9 replies to this topic

[peterbj7]

World helium reserves may be fully depleted in 25-30 years unless conservation measures are taken now. See http://www.telegraph...ate-claims.html . Note they are suggesting a price increase of 20 to 50 TIMES. Anyone interested in helium diving should get their kicks soon, as the opportunity may become unaffordable. Of course, one of the best ways of conserving helium whilst diving is to use a closed circuit rebreather so anyone contemplating deep (helium) diving should convert to a CCR first. But even for use in a CCR, many divers will find such a massive price increase a show-stopper.

[scubafanatic]

World helium reserves may be fully depleted in 25-30 years unless conservation measures are taken now. See http://www.telegraph...ate-claims.html . Note they are suggesting a price increase of 20 to 50 TIMES. Anyone interested in helium diving should get their kicks soon, as the opportunity may become unaffordable. Of course, one of the best ways of conserving helium whilst diving is to use a closed circuit rebreather so anyone contemplating deep (helium) diving should convert to a CCR first. But even for use in a CCR, many divers will find such a massive price increase a show-stopper.

The upcharge for simple recreational mixes of NITROX are significant enough already, never want to get anywhere near spending $ on Helium, not even at today's prices!

[Mermaid Lady]

Time to start capturing alpha emissions...

[peterbj7]

The upcharge for simple recreational mixes of NITROX are significant enough already, never want to get anywhere near spending $ on Helium, not even at today's prices!

The last open circuit trimix course I was involved in teaching was to IANTD standards, which specified minimum depths. Mixtures weren't specified but they followed as a matter of course. For each diver, to fill their twinset with trimix bottom gas cost over US$250 PER DIVE. And they had six dives. The silly thing was that they also wanted to do a CCR course, but decided to do the trimix course first. Had they done the CCR course first then the trimix dives on CCR, the cost per dive of their trimix would have been just a few dollars.

[scubafanatic]

World helium reserves may be fully depleted in 25-30 years unless conservation measures are taken now. See http://www.telegraph...ate-claims.html . Note they are suggesting a price increase of 20 to 50 TIMES. Anyone interested in helium diving should get their kicks soon, as the opportunity may become unaffordable. Of course, one of the best ways of conserving helium whilst diving is to use a closed circuit rebreather so anyone contemplating deep (helium) diving should convert to a CCR first. But even for use in a CCR, many divers will find such a massive price increase a show-stopper.

This will come as a shock to the Australians:

From ABC NEWS. (Australia)

Darwin produces gas for Australia
By Lorna Perry

Wednesday, 03/03/2010

The first helium plant in the southern hemisphere was officially opened today in the Northern Territory at Darwin's Wickham Point.

There are 15 helium plants world-wide and up until now Australia was an importer of the gas.

ABC Reporter Iskahandar Razak was at today's ceremony which involved Federal Resources minister Martin Ferguson and the Chief Minister Paul Henderson.

He explains there are a number of uses for helium gas.

"As everyone knows helium is used in balloons and this is what this helium will be used for.

"It's also used in hospital operations such as MRI scans and aero-nautical operations as well and it's a gas that these operations can't do without basically."

It's been said the plant will produce 940 tonnes of helium each year, one third of which will supply Australia's needs and the rest will go overseas to Asia, the Middle East and the United States.This helium is a by-product of surrounding LNG plants at Wickham Point.


PPM

...um, flying to Australia to get 'cheap' Trimix fills isn't going to be very cost effective though.....

[georoc01]

And with all of the shale gas discoveries here in the US, you would expect the HE portion of that would increase too.

Hard to believe if it would become so expensive they would still use it for filling balloons.

[scubafanatic]

World helium reserves may be fully depleted in 25-30 years unless conservation measures are taken now. See http://www.telegraph...ate-claims.html . Note they are suggesting a price increase of 20 to 50 TIMES. Anyone interested in helium diving should get their kicks soon, as the opportunity may become unaffordable. Of course, one of the best ways of conserving helium whilst diving is to use a closed circuit rebreather so anyone contemplating deep (helium) diving should convert to a CCR first. But even for use in a CCR, many divers will find such a massive price increase a show-stopper.

This will come as a shock to the Australians:

From ABC NEWS. (Australia)

Darwin produces gas for Australia
By Lorna Perry

Wednesday, 03/03/2010

The first helium plant in the southern hemisphere was officially opened today in the Northern Territory at Darwin's Wickham Point.

There are 15 helium plants world-wide and up until now Australia was an importer of the gas.

ABC Reporter Iskahandar Razak was at today's ceremony which involved Federal Resources minister Martin Ferguson and the Chief Minister Paul Henderson.

He explains there are a number of uses for helium gas.

"As everyone knows helium is used in balloons and this is what this helium will be used for.

"It's also used in hospital operations such as MRI scans and aero-nautical operations as well and it's a gas that these operations can't do without basically."

It's been said the plant will produce 940 tonnes of helium each year, one third of which will supply Australia's needs and the rest will go overseas to Asia, the Middle East and the United States.This helium is a by-product of surrounding LNG plants at Wickham Point.


PPM

...um, flying to Australia to get 'cheap' Trimix fills isn't going to be very cost effective though.....

I was addressing the idea that the world is running out of helium. This particular FUD story revives itself with almost clockwork regularity every year or so.

As to travelling to OZ for helium, please reread the last paragraph of the article which addresses that topic.

PPM

The new Helium production facility you reference is projected to produce 940 tones/annually....in 2008 world total Helium production was 32,000 tones, so I'm not sure I'd get too excited about a less than 3% increase in Helium production.

[scubafanatic]

And with all of the shale gas discoveries here in the US, you would expect the HE portion of that would increase too.

Hard to believe if it would become so expensive they would still use it for filling balloons.

This article provides a little insight into why Helium is presently still cheap enough to be used for party balloons:

http://physicsworld....icle/news/41528

The entire US Government's Helium reserves will be completely exhausted by 2015 (that's only 5 more years) and Helium prices are artificially 'cheap' today because the US Government is 'dumping' Helium on the world market in order to get rid of it ASAP, so it can exit the Helium business. 1/3 of the entire world's present Helium demand is presently being met by the 'stockplie', so you can clearly see there is a substantial gap between production and consumption, which will cause a big price spike in about 5 years.