World shortage of helium?

The majority of the world’s supply comes from the USA at present. Certain of the older fields in the Texas panhandle are running out but this does not mean that the world as a whole is short of the gas.

New plants in Algeria and Qatar are coming on stream, Russia is increasing its output. The Exxon plant in Wyoming has huge reserves and in the Rocky Mountains there are large untapped reserves. The US Government stocks are enormous, around 300 billion cubic feet.

45% of the usage is currently for testing and operation of large superconducting magnets. Action is being taken to recover helium released during testing and to avoid leakage once the magnets are operational. New superconducting materials such as magnesium diboride function at a higher temperature and will require less helium for cooling. And one day it may be possible to replace the liquid helium with liquid nitrogen if even higher temperature superconducting materials can be produced cheaply enough.

Recycling of helium

Recovery of gas from large advertising blimps. Apparently the gas in a large "blimp" or advertising balloon becomes contaminated as the helium leaks out through the envelope at about 3% a day and air leaks in. The blimp slowly loses its lift this sway. So simply recompressing the gas and reusing it is not really an option. One experienced user says that he vents off the lower portion of the gas in the blimp (which is presumably the heavier contaminants) and then refills with more balloon gas. After this the full lift is restored.

Loss of helium

Helium that is released in the open air rises up into the upper atmosphere and then diffuses into space! Earth’s gravity is not enough to prevent it escaping.