US designates helium as a critical material

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

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.

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).

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.

https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-helium-system-sale-pro...

Messer American is in a good spot now I suppose:

https://www.blm.gov/announcement/blm-accepts-bids-sale-feder...

Lets hope this get my T bottle's lower than $675 each, it's almost 2x what I was paying last year.

Will birthday balloons be filled with hydrogen instead? They would have a much stronger pull!

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!!

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?

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.

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...

I can smell the collusion here from a thousand miles away. Trump must go to jail

Let me guess. The Orange Trumpolini is cooking up a new deal with his pal and custodian of Epstein files, Putin.

When are you Americans going to arrest this fool?

Trump kids already bought some small companies months ago, I guess

You can literally find it in the air.