Why Helium Matters!

Helium has more uses than just blowing up party balloons and making our voices sound funny! In fact, helium can take research to new heights! Everything from medical purposes such as MRI machines, helping scuba divers, aeronautics, and even welding!

While Helium is quite abundant in the universe; it's quite rare on Earth. Helium is unique in that it is the ONLY element on the periodic table that is ENTIRELY NONRENEWABLE! It is also the only element that can just float away into space!

Join Amber and Kendra in this episode as we explore Why Helium Matters!

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Transcript

spk_0:   0:00
This is Episode 30. Why helium matters. Welcome to y bling matters where we explore why small topics have big impacts. I'm your host, Amber Williams.

spk_1:   0:26
And I'm your host, Kendra Clark.

spk_0:   0:27
Because if you're new here, consider subscribing. Hey, Kendra. Yes, Amber? What do you do with a sick chemist?

spk_1:   0:34
I don't know

spk_0:   0:35
you helium. And if you can't helium you curia. And if you can't curium, You're very, um Oh, his curium and barium are chemicals on the elements on the periodic table. So today's episode is about helium, and we thought about buying a balloon so we could, like, do some little voice tricks and one up, but then after our research were not feeling too excited about about that.

spk_1:   1:06
So yeah, because what you learn is there a lot more important uses for helium than

spk_0:   1:13
making our voices sound silly.

spk_1:   1:14
Yeah, but there's also some potential health impacts, like sucking and helium, which, if you just do it once or twice, isn't that bad for you. But if you do it continuously, can deep dive really bad? Well, that's different. They use a mixture, but got pure helium because it's so much lighter than oxygen. It's hard to get out of your lungs. It'll just, like settle in there at the top. So, uh, don't bring them a lot of healing and it's not good for Have you ever video

spk_0:   1:42
of, like, deep sea divers on like a long dive? They'll be. They'll be underwater for either dates. There's like a certain period of time I have ever seen video of them like talking to each other? No, because like when they they're if they're in a chamber, um, like for their sleeping quarters and whatnot, they're in healing the entire time. So if they make phone calls and what not, uh, it's gonna sound like a prank phone call. Yes, and they're in their chambers because they don't come up every single night. You

spk_1:   2:09
have me likey. Liam, like that sounds kind of boring. He lands actually used for a lot of really cool things is actually the second most abundant element in the universe. But it's really rare here on earth.

spk_0:   2:22
Yes, it's entirely non renewable, and it's the only element in the periodic table that can just float away. In the space

spk_1:   2:32
is the only Adam around us that was formed after the formation of the earth. So it didn't exist here when Earth was initially formed. That came later, which is crazy,

spk_0:   2:44
right? And so it doesn't. It didn't actually come to earth. And actually, the first discovery of helium was not on earth either.

spk_1:   2:52
Yes. So an 18 68 French astronomer, Pierre Jules Caesar Johnson, are Jansen traveled to India to measure the solar spectrum during a total eclipse And what he'll observe with a new yellow line which indicated a new element which is crazy to me. They could just look at a bunch of colors coming from the sun and be like, Oh, this is you. And before it was yellow, If

spk_0:   3:19
I said something like that, people would think I'm crazy.

spk_1:   3:22
Well, a lot of people did think he was crazy. They didn't believe it was real. They thought that he just blink salted. I felt, um,

spk_0:   3:29
did he spend a lot of time staring at the sun like Galileo?

spk_1:   3:32
Probably think that was like a pretty regular thing back in that day. That same year, there was also a guy named Joseph Norman Lockyer, and he recorded that same line while observing the sun through London smog, and he assumed the new metal to be, um, the new element to the metal. And he named a helium.

