and thorium-232 in the earth’s crust and mantle emit alpha particles which pick up two electrons and become radiogenic helium.
In the entire life span of the earth, only half of the uranium-238 atoms have decayed — yielding eight helium atoms in the process. Helium mixes with natural gas and will remain with it till it is extracted.
Helium that escapes into the atmosphere may be lost permanently. The atmospheric concentration of helium is very low at about 5.2 parts per million, too low to be harvested economically.
India currently imports virtually all its helium requirements of 10,000 normal cubic metres per month from the USA. Scientists at Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC), an institution under the Department of Atomic Energy, did some pioneering work in the field; they estimated that thermal spring gases at Bakereswar and Tantloi in West Bengal contain 1.4 and 1.26 vol % of helium respectively. Extracting and purifying helium from thermal springs and monazite sands are not commercially viable proposals.
The Ministry of Science and Technology had set up a special task force in early 2005 to identify India’s helium reserves.
Taking into account the strategic importance of helium, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation set up a Rs 250 crore pilot plant at Kutralam in Tamil Nadu to produce 3,000 normal cubic metres per hour of helium from natural gas.
Poland, Russia, China. Algeria and Netherlands separate helium commercially from natural gas; helium is present in their oil fields at concentrations ranging from 0.18 and 0.9 vol percentage. In some US oilfields helium is present at 8 vol%.
The US government accumulated so far a reserve of 110 million standard cubic metres of this precious resource. In 1996, The US Congress decided to liquidate it by 2005 in such a way as to cause minimum market disruption.
A report from the National Academy of Sciences prepared on a direction from Congress assured that such a disposal of helium reserves will not have substantial adverse impact on US scientific, technical, biomedical, or national security interests.
The committee’s assurance on price stability through 2010 went wrong. The price of liquid helium is about $5 a litre; it rose more than 50% during the last year. The vagaries of the market place can hurt any dependent country
India’s decision to operate an indigenous plant to extract helium is strategically sound even if indigenous helium may turn out to be costlier than imported helium.

[K.S. Parthasarathy is former Secretary, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board]