CHICAGO — Helium is the talk of the party-balloon industry these days, and it is not a discussion being carried out in high-pitched giggles.
The second-most-plentiful element in the universe is suddenly in short supply, and that means soaring prices for a lot of things, balloons included.
As raw-materials crises go, the helium shortage clearly takes a back seat to the global oil crunch. But the repercussions go well beyond the cost of decorating for birthdays or bar mitzvahs.
Demand for the gas has taken off in industry and scientific research in recent years, and the helium squeeze is being felt everywhere from university physics labs to plants in India, China, Taiwan and Korea.
Helium can be liquefied to temperatures approaching absolute zero, properties that render it ideal for cooling metals that produce superconductivity or in processes that throw off a lot of heat. It is used to make flat-panel TVs, semiconductors, optical fibers and medical MRIs, and it toughens industrial welds.
The U.S. government is the world’s No. 1 source, sucking helium out of a Texas reservoir it began filling after World War I when dirigibles were thought to be the coming thing in transportation and warfare. That stockpile will empty in a decade.
“We’re pedaling as fast as we can here, but we just can’t produce enough,” said Leslie Theiss, manager of the Federal Helium Reserve near Amarillo. “One-third of the world’s helium comes from our little place here. That’s kind of frightening.”
