Premium helium.

You know the thing that powers all childhood birthday parties with plenty of upright floating balloons.

Without it, you could say that the party would be pretty deflated.

What is known as the second element of the periodic table helium is considered a noble gas that is actually the second most abundant element in the entire universe, right behind hydrogen.

However, here on Earth, it's actually not that common at all.

For the past several decades, the soaring demand for this rare earth element has caused concerns to grow over an increasing shortage of the gas as well as the unknown future of its use.

And while fewer party balloons would certainly be pretty sad, it also means the lack of resource is required for very important industries.

The desperately require helium in order to survive, But first, perhaps it makes some sense toe look back and see exactly how helium was discovered and what it's even used for in everyday life.

Besides just your average party balloons, the formal discovery of helium can actually be traced all the way back to the late 18 hundreds, when two Swedish chemists found several trace amounts of the element.

But it wasn't until the early 19 hundreds that large reserves of helium were first discovered as part of natural gas fields within the United States.

After the discovery and determination that helium was, in fact lighter than air, the United States Navy first sponsored several experiments which developed into the world's first helium filled airships.

It was shortly after this that the United States government, recognizing the element strategic value, decided to set up what is known as the National Helium Reserve in Amarillo, Texas.

It came to be at this location primarily due to the fact that there are so many natural gas fields nearby.

And being that helium is often a byproduct of natural gas refining, it made it very easy to store there.

As the 20th century progressed and helium became critical for military airships as well a space exploration.

The U.

S.

Government mandated that all private helium producer sell their stores to the reserve so that it could be stored for safekeeping some 3000 ft below the surface of the earth in porous rock, capable of holding more than one billion cubic meters of the gas in order to prevent any of it from escaping back up to the surface.

In fact, the National Reserve is so big that you could essentially fill it with an equivalent volume of 400,000 Olympic size swimming pools of peer helium gas.

And while this all might sound extreme, it prevented the export of a scarce resource at the time of which the United States had an essential monopoly on it, preventing other countries from using the helium for their own blimps or military use.

Which is why the German Zeppelins, like the Hindenburg ended up using hydrogen and well didn't really end up faring too well.

But beyond just military use.

As the 20th century progressed, helium began to play an even larger role.

And while certainly today balloons are perhaps the best known use of the element, there are much more important uses that are mostly unknown.

For example, in the medical field, helium is used to cool the super powerful magnets that are used within magnetic resonance imaging machines or M r.

I's these machines take extremely detailed images of the body and are used to diagnose all sorts of ailments and injuries.

Being that helium is one of the coldest substances on Earth, one place into its liquid state, it doesn't amazing job cooling the super powerful magnets within the machine.

Additionally, helium is often used in the everyday technology space as well as several different stages of the production process for semiconductor chips relied upon by phones, TVs, computers, tablets and mawr, meaning the likely the device that you're watching this video on right now has some reason to think helium for And these are just a couple examples of the many industries that rely on helium, and the problem is that all of these industries are growing across the world.

And as they grow, the demand for helium grows to mix.

This in combination with a major change in the industry over the last several decades and worries over the supply are growing, too.

It all really began in the 19 nineties when the U.

S government decided that it didn't need as much helium on hand, likely because airships and spacecraft were being seen as less important to national security and thus began the drawdown of the supply in the National Reserve.

It was then that President Bill Clinton signed into law the Helium Privatization Act, mandating that the U.

S.

Government sell off its supply of helium to private industry.

Combined.

This with the fact that much of the world's usable helium is obtained as a byproduct of natural gas extraction, which we as a world are trying to get away from more and more as newer and more renewable options become available and well, you have the perfect storm for a major helium problem.

In the near term, it's critical that helium production continues as it's so critical to so many industries today.

Three countries hold the majority of the helium gas in storage, including the United States with 3.9 billion cubic meters, Algeria with 1.8 billion cubic meters and Russia with 1.7 billion cubic meters.

There's other countries to like Poland, Australia, Canada, Qatar and China that also hold helium in storage today, but in much smaller quantities.

Today we are already using almost 200 million cubic meters of helium across the world each and every year, and this is expected to continue to grow year over year over the next decade, and as the demand continues to outpace the supply, the reserves aren't going to last forever.

Of the 7.5 billion cubic meters, they're in storage today around the world.

It'll only last our demand for the next 37 or so years if production came to a complete halt.

And that's why it's critical that we continue producing helium at a consistent rate.

It's also important to note that there are likely only so many remaining sources of helium left on earth as well.

For one, the granite type rocks that produce it are not that abundant in the first place, and large natural gas fields which are sometimes helium rich, our ever decreasing, and we aren't finding any new large ones either.

Scientists estimate that there are 51.9 billion cubic meters of helium that have not yet been captured below the earth's surface, including the known large deposits in the United States, Algeria, Qatar, Russia, China and Canada.

Assuming that all of this helium could be captured, it would likely last for several 100 years.

But what about beyond that?

We may end up having to look elsewhere beyond our home planet.

For example, it is noteworthy that several countries are looking at the moon for helium or specifically helium three, which could be used to create nuclear fusion plants, which are not even radioactive at all.

And further, many of the large gas giant planets like Jupiter are known to contain helium and helium, three that could be captured as well once the limited supply of helium runs out on Earth.

Sooner or later, humanity will be forced to expand our reach out into space to these other bodies in order to secure more of it and continue fueling our industries and filling our balloons.

Therefore, the desire for helium will probably end up becoming one of the catalysts for space exploration and colonization in the future.

But whatever the case, we know that our helium supply on earth isn't gonna last forever.

In the near term, new helium producers like the new production facility and cutter as well as the Amir gas plant in Siberia, are critical to the demand for the element worldwide.

This, along with global stability and free trade, should ensure that anyone who needs the resource will indeed have it for many years to come.

But in the future, we may just have to get more creative and look beyond Earth if we continue using this important resource.

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