Membranes open up new sources of helium

Back in the day, when you drilled a well and gas came out, you’d set a match to it. If the plume caught fire, you started natural gas recovery. If not, you sealed it back up and moved on. But even when a gas reservoir doesn’t have enough hydrocarbons for drillers to make a profitable energy play, sometimes there’s helium in them there hills. Liter for liter, helium is worth at least 40 times as much as natural gas. Most helium on the market today comes from wells that were drilled primarily for natural gas—methane in particular. The US Geological Survey recently estimated that the US has 8.7 billion m 3 of helium that could be recovered profitably as a side product of natural gas extraction. Despite that rosy number, the reality is that the global helium market has dealt with three major shortages since 2006 as well as many