Good interview on the subject on Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast a few months back, "Now There's a Helium Shortage and It Affects More Than Balloons":
> Ripple effects from the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continue to widen. There's yet another brewing shortage, this time in helium. While most people associate helium with balloons and funny voices, the element is used in a surprisingly wide variety of industrial settings, including semiconductor production, where its role in advanced lithography has been growing rapidly. But helium mining and exploration in North America has been practically non-existent for a variety of reasons. And while the US used to have a strategic helium reserve, the government started selling that down in the late 1990s. On this episode, we speak with Nicholas Snyder, the founder and CEO of North American Helium, which does helium mining in Canada. We discuss the properties of helium that make it so useful, as well as the difficulties of expanding global production and distribution.
The sale was required by law due to the the Helium Privatization Act of 1996, signed by Clinton. Amended in 2013 by the Helium Stewardship act which allowed it to be sold in an auction with funds credited to the Helium Protection Fund, signed by Obama. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Privatization_Act_of_19...
After squandering the national helium reserve for years, because "lol free markets" ideology. It's crazy that we put that stuff into balloons for fun (helium is pretty abundant in the universe, but the economically viable sources are fossil).
> On Thursday, the U.S. government sold the Federal Helium Reserve, a massive underground stockpile based in Amarillo, Texas, that supplies up to 30% of the country’s helium.
> Once the deal is finalized, the buyer — which will likely be the highest bidder, the industrial gas company Messer — will claim some 425 miles of pipelines spanning Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, plus about 1 billion cubic feet of the only element on Earth cold enough to make an MRI machine work.
> ...
> The sale has been in the works for more than a decade. Congress first mandated it through the Helium Stewardship Act of 2013. It was initially supposed to occur in 2021, but a series of delays — in part due to the same logistical and regulatory issues threatening shutdowns today — postponed the auction to Thursday.
> ... Since 2013 the world's largest helium hub is no longer located in the United States of America but in Qatar, which produces 1.3 billion cubic feet of helium per year from a single project and meets 25% of the global demand. One challenge related to bringing new helium sources onto the market is that it usually requires venture capital financing. Another challenge is that the current selling price of U.S. Cliffside helium is too low to encourage more new producers to enter the field.
> It's crazy that we put that stuff into balloons for fun
We barely do anymore; one of the main reasons the Party City chain went bankrupt was the sharp rise in the cost of helium. The other two were covid and private equity of course lol.
> The following year, the owners had Party City borrow $338 million to pay themselves a dividend.
Meanwhile we vent 95% of extracted helium into the atmosphere as an inconvenient waste gas.
If it is so important, why aren't all our gas wells extracting that helium? It is hard for me to see this as a ploy for anything other than raising helium prices for the few companies that do extract helium.
In anything that helium is critical for, the helium cost is inconsequential compared to both the cost of the other equipment that uses it, and the value gained from using that equipment.
> If it is so important, why aren't all our gas wells extracting that helium?
Because until six months ago there was a cheap and convenient supply coming out of Persian Gulf states, and so its importance was not noticed (like so many other items that 'suddenly' became apparent when the supply was suddenly cut off).
I would've loved that as a kid. For that matter, I did actually fill some balloons with hydrogen using vinegar and something (might've cut some magnesium off one of those primitive fire starters, or I might've used a weaker metal, can't quite remember). I think I used the glass tube Costco used to use as a vanilla bean container to strap the balloon onto.
From what I understand there are many different grades of helium and the shortages (at least when I initially was looking in to them) revolved more around the higher grades.
Yes, there are. The Semiconducter stuff is 6 9's 99.9999, then there's UHP .9995 which is what I use, then .999 mostly welding I think? Then goes down from there. Most 'balloon' grade has some oxygen in it since people like to inhale it and talk funny, adding a little o2 keeps people from dying.
I have to interject here because I think this is a slightly dangerous claim.
Balloon helium is just helium, broadly, at 98%+ concentration. It has a tiny amount of atmospheric gas, mostly nitrogen, in it as there is no need to go too far with purifying it, but there is zero intention of making it any safer to inhale. It is basically accidental contaminants.
