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Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America

nradov 3y ago
Hooray! That means we can continue using some for diving.
causal 3y ago
It's fascinating to me that this stuff stays underground at all. Seems like such light gases would have found their way out long ago.
- lazide 3y ago
  My understanding is that it is also produced from natural uranium decay. So yes, to some extent, but also it’s not necessarily that old.
- toss1 3y ago
  Perhaps most deposits are generated from radioactive decay, so are much younger than the earth?
- jandrese 3y ago
  Turns out solid rock can be rather impermeable, even to light gasses. There is a reason most He production was a side effect of the oil and gas industry, they're the people who need to drill through solid rock to get the hydrocarbons.
- jellicle 3y ago
  It's continually generated from radioactive decay. As long as the generation rate is higher than the escape rate, you'll end up with helium reservoirs. Once we've opened up all the world's reservoirs though, that'll be it for cheap helium.
- DinaCoder99 3y ago
  Salt is incredibly good at both retaining gasses and sealing holes.
  - greenavocado 3y ago
    How does salt help seal holes better than other material in the earth's crust?
    - fuzzfactor 3y ago
      As you drill down, so many of the layers of "solid rock" that would be strong enough to use as building stone, are actually somewhat porous to very porous, and the oils & gases are contained within the pores at generally higher pressures and temperatures as the depth increases. Depending on where you drill, you may encounter a layer of salt, maybe about like if some extensive undersea landscapes had been coated in salt as their waters evaporated, then had become buried under thousands of feet of overburden stone during geologic time. When drilling some exploratory oil & gas wells, as the anticipated pay zone is approached, the process will be halted and the entire drill string withdrawn from the borehole, to replace the regular drill bit with a hollow coring bit assembly. With an accurate knowledge of how deep they begin taking core samples, the drilling picks up where it left off and these samples are brought to the surface for examination and experimentation. You mainly end up with a cylindrical column of rock sample a few feet long and 3 or 4 inches in diameter. Rarely is it all in one piece since any unconsolidated layers are natural discontinuities, and weak spots often fracture during rapid transportation from the field geologist, to the laboratory geologist. In the field they would be boxed in cardboard and marked in order with the best estimate of the footage depth of each layer contained in each box. Core samples from the pay zone or close to it can be literally oozing oil & gas out of the "solid rock" for hours after initial examination. Anyway, every now and then there will be a core where it looks like a few inches to few feet or so of fairly clear glass instead of rock layers, that is the salt they drilled through to get deep enough to reach any oil or gas accumulated below. Basically lighter gases rise higher than liquids from much deeper below the pay zones for eons, and collect best under the strata that are lesser in permeability & porosity. And layers of glassy salt are some of the least permeable subsurface formations.
polishdude20 3y ago
Bring out the party balloons!
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
KyleBerezin 3y ago
This is great news for the party clown industry.
bentt 3y ago
Interesting that the US Govt just sold off its strategic helium reserve a few months ago.
bequanna 3y ago
Minnesota has turned very anti-mining in the past several years and the Federal Gov't approving depends heavily on which admin is in power. I'd be curious to see estimates on when they think they can gain approval to begin extraction at scale.
- quickthrowman 3y ago
  FWIW, helium is extracted by drilling. I guess if you squint hard enough, a borehole is just a mine with a very small diameter :) > Minnesota has turned very anti-mining in the past several years With good reason. The Superior National Forest and Boundary Waters Canoe Area are more valuable to us than any copper or nickel deposits. Once a tailings pond fails and poisons a watershed, there’s no going back.
mateo1 3y ago
It would be nice to mention at least an estimate of the reserve size and it's viability.
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
Related: The era of cheap helium is over–and that's already causing problems https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39545134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39545134
SamPatt 3y ago
I was assured that helium was running out and it was a national emergency. The resource doomsayers just move onto the next "crisis" when they're proven wrong. Again.
- defrost 3y ago
  Helium has been running out .. this doesn't change that. > when they're proven wrong. How so? The article clearly states that a feasibility study hasn't yet been completed. Can you outline what the national|global He demand is and by how much this increases supply? If not, your comment seems like baseless opinion. Addendum: Here's a starter for current US domestic sales and consumption: In 2023, the estimated sales of Grade-A helium (99.997% helium or greater) and gaseous helium (generally greater than 98% helium) was an estimated 79 million cubic meters (2.8 billion cubic feet) valued at an estimated $1.1 billion. In 2023, US production from natural gas was 60 million cubic meters In 2023, estimated domestic apparent consumption of Grade-A and gaseous helium was 59 million cubic meters (2.1 billion cubic feet), and it was used for, in decreasing quantity of use, analytical, engineering, lab, science, and specialty gases (21%); controlled atmospheres, fiber optics, and semiconductors (17%); magnetic resonance imaging (17%); lifting gas (16%); aerospace, pressuring, and purging (9%); welding (8%); leak detection (5%); diving (4%); and various other minor applications (3%). https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2024/mcs2024-helium.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2024/mcs2024-helium.pdf
  - SamPatt 3y ago
    I don't need to see the end result to make the claim - the doomsayers miss the basic economic principle about incentives changing with prices. They extrapolate trend lines out without realizing that every time something starts to "run out" people change their behavior in a way to either reduce demand, increase supply, or find alternatives. This happens time and time again. Oil is the most obvious example, but helium fulfills this pattern as well, and was worsened by the government meddling in the supply, effectively destroying the private industry generations ago. Despite that, and helium being non-renewable without many alternatives, I'm still confident we won't run out without needing to dive into supply and demand numbers.
exabrial 3y ago
Instead of blowing up baloons, can we name it a critical national resource?
- samtheDamned 3y ago
  Balloons are a very small portion of helium usage and the helium used is not usually pure enough to be put towards more important applications anyways.

