Do the fields of medicine, manufacturing, etc. get adversely affected?
In: Chemistry
We will have helium so long as we have natural gas. The shortage is because from the 1925, the US started storing helium in a reserve, thinking airships were going to be a big thing. That didn’t pan out, but then rockets became a thing, and they use helium to back fill fuel tanks, so the reserve grew in anticipation of rockets being a big thing. Finally, by 1995, everyone realised that helium wasn’t actually that vital, and the reserve was very expensive, so they started selling it off very cheaply. This undercut everyone else, and nobody really bothered with helium extraction anymore.
Now that reserve is running low, so prices are rising again. That’s the shortage. It’s more of a return from artificially low prices.
As helium prices rise, it’s becoming economical to separate it from natural gas again.
What is helium used for? Well it’s very light, inert, and basically doesn’t freeze. It doesn’t even become a liquid until single digit kelvin temperatures. So cryogenics that want to operate in those temperatures, rockets, airships… We’ll never run out completely, and there are alternatives. With cryogenics, better magnets are superconducting at higher temperatures which don’t need liquid helium, so MRI machines etc will stop needing it. Total loss systems are being replaced by systems that recycle their helium.
Helium party balloons should never have been a thing though. That was just a total waste.
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