> That strategic helium reserve was from WWI, IIRC.
That may have been when it opened but the current war machine has little use for dirigibles.
> I've heard it claimed that it was a massive oversight to sell that much helium at such a low price. Helium is a non-renewable resource. When it escapes, it just floats off into space.
Helium is produced within the earth by radioactive decay. It then gets trapped in the same pockets as natural gas, which is why it gets extracted along with the natural gas. But most natural gas doesn't undergo helium extraction. If we wanted more, we could do helium extraction on more of the natural gas. Not doing it releases significantly more into the atmosphere than was present in the reserve. But doing it is expensive so we only do it more if there is demand for more helium.
The first mistake was the government hoarding that much of it to begin with. It doesn't make a lot of sense to pay a high cost for extraction in an earlier year and then pay a high cost for storage for an indefinite period of time if you're already discarding (i.e. not separating) most of it and could just extract more once you actually want it.
The second mistake was unloading such a massive amount over a relatively short period of time, because then you crash the short-term price and cause people to waste the thing you spent a lot of money to extract.