U.S. Congress to consider future of Federal Helium Reserve
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U.S. Congress to consider future of Federal Helium Reserve www.blm.gov
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n the coming months, the U.S. Senate may reexamine a 1996 Congressional decision to sell off the crude helium in the Federal Helium Reserve. Over the last 15 years the demand for helium has increased beyond expectations as helium has become increasingly fundamental to U.S. defense, health care, manufacturing, and research. Continuing to sell off the Federal Helium Reserve in accordance with the 1996 policy could lead to a number of negative consequences, such as an unstable domestic and global helium supply and significant price increases for helium users. These consequences would be felt by many in the materials research community. “In materials research, any time when low temperatures or high magnetic fields are required, liquid helium is also required,” said Robert Richardson, a 1996 Nobel laureate and low-temperature physicist at Cornell University. In addition, helium is essential for joining processes, surface-area measurement techniques like Brunauer–Emmett– Teller (BET), pycnometry, and plasma processing of materials. In early 2011, a report released jointly by the American Physical Society and the Materials Research Society made recommendations for securing supplies of the raw materials required for the emerging sustainable energy economy. Their report, Energy Critical Elements, advised against stockpiling elements because such reserves can discourage innovation, with the exception of helium. The physical properties of helium are so uniquely suited to cryogenic applications, manufacturing, and nuclearreactor designs that an unstable supply could be detrimental for U.S. research. “The Committee does not recommend that the federal government es-
tablish non-defense-related economic stockpiles of ECEs with the exception of one element: helium,” reads the report. “The Committee concurs with and reiterates the APS Helium Statement of 1995: ‘[M]easures [should] be adopted that will both conserve and enhance the nation’s helium reserves. Failure to do so would not only be wasteful, but would also be economically and technologically shortsighted.’” These conclusions are consistent with the recommendations of a 2010 report by the National Research Council (NRC), Selling the Nation's Helium Reserve. This report was requested by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), who manages the reserve, to assess the impact of the current legislation on U.S. helium users. The report concluded that efforts to comply with the existing law, outlined in the 1996 Helium Privatization Act, have had and will continue to have negative impacts on U.S. helium users. “If this path continues to be followed,
within the next 10 to 15 years the United States will become a net importer of helium whose principal foreign sources of helium will be in the Middle East and Russia,” said the report. Congress established a federal helium program in 1925 to guarantee a stable helium supply for defense, research, and medical purposes. The United States began stockpiling crude
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