alt Hacker NewsGood 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:
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>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
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...