Quote:Biden Admin Sells Federal Helium Reserve, Threatening US Industry & National Security

The US government is selling off the Federal Helium Reserve, which is a large subterranean stockpile located in Amarillo, Texas.

The Helium stockpile provides up to 30% of the nation's reserves of this rare element with critical purposes for the medical field, industrial manufacturing, and national security.

The top bidder will own about 425 miles of pipelines spanning Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma, as well as around 1 billion cubic feet of the only element on Earth cold enough to make an MRI machine operate.

NBC News reports that, "Regulatory and logistical issues with the facility threaten a temporary shutdown as it passes from public to private ownership, and hospital supply chain experts worry the sale could have serious consequences for health care down the road — especially when it comes to MRIs."

"The sale of the government’s stockpile of the nonrenewable element could exacerbate an existing supply shortage," medical industry expert Soumi Saha  told NBC News.

Indeed, Helium is vital not only to the medical field for use in MRIs, but it has critical use for cryogenics, semiconductors, superconductors, and rocket technology.

The Impact of Selling the Federal Helium Reserve from the  National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2000) discusses "The Impact of Selling the Federal Helium Reserve." https://doi.org/10.17226/9860.

CRYOGENICS

"The largest current use of helium is for cryogenics. The amount of helium used for cryogenics was about 620 million scf (17 million scm) in 1996. The main cryogenic applications to be discussed in this section are magnetic resonance imaging, semiconductor processing, and large-scale and small-scale fundamental research that requires helium temperatures."

MRI

"The main medical use of liquid helium is for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems. Liquid helium is needed as a refrigerant for the superconducting magnets that are critical components in many of these devices. The availability of helium at a favorable price and the stability of the helium market have contributed to the rapid growth of MRI as a diagnostic tool and have allowed it to make a significant contribution to health care in the United States."

SEMICONDUCTORS

"Silicon wafer suppliers are the primary users of helium in the semiconductor industry... activities in the industry that use helium are plasma etching and vacuum pumping..."

"[I]t is very important to this key industry. An increase in the price of helium could be accommodated, but if helium were to disappear altogether, semiconductor processing would be severely hampered."

ROCKET PROPULSION SYSTEMS

"Helium plays a unique and critical role in the pressurizing and purging of primary rocket propulsion systems. It will continue to do so as long as the propellant is a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. First, helium gas is used to pressurize the propellant tanks for the engines. In this application, pressure is provided to prevent pump cavitation and must be sufficient to keep the tanks from collapsing under vehicle-imposed structural loads. Pressure-fed propulsion systems are also used to provide engine-chamber pressurization. Second, helium gas is used for the purging of the propellant feed systems for liquid-hydrogen engines. Helium is used because its normal boiling point is lower than that of hydrogen. Thus it is the only element that can be used without compromising propellant integrity or feed-system function. Other gases would freeze, producing particles that could clog equipment and seize an engine, or react with or dissolve in the liquid hydrogen, reducing engine efficiency, all with potentially disastrous results."

Thus, the Biden administration by selling off its Federal Helium Stockpile is undermining U.S. industrial manufacturing vital to National Security and the medical field.

As a political backdrop, the Biden action targets Texas, which is currently locked in a standoff with the federal government over border security.

On Friday, the Biden administration announced that it is considering a freeze on Liquefied Natural Gas exports, which would seriously damage the U.S. economy, and most severely, Texas' economy.