There's a person, wearing appropriate safety gear, standing in his welding bay, torch in hand, ready to weld a section of aerospace-grade aluminum. Because this was one component of a larger critical area of the ship, the work needed to be flawless, with no cracks, impurities, or weak spots.
Why?
Because of the cargo, the ship will be breaking Earth's orbit while carrying humans beyond the known into the great unknown.
Helium is a member of the family of Noble (inert) gases on the Periodic Table, working along with another gas to create what's known as a shielding gas.
It's also running out.
Without it, there is no chance of a perfect weld occurring. Without the shielding gas, oxygen and nitrogen in the surrounding air contaminate the weld, weakening it and increasing the likelihood that the joint will fail under stress. It doesn't matter whether it's a commercial airliner, a satellite, or even a titanium hip replacement.
The helium shortage isn't simply a niche concern; it's not whether or not your kid's birthday balloons float. It's about literally keeping society running, whether the tools and machines function correctly when they build, repair, and maintain components.
A Rare Player in Our Atmosphere
The scarcity of helium begins skyward, which is a relatively accurate statement in every sense. The air we breathe is about:
- 78% nitrogen
- 21% oxygen
- 0.93% argon
- 0.04% carbon dioxide (please don't tell the algore)
Afterward, it's scraps: neon at 0.0018%, helium at just 0.000524%, followed by krypton and hydrogen in even smaller amounts.
Once helium is released into our atmosphere, we can bid farewell to that gas. Because the gas is so light, the Earth's gravity is unable to hold onto it, so the atoms simply drift off into space.
Maybe it's my simplistic brain, but before I researched for this column, I kept thinking of helium as a light gas and all around us. However, I provide an outstanding example of why people with big brains point and laugh whenever they see pictures of me. (Why they have pictures of me is a story for another day.)
Helium is produced by two naturally occurring, radioactive, metallic elements as they decay: uranium and thorium. It oozes into deposits of natural gas when we recover it during the process of separating it from methane.
If it's not extracted at that point, there will be no second chance to capture it.
Why Welding Needs Helium
There are two critical roles helium plays in welding. It acts as a shield, preventing the atmosphere from entering the weld, and it conducts heat more effectively than nearly any other gas.
It's hard to imagine, but when metal is heated to high temperatures—acting more like lava than metal—it acts like a sponge, instantly absorbing oxygen, nitrogen, and water vapor. Impurities like those cause tiny holes (porosity), brittleness, and cracks.
Bad welds not only look bad, but they also have the potential to collapse bridges, rupture pipelines, or cause failure within our bodies.
Imagine something so tiny that it's so critical for so many components.
Helium's value is particularly evident in gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW, also known as TIG welding) and gas metal arc welding (GMAW).
Industries relying on non-ferrous metals, such as aluminum, magnesium, copper, and titanium, cannot succeed without using helium. The only way to pass stringent safety inspections is to use high-quality welds, which (closing this circle) can only occur when helium is introduced into the welding process. The Allies wouldn't have achieved nearly as much success without advancements in welding during World War I.
What all that means is that helium is as essential to the fabrication process as steel itself.
When supply chains tighten, fabrication companies are sometimes able to switch to argon. However, there are drawbacks to moving to Plan B. Argon is slower, less conductive, and its penetration isn't as deep. For specific jobs, such as aerospace and high-precision medical manufacturing, there's no chance that argon can do the same things as helium.
The Broader Reach
Welding isn't the only function where helium's industrial importance is most apparent; the medical field relies on helium for cooling the superconducting magnets inside MRI machines. If there isn't any helium, as the magnets heat up and lose their superconducting state, the machine shuts down.
It's incredible to think that a single MRI machine requires around 2,000 liters of liquid helium to maintain a temperature of approximately 4.2 K.
Systems put in place to recycle and reclaim 70 to 80%, but a gap remains. Semiconductor manufacturing is another field that's helium-intensive. When fabricating chips, sensitive chambers are purged of helium, cooled wafer production tools are used, and the process is stabilized at extreme temperatures during etching.
By 2035, demand is expected to double because of the adoption of AI, electric vehicles, and consumer electronics. There are no true substitutes for helium in these processes that do not compromise quality or yield. Argon isn't considered a Plan B for these industries.
Helium is unique due to its combination of inertness and thermal conductivity, which is crucial for research laboratories, fiber optic manufacturing, leak detection in aerospace, and even space exploration.
Why the Shortage Exists
Our helium supply turned into something uniquely fragile.
- Geographic concentration: A few countries control the majority of production, including Qatar, the United States, Algeria, and Russia. When one plant goes down, global supply drops overnight.
- Infrastructure limits: Helium can’t be made in a lab. You must find it in natural gas fields, and not every gas plant has the equipment to extract it.
- No storage safety net: The U.S. Federal Helium Reserve, once the world’s largest buffer against shortages, was sold off to private companies in 2024. That move removed a national stockpile that could have stabilized markets.
- Geopolitics: Sanctions, shipping disruptions, and accidents, like the 2022 fire at the Cliffside Helium Plant in Texas, ripple instantly across the globe.
Our most recent shortage, "Helium Shortage 4.0," began in 2022 when plant outages in Russia, Qatar, and the U.S. overlapped.
First to get cut were balloon companies, then rationing for hospitals and fabrication facilities.
Prices doubled, and at times, tripled.
Manufacturing at Risk
If the helium supply rapidly rises or, in the worst-case scenario, suddenly collapses, hard choices will need to be made, including:
- Welding: Industries could be forced to slow production or switch to less effective shielding gases, which compromise efficiency and weld quality.
- Medical: Hospitals may delay MRI upgrades or reduce the availability of scans.
- Technology: Semiconductor fabs could halt production, resulting in ripple effects across the electronics, automotive, and defense sectors.
- Infrastructure: Projects involving pipelines, bridges, and heavy equipment could be delayed or delivered with reduced quality.
There is no measurable cost in dollars; it affects safety, innovation, and national competitiveness.
The Search for Solutions
Although helium can't be synthesized, strategies do exist to stretch and secure supplies we already have.
- New extraction sites: Tanzania is bringing a new helium field online this year. Qatar has announced plans for a new plant in 2027. Small but high-purity fields are being developed in Canada and South Africa.
- Recycling systems: Hospitals and labs are installing helium recovery systems that can reclaim up to 90% of used helium.
- Alternative gases: In welding, argon-helium blends can sometimes reduce helium use without sacrificing quality. For leak detection, nitrogen-hydrogen blends are an option.
- International cooperation: Sharing infrastructure and supply contracts between allied nations could insulate against disruptions.
There are upfront expenses and coordination required between the government and industry, which is challenging given that markets have historically relied on short-term contracts and spot pricing.
Final Thoughts
People only think of helium because of how it changes our vocal chords. It's often overlooked because it's silent, invisible, and rarely discussed unless you're specifically looking for party balloons. However, helium is one of the most strategically essential materials in our modern world.
Without it, welds holding our infrastructure together weaken, and medical scans that save lives go dark. Chips, powering our economy, stop rolling off production lines.
If you'd like yet another Manney analogy, here goes.
The U.S. helium reserve sell-off was like selling the spare tire in your trunk because you needed to fit that one box in the trunk before using the highways in remote areas. Everything is great until it isn't.
This will sound similar to Greta's and AOC's warnings about the time to save the planet, but this time, it's real. We do have time to act, but what's needed is discipline, investments in recycling systems, and implementing policies that treat helium as a critical resource—because it is. The gas that makes balloons float also keeps our modern world standing.
Like the dodo bird, once it's gone, it's gone.
Forever.
