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...

> Government sales flooded the market with cheap helium, causing much of the private helium industry to shut down

Very sloppy

>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

> If it is so important, why aren't all our gas wells extracting that helium?

Because until six months ago there was a cheap and convenient supply coming out of Persian Gulf states, and so its importance was not noticed (like so many other items that 'suddenly' became apparent when the supply was suddenly cut off).

Most importantly, semiconductor fabs cannot operate without it. I was unaware, but I saw an interesting 60 minutes piece in it the other day.

I hear what you’re saying, but it’s the same reason a lot of natural gas is flared off or vented at oil wells. Helium is less than 1% of the total feed gas coming off a well and it requires specialized equipment to be able to recover it, on top of a way to distribute it. In most cases depending on the mix of gases coming out, it’s simply not economical for the operator.

Even with the supply being under pressure and prices going up from Qatar’s supply being cut off, that still might not be enough for companies to build the infrastructure. It would be a huge gamble. Once traffic in the straight of Hormuz goes back to normal that could be a losing proposition.

> If it is so important, why aren't all our gas wells extracting that helium?

Because the free market considers any supplier but the cheapest to be inefficient and drives them out of business. Robustness of the supply chain is always less profitable.

Whether helium or eggs or toilet paper, we keep getting shown the results of this lesson over and over. And people refuse to learn.

If helium prices are raised by this won't that lower the threshold where it is considered a waste gas?

Helium is really hard to store and transport

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/us-just-sold-heli... (2024)

> On Thursday, the U.S. government sold the Federal Helium Reserve, a massive underground stockpile based in Amarillo, Texas, that supplies up to 30% of the country’s helium.

> Once the deal is finalized, the buyer — which will likely be the highest bidder, the industrial gas company Messer — will claim some 425 miles of pipelines spanning Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, plus about 1 billion cubic feet of the only element on Earth cold enough to make an MRI machine work.

> ...

> The sale has been in the works for more than a decade. Congress first mandated it through the Helium Stewardship Act of 2013. It was initially supposed to occur in 2021, but a series of delays — in part due to the same logistical and regulatory issues threatening shutdowns today — postponed the auction to Thursday.

---

The Helium Stewardship Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/527

https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-minerals/helium/stew...

---

And its been on the "todo list of the federal government for decades"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_storage_and_conservatio...

> ... Since 2013 the world's largest helium hub is no longer located in the United States of America but in Qatar, which produces 1.3 billion cubic feet of helium per year from a single project and meets 25% of the global demand. One challenge related to bringing new helium sources onto the market is that it usually requires venture capital financing. Another challenge is that the current selling price of U.S. Cliffside helium is too low to encourage more new producers to enter the field.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Privatization_Act_of_19...

> It's crazy that we put that stuff into balloons for fun

We barely do anymore; one of the main reasons the Party City chain went bankrupt was the sharp rise in the cost of helium. The other two were covid and private equity of course lol.

> The following year, the owners had Party City borrow $338 million to pay themselves a dividend.

Yes, because the sale was mandated 2 decades ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Privatization_Act_of_19...

> hydrogen party balloons sounds way more fun anyway

Basically equivalent at parties; much less fun for everyone involved in storing and transporting the hydrogen.

There is no science greater than party balloons, and funny sounding voices. =3

Not directly. It was a bit of a chain reaction.

1. Russia's invasion of Ukraine disrupted Europe's established natural gas supply.

2. Europe needed more gas from alternative suppliers, including Algeria.

3. Algeria sent more gas through its pipeline to Spain rather than processing as much gas into LNG at Arzew.

4. Less gas passed through the LNG process that made helium recovery economical.

5. Helium production fell, even though the underground gas deposits could still contain helium.

I would've loved that as a kid. For that matter, I did actually fill some balloons with hydrogen using vinegar and something (might've cut some magnesium off one of those primitive fire starters, or I might've used a weaker metal, can't quite remember). I think I used the glass tube Costco used to use as a vanilla bean container to strap the balloon onto.

If by "much stronger" you mean "less than 10% stronger"

A theoretical "vacuum filled" balloon would only be 16% more lift per unit volume than a helium balloon.

From what I understand there are many different grades of helium and the shortages (at least when I initially was looking in to them) revolved more around the higher grades.

They choose the timing of each of those events with total freedom and independently.

The oil reserve is so that when there's a war in the Middle East you have some period of time before you run out and encounter price shocks.

The helium reserve is so that when there's a war in the Middle East...

The US has drawn down on the first one substantially and sold the second one to the private sector a decade ago that had no interest in maintaining it.

I care more about his estate being nationalized. He mixed too much. We can't tell what is his, what is the people's... Just take it all. And his complicit family members too.

Given his track record, it's more likely than not that there's a causal relationship between this and ExxonMobil's (they own/operate a major U.S. helium source in Wyoming) $1M pay-to-play into Trump's 2025 inaugural fund.

If Trump can be sent to jail, then any billionaire could be jailed! Can you imagine!? Surely we all agree this is an unacceptable turn of events, right, fellow billionaires?

Do you happen to have a source for this?

Like gold in beach sand.

It's everywhere. But extracting it is expensive and not very economical.

There's more water in the air than helium.

In the air? That's the one place you can't find helium. The earth doesn't have enough gravity to hold it down; if it gets into the air, it escapes into space.

Any helium we have comes from underground, which is why you can see discussion of "mining" helium upthread.

Or the moon, or Uranus