The world is running out of helium — again

Summary

Short Wave – "The world is running out of helium — again"

NPR | Aired April 6, 2026
Hosts: Regina Barber, Maddie Sofia (former), Jeff Brumfiel (guest, science correspondent), with contributions from David Aubin (helium historian) and Sophia Hayes (chemist)

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Episode Overview

In this energetic and informative episode, Short Wave explores the science, history, and current crisis surrounding the global helium shortage. Regina Barber introduces the topic in the context of recent geopolitical turmoil that has disrupted helium supplies, and the episode revisits a lively conversation between former host Maddie Sofia and science correspondent Jeff Brumfiel. Together, they uncover how this unique element was discovered, why it’s essential (beyond party balloons), and what it would really mean to run out of helium.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Is There a Helium Shortage (Again)?

• Context: The U.S. is the world’s largest helium supplier, followed by Qatar, which recently halted production due to conflict and missile strikes from Iran. Shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz have compounded the problem.
  • Regina Barber: "With the current conflict, much of that shipping traffic is closed and goods are staying put, including helium, which will eventually leak out of the tanks they're in if they're not shipped in time." [00:19]
• Consequence: Helium is at risk of being lost entirely if not shipped promptly — it escapes containment over time.

2. Helium’s Nature and Origins

• Fun Facts:
  • 2nd most abundant element in the universe, but rare on earth due to its tendency to float away.
  • Voice gets higher after inhalation because sound travels faster through less dense helium.
    • Maddie Sofia: "It's a noble gas, which probably means it thinks it's better than the other gases." [03:15]
• Discovery:
  • Named after Helios (the sun god) after astronomers observed an unknown spectral line during a solar eclipse (Jules Janssen, 1868), confirmed by Norman Lockyer.
    • David Aubin: "And he called it helium in reference to the name of Helios, the sun God." [04:00]
• Why it’s scarce on Earth:
  • Jeff Brumfiel: "It just floats up and it escapes the atmosphere...if the Earth had a stronger gravitational pull, it could hold on to our helium like the sun does." [04:34]

3. The 1903 Dexter, Kansas Discovery Story

• A quirky moment in science: Townspeople thought they struck it rich with natural gas, held a celebration to light the well — but the gas wouldn’t burn (because it was helium).
  • Jeff Brumfiel: "They set this bale of hay on fire. They start prodding it towards the well. They push it over the hole, and it goes out." [06:14]
  • The nonflammability proved, ‘there was more than natural gas in that well, and in fact, it was full of helium.’ [06:34]
• How does helium get underground?:
  • Produced by radioactive decay of uranium and thorium, accumulates in Earth's crust over millions of years.

4. Helium in Warfare and Rockets

• WWI:
  • Germans used zeppelins filled with hydrogen (flammable); Allies eyed helium as a safer alternative.
    • David Aubin: "They had cylinders filled of helium on the docks in New Orleans ready to be shipped to Europe in November 1918." [08:37]
  • War ended before U.S. could use helium in combat.
• Stage Two – The Space Race:
  • Rockets (Saturn V, Apollo lunar lander) relied on helium: lightweight, non-reactive, perfect for pressurizing rocket fuel.
  • Jeff Brumfiel: "Helium was actually used in every stage of the Apollo program from the giant Saturn V rocket to the lunar lander." [09:32]

5. Modern and Critical Uses

• Supercooling and Superconductivity:
  • Liquid helium (at 4.2 Kelvin, only a degree above absolute space) needed for superconducting magnets, as in MRI machines and cutting-edge research.
    • Sophia Hayes: "That superconducting state is only reached at low temperatures like that provide by liquid helium." [10:35]
• MRI Machines:
  • A major driver of helium demand globally; supply fluctuations impact medical device uptime.
    • Maddie Sofia: "Like we’re talking MRIs that we use on people." [11:01]
• Quantum Computing:
  • Google’s quantum computer requires helium cooling.
    • Jeff Brumfiel: "Well, it uses helium to cool the chip." [12:16]

6. The Supply Crunch

• Three major producers: U.S., Qatar, Algeria.
• Result of shortages:
  • Price volatility; sometimes research labs are forced to shut down vital equipment.
    • Sophia Hayes: "Those are very high capital cost pieces of equipment...for want of a chemical to sustain it, the liquid helium, we are taking those offline..." [11:58]

