ABSTRACT
The major alternative source of helium, should helium-bearing natural gas not be available, would be its recovery from the atmosphere, which contains ∼3.8 billion tonnes of helium. 1 Keesom (1942) considered air-sourced helium, believing that “helium reserves will become critical in a future, that is not too far remote”. He estimated that the world’s reserves (7 Bcf in 1942) “will do for about 280 years”. Today, natural gas-related occurrences of helium represent about 1.7 Tcf (or about 8 million tonnes) of helium, according to the US Bureau of Land Management’s data (Chapter 3). At a 2010 consumption rate of 6.15 Bcf per year this would also last 280 years, or 62 years if demand increases at the projected rate of 4.1 per cent a year (Garvey, 2011).
