Scientists have found a huge helium gas deposit in Tanzania and with world supplies running out, the discovery could help alleviate worries about a global helium shortage in recent years.
Helium is not only used as the lighter-than-air gas used to fill party balloons, but it’s also key to medical applications like MRI scans and for nuclear power.
For years, there have been global shortages of the element — Tokyo Disneyland was once forced to suspend sales of its helium balloons.
Until now, the precious gas has been discovered only in small quantities during oil and gas drilling.
That’s all set to change, however, with the discovery of what researchers called a “world-class” helium gas field in Tanzania’s East African Rift Valley.
The scientists say resources in just one part of the Rift valley are enough to fill more than a million medical MRI scanners.
Helium is usually discovered accidentally while drilling for oil and natural gas, but the new intentional discovery in Tanzania’s East African Rift Valley is the first of its kind.
A group of researchers from Oxford and Durham universities, working with the Norwegian helium exploration company Helium One, have discovered what they believe is a vast supply of the element in an unlikely place.
Prof Chris Ballentine, of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, said: “This is a game-changer for the future security of society’s helium needs and similar finds in the future may not be far away.”
And colleague Dr Pete Barry added: ‘We can apply this same strategy to other parts of the world with a similar geological history to find new helium resources. ”
Durham University PhD candidate Diveena Danabalan presented the group’s discovery at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in Yokohama, Japan.
The helium was discovered by borrowing the techniques used in natural gas exploration to understand how helium accumulates underground. The researchers found that volcanic activity produces enough heat to drive the gas out of ancient rocks, and up into shallow gas fields.
Global helium consumption is about 8 billion cubic feet per year. The world’s largest supplier, the U.S. Federal Helium Reserve, has a current reserve of just 24 billion cubic feet. The U.S. government started stockpiling helium during the 1920s, and by 1990 had accumulated roughly 35 billion cubic feet. But in 1996, congress passed the Helium Privatization Act, and started selling off strategic reserves at artificially low prices in order to pay off debts.
According to the U.S. federal Bureau of Land Management, helium prices have tripled over the past decade, and the reserve is expected to be depleted by 2020.
Now that the supply of helium is dwindling, prices are increasing to reflect the actual value of the rare element. While helium is abundant in the universe, most of it is born out of radioactive decay and is trapped in stars. On Earth, helium makes up less than a thousandth of one per cent of the atmosphere.
In response to the shrinking supply, the British Medical Association launched a campaign in 2015 to ban helium in party balloons, calling it a “frivolous use” of an invaluable, irreplaceable gas.”
And so at current rates of consumption, the recent discovery in Tanzania will only supply the world for about 7 years, but according to Pete Barry at the University of Oxford’s Department of Earth Sciences, the methods used by the team could lead explorers to other helium gas fields.
