Now There's a Helium Shortage and It Affects More Than Balloons
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Oddlots Podcast. I'm Joe Weissenthal.
And I'm Tracy Alloway.
Tracy, one of the things that I've been learning over the last few weeks. That a lot more than oil comes through. No, for real. Like say, you know, if someone said, Okay, there's war breaking out in the Middle East, you just think about oil, right? And then and I that's probably actually where my mind would typically stop, which is the price of oil. And we all are watching the price of oil, but there are a lot of other things that are uh sourced from the region that are of critical import. I I'm not joking. Like I'm not joking. I'm just saying like
I'm laughing because we have one of those things floating between us. So speaking of stuff that comes out of the Gulf region, here's one of those things. Not
listeners can't see it.
Not the aluminum itself, although probably aluminum also comes out of the Gulf, but helium.
Tracy's holding a helium balloon. She went out and got a prop.
I didn't. One of our lovely producers did. I have to say, I haven't held a balloon for a long time and it's surprisingly entertaining.
So okay, while you hold on to it, uh I'll go a little bit further, which is I feel bad for the people on helium because my understanding is that the helium has some pretty important industrial properties. There's not a lot of substitutes for it. But someone says helium and like, oh, the clowns aren't gonna be able to make their funny voices, et cetera.
Any chance we have to actually bring one of the commodities that we talk about on the show into the studio, I'm gonna seize. So here is some helium.
Well look, the fact that the balloon is floating is an indicator of the fact that it must have some interesting properties as an element that perhaps have other applications. I don't know. I mean it tells you something about it as an element, right?
Well, it's funny you mentioned that 'cause initially I was gonna take this balloon and, you know, do the thing where you breathe in the helium and have the funny voice. Well, I thought for an audio medium maybe it would work. But then in the course of researching on helium, I read about apparently it comes partially from radioactive decay. And so I thought, well maybe maybe I don't want to be breathing in the helium. Although I also read that it's non-toxic. So I don't know. We need to talk about what helium actually is, clearly.
That's right.
What is the overall focus of the episode and who are the hosts?
And we've been getting requests for a helium episode ever since uh there was a headline out today cut to some helium production that is not gonna Some one of those force measures or something like that. I don't know. Whatever. Anyway, there's been a lot of requests for a helium episode. We've never done one. Incidentally, years ago, I used to lift weights with this guy in the East Village who's like sort of an entrepreneur and so Helium
filled weight?
He was no, but he was in Helium. Among other things, he's one of these guys that has his like finger hands and everything. And he also had like a helium venture. And he's like, Oh, you gotta talk to my friend. One day you you guys should do an episode on helium. And then I got connected with our guests who are about to introduce in a second. And I said, Hey, do you know this guy in the East Village? Cause okay, maybe like not everyone in Canada knows each other, but everyone in the helium industry almost certainly It does
seem to be a small concentrated industry, which is why we're talking about it today.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:54
2
What is the overall focus of the episode and who are the hosts?
2:54–6:07
3
Why did the hosts bring a helium balloon into the studio and what does it illustrate?
6:07–20:17
4
What are the major industrial applications of helium beyond party balloons?
20:17–23:56
5
How do helium’s unique physical properties make it essential for high‑tech uses?
23:56–38:19
6
How is helium used in semiconductor lithography and why does demand keep rising?
38:19–44:01
7
Where does helium actually come from and how is it extracted from the ground?
44:01–52:30
Speakers
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