![]() ![]() NASA and SpaceX need helium for liquid fuel rockets,” he said. For most, it’s best known as the lighter-than-air gas that gives flight to party balloons and, when inhaled, makes people sound like chipmunks.īut liquid helium is liquid gold to a host of industries, according to Bill Halperin, a professor of physics at Northwestern University, who uses helium for low-temperature physics and to provide a liquid bath for superconducting magnets used for nuclear magnetic resonance. To the average consumer, helium is not a particularly important matter. “Every delay, every pause in the sale, every discussion about the value of helium gives us hope that maybe someone is paying attention,” Hayes said. Geological Survey seeking public comments regarding “whether there is an increasing risk of helium-supply disruption.”Īt first glance, the notice may not seem like much.īut Hayes and several other scientists whom NBC News spoke with say it is one more sign the federal government is paying close attention to an increasingly volatile helium market, and potentially rethinking the terms and timing of the sale of the reserve. 30, a notice was posted to the Federal Register by the U.S. Last week, a government-issued helium bulletin inflated their hopes that the United States may be thinking harder about helium. They say that the decision Congress made in 1996 to set into motion a 25-year plan to unload the reserve, in a bid to shrink government, was shortsighted and potentially detrimental to a host of industries, ranging from medical technology to rocket science. “But for the past year, it’s been silent.”įor the better part of a decade, scientists like Hayes have urged government officials to hold on to the reserve, instead of selling it to a private entity - likely a major industrial gas or pipeline company, and possibly one that is foreign-owned. Louis and one of the nation’s leading helium experts. “It was supposed to be sold off by 2021,” said Sophia Hayes, a professor of chemistry at Washington University in St. The mammoth underground structure is comprised of nearly 500 miles of pipeline - stretching from Amarillo, Texas, to the panhandle of Oklahoma to Kansas - and supplies roughly 40% of the world’s helium. ![]() This is the third helium shortage since 2006, and the helium industry is slow to respond to shortages because of how long the process can be to produce the gas, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.For more than a year, the fate of the Federal Helium Reserve, one of the world’s largest and most dependable suppliers of helium, has been uncertain. If helium isn’t available, the company offers alternatives such as balloon arches or walls that don’t require helium-filled balloons. Party City created a page on its website to inform customers that because helium is in short supply, certain balloon orders might be affected. But some industries, such as party supply retailers, are now starting to let customers know about the shortage. But many parts of the world attempt to recycle helium, while the practice is seldom used in the states, according to USGS.Īnd while the supply of helium dwindles, demand continues to go up. So, is helium renewable? The short answer is no. During that auction, helium prices went up about 135 percent, according to gasworld. ![]() Sales and auctions were held since then, with the last one happening in 2018. The Helium Stewardship Act of 2013 established an auction system for the sale of the country’s federally owned helium along with all of the accompanying property and equipment. will stop distributing it by 2021, according to the bureau. Helium is also used for weather and research balloons, welding, fiber optics, leak detection and defense, aerospace and energy programs.īut despite the importance of helium, the U.S. The USGS report also noted that 14 plants in the United States provided about 1.4 billion cubic feet of helium for domestic use, with about 30 percent of that helium being used for MRIs. ![]()
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