California company Radiant has secured funding to develop a compact, portable, “low-cost” one-megawatt nuclear micro-reactor that fits in a shipping container, powers about 1,000 homes and uses a helium coolant instead of water.
Founded by ex-SpaceX engineers, who decided the Mars colony power sources they were researching would make a bigger impact closer to home, Radiant has pulled in US$1.2 million from angel investors to continue work on its reactors, which are specifically designed to be highly portable, quick to deploy and effective wherever they’re deployed; remote communities and disaster areas are early targets.
The military is another key market here; a few of these could power an entire military base in a remote area for four to eight years before expending its “advanced particle fuel,” eliminating not just the emissions of the current diesel generators, but also the need to constantly bring in trucks full of fuel for this purpose.
It’s a brilliant and great thing to develop a small, portable nuclear power industry utilizing the unique features of helium. However, what if you live in a country in which politicians are so shortsighted and dumb they nearly destroy the essential component critical to this vital project’s success ?
Historically, the largest reserve of crude helium was owned and managed by the US Bureau of Land Management (USBLM) and is located in Amarillo, Texas. This reserve was set up in 1960 as a strategic repository of helium. The US reserve represented the only large volume dedicated helium reserve (i.e. not indexed to the production of hydrocarbons or CO2). In 1996 a bill was passed by the US Government to sell off a large part of the supply and pay off the plant’s debts, leading to a fall in helium prices. In 2013 the USBLM announced that it would begin to auction off an increasing percentage of the reserve annually as part of the bill.
The USBLM held its FY 2019 Crude Helium Auction in Amarillo, Texas, with the price rising 135%, from $119/Mcf in 2018 to $280/Mcf in 2019. It was the last crude helium auction by the USBLM as the Federal Reserve of crude helium reached the minimum level of 3Bcf. The sale of crude helium to private industry has been discontinued and the remaining stockpile for Federal users only.
Closure of the USBLM reserve has removed a significant portion of helium supply from the market as it experiences continued growth. A helium shortage is forecast for 2020, causing a forecasted price rise. It is clear that the private spigot prices are materially above the BLM crude pricing, with bulk liquid helium well above this level. Prices rise the closer you get to the consumer, with HP cylinder prices currently up to 10 times the wholesale price. (Helium – Macro View by Edison Investment Research Feb 2019).
Life on this planet is always geopolitical and brutal. Look at the players from the data supplied at the huge Houston helium confab earlier this month.
Garvey said worldwide supply is in balance with demand – 5.9 Bcf in 2021 – but that US sourced helium will decline from 51% of worldwide supply in 2021 to 37% of worldwide supply in 2026. Emerging overseas sources include Gazprom’s Amur gas processing plant (GPP) in the far southeast of Russia, which is about 80% complete with the first two of six trains now in operation, and the total capacity of that helium project will be 2.1 Bcf. Qatar 3 came on-stream in mid-2021.
“What’s important to note is the big dip in 2020, we went from tight supplies to a surplus, it took about 10% of supply off the market, but we are back in balance now,” Garvey said.
“Demand will grow by 3% over the next decade and it will grow faster over the next five years, coming out of the pandemic, so it could grow at a faster rate for a short while.
MRI (17%), lifting (16%), semiconductors and analytical/labs (both 13%) are the leading applications, according to figures from Boston-based Intelligas.
“The fastest growing segment is electronics in the US at 13% of consumption and it will grow to 17% in the next three of four years because of all the semiconductors fabs coming to the US,” Garvey said.
“Surprisingly lifting – helium balloons – held up very well in the US during Covid at 16%.
Qatar and Russia – two of the nastiest nations on earth.
Interestingly and oddly, Houston’s Helium Super Summit didn’t mention or perhaps realize the potential for huge consumption by a nascent small nuclear reactor industry in the near future.
Closing Question: Did you know the shortage of helium a couple of years ago nearly bankrupted Party City, the nation’s largest chain of party supply stores and purveyor of inflated helium balloons ?
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