Going, Going, Gone

Though the [Federal Helium Reserve (FHR)] still holds more helium than any other stockpile by far, its stores are rapidly diminishing. Since 2003, the US Bureau of Land Management has been methodically selling off the FHR’s hoard (and repaying the $1.4 billion debt) in compliance with a 1996 Congressional act that called for phasing out the reserve by 2015.

Echoing years of complaints from the scientific community, in January the US National Research Council (NRC) released a report condemning the liquidation of the FHR as a shortsighted blunder that has thrown the global market into turmoil and hindered scientific research.