The last helium from the National Helium Reserve is being auctioned off this November along with helium enrichment equipment, pipelines, and some office buildings too. Get your bid in!
There was a strategic helium reserve that the US government operated, but it was defunded and drawn down to depletion because of capitalism (gov’t doing it means corpos can’t make $$$ doing the same thing for twelve times the price).
The National Helium Reserve was started in the 1920s to store helium for military airships and barrage balloons; but airplane technology got a lot better and so we don’t use airships or even many balloons for military purposes anymore. So the original purpose of the reserve never turned out to be all that useful.
Helium is found alongside natural gas, and there is still plenty of helium production in the US. Until we get a real room-temperature superconductor, every MRI machine consumes liquid helium for cooling. This and other industrial uses make it profitable for natural gas producers to keep extracting helium.
Helium is the only element in the periodic table that is non renewable.
deleted by creator
America had huge reserves but released majority of it decades ago
The last helium from the National Helium Reserve is being auctioned off this November along with helium enrichment equipment, pipelines, and some office buildings too. Get your bid in!
There was a strategic helium reserve that the US government operated, but it was defunded and drawn down to depletion because of capitalism (gov’t doing it means corpos can’t make $$$ doing the same thing for twelve times the price).
The National Helium Reserve was started in the 1920s to store helium for military airships and barrage balloons; but airplane technology got a lot better and so we don’t use airships or even many balloons for military purposes anymore. So the original purpose of the reserve never turned out to be all that useful.
Helium is found alongside natural gas, and there is still plenty of helium production in the US. Until we get a real room-temperature superconductor, every MRI machine consumes liquid helium for cooling. This and other industrial uses make it profitable for natural gas producers to keep extracting helium.
Different isotypes the one you buy for baloons is not the same type thags used in nuclear reactors