Hooray! That means we can continue using some for diving.

It's fascinating to me that this stuff stays underground at all. Seems like such light gases would have found their way out long ago.

lazide 3y ago
My understanding is that it is also produced from natural uranium decay. So yes, to some extent, but also it’s not necessarily that old.
toss1 3y ago
Perhaps most deposits are generated from radioactive decay, so are much younger than the earth?
jandrese 3y ago
Turns out solid rock can be rather impermeable, even to light gasses. There is a reason most He production was a side effect of the oil and gas industry, they're the people who need to drill through solid rock to get the hydrocarbons.
jellicle 3y ago
It's continually generated from radioactive decay. As long as the generation rate is higher than the escape rate, you'll end up with helium reservoirs. Once we've opened up all the world's reservoirs though, that'll be it for cheap helium.
DinaCoder99 3y ago
Salt is incredibly good at both retaining gasses and sealing holes.
- greenavocado 3y ago
  How does salt help seal holes better than other material in the earth's crust?
  - fuzzfactor 3y ago
    As you drill down, so many of the layers of "solid rock" that would be strong enough to use as building stone, are actually somewhat porous to very porous, and the oils & gases are contained within the pores at generally higher pressures and temperatures as the depth increases. Depending on where you drill, you may encounter a layer of salt, maybe about like if some extensive undersea landscapes had been coated in salt as their waters evaporated, then had become buried under thousands of feet of overburden stone during geologic time. When drilling some exploratory oil & gas wells, as the anticipated pay zone is approached, the process will be halted and the entire drill string withdrawn from the borehole, to replace the regular drill bit with a hollow coring bit assembly. With an accurate knowledge of how deep they begin taking core samples, the drilling picks up where it left off and these samples are brought to the surface for examination and experimentation. You mainly end up with a cylindrical column of rock sample a few feet long and 3 or 4 inches in diameter. Rarely is it all in one piece since any unconsolidated layers are natural discontinuities, and weak spots often fracture during rapid transportation from the field geologist, to the laboratory geologist. In the field they would be boxed in cardboard and marked in order with the best estimate of the footage depth of each layer contained in each box. Core samples from the pay zone or close to it can be literally oozing oil & gas out of the "solid rock" for hours after initial examination. Anyway, every now and then there will be a core where it looks like a few inches to few feet or so of fairly clear glass instead of rock layers, that is the salt they drilled through to get deep enough to reach any oil or gas accumulated below. Basically lighter gases rise higher than liquids from much deeper below the pay zones for eons, and collect best under the strata that are lesser in permeability & porosity. And layers of glassy salt are some of the least permeable subsurface formations.

polishdude20 3y ago

Bring out the party balloons!

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

KyleBerezin 3y ago

This is great news for the party clown industry.

bentt 3y ago

Interesting that the US Govt just sold off its strategic helium reserve a few months ago.

bequanna 3y ago

Minnesota has turned very anti-mining in the past several years and the Federal Gov't approving depends heavily on which admin is in power. I'd be curious to see estimates on when they think they can gain approval to begin extraction at scale.

quickthrowman 3y ago
FWIW, helium is extracted by drilling. I guess if you squint hard enough, a borehole is just a mine with a very small diameter :) > Minnesota has turned very anti-mining in the past several years With good reason. The Superior National Forest and Boundary Waters Canoe Area are more valuable to us than any copper or nickel deposits. Once a tailings pond fails and poisons a watershed, there’s no going back.

mateo1 3y ago

It would be nice to mention at least an estimate of the reserve size and it's viability.

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

Related: The era of cheap helium is over–and that's already causing problems https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39545134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39545134

SamPatt 3y ago

I was assured that helium was running out and it was a national emergency. The resource doomsayers just move onto the next "crisis" when they're proven wrong. Again.

defrost 3y ago
Helium has been running out .. this doesn't change that. > when they're proven wrong. How so? The article clearly states that a feasibility study hasn't yet been completed. Can you outline what the national|global He demand is and by how much this increases supply? If not, your comment seems like baseless opinion. Addendum: Here's a starter for current US domestic sales and consumption: In 2023, the estimated sales of Grade-A helium (99.997% helium or greater) and gaseous helium (generally greater than 98% helium) was an estimated 79 million cubic meters (2.8 billion cubic feet) valued at an estimated $1.1 billion. In 2023, US production from natural gas was 60 million cubic meters In 2023, estimated domestic apparent consumption of Grade-A and gaseous helium was 59 million cubic meters (2.1 billion cubic feet), and it was used for, in decreasing quantity of use, analytical, engineering, lab, science, and specialty gases (21%); controlled atmospheres, fiber optics, and semiconductors (17%); magnetic resonance imaging (17%); lifting gas (16%); aerospace, pressuring, and purging (9%); welding (8%); leak detection (5%); diving (4%); and various other minor applications (3%). https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2024/mcs2024-helium.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2024/mcs2024-helium.pdf
- SamPatt 3y ago
  I don't need to see the end result to make the claim - the doomsayers miss the basic economic principle about incentives changing with prices. They extrapolate trend lines out without realizing that every time something starts to "run out" people change their behavior in a way to either reduce demand, increase supply, or find alternatives. This happens time and time again. Oil is the most obvious example, but helium fulfills this pattern as well, and was worsened by the government meddling in the supply, effectively destroying the private industry generations ago. Despite that, and helium being non-renewable without many alternatives, I'm still confident we won't run out without needing to dive into supply and demand numbers.

exabrial 3y ago

Instead of blowing up baloons, can we name it a critical national resource?

samtheDamned 3y ago
Balloons are a very small portion of helium usage and the helium used is not usually pure enough to be put towards more important applications anyways.