Good interview on the subject on Bloomberg's <i>Odd Lots</i> podcast a few months back, "Now There's a Helium Shortage and It Affects More Than Balloons":<p>> <i>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.</i><p>* <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjc6MgUY0BE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjc6MgUY0BE</a><p>* <a href="https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/now-theres-a-helium-shortage-and-it-affects-more-than-balloons" rel="nofollow">https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/now-theres-a-helium-shortage-...</a><p>* <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/now-theres-a-helium-shortage-and-it-affects-more/id1056200096?i=1000757668473" rel="nofollow">https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/now-theres-a-helium-sh...</a><p>The US had a strategic reserve, but it was sold off:<p>* <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve</a>
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. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Privatization_Act_of_1996" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Privatization_Act_of_19...</a>
1996 - Introduced by Republicans. Passed by unanimous consent in the House and Senate. [0]<p>2013 - Introduced by Republicans. Passed with 2 nay votes in the Senate, 1 in the House. [1]<p>Both parties allowed it to happen. In both cases it was veto-proof. Pointless to call out a president. Pointless to blame one party or the other. Both have overwhelming support for this.<p>0: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Privatization_Act_of_1996" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Privatization_Act_of_19...</a><p>1: <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/527/all-actions" rel="nofollow">https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/527/...</a>
This over simplifies politics.<p>If Trump made a gigantic fuss about something that seems inconsequential, there would be more than 2 nay votes.<p>The Epstein files are the counter example of this.<p>The position in the United States to make sure people vote aligned is called Whip.<p>Given the makeup of Congress, and even myself as a chem engineer, I could see this as something easy to pass.<p>Sometimes I think we need more involvement from the deep state and less from people with nice looking hair.
Everything about politics has to have enough footnote and caveats to make people's eyes bleed... but boiling an act down to a single person is not appropriate unless they were the champion of it, or it's intended as a placeholder for the party.<p>It sounded odd to me that Clinton/Obama would champion this... It felt very free-market / Republican thing to do, especially with it being called the "Privatization Act"... So I looked for more info.<p>Sure enough, it was introduced by Republicans... But Democrats share full blame on this if you think it's wrong... and the measure passed by so much it's almost pointless to call out the president because -- as you noted -- if the president fought it, there probably wouldn't be unanimous consent followed by 98% approval on amendment. So again: Why call out the presidents and not the party numbers except to inflame?
> This over simplifies politics.<p>No, it doesn't. "Passed by Clinton" and "Passed by Obama" are the statements that oversimplify politics.<p>> The position in the United States to make sure people vote aligned is called Whip.<p>That is also a gross oversimplification of our politics.
> The 104th Congress passed the Act of Congress presenting the legislation to the United States President on September 30, 1996. President Bill Clinton enacted the federal statute into law on October 9, 1996.<p>> Both chambers had Republican majorities for the first time since the 83rd Congress in 1953.
>The US had a strategic reserve, but it was sold off:<p>Yes, you can read more about that here, <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50249073">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50249073</a>
Meanwhile we vent 95% of extracted helium into the atmosphere as an inconvenient waste gas.<p>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.<p>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.
> <i>If it is so important, why aren't all our gas wells extracting that helium?</i><p>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).
We've been having helium shortages for years:<p>> The current helium shortage is the fourth to occur since 2006 and is being caused by shutdowns at several major helium producers. The shortage has been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, as Russia is one of the world’s top suppliers of helium.<p><a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/6/24/helium-shortage-2022/" rel="nofollow">https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/6/24/helium-shortage...</a><p>I have a friend who teaches chemistry at a well known university that can no long run some labs because the equipment to run them needs, you guessed it, helium. This has been a long running problem that the Iran war has exacerbated, but is by no means the cause.
I've heard Helium is a limited resource so if we have leaky wells here I think we should be preserving as much of that is possible, it's too bad it takes pressure from an unnecessary conflict to do the right thing here.
> <i>I've heard Helium is a limited resource</i> […]<p>I've heard the same thing about petroleum. :)
If you ask international relations scholars or people in the state department, they actually support the prevention of nuclear proliferation.<p>The general population typically are doves because they can't see the consequences 10-50 years out.<p>My PhD bud, a Bernie supporter, thinks we should have put boots on the ground by now. I generally agree.<p>I lived through North Korea getting nuclear weapons in my lifetime. Before they were the end of a joke, today we have to care about the opinions of that backwater. (And I read international relations structural realists as much as I drink coffee... The job of the hegemon is to maintain the status quo.)