If you inhale 98%+ helium, the diffusion gradient reverses and oxygen floods out of your blood. Did this once as a kid and actually blacked out. This is functionally just as true at 98% helium with some nitrogen and a tiny amount of oxygen as it is with 99.9999% helium. The difference for inhalation is a wash.
Inhaling helium is not advised. The protection we have, such as in my case, is that invariably our rapid physiological response stops us from inhaling helium and oxygen can return.
It's all the same helium, of course, going through different levels of industrial purification. I only clarify this as it isn't like we find super pure reserves in nature and that's what is lucrative, but instead it's all the same contaminated helium and then it gets processed to further and further levels of purification, like many other industrial products.
If there is a shortage of helium, it's a shortage of all the same helium. But so long as it's treated as a novelty gas, and so long as it continues to just be wasted, it's hard to take claims of a shortage too seriously.
As a fun fact, the vast majority of helium on Earth is courtesy of the radioactive alpha decay chain starting from heavy elements like Uranium and Thorium. Helium got trapped by the same geological formations that trapped natural gas, hence why they're usually found together despite being from completely different processes.
There's a great episode about US helium by Planet Money from 2019 that tells the fascinating story of the US helium stockpile and how the shortage was created by government decisions.
Good interview on the subject on Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast a few months back, "Now There's a Helium Shortage and It Affects More Than Balloons":
> Ripple effects from the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continue to widen. There's yet another brewing shortage, this time in helium. While most people associate helium with balloons and funny voices, the element is used in a surprisingly wide variety of industrial settings, including semiconductor production, where its role in advanced lithography has been growing rapidly. But helium mining and exploration in North America has been practically non-existent for a variety of reasons. And while the US used to have a strategic helium reserve, the government started selling that down in the late 1990s. On this episode, we speak with Nicholas Snyder, the founder and CEO of North American Helium, which does helium mining in Canada. We discuss the properties of helium that make it so useful, as well as the difficulties of expanding global production and distribution.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjc6MgUY0BE
* https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/now-theres-a-helium-shortage-...
* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/now-theres-a-helium-sh...
The US had a strategic reserve, but it was sold off:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve
The sale was required by law due to the the Helium Privatization Act of 1996, signed by Clinton. Amended in 2013 by the Helium Stewardship act which allowed it to be sold in an auction with funds credited to the Helium Protection Fund, signed by Obama. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Privatization_Act_of_19...
>The US had a strategic reserve, but it was sold off:
Yes, you can read more about that here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50249073
After squandering the national helium reserve for years, because "lol free markets" ideology. It's crazy that we put that stuff into balloons for fun (helium is pretty abundant in the universe, but the economically viable sources are fossil).
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/us-just-sold-heli... (2024)
> On Thursday, the U.S. government sold the Federal Helium Reserve, a massive underground stockpile based in Amarillo, Texas, that supplies up to 30% of the country’s helium.
> Once the deal is finalized, the buyer — which will likely be the highest bidder, the industrial gas company Messer — will claim some 425 miles of pipelines spanning Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, plus about 1 billion cubic feet of the only element on Earth cold enough to make an MRI machine work.
> ...
> The sale has been in the works for more than a decade. Congress first mandated it through the Helium Stewardship Act of 2013. It was initially supposed to occur in 2021, but a series of delays — in part due to the same logistical and regulatory issues threatening shutdowns today — postponed the auction to Thursday.
---
The Helium Stewardship Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/527
https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-minerals/helium/stew...
---
And its been on the "todo list of the federal government for decades"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_storage_and_conservatio...
> ... Since 2013 the world's largest helium hub is no longer located in the United States of America but in Qatar, which produces 1.3 billion cubic feet of helium per year from a single project and meets 25% of the global demand. One challenge related to bringing new helium sources onto the market is that it usually requires venture capital financing. Another challenge is that the current selling price of U.S. Cliffside helium is too low to encourage more new producers to enter the field.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Privatization_Act_of_19...
