{"id":375024,"date":"2010-03-01T08:17:58","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T13:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3158"},"modified":"2010-03-01T08:17:58","modified_gmt":"2010-03-01T13:17:58","slug":"concerns-balloon-over-u-s-helium-gas-reserve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/375024","title":{"rendered":"Concerns balloon over U.S. helium gas reserve"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748704398804575071291808000722.html?mod=WSJ_Markets_MIDDLETopNews\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/si.wsj.net\/public\/resources\/images\/NA-BE588_HELIUM_D_20100225200717.jpg\" width=\"282\" align=\"left\" height=\"186\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/eenews.net\/Greenwire\/2010\/02\/26\/11\/\" >Greenwire<\/a>: As the United States works to sell off its massive stockpile of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eoearth.org\/article\/Helium\">helium<\/a> gas by 2015, government employees and scores of scientists have started to question how the nation is handling the sale of the valuable gas and wondering if it should keep some for itself.<\/p>\n<p>The United States currently has the world&#8217;s largest collection of the gas stored 3,500 feet underground in the Texas Panhandle. It has been steadily selling off its supply to comply with plans to close the storage facility by 2015, but experts are now hoping to derail the plan to shutter the helium depot.<\/p>\n<p>The government is not just getting rid of a valuable commodity used for high-tech products, they say; it is doing so in a manner that discourages new production of the gas.<\/p>\n<p>A recent report from the National Research Council, a government-advising body, recommended that federal officials should at least sell the popular gas only at market rates, not at an arbitrary price set by Congress &#8212; $64.75 per thousand cubic feet for 2010. The body also said the United States should save some of the helium in its Bush Dome reserve (which is not named for either of the presidents) for emergencies, and that it should encourage producers to fill it with more gas.<\/p>\n<p>House and Senate committees say they are considering revisiting their helium policies this year. The United States supplies about one-third of the world&#8217;s consumption of helium for chip and fiber-optic manufacturing and for use in medical diagnosis and scientific research (Ana Campoy, <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748704398804575071291808000722.html?mod=WSJ_Markets_MIDDLETopNews\" ><em>Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a> [subscription required], Feb. 26). <strong>&#8211; DFM<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"akst_link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3158&amp;akst_action=share-this\"  title=\"E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc.\" id=\"akst_link_3158\" class=\"akst_share_link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Share This<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greenwire: As the United States works to sell off its massive stockpile of helium gas by 2015, government employees and scores of scientists have started to question how the nation is handling the sale of the valuable gas and wondering if it should keep some for itself. The United States currently has the world&#8217;s largest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4055,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-375024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4055"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375024\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}