Endangered element: helium

In a previous post, I wrote about  the concept of endangered elements—elements whose supply may not be able to meet demand within the next hundred years.  If we expect certain technologies to improve and to reach ever more people, the scarcity of these elements could prove to be a major impediment.  It's important to understand how we currently obtain and apply these materials.  We'll begin with helium.

Most helium found on earth was produced through the nuclear decay of uranium—or other heavy elements—which then dissolved into natural gas and oil over millions of years.  This isn't good news; most fossil fuel resources aren't projected to outlast the century, but bad policy making could produce shortages much sooner.  Helium, despite being common in the cosmos, is rare on Earth, and in the atmosphere.  It's effectively a non-renewable resource, and will be difficult to obtain once our current supplies run dry.

Helium has the lowest boiling point of any material at only 7 Fahrenheit degrees above absolute zero, which allows other objects in contact with liquid helium to be maintained at this temperature.  The next lowest boiling point belongs to hydrogen—at 36 Fahrenheit degrees above absolute zero.  Unsurprisingly, 32% of helium is used for cryogenics, particularly for cooling the magnets used in MRI machines.  Unfortunately, this means that MRI may become less available as helium supplies dwindle.  This could have a large impact on the standard of care, unless a substitute for MRI can be found.  I suspect that this will be problematic for the widespread adoption of quantum computing technologies, as well.  Such technologies my be adopted on a small scale, by wealthy institutions and organizations, but may remain beyond the reach of most.