spk_0:   3:52
These two scientists were in totally different places,

spk_1:   3:55
right? They were completely different places, didn't know each other, weren't communicating with each other. And the reason he named it helium was after Ah, the Greek word for sun, which is Helios. And because there was no sign of this metal helium on earth for nearly 20 years after this, everybody kind of mocked him they because they didn't think it was a real thing, which is kind of funny. Um, but 20 years later, well, well over 20 years later, in 1918 95 Sir William Ramsay, who was a Scottish chemist, conducted an experience experiment with the mineral that contained uranium, and he basically a poured acid on the uranium and helium gas was detected and released. And the reason why is because so helium is a colorless, odorless gas, and it's completely un reactive, and it doesn't exist naturally here on earth. And it's only replenished in two ways. One because either through cosmic rays, which is why they saw it coming in through the sun also through radioactive decay. And so that's what, uh, sir, Sir William Randy was seeing when he poured the acid. What? He saw the uranium decaying and was releasing this odorless gas. And so finally, walk your guts. Um, I guess credibility, credibility. He lives during this time. I don't know. I didn't look that up, but, um but yeah, because our helium mostly comes from the sun when it's not from radioactive decay. Because what happens is in the sun, hydrogen atoms actually fused together to form helium because of the extreme temperatures. This reason, like if you look at the periodic table of elements, hydrogen is one and helium is too so right. You know, you have two hydrogen come together, makes two makes

spk_0:   5:59
helium, and they're both lighter than air. And so that's really important to acknowledge. Um, and and we'll get into that a little bit later into the episode, too. But unlike helium, hydrogen is not a stable substance, so it can ah, be a little bit. What's

spk_1:   6:18
the word? I'm looking for explosive explosive because isn't that what happened with the Hindenburg?

spk_0:   6:27
So the Hindenburg? Yes. So the Hindenburg was Thean never Grizzlies with hydrogen, and it wasn't allowed to be used with helium during this time because this was when I was first being regulated. We'll get into that a little bit, uh, later, but yeah, it was it was hydrogen. But so it's the most famous, like airship accident in history. However, it's not the deadliest.

spk_1:   6:51
Yes, if you don't know what the Hindenburg is, or maybe only ever heard that word and basically it exploded. Um, because look at

spk_0:   6:58
the end of its flight, I think I

spk_1:   6:59
think so. Yeah, but because what they discovered is hydrogen is not stable and can be

spk_0:   7:05
explosive. Yes, and there were roughly, like 90 some passengers on board, 30 to 36 which work crew. Ironically, on Lee, 36 people died was 36 or less than 36. So the majority of the people survived. And another fun fact is that the Hindenburg had a smoking room. It's like maybe they didn't know it

spk_1:   7:26
was a little bit explosive because you couldn't bring your own matches or fighters on two the ship,

spk_0:   7:32
right? So, ironically, the airship that had the most death deaths was three USS Akron, and that was used with helium because after 1937 when the Hendon were crashed, they change some of the healing and regulations. But we'll get into that in a pit

spk_1:   7:49
where helium wasn't here when Earth was originally formed. Even though it's been in the universe since the Big Bang. And extracting it from the air is not very economical is very hard to do. And so the way we get it is actually by digging. Get from the ground. Ah, helium is a component of natural gas. So the methods for extracting key Liam are the same as those used to my natural gases. It is important know that not all natural gases have helium. Right? Um, there's also different grades of helium as well.

spk_0:   8:24
And the reason that helium conceived through is because wth e geology of wherever think the natural gases are it needs to be sedimentary rock. Otherwise, the helium is gonna seep through because it's lighter than air. I confined those little bubbles and get through, and that it's why not all fuel producing countries also ah, produce helium. Yeah, and like

spk_1:   8:51
once they basically they extract the natural gas through drills. And once they have that, then they actually separate the gases from the natural gas. Like I had a word that that's kind of a weird work. But so what they do is they decrease the temperature of the natural gases and they use a nitrogen rejection unit two separate, separate the nitrogen from the gas, and then they separate the helium gas from the nitrogen gas using a cryogenic, um, separation unit. And then they compress the gas, which causes it to expand into a larger container, creating a cooler effect. And as the gas cool, then the helium separates and which is kind of interesting that you have to have a cryogenic factor in order to separate the gases in order to create helium. Because which we'll talk about a little bit later is how helium is used a lot in cryogenic cooling. So you have to have it to mine it, which is kind of crazy. Interesting. Um, yeah, Um, like I said, they're different grades of helium to there's ah, it's created from 4 to 6 and those grades related to the purity of the helium. And so you're like grade four, which is the bottom is considered like your balloon grade helium is. That's what you're going to get at a party city for your like kid's birthday party. You also have industrial grade. There's different levels of that, Um, and then you'll have research grade and the one that is the purest is great. Six. And it's almost 100% pure, and it's used mostly in manufacturing conductor chips. So all the little chips that make little tiny chips that help make your laptop and your, um, smartphone work. You could take helium for that.

