by
Lisa Chamoff, Contributing Reporter | October 07, 2016
From the October 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
The researchers found that the area’s volcanic activity produced enough heat to release helium from ancient rocks, trapping it in shallower gas fields, according to a news release issued by Oxford. Oxford professor Chris Ballentine noted that independent experts estimate there is likely 54 billion cubic feet of helium in just one part of the valley, nearly seven times the total amount of helium consumed globally every year and enough to fill more than 1.2 million MR scanners.
“This is a game-changer for the future security of society’s helium needs, and similar finds in the future may not be far away,” Ballentine said in the statement. There is uncertainty among those in the health care industry about when the discovery in Tanzania will pay off. “No one has announced any plans to extract helium,” Wade says. “No one really knows how big the reserve is despite the speculative figures quoted in the press.”
According to published reports, Thomas Abraham-James, chief executive officer of Helium One, said the company was seeking $40 million in investments and once it confirms the gas exists, extraction could begin by 2021. Abraham-James declined to comment further to HealthCare Business News on the commercialization of the discovery. Wade also notes that since natural gas is a larger priority, helium does not get a large share of investment.
“For example, in Qatar, the main gas plant employs several thousand people,” Wade says. “The helium plant employs just a handful of people. Whilst helium is important, it’s not the main driver of that facility.” There is also the issue of building the infrastructure to support the export and delivery of the gas, which is a complex process, in a fairly remote location. “They have to build infrastructure and build the roads,” Schultz says. “I wouldn’t see any changes in the availability globally in the next few years.”
‘Open to atmosphere’
The discovery comes at a tipping point in health care. The helium shortages of the past have hastened the adoption of new zero boil-off technology, in which helium is re-condensed and brought back to a liquid state, leading to an MR scanner that requires just a fraction of the gas needed by older systems to keep them cold. “For a new installation, it’s the only thing that should be considered,” says Sourounis, of CryoSRV.
The technology was first released by GE in 1998. Siemens and Philips also offer it. Wade, of Siemens, estimates that roughly 60 percent to 70 percent of the installed magnets in the industry now employ zero boil-off technology. “In the last couple of years, we swapped more than 50 magnets for people from the old technology to zero boil-off,” says Walker of BC Technical, which has nearly 700 magnets under agreement.
