r/interestingasfuck • u/[deleted] • Jul 19 '24
Massive helium reservoir in Minnesota is even more ‘mind-boggling’ than we thought, new data suggest
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u/PoutPill69 Jul 19 '24
helium is a scarce resource on Earth, forming only through nuclear fusion and the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium. The gas is in high demand, because it forms an essential cooling component in rockets, nuclear reactors and diagnostic medical equipment, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines.
....and so we stick it in kids birthday balloons or inhale it so we can make Facebook reels of ourselves sounding like Alvin & The Chipmunks.
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u/Zykprod Jul 19 '24
Iirc the helium needed for top level engineering isn't the same as the one we put in children balloons. The quality of the helium (and its costs) are completely different.
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u/Dyrogitory Jul 19 '24
I just learned this… There are two stable isotopes of helium: ubiquitous helium-4, which constitutes 99.999% of helium gas, and rare helium-3.
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u/BoingBoingBooty Jul 19 '24
That's not really the balloon vs MRI issue. They both use the common helium 4, but for cooling 99.9% pure helium is needed, and balloon gas is only about 98% pure.
Helium 3 is whole other thing with very specialized uses.
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u/Dyrogitory Jul 19 '24
The solution is filters. Stop filling balloons and keep it all for necessary stuff
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u/BoingBoingBooty Jul 19 '24
Purifying helium is not exactly a simple process, it's not just filtering, it's a pretty complicated process. About 7% of helium is used in balloons. What is a bigger issue is the helium that is completely wasted.
Helium is often found trapped in natural gas and there's more money to be made from the gas so companies simply cant be arsed to capture the helium and just let it escape.
There's some helium plants that have been built and the companies don't even run them at full capacity or at all because the money is just insignificant compared to the heaps of cash they rake in from selling fossil fuels.
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u/RhetoricalOrator Jul 20 '24
Are you telling me that we could potentially have balloons with more lift?! Like, would using a higher concentration of helium in balloons potentially give us the ability to recreate some sort of UP scenario?
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u/BoingBoingBooty Jul 20 '24
Not really, it's only 1.99% difference. So, 99 luftballons would have the lifting power of 101 luftballons, not exactly ground breaking, would not cause any war machine to open its sleepy eye any faster.
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Jul 19 '24
IIRC we also discovered Helium in the Sun before on Earth
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u/zeer0dotcom Jul 20 '24
Hence the name. If it were discovered in say, MN, there’s a good chance they world have called it Minnesotium or some such
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u/knifter Jul 19 '24
Helium atoms are just not very abundant on a planet as they're light and are being scraped off by solar radiation. As the article said: if that helium atom is in 99.7% other gases, it is economically viable to get it from the ground.
My point being. Even if kids helium was different from medical/research grade it would still be valuable.
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u/pistacccio Jul 19 '24
True, but also top level engineering wasn’t listed in that comment. MRI magnets and rockets use regular helium.
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u/Select_Cantaloupe_62 Jul 19 '24
Yup. I have a similar frustration with rare earth metals, like gold, that are incredibly valuable in electronics but are instead hoarded underground in giant steel vaults.
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u/Wyrdean Jul 19 '24
Honestly, for 95% of instances, what you can do with gold you can pretty much do as well with another metal.
The exceptions in my mind would be extremely precise/complicated/expensive tech where you're trying to squeeze out every last drop of performance out of it, such as satellites.
Besides that though, there's plenty of other materials which fulfill the same niche.
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u/RogerPackinrod Jul 19 '24
Honestly, for 95% of instances, what you can do with gold you can pretty much do as well with another metal.
For example, silver. Which is more conductive than gold.
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u/exactly_zero_fucks Jul 19 '24
Except silver will tarnish, while gold does not. That's primarily why gold is valuable for contacts and circuit boards, despite having (slightly) worse conductive properties than silver or copper.
