One of the old favorites among the we're going to run out of resources stories appears to be raising its head again. The idea that we're about to run out of helium. I'm afraid this is simply untrue and the reason that people don't get this is because people just aren't understanding what a mineral reserve is. The general idea that most people do have is that it's the reserve of some mineral that's available to us to use. Which it isn't: a mineral reserve is an economic concept meaning the amount of a mineral that we've got prepared for us all to use in the near future. And it really is an economic concept too: the origins come from stock market listing rules so the entire concept is firmly rooted in the idea of profitability.
Given that I've just published an entire book (see the signature link) on this very point I should probably be the person to point out the error in this story. We get a mention of it at Boing Boing and their reference is to Priceonomics. There's nothing particularly wrong with the piece except that it entirely fails to get to grips with the most basic points about the subject under discussion. They're right about the National Helium Reserve and so on, but those are the details, not the major points.
So, our definition: a mineral reserve is that amount of some mineral that we have identified the location of, weighed, measured, tested the extraction of and proven (and the proof is the extremely important part here) that we can, with current technology, and at current prices, make a profit by extracting it.
The reason we use this economic definition is because we don't want people investing in mining stocks to be ripped off any more than they already are. So, if someone says "I've got some gold reserves" they'd better be able to prove it. To a known standard, one that's signed off by a reputable engineer. A mineral resource is a slightly weaker version of this (we've proven that we can probably etcetc.)
Neither mineral reserve not mineral resource have anything at all to do with the amount of whatever mineral is ultimately available. Not just not a very good guide, but there's no relationship at all between mineral reserves and how much of a mineral there is.
The best way of thinking about mineral reserves in a non-technical manner is that this is the stuff that we've prepared for everyone to use in the next few decades. This is why everyone in mining just sighs when someone says that mineral reserves will run out in a generation or two. Well, yes, that's the point of them. We will run out in a few decades of the minerals that we've prepared for people to use in the next few decades. That's not a staggering insight. And we'll prepare some more for people to use in the next few as a result. For the truth is that every generation does run out of mineral reserves.
So, the idea that the helium reserve is going to run out in a few decades isn't really something that worries anyone in the mining industry. Because, as above, reserves are what has been prepared for people to use in the next few decades.
Even if auctioning eventually solves the pricing problem, it will never change the fact that helium is not a renewable resource. The National Reserve is expected to be depleted by 2020, and even if it isn’t, under the current law it will have to shut down operations in 2021. In the meantime, the world is scrambling to find alternative coolants, levitators, and sources of helium.
“By the end of the decade,” USGS writes in its 2015 report on helium, “international helium extraction facilities are likely to become the main source of supply for world helium users. Expansions to facilities have been completed as planned in Algeria and Qatar.” China also plans on mining helium-3, which is currently mostly manufactured, off the moon.
Different users, encouraged by climbing prices, have begun experimenting with recycling their helium. Depending on how well the synergy of these efforts works, we may be closer to or further from the day in which a bouquet of helium balloons is seen as a frivolous, anachronistic luxury -- like ivory piano keys, or silverware actually made out of silver.
However, with helium this all actually gets very much worse. The misunderstanding that is. That first sentence of that conclusion is wrong for example. Helium is in fact a renewable resource. Or at least one that is constantly being generated.
The Earth's original endowment of helium boiled off into space a few billion years ago. All of the helium currently around has been recently (in geological terms at least) created. It's the end result of radioactive uranium breaking down. And the Earth is stuffed full of little bits and pieces of uranium all gradually decaying. The 5.something ppm of He in the atmosphere comes from uranium near the surface decaying (as does that radon gas that plagues the basements of houses in granite areas). With uranium that's deeper down the He will often collect along with natural gas in those reservoirs of that very useful product.
And that's where that National Helium Reserve comes in. A few wells in the Oklahoma sort of area are comparatively high in He (1.8% by weight). It's worth compressing this gas in order to be able to get the He out of it. So, that's what has been done and that's where the He for the reserve comes from. But this has nothing at all to do with however much helium there is for the human race to use in the future, the size of that reserve. Not just little relationship, or it's a guide or anything, but absolutely no connection at all.
Because there's that decaying uranium everywhere on the planet (yes, in the oceans, in your back yard) and thus all natural gas reservoirs contain some helium. Maybe not very much, this is true, maybe not enough that we'd bother to compress the gas to be able to extract the helium. But it really is being constantly created and turning up in that natural gas that we then suck up to feed into our gas cookers and power plants.
So, if we want more He we've just got to compress more of the natural gas we're already going out and getting.
Except, except, what's the big change to the natural gas market right now? That one that comes right after fracking? That's right: the world is turning towards Liquid (or Liquefied, your choice) Natural Gas. LNG: because that's the way you ship gas around the world. And, recall, how do we get the He out of our natural gas? We compress it: in fact, we compress/cool it into that liquid from the gas. This is the very process that enables us to extract the He. And there's half a dozen companies building LNG plants in the US right now (or at least, have applied for the licenses to do so). So not only do we have He as something that is constantly generated, it's also something where we're already building more plants that could possibly extract it. All we've got to do is stick the right doohickey on the side of those plants and we're cool, good to go.
The misunderstanding here is all about people just not getting the nature of what is a mineral reserve. That thing, as I've mentioned, that I've just written a book on. A reserve is an economic concept and simply isn't, just not at all, anything at all to do with the amount of something that is available to us. And over and above that, helium is, pretty much uniquely among the elements we use in the economy, actually a renewable, or at least something that is constantly being generated.
We're as likely to run out of helium as we all are to starve to death because we've eaten the bacon in the refrigerator, meaning that we cannot ever have breakfast again. And as such, no, we don't need to have a public policy about it, we don't need expensive conservation programs and we should only recycle it when it makes economic sense.
