re: There is a world wide helium shortage and we may need to ban party balloons

Gas Chromatographs for many years used helium as the carrier gas to move the materials (in a gaseous state) through the chromatographic columns. At least ten years ago, we were notified by the gas suppliers that we had to come up with new procedures that relied on some other carrier gas, because the world was running our of helium. The gas we sued was nitrogen and (in the pharmaceutical industry) we had to eat the cost of testing procedure development and validation.

The shortage of helium is a big deal. God only made a certain amount of it and unless we blast it out into space (rocket fuel tank pressurization) we have what we have and not more. The simple truth is that "too many things" use helium gas - like the internals of power generators in big steam generating plants.


Hopefully, they will work out other options for replacing helium gas. (almost all GC testing now uses other carrier gas). I haven't read the posts yet. The Macy's New Years day parade balloons use a lot of helium (which is lighter than air), as do military dirigibles. Helium is also lighter then air, but go check the Hindenburg to see how well that works.

I can see outlawing party balloons, and Macy's balloons, or at least taxing them into extinction.

It’s true. The wife pressure tests rocket engines, which requires helium. Getting harder to buy it.

I’m sure someone said it already, but how is helium even produced? Is it mined? Can it be produced in a lab? I hadno idea that helium was a finite resource. It’s was just always there.

There is no chemical way of manufacturing helium, and the supplies we have originated in the very slow radioactive alpha decay that occurs in rocks. It costs around 10,000 times more to extract helium from air than it does from rocks and natural gas reserves. Helium is the second-lightest element in the Universe.

Them welding baws been knowing this fer yirs.