Jakarta –
Large-scale helium deposits have been discovered hundreds of meters underground at a drilling site in Minnesota, United States.
The helium content was discovered in the early hours of February 28, 2024 by Pulsar Helium. While drilling an exploratory well, they found a concentration of 12.4% helium at a depth between 533 and 671 meters.
“There was a lot of screaming, a lot of hugs and high fives celebrating this decision. It’s good to know that all our efforts were successful,” said Thomas Abraham-James, president and CEO of Pulsar Helium, quoted by CBS News, on Tuesday (16/16/16). 4/ 2024).
“12.4% is just a dream. It’s perfect,” he said.
Helium makes up about 0.0005% of the Earth’s atmosphere, but most of it comes from natural gas deposits in the ground, which are formed as a result of radioactive decay of heavy elements deep within the Earth.
As a gas, helium is known for being lighter than air, allowing balloons to float. But this gas is not only used for balloons. Helium has a number of important uses in the medical, scientific, and engineering fields, including the manufacture of semiconductors, high-energy particle colliders, and nuclear reactors.
His most useful property is his ability to stay cool. Helium has the lowest boiling point of all the elements at -268.9°C making it an ideal chemical for cooling materials that get very hot, such as superconducting magnets in MRI machines.
To note, nearly one-third of the world’s helium is used in MRI machines, making it an invaluable resource to the medical community.
Globally, the US and Qatar lead the production of helium, and few other countries are able to match their output. However, in recent years there has been a shortage of helium supplies. When there is a chronic shortage, this can put a lot of pressure on a number of different services, especially medical professionals working with MRI machines.
Unless we find large new reserves of helium, or develop a way to reliably produce it, the world will likely run out of helium in the next century or so.
This latest Minnesota discovery won’t enter the global supply chain just yet. Now that there is good reason to suspect that there are viable resources here, the findings will be reviewed by an independent third party, and a feasibility study will be used to see if it could the reservoirs to support a full-scale helium extraction plant.
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(rns/rns)
2024-04-15 23:45:16
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