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SALT LAKE CITY — Most people are familiar with helium as the gas used to fill birthday balloons and sometimes make our voices squeak like a mouse. Admittedly, squeaking voices are hilarious, but a steadily dwindling supply of this precious and rare gas is much less funny.
The reality is that the largest proportion of helium produced is used in the medical field. Helium is a critical commodity, and is used as the coolant that allows MRI scanners that operate in hospitals throughout the world, as well as other cryogenics applications. It is also used in the production of flat screen TVs, welding, and pressurization systems, and many other minor applications, like filling balloons.
Some (very rare) helium conservationists have actually said that filling balloons is wasteful, given the important other usages of the inert gas. Nevertheless, it is peak season for balloon shops and with a helium shortage, business is deflating.
"As a result of that Act, helium is far too cheap and is not treated as a precious resource. It's being squandered. - Nobel laureate and physicist Robert Ricardson
Shawn Agheassi, owner of Elegant Balloon in Studio City, California said he is losing customers daily, and that business is down 50 percent.
"I'm surviving right now, but struggling," Agheassi said. "Years ago it was like $30 to $40 a bottle. Now it's $168. Yes, a tank. And I'm lucky if I get one or two," Agheassi said.
He said his helium suppliers are even getting out of the business. "I was talking to the supplier and he was crying. He said, I have a million dollar business and I don't know what to do. I don't have helium to sell it," Agheassi said.
Why is this shortage such a problem? Even though helium is the second most abundant substance in the universe - right behind hydrogen - it exists only fleetingly on Earth. Much like oil, helium is non-renewable. It seeps out of the Earth's crust only slowly over millions of years. Once it's out, it escapes the Earth's atmosphere quickly, never to return. Once helium is gone, it's essentially gone forever. Only the decay of certain radioactive elements produces more helium.
But why is there so little left? In 1924, the U.S. created the National Helium Reserve, designed to protect the resource for use in warships. Later, it became important in rocket science, being used to clean out empty fuel containers. NASA uses a huge amount of helium for just this purpose, but recycles none of it.
The U.S. kept the world's largest supply of helium in 200 miles of abandoned mines between Amarillo and parts of Kansas. Keeping this reserve cost billions, and in 1996, Congress compelled the Reserve to begin selling off the helium at a fixed rate and at very low prices. Ever since, helium has been artificially cheap and undervalued.
"As a result of that Act, helium is far too cheap and is not treated as a precious resource," said Nobel laureate and physicist Robert Ricardson, speaking to The Independent in 2010. "It's being squandered."
Richardson told the Independent that a balloon of helium should really cost about $100 dollars to properly reflect the preciousness and rarity of the gas.
This story contains contibutions from NBC News.