spk_0:   10:56
So helium is also used for a number of other things. It's got a lot of uses, everything from the creation of fiber optic cables. So it's really important for scuba diving pressurization like NASA use. It uses it. Different aeronautical programs use it. It's a great coolant. As we mentioned, it's one of the coldest coolants. I think it's it's used in welding. I'm not. I don't quite understand Arc welding, but I know that helium is a part of it. Like we said, cryogenics Ah, electronics. So its uses are pretty diverse. 23% of helium is used for cryogenics. Um, 14% is used for electronics pressure and purging 5%. Ah, welding is about 9% and it's got uses like so there's nothing available that can replace what helium does for certain things, such as the M R I machines. It's also a superconductor, which means materials that conduct electricity without any resistance are not possible without cryogenics. Liquid helium slow melting point and in earnest makes it a top choice for cooling superconductors.

spk_1:   12:19
And when it comes to medicine, you know is used for MRI's because in its liquid form it can bring down temperatures down below minus 450 degrees, which is really cold. Um, it's a central for only all research. Yeah, on this important and memorize because memorize have all these little coils of wires that conduct electricity and bathing the wires and liquid helium keeps them super cool, dropping their resistance to close to zero. That allows the wires to conduct enough electrical current to create a strong magnetic field. Because without helium to supercool the wires, the MRI's would require too much energy, and they would be even more super expensive than they already are. Um, which importance we used MRI's a lot look in 2016 they found that 118 Emery scans were performed for every 1000 people in the U. S. And then also in medicine they use was called Helios, which is a mixture of helium and oxygen. And it's a mixture that can be breathed by humans without discomfort. They do use it for deep sea divers, but also for people who have respiratory issues. It's easier to breathe, then just pure oxygen, so they

spk_0:   13:39
can help with matters of, like, asthma, COPD and justice, some cardiac, um, uses for helium as well.

spk_1:   13:48
Yeah, they they said that, um, helium inhalation enhances vaso dilator effect. So basically, it helps the blood vessels to expand just by inhaling it, which I don't know how that works. But, um, I think there was also something I read and they talked about four like, die like digestive tract issues. They can also use the helium to expand the like intestines and stuff to kind of like widen them while they're doing certain procedures. Wow. So he claims, like super important and medicine, which I didn't know until he started doing this research. And when it comes to using helium for for research, um, it's used for a variety of things. Probably one of the most well known is actually for the large had drawn collider, Um, primarily because it's needed to cool down the collider, but is the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator and is actually the largest machine in the world. Which is kind of crazy to think about, um, and it was used to discover the Higgs Bos in which was what they deemed the God particle several years ago because it seems the last remaining piece of the standard model of particle physics. So basically, that was like the missing piece for them to understand the universe. I mean, they still know everything that it kind of gave them a little bit more to work with. So if when it comes to space, they use helium to cool the liquid oxygen and nitrogen that powered the Apollo space vehicles, they also use helium to clean out rocket engines. Um, yeah, um, because the helium pressurize is the interior of the liquid fuel rockets and condenses the hydrogen oxygen to make. Basically, as the may simplify that as the oxygen and hydrogen leave the vessel because it's like sucked out without helium, that container would collapse. So what the helium does is basically a span, so it maintains its shape rather than collapsing in on itself. That's a nice, easy breakdown. Um,