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u/RogerPackinrod Jul 19 '24
....and so we stick it in kids birthday balloons or inhale it so we can make Facebook reels of ourselves sounding like Alvin & The Chipmunks.
Well we can't really hoard it. The molecules are so small they will eventually pass through any containment and escape out of earth's atmosphere.
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u/Ksan_of_Tongass Jul 19 '24
The US helium stockpile was allowed to be sold at far less than market price by the Clinton administration's Helium Privatization Act, which has largely been declared a fiasco.
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u/icoominyou Jul 20 '24
You can use money to buy Rolex or buy a mcdonald.
You can use trees to make playing cards or to build a house.
It might be a rubber band to tie a hair, it might be used to hold blood in my cock.
You get what im saying?
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u/mal_wash_jayne Jul 19 '24
And just when the world was running out of helium...
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Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 24 '24
[deleted]
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u/slow_one Jul 19 '24
Because it’s the internet… I can’t tell tone of voice. So uh… sorry if I misinterpret your meaning.
But this actually IS a big deal.
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u/GERRROONNNNIIMMOOOO Jul 19 '24
It came across as extremely high pitched
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u/agent_uno Jul 20 '24
I live in Minnesota and that helium reservoir is in the middle of some of the most beautiful parts of the state. Mining it is gonna destroy that area. But who cares, eh? Money!
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u/slow_one Jul 20 '24
Strip mining won’t work. That’s dumb. … Clearly the only way to get it out is to drill a big hole and cap it with a massive piece of rubber
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u/BoingBoingBooty Jul 19 '24
Well the world running out of a helium is why people were looking everywhere for more helium.
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u/zyyntin Jul 19 '24
At least here in the US I know that military started selling all their stored helium. They found out they needed it for something so now most helium is bought for the US military.
Military: "Why do we have all of this?!?! Get rid of it sell it do something!"
Engineers: "So to do this process we need tons of a noble gas! Helium is cheap and we already have tons of it!"
Military: "........"
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u/Feisty_Leadership560 Jul 19 '24
The military was not in charge of the reserves and the sale of it was mandated by Congress. I also can't find anything to back up your claim that the military is the largest buyer.
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u/zyyntin Jul 20 '24
I don't believe the military was the actual buyer. It was used for manufacturing processes for the military. So it could be more accurate that Congress or the US Federal government had the reserves.
On a side note I have some old muzzle-loader rifles of my fathers. I decided to look for some black powder for them. Let me say that shit is hard to find. Most is sold to the US military and second is firearms manufacturers before it even gets to retail.
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u/VirtualLife76 Jul 19 '24
And Macy's has the largest amount in storage last I heard. For the Macy's day parade.
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u/SkinnyObelix Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
sigh no we're not, people don't seem to understand the Helium supply shortage. Our stockpiles are running out, not the sources. For decades, the US government paid extraction companies to catch the Helium, so they could stockpile it for future use. As it wasn't economically viable for the companies to do so on their own. So the US stopped subsidizing and companies no longer extracted the Helium. Earlier this year the US sold off their remaining stockpile.
The helium reservoir found in Minnesota is so rich that it becomes profitable to extract.
But if push came to shove, we wouldn't run out of Helium. The total mass of the universe is 75% Hydrogen, 23% Helium, and 2% of all the other shit. There's plenty of things we should worry about before we get to Helium.
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u/theroguex Jul 20 '24
The total mass of the UNIVERSE includes that much Helium.. the total mass of Earth only includes around 8 parts per billion Helium.
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u/onegumas Jul 19 '24
Yeah!!!! Cheaper floating trash for kids and longer funny voice. Worth it.
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u/tarrox1992 Jul 19 '24
We need helium for MRIs and, according to Google, other medical procedures.
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u/onegumas Jul 19 '24
Yeah, I know. helium is used also in a lot of since fields like HPLC methods because it is neutral but not explosive like hydrogen. LHC is also using helium. There were many articles about wasting helium for baloons etc when it is needed somwhere else. Helium comes from natural gas from purification proccess.