> It's crazy that we put that stuff into balloons for fun
We barely do anymore; one of the main reasons the Party City chain went bankrupt was the sharp rise in the cost of helium. The other two were covid and private equity of course lol.
> The following year, the owners had Party City borrow $338 million to pay themselves a dividend.
Meanwhile we vent 95% of extracted helium into the atmosphere as an inconvenient waste gas.
If it is so important, why aren't all our gas wells extracting that helium? It is hard for me to see this as a ploy for anything other than raising helium prices for the few companies that do extract helium.
In anything that helium is critical for, the helium cost is inconsequential compared to both the cost of the other equipment that uses it, and the value gained from using that equipment.
> If it is so important, why aren't all our gas wells extracting that helium?
Because until six months ago there was a cheap and convenient supply coming out of Persian Gulf states, and so its importance was not noticed (like so many other items that 'suddenly' became apparent when the supply was suddenly cut off).
If helium prices are raised by this won't that lower the threshold where it is considered a waste gas?
the transition from waste gas to wasted gas.
Will birthday balloons be filled with hydrogen instead? They would have a much stronger pull!
I would've loved that as a kid. For that matter, I did actually fill some balloons with hydrogen using vinegar and something (might've cut some magnesium off one of those primitive fire starters, or I might've used a weaker metal, can't quite remember). I think I used the glass tube Costco used to use as a vanilla bean container to strap the balloon onto.
Getting Enron/PGE vibes from this timeline
I guess this explains why it cost me $60 to fill up a handful of birthday balloons a couple of months ago.
From what I understand there are many different grades of helium and the shortages (at least when I initially was looking in to them) revolved more around the higher grades.
Yes, there are. The Semiconducter stuff is 6 9's 99.9999, then there's UHP .9995 which is what I use, then .999 mostly welding I think? Then goes down from there. Most 'balloon' grade has some oxygen in it since people like to inhale it and talk funny, adding a little o2 keeps people from dying.
I have to interject here because I think this is a slightly dangerous claim.
Balloon helium is just helium, broadly, at 98%+ concentration. It has a tiny amount of atmospheric gas, mostly nitrogen, in it as there is no need to go too far with purifying it, but there is zero intention of making it any safer to inhale. It is basically accidental contaminants.
If you inhale 98%+ helium, the diffusion gradient reverses and oxygen floods out of your blood. Did this once as a kid and actually blacked out. This is functionally just as true at 98% helium with some nitrogen and a tiny amount of oxygen as it is with 99.9999% helium. The difference for inhalation is a wash.
Inhaling helium is not advised. The protection we have, such as in my case, is that invariably our rapid physiological response stops us from inhaling helium and oxygen can return.
Can't deny it's a funny way of dying, though.
It's all the same helium, of course, going through different levels of industrial purification. I only clarify this as it isn't like we find super pure reserves in nature and that's what is lucrative, but instead it's all the same contaminated helium and then it gets processed to further and further levels of purification, like many other industrial products.
If there is a shortage of helium, it's a shortage of all the same helium. But so long as it's treated as a novelty gas, and so long as it continues to just be wasted, it's hard to take claims of a shortage too seriously.
As a fun fact, the vast majority of helium on Earth is courtesy of the radioactive alpha decay chain starting from heavy elements like Uranium and Thorium. Helium got trapped by the same geological formations that trapped natural gas, hence why they're usually found together despite being from completely different processes.
Lets hope this get my T bottle's lower than $675 each, it's almost 2x what I was paying last year.
There's a great episode about US helium by Planet Money from 2019 that tells the fascinating story of the US helium stockpile and how the shortage was created by government decisions.
https://www.npr.org/2019/08/16/751845378/episode-933-find-th...
Didn't they just sell like 80% of their reserve for pennies?
Edit: Yes, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/us-just-sold-heli...
Sold at a discount, then it becomes critical so its value gets a premium. What a coinkydink.
You can literally find it in the air.
Like gold in beach sand.
It's everywhere. But extracting it is expensive and not very economical.
There's more water in the air than helium.