Thousands of years. That’s good, because when it runs out, it’s gone, into space.
Follow the yellow brick road!
Oh the humanity
“ All commercial helium is recovered from natural gas. Helium usually makes up a minuscule portion of natural gas, but can make up as much as 10 percent ”
Wait’ll they discover the truth about helium. Dumbasses.
HOORAH for Bidens new US Balloon Force!
What a load of hooey. The helium deposits in North America are well-known. It typically takes at least 2% of the gas stream to be commercially viable. There is helium in small quantities in all gas fields, just like there are a few grains of gd in your backyard.
This is news? Oxford scientists aren’t very quick on the draw. Did they just wake up?
We have seen this for ages in gas samples. It is common in ghe area of the Panhandle area of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado. We had one well that made more money on Helium than natural gas.
How is it that the Russians simply kept producing all the materials necessary to run a modern economy, while we off-shored everything in the name of wokeism, green-marxism and profit for Wall Street?
Good. Pipe it into the White House and let joe breathe it in while he’s reading from the teleprompter. Then we’ll hear word salad as read by Alvin the Chipmunk.
Helium is a big deal because liquid helium is the magic ingredient in an MRI machine. Magnets bathed in such a cold liquid (-452°F) defy the laws of conventional (but not quantum) physics. That little heat energy leaves atoms in such a low energy state that their electrons are barely moving. Which allows solid matter can pass through solid matter.
Spooky.
And it only stays cold until it boils off. A typical MRI machines holds not quite 400 gallons of liquid helium (enough to fill about 50,000 party balloons), about half of which boils off every year. So the cooling is both passive and perishable.
And the proliferation of MRI units are the chief cause of the helium shortage.
Well, Party City and other places that sell helium-filled balloons will be pleased! They have certainly been suffering from the lack of helium.
Lots of goodies out there in the Solar System if we ever figure out a way to use them . Jupiter has about 30 Earth masses worth of Helium. Don’t even get me started on how much the Sun has!
I suggest "Scientists" hold their breath until there is recoverable Helium from any new Natural Gas wells in the US.
It'll shorten their misery significantly.