The National Helium Reserve, also known as the Federal Helium Reserve, is a

strategic reserve A strategic reserve is the reserve of a commodity or items that is held back from normal use by governments, organisations, or businesses in pursuance of a particular strategy or to cope with unexpected events. A document issued by the US Departm ...

of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

holding over 1 billion cubic meters (10⁹ m³) of

helium Helium (from el, ἥλιος, helios, lit=sun) is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. It ...

gas. The helium is stored at the Cliffside Storage Facility about northwest of

Amarillo, Texas Amarillo ( ; Spanish for "yellow") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Potter County. It is the 14th-most populous city in Texas and the largest city in the Texas Panhandle. A portion of the city extends into Randall County ...

, in a natural geologic gas storage formation, the Bush Dome reservoir. The reserve was established with the enactment of the

Helium Act of 1925 Helium Act of 1925, 50 USC § 161, is a United States statute drafted for the purpose of conservation, exploration, and procurement of helium gas. The Act of Congress authorized the condemnation, lease, or purchase of acquired lands bearing the p ...

. The strategic supply provisioned the

noble gas The noble gases (historically also the inert gases; sometimes referred to as aerogens) make up a class of chemical elements with similar properties; under standard conditions, they are all odorless, colorless, monatomic gases with very low chemi ...

for

airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...

s, and in the 1950s became an important source of coolant during the Cold War and

Space Race The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the tw ...

. The facilities were located close to the Hugoton and other

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon di ...

fields in southwest Kansas and the panhandle of Oklahoma, plus the Panhandle Field in Texas. These fields contain natural gas with unusually high percentages of helium—from 0.3% to 2.7%—and constitute the United States' largest helium source. The helium is separated as a byproduct from the produced natural gas. After the Helium Acts Amendments of 1960 (Public Law 86–666), the

U.S. Bureau of Mines For most of the 20th century, the United States Bureau of Mines (USBM) was the primary United States government agency conducting scientific research and disseminating information on the extraction, processing, use, and conservation of mineral r ...

arranged for five private plants to recover helium from natural gas. For this helium conservation program, the Bureau built a pipeline from Bushton, Kansas, to connect those plants with the government's partially depleted Cliffside gas field. This helium-nitrogen mixture was injected and stored in the Cliffside gas field until needed, when it then was further purified. By 1995, a billion cubic metres of the gas had been collected, and the reserve was US$1.4 billion in debt, prompting

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

to begin phasing out the reserve in 1996. The resulting "

Helium Privatization Act of 1996 The Helium Privatization Act of 1996 is a United States statute that ordered the US government to sell much of the National Helium Reserve. The United States 104th Congressional session passed the Act of Congress presenting the legislation to the ...

" (Public Law 104–273) directed the

Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...

to start selling off the reserve by 2005. By 2007, the federal government was reported as auctioning off the Amarillo Helium Plant. The National Helium Reserve itself was reported as "slowly being drawn down and sold to private industry." By early 2011, the facility was still in government hands. In May 2013, the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ca ...

voted to extend the life of the reserve under government control. In August 2019, the NPR show ''

Planet Money ''Planet Money'' is an American podcast and blog produced by NPR. Using "creative and entertaining" dialogue and narrative, ''Planet Money'' claims to be "The Economy Explained." History The podcast was created by Alex Blumberg and Adam David ...

'' described the history of the reserve and government policies that helped create a shortage of the gas.

References

External links

Federal Helium ProgramHelium, when will it run out?Responsible Helium Administration and Stewardship Act (H.R. 527) October 2013
*

Historic American Engineering Record Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) responsible for administering the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes ...

(HAER) documentation: ** ** ** {{Coord, 35.352, N, 101.991, W, display=title 1925 establishments in the United States Buildings and structures in Potter County, Texas Helium Historic American Engineering Record in Texas Strategic reserves of the United States

See also

References

Further reading

External links