spk_0:   16:12
helium has a lot of military uses to, and so it's referenced a lot, particularly when we get into the history of of, um, helium and how it's regulated. But the Navy was kind of ahead of the curve, and they've made the first diving suit that can recycle oxygen and helium. And that's really important, because when we talk about shortages, you know, one of the reasons that it was we're in a shortage is because we sold everything in the healing reserves and it was so cheap to buy helium, there was no incentive to recycle it more maintain it. So, like we said, helium is entirely non renewable. There's no way to create it. There's no way that Earth generates it entirely on its own like, and

spk_1:   17:03
there's nothing to replace it right. There was one side, one article. I don't remember who the scientist was, but they said it's the ultimate non renewable resource, right?

spk_0:   17:13
Um, and so the scary thing is, it could just float away into space, as we mentioned earlier. Um, so the there was the federal helium reserves. This was established in 1925 after World War Two because we realized that there was an importance for helium. So I think during world war, when it was used for a lot of reconnaissance efforts and like, the balloons and we were just kind of figuring out aviation during this time and what we were gonna do with it, Um, but they realized that helium was really important. Said they created the the helium Federal Reserve out of Amarillo, Texas, and as a result, like the United States was like the main producer of helium for roughly 100 years and especially like we were the largest exporter within the last 40 years. But things are starting to change because we're running out. So the first Like I said, the first helium act was in 1925. That was when the federal helium reserve was created and basically the helium act of 1925. It was drafted for the purpose of conservation, exploration and procurement of helium gas, authorized condemnation, lease purchase, or acquire lands bearing potential off producing helium gas. So and then this was modified in 1927 by the 69th Congress and was signed by Calvin Coolidge. And this authorized for the government to again acquire land by purchase, lease or condemnation where necessary when helium cannot be purchased from private pop prop private parties at less cost. And the primary objective here was to supply the needs of the army and the Navy. And so this was somewhat problematic because, as we mentioned earlier with Hindenburg, they were using hydrogen. When you know, today we're like, Well, why weren't they using helium? They were not using helium because helium was not allowed during this time for private or commercial use. It was on Lee, really used for government purposes, primarily with the Army and the Navy. So this was modified after that crash of the Hindenburg Hindenburg, Um, as of September 1st of 1937. So it was basically saying that helium is a mineral resource pertaining to national defense, and this was modified to then allow other uses for helium. Um and still, the main objective was to dictate the selling, conserving and producing a feeling, um, gas and it was delegated to the secretary of the interior through the Bureau of Mining. So the Bureau of Mining was created in 1910 and it was dissolved in 1996. Ironically, when we decided to start selling all of our federal helium reserves, I don't know if there's any correlation between that or not. Um, but I think it's kind of interesting. The Bureau of Mines was the primary US agency convey conducting scientific research and disseminating info on it speaks on extraction processes, use and conservation of mineral resource is so This was established because there were a series of mining accidents in 1910 and hundreds of workers. Yeah, hundreds of workers were killed in mining accidents with the creation of other agencies. Throughout aren't nation's history acquiring some of these responsibilities? So the Department of Interior started taking over some of the safety, um, administrations and the E. P. A was also created in the 19 seventies, and so one of the primary reasons off the Bureau of Mines was for environmental research. And so once the e. P. A was created that was taken over there, um, the CDC took some responsibilities from the Bureau of mines. And there's an article from 1995 Bureau of Mines Feeling shafted by The Washington Post. Yes, so just basically got outlines. How how the Bureau of Mines was dissolved. So in 1966 there a few other acts in there to one in 1954 1960 7 1960 It determines in national interest required the conservation of certain helium. So in 1996 the 100 forth Congress, um, decided that we need to do this. We needed to sell all of the helium and the federal he'll in reserves. And that seems crazy by today's standards, like understanding all that we know about helium today. I don't really know what research existed at the time, and

spk_1:   22:17
it seems like a large deciding factor. And that was just It was so expensive to door the helium. Yes, and to selling. It seemed like

