The find – estimated to be almost seven times the total amount of helium consumed globally every year – will help allay concerns over Earth’s dwindling known supplies of the natural resource, which is crucial for things like MRI scanners, nuclear energy, and detecting industrial leaks. The discovery was reported by a group of British university researchers working with Helium One, a company based in Norway.
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But now a team from Oxford and Durham Universities has made a huge discovery in Tanzania that has developed a brand new way of finding helium.
Ballentine believes that this is a crucial game changer for the security of helium needs and similar discoveries could soon be uncovered as well. While this is technically true, we just bought some time in delaying the inevitable after geophysicists discovered a new Helium reserve in Tanzania, Africa.
Most people know about helium in party favors, balloons used for entertainment purposes however, apart from this, helium is a pivotal element in the field of medicine since it possesses an extremely low boiling point that is used as a super coolant for MRI scanners and even nuclear power and leak detection.
This meant that volcanic activity actually plays a crucial role in the creation of new helium reserves because it gives off the intense heat essential to release gas from the ancient rocks that bear helium.
Professor Chris Ballentine, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, said: “We sampled helium gas (and nitrogen) just bubbling out of the ground in the Tanzanian East African Rift valley”. And the find, which will be presented Tuesday by Durham University PhD student Diveena Danabalan at a Japanese geochemistry conference, could help restock almost depleted stockpiles.
More than half the world’s supply is stored in the US National Helium Reserve in Texas.
According to the USA federal Bureau of Land Management, helium prices have tripled over the past decade, and the reserve is expected to be depleted by 2020. Helium found in that section of the valley could fill more than 1.2 million medical MRI scanners.
The trick is, the researchers said, is to identify “Goldilocks zones” where the balance between helium release and volcanic dilution by Carbon dioxide is “just right”.
“This is an outstanding example of industry and academia working together closely to deliver real value to society”. “The impact of this and expected future helium discoveries will secure supply for the medical scanning and other industries”, said Jon Gluyas, professor at Durham University.
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“We have linked the importance of volcanic activity for helium release with the presence of potential trapping structures…this is badly needed given the current demand for helium”.
