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Comment by Maria De Wind on August 28, 2012 at 1:48am

The National Helium Reserve, also known as the Federal Helium Reserve, is a strategic reserve of the United States holding over a billion cubic meters (1E9 m3) of helium gas. The helium is stored at the Cliffside Storage Facility about 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Amarillo, Texas, in a natural geologic gas storage formation, the Bush Dome reservoir. The reserve was established in 1925 as a strategic supply of gas for airships, and in the 1950s became an important source of coolant during the Space Race and Cold War. The facilities were located to be close to the Hugoton and other natural gas fields in southwest Kansas and the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma. The natural gas in these fields contains unusually high percentages of helium, from 0.3% to 2.7%; they constitute the largest source of helium in the United States. The helium is separated as a byproduct from the produced natural gas. After the "Helium Acts Amendments of 1960" (Public Law 86–777), the U.S. Bureau of Mines arranged for five private plants to recover helium from natural gas. For this helium conservation program, the Bureau built a 425-mile (684 km) 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 the Congress of the United States in 1996 to phase out the reserve.[1][2] The resulting "Helium Privatization Act of 1996" (Public Law 104–273) directed the United States Department of the Interior to start liquidating the reserve by 2005.[3] By 2007, the federal government was reported as auctioning off the Amarillo Helium Plant. The National Helium Reserve itself was reported as, "(S)lowly being drawn down and sold to private industry."[4] References

1 Emsley, John. Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Page 179. ISBN 0-19-850340-7

2 Guide to the Elements: Revised Edition, by Albert Stwertka (New York; Oxford University Press; 1998; page 24) ISBN 0-19-512708-0

3 http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309070384/html/index.html Executive Summary

4 Babineck, Mark, "Feds hope a buyer will rise up," 4 August 2007, Houston Chronicle

Comment by suzie on August 27, 2012 at 9:11pm

what is helium? 

Helium-3 (³He) is an isotope of helium that has two protons and one neutron in its nucleus. It is a rare isotope of helium, 0.000134%, most of which occurs with a pair or protons and a pair of neutrons in its nucleus (helium-4). 

HOW DO YOU MAKE HELIUM?
When we talk about an isotope of a given element by stating the element and then assigning a number, the number represents the number of nucleons in that isotop. The term nucleon refers to one of the particles that makes up an atomic nucleus, which is either a proton or a neutron.

How do they make helium? Think about it. It's an inert gas that doesn't combine with anything else, so there can't be helium mines filled with helium ore. The only place I've ever heard of where you can find a lot of helium is the sun, where it's created by fusion. Fusion is prohibitively expensive on earth, yet somehow commercial helium is cheap enough that they can fill toy balloons with it. What's the deal?

— Bob Y., Evanston, Illinois

Cecil replies:

Come now, Bob, everybody knows fusion isn't the only way to make helium. It's also a by-product of radioactive decay. (The "alpha particles" emitted by some radioactive materials are actually helium atoms minus the electrons.) To get helium all you have to do is find yourself a planet full of uranium and thorium and the like, wait ten jillion years, and presto, you're up to your ankles in the stuff. The helium on the earth's surface drifts off into space, but underground a lot of it collects in pockets of natural gas, particularly in the gas fields of the southwestern U.S. Liquefy the natural gas and filter out impurities and what's left will float a dirigible, cool a nuclear reactor, or make the strongest man sound like a chipmunk. Definitely one of nature's noble gases.

— Cecil Adams

HELIUM ~ another thing we may have to tell our children we use to take for granted? 

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_helium-3#ixzz24naGGtDs

Comment by suzie on August 27, 2012 at 9:03pm

WOW  ~ WHAT THE ??