Selling the Nation's Helium Reserve
2010

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Helium has long been the subject of public policy deliberation and management, largely because of its many strategic uses and its unusual source-it is a derived product of natural gas and its market has several anomalous characteristics. Shortly after sources of helium were discovered at the beginning of the last century, the U.S. government recognized helium's potential importance to the nation's interests and placed its production and availability under strict governmental control. In the 1960s, helium's strategic value in cold war efforts was reflected in policies that resulted in the accumulation of a large reserve of helium owned by the federal government. The latest manifestation of public policy is expressed in the Helium Privatization Act of 1996 (1996 12 Act), which directs that substantially all of the helium accumulated as a result of those earlier policies be sold off by 2015 at prices sufficient to repay the federal government for its outlays associated with the helium program.

The present volume assesses whether the interests of the United States have been well served by the 1996 Act and, in particular, whether selling off the helium reserve has had any adverse effect on U.S. scientific, technical, biomedical, and national security users of helium.

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156 pages · 7 x 10 · paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-14979-7
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-14980-0
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17226/12844

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National Research Council. 2010. Selling the Nation's Helium Reserve. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

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Front Matter i-xvi
Executive Summary 1-4
Summary 5-13
1 Overview, Conclusions, and Recommendations 14-44
2 The Helium Supply Chain 45-53
3 Demand for Helium 54-70
4 Helium Sourcing and Reserves 71-86
5 Operation of the Federal Helium Reserve Facilities 87-112
References 113-114
Appendixes 115-116
Appendix A: Statement of Task 117-117
Appendix B: Biographies of Committee Members 118-123
Appendix C: Meeting Agendas 124-127
Appendix D: The Economics of a Typical Recycling System 128-129
Appendix E: Auction Types 130-131
Appendix F: Extraction Path Alternatives 132-135
Appendix G: Executive Summary of *The Impact of Selling the Federal Helium Reserve* (the 2000 Report) 136-140

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Selling the Nation's Helium Reserve (2010)

Chapter: Appendixes

Appendixes

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Selling the Nation's Helium Reserve (2010)

Chapter: Appendixes

Appendixes