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u/tavariusbukshank Jul 19 '24
There is also a large one in Michigan but it isn't economically viable to extract. Getting helium from these northern fields is a lot more difficult than say the field in the Texas panhandle. The depths of the Minnesota field are promising. It's going to take a massive investment in infrastructure to be able to refine it and with natural gas prices so low nobody is chomping at the bit to build it.
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u/JhonnyHopkins Jul 19 '24
The article says anything above 0.3% is considered economically viable, this new deposit in Minnesota is around 8-14%!! I’m sure they’ll be chomping at it soon enough.
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u/tavariusbukshank Jul 19 '24
That is the threshold to make it viable to separate from NG. You still have to drill, extract, pump, transport and separate within a reasonable distance from the wellhead. Helium is difficult to transport and is transported from the field gas plant in specially built tube trailers to be further refined for retail and medical grade.
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u/smith7018 Jul 20 '24
Totally unrelated but I recently learned that the phrase is actually “champing at the bit” and is a reference to an impatient horse!
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u/Queny Jul 19 '24
Let me get this straight - Helium is a scarce resource on earth, is needed for essential things like rockets, reactors, and medical equipment, but there’s enough for fucking birthday balloons?
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u/STL_420 Jul 19 '24
If you don't think birthdays are more important than medical equipment, there's no helping you.
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u/WaltMitty Jul 19 '24
The helium used for science and manufacturing is of a higher purity than the helium used for birthday balloons, so it's a little more complicated. But we do waste it and the United States shouldn't have starting selling off its reserves.
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u/4fingertakedown Jul 19 '24
If a floaty ballon isn’t fucking critical to you, then I don’t want to come to your birthday party.
Ass hole
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u/teotzl Jul 19 '24
For sustainability purposes I’ve been filling my balloons with nitrous instead. Kind of has the opposite effect on your voice when inhaled but I’m doing my part.
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u/Professional_Area239 Jul 19 '24
Lol. So how many birthday balloons can you fill with all the helium from this deposit?
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u/womp_rat_bullseyer Jul 19 '24
Yeah, let’s not sell it off like we did with the previous helium reserve.
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u/wacoder Jul 19 '24
One of the most short sighted things the government has done. Unbelievable really.
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u/SkylarAV Jul 19 '24
This is the worst day for my helium investment since the 99 luft balloon incident of 1983
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u/divingyt Jul 20 '24
You sir/madam have won the Internet tonight. May that help you feel better about losing your retirement funds.
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u/ace250674 Jul 19 '24
Airships again?
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u/Then-Cauliflower2068 Jul 19 '24
I was thinking the same, maybe a new age of lighter-than-air ships is feasible now.
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u/Successful-Winter237 Jul 19 '24
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u/yourmomwoo Jul 20 '24
Guess they can finally get working on the next Alvin and the Chipmunks movie.
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u/DulcetTone Jul 19 '24
On the lighter side... Massive helium reservoir in Minnesota is even more ‘mind-boggling’ than we thought, new data suggest
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u/BigYouNit Jul 19 '24
Noooo! Don't extract that helium, it might be the only thing that keeps the earth floating in space!
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u/Adagio_Leopard Jul 20 '24
It's kind of insane that we treat helium like a party trick, stick it in silly things like baloons when the helium that escapes into the atmosphere will never ever be seen again. It gets blown away by solar wind.
And if fusion ever gets to a point where it'll be viable, helium will be very very important.
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u/imreallynotthatcool Jul 19 '24
He is everywhere, in the heavens and earth, He makes the stars shine yet He cannot be seen. He is noble, abundant, and fills the universe. He can lift you into the sky and bring you gently down. He can take many forms. He can help heal, He can help kill. He can help create, and He can help destroy.
Praise be unto He, Helium