spk_0:   22:27
a good idea. At the time, the focus shifted to helium privatization, and so they wanted companies to kind of take the place of what the government was doing. So, um, and it took me a while to kind of find, like, why we decided to sell Oliver helium and like you said, it was incredibly costly. But it was creating a debt of $1.4 billion so they decided to make up for that debt. We were gonna start stealing the selling the helium. The healing reserves,

spk_1:   23:00
even though we were selling it like ridiculously low li license we were selling it for were look at how that could pay. There was no

spk_0:   23:09
incentive. There was no incentive for innovation. There was no incentive to recycle it. There was no incentive to maintain it because it was just so cheap to buy it in. This, so that this act of the Helium Privatization Act directs the Department of Interior to begin a liquidating the U. S. Federal Reserve's by 2005 consistent with minimal market disruption. What so, whatever that means. The U. S. Has been the largest producer of field of helium from anywhere from the last four decades. 200 years, and then Obama signed in the Helium Stewardship Act. So the purpose of the Helium Stewardship Act was to mitigate a helium shortage by enabling the Secretary of Interior acting through the director of Bureau of Land Management to continue to sell crude helium for federal healing reserve. However, it means we're kind of pumping their brakes a little bit. Yeah, And so as of 2015 we actually the U. S. Started importing helium and are the primary country where we buy helium is from Qatar. And as we mentioned earlier with the extraction process, helium isn't necessarily it's it's time to the production of natural gas. But the production of Natural Guest doesn't guarantee the production of helium or that even that healing is available there. And the reason for that it, Like we said, it's the rocks. And, like the sea pidge or the

spk_1:   24:42
in some places where they're even might be amount of helium, it might not be helium that is pure enough for you, so it may not be of a good enough call. It can

spk_0:   24:51
be incredibly expensive to extract it as well. So 75% of the world's helium comes from Texas, Wyoming and, according to the global trade magazine, helium shortage bursting more than balloons. Um, this also referenced why we sold the helium reserves. But it talks about guitars, the second largest helium producer, followed by Algeria, Australia and this is no particular order. Cana, Canada, China, Poland and Russia. 80% of the of the U. S. Import of helium is from guitar. But this came to a screeching halt in 2017 because Guitar was embargoed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the U. A e. So ah, fourth of the world's helium, UM, that was being produced came to a screeching halt, so they had to find another way to export the helium, and that made it a lot more difficult. So now they're going through Oman after this point, and this just goes to show like political relations around the world can put a huge impact on the world's helium usage, which we've seen is used in a lot of different ways. So Europe actually gets most of their helium from Algeria, which makes sense because it's significantly closer. So guitars Richard Petroleum and Natural Gas, both of which account for 50 55% of the country's gross domestic product. Um, their gas is very rich in helium. It's Algeria's that third most producer of, um, helium. As of 2013 it also exports crude oil and natural gas. Um, the mining industry is regulated by the Ministry of Energy and Mining, though its numerous agencies are through its new numeral numerous agencies. As far as the actual helium ownership in Algeria, exact figures are unclear, but it appears to be split between private and public ownership now in Russia. Um, all minerals are owned by the state, but a licensing regime allows private companies opportunities to mine under limited constraints dependent on the type of license being issued. So nice Russia really wants to step up their game in the helium, uh, arena. But, uh, we've got a little bit on Tanzania.

spk_1:   27:33
So they've been talking about us having a helium shortage for quite a while. I think like 2010 was around the time. That was like, Oh, crap, this is what's going on. Um, but one thing that kind of helped make people feel a little bit better about it was in 2016 there was a basically a major helium gas field that was discovered in Tanzania. Um, and they think it actually may even be larger than the entire helium reserve of the U. S. Oh,

spk_0:   28:05
wow. So I have here that it's not a major helium player yet, but scientists from Oxford and Durham your universities. They said that Tanzania contains an estimated 99 billion cubic feet.

