Noble gases have become one of the world's most sought-after raw materials. Research can't do without it either, but when the global political situation is volatile, it's not just researchers who care about what's on offer. Helium has capabilities that no other element has. This makes it an integral part of science, medicine and industry.

Colourless, odourless, non-toxic or explosive, but most important is its superpower: it won't cure even at temperatures close to absolute zero. About a quarter of the helium produced globally is used to cool superconducting magnets in devices such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR).

Research is essential

However, such coils can only maintain superconductivity at very low temperatures. Only then can it have no drag, "explains Paul Schanda of the Austrian Institute of Science and Technology. Structural biologists rely on helium to study biological processes at the molecular level. In the United States alone, an estimated 400 research groups rely on ultra-cold noble gases.

However, research is only a small part of the market. Their purchasing power and market influence are low. She can only confirm that prices have risen steadily in recent years, nearly doubling in the last decade. Last fall, heightened concerns about helium supplies at Canadian universities prompted the government of Saskatchewan, in central Canada, to announce its helium action plan.

Formation in the crust

The goal is to achieve a 10% global market share by 2030. It is currently about 1%. Helium is a finite resource. Radioactive decay in the earth's crust takes millions of years to form. It turns into a gas at minus 269 degrees Celsius. Because it was lighter than air, it escaped the atmosphere and said goodbye to space, never to be seen again.

That means noble gases can't even theoretically regenerate. Most of them diffuse away through the surface of the Earth. Only a small fraction of the residue is trapped in the naturally sealed gas reservoir. Few of these deposits have sufficient concentrations for profitable helium extraction.

Opaque markets

So far, there is no consensus on how the global helium market will develop and how long its reserves will last. More than a decade ago, Robert Richardson, an American physicist who won a Nobel Prize for research, warned that there would be no more helium in 30 years. On the other hand, in 2020, the European Union removed helium from its list of endangered raw materials.

The vulnerability of the system was finally demonstrated during the blockade of Qatar in 2017. Qatar is the second-largest helium producer after the United States, at a time when global supplies were facing bottlenecks. A growing number of voices say the biggest bottleneck yet is imminent. Despite the lack of transparency in the market, evidence suggests the reason is that the US accumulated 1 billion cubic metres of helium as a strategic reserve between 1925 and 1995. In 1996, Congress finally decided to sell, in some cases well below market value.

An affordable price includes risk

In part, 35 percent of the world's supply comes from this helium plant in Texas, which keeps the market steady. After repeated delays, commercial sales finally came to a halt in September. The security incident also led to an abrupt halt to operations in July. It will take time for other countries to close the gap. In addition, an explosion at the Amur plant rebuilt by Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, delayed helium production there. The ongoing political situation in Ukraine has also increased tensions.

Reduce losses

Secure access to resources at easily calculated and affordable prices is essential for research. Schanda and his team focus on proteins that perform important functions in the body, such as mitochondria, which are responsible for a cell's energy supply. He used magnetic resonance spectroscopy to look inside the complex machine.

In the process, the partially cooled helium always evaporates. According to the manufacturer, about 90 litres of water must be replenished every 150 days. To prevent the loss of gaseous helium into space, it is placed in balloons and compressed with gas cylinders. TU Wien then liquefied them again. Last year, more than 100,000 litres of helium were sent back to universities in Austria.

With only about one-fifth of the cost of recovering liquid helium this way, "institutions can buffer market volatility, at least in the medium term. But there's also something technically going on: Depending on the model, an MRI can absorb about 1,000 liters of liquid helium. Although old equipment wastes about 500 litres a year, new models lose almost nothing to closed circuits. Still, there certainly isn't going to be more helium." .