physics

Helium production in the United States

Helium production in the United States is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Helium production in the United States rather than just read about it. In short: Helium production in the United States totaled 73 million cubic meters in 2014. The US was the world's largest helium producer, providing 40 percent of world supply.

Key takeaways

Helium production in the United States belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Helium production in the United States to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Helium production in the United States from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Helium production in the United States totaled 73 million cubic meters in 2014. The US was the world's largest helium producer, providing 40 percent of world supply. In addition, the US federal government sold 30 million cubic meters from storage. Other major helium producers were Algeria and Qatar. All commercial helium is recovered from natural gas. Helium usually makes up a minuscule portion of natural gas, but can make up as much as 10 percent of natural gas in some fields. A helium content of 0.3 percent or more is considered necessary for commercial helium extraction. In 2012, helium was recovered at 16 extraction plants, from gas wells in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming. One extraction plant in Utah was idle in 2012.

History

In 1903, an oil exploration well at Dexter, Kansas, produced a gas that would not burn. Kansas state geologist Erasmus Haworth took samples of the gas back to the University of Kansas at Lawrence where chemists Hamilton Cady and David McFarland discovered that gas contained 1.84 percent helium. This led to further discoveries of helium-bearing natural gas in Kansas. The military was interested in helium for balloons and dirigibles. The US Army built the first helium-extraction plant in 1915 at Petrolia, Texas, where a large natural gas field averaged nearly 1 percent helium. The United States Navy established three experimental helium plants during World War I, to recover enough helium to supply barrage balloons with the non-flammable, lighter-than-air gas. Two of the experimental plants were north of Fort Worth, Texas, and recovered helium from natural gas piped in from the Petrolia oil field in Clay County, Texas. The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, which provided for oil and gas leasing on federal land, reserved all helium contained in natural gas on federal land to the government. This was followed by the Helium Act of 1925, which banned the export of helium, "a mineral resource pertaining to the national defense". However, after the loss of the USS Akron in 1933 and the USS Macon in 1935, military use of helium declined significantly. A lease agreement was reached in 1936 with the Goodyear–Zeppelin Corporation, providing helium for commercial aviation, and in 1937 Congress amended the Helium Act to allow for sale of helium produced in excess of U.S. governmental needs. The biggest potential customer, however, was Nazi Germany, which wanted to replace the hydrogen responsible for the Hindenburg disaster with non-flammable helium. A contract for 18 million cubic feet (510,000 m3) of helium was approved, but Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes blocked export of the gas due to its potential for military use. During World War II, military demand for helium rose, so the federal government built a number of new helium-extraction plants. One such plant was at Shiprock, New Mexico, to recover helium from gas at the Rattlesnake Field. Gas from the Rattlesnake field, like that of a number of other fields in the Four Corners area, contained mostly nitrogen and very little hydrocarbons, and was produced exclusively for the helium. The Helium Acts Amendments of 1960 (Pub. L. 86–777) empowered the U.S. Bureau of Mines to arrange for five private plants to recover helium from natural gas. The Bureau also built a 425-mile (684 km) pipeline from Bushton, Kansas, to connect those plants with the government's partially depleted Cliffside gas field, near Amarillo, Texas. The crude helium (50 to 80 percent helium) was injected and stored in the Cliffside gas field until needed, when it then was further purified. By 1995, a billion cubic meters of the gas had been stored, but the reserve was US$1.4 billion in debt, prompting the Congress of the United States in 1996 to phase out the reserve. The resulting Helium Privatization Act of 1996 (Public Law 104–273) directed the United States Department of the Interior to empty the reserve. Sales to government and government contractors began in 1998. Sales to the open market began in 2003. The sales program paid the indebtedness, and ended in 2024.

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Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Helium production in the United States

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Helium production in the United States claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Helium production in the United States before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Helium production in the United States ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Helium production in the United States

In research: Helium production in the United States appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Helium production in the United States in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Helium production in the United States is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Energy in the United States, Helium, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Helium production in the United States outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Helium production in the United States in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Helium production in the United States means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Helium production in the United States out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Helium production in the United States in simple terms?

Helium production in the United States totaled 73 million cubic meters in 2014. The US was the world's largest helium producer, providing 40 percent of world supply.

Why does Helium production in the United States matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Helium production in the United States?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Helium production in the United States.