When the act was first passed, the price set was close to double the market price. While some other countries (Canada, Russia, and Algeria) produce helium, they collectively supply only 22 percent of global demand. Since the United States is the biggest supplier of helium globally, the market value for helium has been artificially lowered. This helium has been stored by the Bureau of Land Management in giant underground caverns in the Texas panhandle to this day. (The Hindenburg was filled with the very flammable hydrogen rather than helium because the United States controlled helium supplies and was loath to provide the gas to Germany.) In 1960, demand for helium increased, so Congress created incentives for natural gas producers to sell their helium to the helium reserve. In 1925, the United States created the National Helium Reserve to ensure our dominance in the zeppelin wars that were sure to come. Many uses were found for the gas-in particular, lighter-than-air travel. As it turned out, the Great Plains was hiding enormous amounts of helium, and the United States quickly became, and remains today, the world’s biggest supplier of helium. They were disappointed, but chemists eventually studied the gas and realized that natural gas deposits in the United States often contain helium in single-digit percentages. The source of the helium we use now was discovered in 1903 in Dexter, Kan., when drillers happened upon gas that didn’t burn. (The New York Times recently questioned the DOE’s investment in fusion research.) Even if fusion ever reliably produced more energy than is required to start the reaction, the industry would not take off for many decades, and the amount of helium produced would be marginal.

Commercial fusion energy is the goal of much research around the globe but is very far from being a reality. Fission is impractical because enormous quantities of heavy metals like uranium and thorium would be necessary, and fusion won’t work because of the high energies required to combine hydrogen atoms to form helium. Producing helium artificially is possible in theory, but only through fission or nuclear fusion of two hydrogen atoms. The rate at which it is produced accounts for less than one-half of global demand, and most of it cannot be recovered efficiently. This helium is largely formed as a by-product of decaying radioactive elements. It’s really only when it is trapped underground that we can isolate it.

Helium is abundant in the universe, but here on Earth it is more elusive while there’s a lot of helium in the atmosphere, it is very difficult to purify. The helium we use today is found in underground gas pockets, often associated with natural gas.

Reclaime helieme