spk_1:   28:18
People have a cubit key. Liam. Yes, but I don't think they're actually mining. Get Yeah, but just finding that there's this deposit, their does provide them with some hope. But the thing is, even if we start minding it, it's eventually going to run out because right, it takes so long for the decay process to occur to create more helium. So even though we have found more, it doesn't mean that shortage isn't still an issue, because for use it, then we're just back in the same boat. It says if we don't use it responsibly,

spk_0:   28:54
the 99 billion cubic feet is enough to fill two million and 200,000 emery scanners. So I'm really curious how I'm our scanners now work like, how often do they need more helium? Um, I

spk_1:   29:07
don't know. When it comes to the shortage. Look, when you find articles would be like how the shorter is gonna affect medicine, which we've already talked about. Even Forbes had an article like could helium shortage d created the great our weather forecast because it's also used and weather balloons because they use it to carry weather instruments into the atmosphere. And it gets like a different level of data than, um, the satellites would have satellites would because it gets that atmosphere, it can diagnose upper atmospheric conditions and identify jet stream patterns and wind streams so it gets like a completely different data set. But the other thing is knowing that there's a shortage, how we be good stewards of that. Um so, like, I know my sister is getting married in May, and so we're working on planning like wedding showers and all this stuff, and I was talking my mom about decorations. What will we cannot have balloons or we can have balloons, but we just like, take them on the wall or something. I can't have healing him in them, because helium for basically just balloon parties how it's often referred to in the articles makes up 8% of our helium use every year. And what's that from, Um,

spk_0:   30:23
this is this is from the Guardian. This is in comparison to the Macy's Day

spk_1:   30:27
parade, which uses 1% less than 1% which is crazy. That just blows my mind. Um, and there's even a, uh, The Guardian interviewed Professor Robert Richardson of Cornell University. He actually won a Nobel Physics Prize in 1996 for his research from helium, and he argued that a helium party balloon should call 75 euros to more accurately reflect true scarcity. Value of the gas.

spk_0:   30:54
So euros at probably like $100 like us, right?

spk_1:   30:59
Yes, be somewhere close and taxes, you know. But apparently there's like a balloon association. Oh, my God. And they're trying to fight for the right to supply party balloons and honestly, like the decrease or the helium shortage has affected Party city in particular.

spk_0:   31:15
They've closed 45 stores because of the the helium affecting, affecting balloon sails.

spk_1:   31:22
But they've even talked about putting a party bowling tax. Um, so there's like, all these things, But, you know, we look at how one we're using helium for something that is way less important than the weather or MRI's early all these medical uses, but also there are a lot of balloons that get sent up into the air like I won't just let go, and that's really, really bad for the environment. Um, and the amber was showing me a video was in Cleveland was in Cleveland. Uh, and they had, like, a big balloon like they were trying to set, like had, like, the world record for the most balloons released into the atmosphere. And it calls so

spk_0:   32:13
many problems like they were trying to rescue two sailors. The Coast Guard couldn't couldn't find them because it was there were so many balloons on the water

spk_1:   32:22
because the balloon had fallen down. And we're just like floating around

spk_0:   32:25
on there like the mistake on the lake, like before the event before they let the balloon. They're like the mistake on the lake is no longer think I'm like, That was a mistake on the lake. Ah, but it got messed up with, like the airport and air traffic control. Oh, such a disaster there. 1.5 million balloons allegedly just in the environment, thanks to wanting to break a Guinness World Book of Records. But then it wasn't even recognized by Guinness anyway. So

spk_1:   32:57
in like 99 5% of balloons that are released into the air reach a high enough point where they freeze and they in basically the balloon terms into what they call a brittle fracture. So the balloon basically shatters into a bunch of pieces and they fall back down to Earth. And I mean, we think about like, our whole issue with, like, plastics trawls and stuff like Just think about how long it takes for that material to break down the impact that has on animals who ingest that or believe that our rubber water balloons latex again. I think they're made out latex. Um, well, they can order. Actually, this says, there's two balloon type, so there's way takes on the metallic, neither of which I'm pretty sure good for the environment or animals.

spk_0:   33:50
Yeah, I think that's all we got for this up. Sued for more information. You can find us on Facebook at

spk_1:   33:55
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spk_0:   33:57
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spk_1:   34:02
we'll see you next week.