Iran already wasn't working on nuclear weapons (a confident assessment by our intelligence community across the past 20+ years). The JCPOA then gave us the ability to verify that for ourselves. Then we blew up their leader who was firmly opposed to developing nuclear weapons, and the new one doesn't feel the same.
Helium is really hard to store and transport
If helium prices are raised by this won't that lower the threshold where it is considered a waste gas?
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).
<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/us-just-sold-helium-stockpile-s-medical-world-worried-rcna134785" rel="nofollow">https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/us-just-sold-heli...</a> (2024)<p>> 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.<p>> 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.<p>> ...<p>> 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.<p>---<p>The Helium Stewardship Act: <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/527" rel="nofollow">https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/527</a><p><a href="https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-minerals/helium/stewardship" rel="nofollow">https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-minerals/helium/stew...</a><p>---<p>And its been on the "todo list of the federal government for decades"<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_storage_and_conservation#Helium_Privatization_Act" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_storage_and_conservatio...</a><p>> ... 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.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Privatization_Act_of_1996" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Privatization_Act_of_19...</a>
> It's crazy that we put that stuff into balloons for fun<p>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 <i>lol.</i><p>> The following year, the owners had Party City borrow $338 million to pay themselves a dividend.
I thought during the last trump administration they got rid of the helium reserve and sold it all off? Or am I taking crazy pills?!
FINALLY! Helium is for welding and science not goddamn party balloons, hydrogen party balloons sounds way more fun anyway (just keep them away from birthday candles).
Yea, the sale of the federal helium reserve never made sense to me back in 2013.<p><a href="https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-helium-system-sale-provides-460-million-us-treasury" rel="nofollow">https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-helium-system-sale-pro...</a><p>Messer American is in a good spot now I suppose:<p><a href="https://www.blm.gov/announcement/blm-accepts-bids-sale-federal-helium-system" rel="nofollow">https://www.blm.gov/announcement/blm-accepts-bids-sale-feder...</a>
Will birthday balloons be filled with hydrogen instead? They would have a much stronger pull!
If by "much stronger" you mean "less than 10% stronger"<p>A theoretical "vacuum filled" balloon would only be 16% more lift per unit volume than a helium balloon.
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.
Lets hope this get my T bottle's lower than $675 each, it's almost 2x what I was paying last year.
I guess this explains why it cost me $60 to fill up a handful of birthday balloons a couple of months ago.
Oh no! My Helium!!<p>C'mon... First, there's no infrastructure in the US to process the gas and purify to semi manufacturing levels. Second, as soon as the epstein war is done (either by Iran allowing navigation through Hormuz or the arab countries developing alternative routes), Helium orices will go back to be so low it doesn't make financial sense to purify unless you have the volumes they have. And by then, still no infrastructure would be ready for the task.
Getting Enron/PGE vibes from this timeline
Didn't they just sell like 80% of their reserve for pennies?<p>Edit: Yes, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/us-just-sold-helium-stockpile-s-medical-world-worried-rcna134785" rel="nofollow">https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/us-just-sold-heli...</a><p>Sold at a discount, then it becomes critical so its value gets a premium. What a coinkydink.
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.<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/08/16/751845378/episode-933-find-the-helium" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2019/08/16/751845378/episode-933-find-th...</a>
I can smell the collusion here from a thousand miles away. Trump must go to jail
I care more about his estate being nationalized. He mixed too much. We can't tell what is his, what is the people's... Just take it all. And his complicit family members too.
Also tear down the ballroom, arch, Kennedy/Trump center, helipad, and much more to make Trump invisible and remove his legacy fully.
Given his track record, it's more likely than not that there's a causal relationship between this and ExxonMobil's (they own/operate a major U.S. helium source in Wyoming) $1M pay-to-play into Trump's 2025 inaugural fund.
Let me guess. The Orange Trumpolini is cooking up a new deal with his pal and custodian of Epstein files, Putin.<p>When are you Americans going to arrest this fool?
If Trump can be sent to jail, then <i>any</i> billionaire could be jailed! Can you imagine!? Surely we all agree this is an unacceptable turn of events, right, fellow billionaires?
Trump kids already bought some small companies months ago, I guess
You can literally find it in the air.