The constant volatility in helium prices is forcing researchers to reconsider how they use the gas, she says. If any one of those countries experiences a problem with production, the price of helium can spike, Hayes says. The world's helium supply is still located in just a handful of countries: The United States, Algeria and Qatar. Helium in its gaseous form is also used in the fabrication of conventional electronics, and it continues to be used in rockets by cutting-edge companies like SpaceX. ![]() Such "quantum supremacy," if it continues to develop, could eventually allow intelligence agencies to crack virtually any code. Google recently said one computer it developed had beaten the world's fastest conventional computer when conducting a specialized calculation. Superconducting bits are also at the heart of some of the most advanced quantum computers currently being developed. The superconducting chips in Google's Sycamore quantum computer are cooled with liquid helium.Īnd that's not the only application. ![]() This time around, much of the demand has to do with helium's ability to liquefy at very low temperatures - just 4.2 degrees Kelvin (−452.1 F). Helium is in demand today, but for very different reasons than it was in the last century. The reserve was started toward the end of World War I, as part of a government effort to maintain a strategic supply of helium. The helium used in the Apollo program actually came from the Strategic Helium Reserve outside of Amarillo, Texas. It was also used in the command and service module that went to the moon and in the lunar lander that carried Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to and from the surface. Helium was used in the giant Saturn V rockets that carried Apollo astronauts into space. Helium turns out to be perfect for the job. That gas should be lightweight, highly compressible, so it doesn't take up much space, and unreactive, so it doesn't mess with the fuel. The solution is injecting another gas to push the fuel out. As the fuel and oxidizer flow out of the tanks, they leave a vacuum behind, which can cause the fuel to stop flowing. Helium was essential to the first missions to the moon.Ī rocket is basically two very big tanks: In one tank is the fuel, and in the other, is the oxidizer, usually oxygen. Two years later, it crashed in severe weather, killing 73. Navy dirigible Akron, takes flight in 1931. The helium was not used before the war ended, Aubin says, but "they had thousands of cylinders filled, on the docks at New Orleans ready to be shipped to Europe in November of 1918, so it would have been used very soon." Aubin says the government quickly nationalized its nonflammable helium supply and rushed it to Europe to fill attack blimps. ![]() Meanwhile, American scientists had just discovered large helium deposits in natural gas fields in places like Kansas. After a few zeppelin raids over London, British troops developed incendiary bullets that would "light up the hydrogen in the dirigibles," says David Aubin, a professor for the history of science at Sorbonne Université in Paris. German zeppelins were the strategic weapons of their time, drifting over civilian targets and dropping bombs from their gondolas.īut zeppelins had a critical vulnerability: They were filled with highly flammable hydrogen. ![]() "It's the one element out of the entire periodic table that escapes the Earth and goes out into outer space," Hayes says.Īmerica once thought helium would turn the tide of war.ĭuring World War I, aviation was still in its infancy, and dirigibles were considered cutting-edge weapons of war. But only helium physically disappears from the planet. Other resources, such as oil and gas, may turn into pollution or be difficult to recycle.
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