Deflating Helium

Since 1917 the time price has fallen by -99.99993%

Edited from The Discovery of Helium in Natural Gas at the University of Kansas

Astronomers identified helium as a strange gas surrounding the sun in 1869. Because it was then unknown on planet Earth, helium derived its name from the Greek word for the Sun, Helios. John W. Draper mentioned helium during his inaugural address as the first president of the American Chemical Society in 1876.

And now, while we have accomplished only an imperfect examination of objects that we find on earth, see how, on a sudden, through the vista that has been opened by the spectroscope, what a prospect lies beyond us in the heavens. I often look at the bright yellow ray emitted from the chromosphere of the Sun, by that unknown element, helium, as the astronomers have ventured to call it. It seems trembling with excitement to tell its story.

Scientists found that extremely small amounts of helium could be obtained by heating some uranium minerals. Yet, by 1897, helium was still considered to be one of the rarest elements then discovered.

In 1905 two chemistry professors, David McFarland and Hamilton Cady, at the University of Kansas were analyzing a gas sample using coconut charcoal and a spectroscope. The total amount of helium present was an astonishing 1.84 percent.

By the middle of 1906, they were able to report that they had “a very unusual opportunity for obtaining helium in practically unlimited quantities.” When they published their complete findings in November 1907, Cady commented that their work “assures the fact that helium is no longer a rare element, but a common element, existing in goodly quantity for uses that are yet to be found for it.” Although helium was now potentially available in large quantities, it remained a laboratory curiosity for almost 10 years.

When Clifford W. Siebel came to Kansas to work on an advanced degree, Cady suggested that he should re-examine the helium content in natural gas for his thesis research. Siebel approached the problem reluctantly and without enthusiasm. When he read his results before a scientific audience in Kansas City in 1917, he concluded by expressing regret “that the work did not have a practical application.”

A representative from the U.S. Bureau of Mines “took immediate issue with that remark, and... read a part of a letter from [Sir] William Ramsay in England in which the suggestion was made that the United States produce enough helium to inflate lighter-than-air craft for the Allies.” The nonflammable and unreactive helium was desirable because it had almost the same lifting power as gaseous hydrogen, which is dangerous to handle because it is flammable.

Siebel was selling meager quantities of helium for $2,500 per cubic foot. He quickly calculated that at that rate, the cost of filling a small blimp was more than $100 million. Ten years later, after the U.S. government established plants at Fort Worth and Amarillo, TX, the cost had dropped to three cents per cubic foot. Large-scale production of helium came too late to be of much value in World War I, but it did play a major role in World War II, when helium-filled U.S. Navy patrol blimps safely escorted thousands of ships carrying troops and supplies. The blimps used sensitive listening devices that when lowered into the water could detect submarines up to five miles away. At the time, the Allies had a virtual monopoly on helium, because the only known gas wells capable of producing helium in large quantities were in the United States and Canada.

Helium Today

Once helium became readily available in large quantities, other uses quickly followed. Today the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages helium gas reserves, leasing, and storage. According to BLM, “helium plays a prominent role in the Government’s space, defense, and energy programs, such as pressurization of liquid propellants used by the space shuttle, weapons development, and nuclear fusion reactor experiments. Liquid helium uses include cooling infrared detectors, space simulations, materials testing, and biological and superconductivity research. Gaseous helium uses include various lighter-than-air activities, helium–neon lasers, detecting gas leaks, helium–oxygen mixture for deep sea diving, and high-speed welding of special metals.” Helium has also been used for producing extremely high velocities in wind tunnels and in hospitals it serves as a cryogenic liquid for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). It is still considered a strategic reserve material.

The time price as fallen by 99.99993 percent

In 1917 helium was selling for $2,500 per cubic foot. Blue-collar hourly compensation (wages and benefits) was 29 cents per hour. This put the time price at 8,621 hours. Today you can buy a cubic foot for around 21 cents. With blue-collar hourly compensation at $34.76 today, a cubic foot will cost 0.006 hours or 22 seconds. The time price has fallen by 99.99993 percent. For the time it required to earn the money to buy one cubic foot in 1917, you get 1,426,929 cubic feet today.

Perhaps the most famous advertisment for helium today is the Goodyear blimp. There are actually four blimps in operation today manufactured by Germany's ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik company.

The airships are 246 feet long and 57 feet tall. They can travel 73 miles per hour with three engines and have seating capacity for 14 passengers. They weigh almost 10 tons when empty. The envelope volume is 297,527 cubic feet. At 21 cents per cubic foot, it costs around $62,480 to fill it with helium.

You can watch this two-minute time-lapse video on how these blimps are constructed.

We never know when a scarce resource can suddenly become abundant. If people are free to think and experiment and share their findings, we escape poverty.

We describe the process of transforming scarcities into abundances in our new book, Superabundance, available at Amazon. Jordan Peterson calls it a “profoundly optimistic book.” There has never been a better time to create more life.

Gale Pooley is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute and a board member at Human Progress.