My vendor is Messer and we’ve had 2 cuts, the first to 50% and then an addition 25% of the decreased allocation (going from ~ 2800L/month under normal operations to 1250 L/month to 940 L/month). This allocation is not enough to maintain our systems across the lab.
I had a discussion with Linde today and they indicated nothing is available from them until Jan 2023. For my Bruker systems I’m bringing Bruker in to de-energize them – Bruker can provide the helium for de-energizing as part of the contract.
Lab wide we are prioritizing our NMR and FTICR instruments (~ 24 NMRs, 1 DNP and 5 FTICR) and identifying candidates to de-energize this month. We are lucky that we have the ability to de-energize many of our systems with internal staff and hardware. The biggest problem is obtaining enough helium to safely de-energize. We are planning for worst case scenario:
* Bringing down 3 systems in March and 1 in early May
* Filling systems to 75-80% in the hope that this will resolve by the end of May
* Planning for bringing down systems without the requisite helium
For those interested, here is the link to status updates from the BLM Cliffside plant in Texas that is currently closed due to OSHA issues. Click on the month under “Cliffside Plant Status” on the right hand side of the page. Two of their six plant operators quit, which is also posing challenges to bringing the facility back up.
https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-minerals/helium/federal-helium-operations
Nancy Washton
Catalysis Science Group Lead
Physical and Computational Sciences Directorate
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
509.371.7094 (o)
814.883.3762 (c)
From: AMMRL List <ammrlrev_at_webserver2.chem.hawaii.edu>
Reply-To: Thomas Eubanks <thomas.eubanks_at_utrgv.edu>
Date: Thursday, March 17, 2022 at 2:50 PM
To: "ammrl_at_ammrl.org" <ammrl_at_ammrl.org>
Subject: AMMRL: Liquid Helium
Check twice before you click! This email originated from outside PNNL.
Getting scary out there! I've got three weeks to quench... any ideas? Bruker says they can fill for 8500 but they have to order it so I'm not sure they can deliver. Hopefully their source can come thru. Ours is in an old location without venting systems.
Tom Eubanks
UTRGV
Edinburg Texas
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Received on Thu Mar 17 2022 - 12:05:27 MST