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

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Still, scientists add, a helium shortage – which has been years in the making – is no laughing matter.

"It is a serious problem," said Roman Dembinski, an organic chemistry professor at Oakland University. "A shortage and disruption would quench our magnets, so we would be without instruments."

industry, which uses the gas as a coolant in magnetic resonance imaging and nuclear magnetic resonance, are suggesting a ban on party balloons.

Without helium, doctors will not be able to give patients noninvasive, life-saving MRI scans that detect damage to organs and tissues.

An element of the periodic table, helium is what chemists call an inert gas.

It's nontoxic, nonflammable, and is used in several industries because it is the element with the lowest boiling point, about minus 452 degrees.

But now that the gas is in short supply and the price has shot up, it’s not entirely clear what will happen.

Helium also is used in space flight to pressurize the fuel tanks of liquid-fueled rockets, in satellite instruments, in aerospace for supersonic wind tunnels and even combined with oxygen to create nitrogen-free atmospheres for deep sea divers.

A big reason for the shortage is that about 75% of all the helium comes from just three places: Ras Laffan Industrial City in Qatar, ExxonMobil in Wyoming and the National Helium Reserve in Texas, according to gas-trade publication Gasworld.com.

In Texas, the reserves are being depleted, while at the same time overall demand for the gas has been growing.

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