Madeleine Finlay

And unless it's reversed soon, some recognisable institutions will

have been affected are considering the option of decommissioning some of their equipment.

For this one, I'm just going to hand straight over to Sophia.

So this can be a really, really expensive problem for laboratories.

And a lot of supplier contracts stipulate that the helium they have can't be sold or even given away to anyone else.

But that doesn't always stop them from lending a hand to labs in need.

In essence, it's because there are just a few places that helium is sourced from, just a few natural gas resources.

And so any kind of political instability or disruption like the Russia-Ukraine war, or even just having sites that go down for maintenance, because there aren't that many of them, it can have really big knock-on effects.

And countries don't really have reserves for

Because this gas will find any tiny, tiny hole or crevice or crack or bit where the seal isn't totally tight to escape from, it is...

nightmare to try and keep.

Ideally, you have to have a massive natural geological site to keep helium in.

The US did have this.

They've been selling it all off.

I think now what's left in their National Reserve is actually privately owned.

But look, countries could keep stocks for when things get tight and you need it for your really critical applications, you know, to keep your hospital MRI machines running.

And then I did also ask Sophia about recycling helium.

Yeah, I mean, I've got to admit, Ian, I'm already a real party pooper because I have an anti-balloon agenda anyway for environmental reasons.

But yes, you might find that helium balloons are going to get a lot more expensive.

And frankly, if supplies get really tight, you know what's going to go pop first.