7. Will We Run Out for Good?

• Short-term: Other natural gas fields might be developed to ease current shortages.
• Longer-term: Once released, helium just escapes to space; "not coming back."
  • Jeff Brumfiel: "Once it gets out into the atmosphere, it's flown off into space, it's not coming back." [12:40]
• Ongoing formation: Generated internally by radioactive decay, but "one atom at a time" — a glacial pace.
• The balloon conundrum:
  • Serious researchers debate the value of party balloons.
    • Sophia Hayes: "There's a lot of debate in my community of researchers...I will say I am not a balloon denier, in part because I think the helium that's used for party balloons gets every person almost to care about this resource." [13:37]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the uniqueness of helium’s behavior:
  • Maddie Sofia: “So it's out of here. It's like, no, I'm done with Earth.” [04:49]
• On the early, failed attempt to ignite helium:
  • Jeff Brumfiel: “They push it over the hole, and it goes out.” [06:14]
• Historical perspective on scientific priorities:
  • Sophia Hayes: "For want of a chemical to sustain it, the liquid helium, we are taking those offline, making smaller the number of experiments that one can do or maybe even shrinking the size of the research groups." [11:58]
• On science communication and engagement:
  • Sophia Hayes: "I am not a balloon denier...the helium that's used for party balloons gets every person almost to care about this resource." [13:37]
• Final moment of levity:
  • Maddie Sofia: "All right Jeff, knock open one of those helium balloons. Let's do this." [14:14]
  • Jeff Brumfiel: "Do we have scissors?" [14:21]
  • Maddie Sofia: "I mean, you have nature scissors, which are your teeth." [14:22]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:19: Regina Barber introduces the episode’s helium crisis context
• 03:01: Maddie Sofia and Jeff Brumfiel dive into what makes helium special
• 04:25: The 1868 astronomical discovery of helium
• 06:14: The non-flammable Dexter, Kansas well story
• 07:47: Helium’s WWI military history and the Zeppelin
• 09:32: Space Race, rockets, and the Apollo program
• 10:35: Sophia Hayes talks about supercooling, superconductivity, and research
• 11:01: MRI machines and helium’s crucial role in medicine
• 12:16: Quantum computing and future scientific uses
• 12:40: Can we actually "run out" of helium?
• 13:37: The party balloon debate among scientists
• 14:14: Playful closing as Jeff prepares to open a helium balloon

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Tone & Style Snapshot

The episode is brisk, witty, and accessible, filled with science fact, relatable jokes, and playful banter. It balances the gravity of resource depletion with the quirky history and sci-fi context of helium—the rare element behind both party tricks and vital medical technology.

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In Summary

This Short Wave episode tackles the helium shortage crisis head-on, untangling the science, history, and global stakes behind this elusive element. While helium may sound trivial, its shortage impacts everything from brain scans to quantum computers. The show’s conversational style and memorable anecdotes make a complex story both understandable and urgent for listeners at every level.

Transcript

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[Regina Barber]

You're listening to Short Wave from NPR. Hey, short waivers. Regina Barber here with an episode on helium and the US Is the largest supplier of the world's helium, which is used in, yes, party balloons, but it's also used in semiconductor manufacturing and in MRI machines. But helium is in the news this week for another reason. There's a shortage of it again, the second largest supplier of helium is Qatar, which has recently been hit by missiles from Iran. And so the country isn't producing or selling helium at the moment. On top of that, there are the helium tanks sitting in the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway in the Middle east where a huge amount of the world's global shipping takes place. With the current conflict, much of that shipping traffic is closed and goods are staying put, including helium, which will eventually leak out of the tanks they're in if they're not shipped in time. So we decided let's revisit an episode with former host Maddie Sofia and science correspondent Jeff Brumfield. They get into the history of helium, including its discovery, and what it would mean if we ever truly run out of it. You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from npr.

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[Maddie Sofia]

All right, Jeff, here's what I know about helium. It's like the second most abundant element in the universe.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly assistant or co-host)]

Yep.

[Maddie Sofia]

Good. It's not very dense. So sound travels faster through helium than normal air, which is why your voice sounds so high after you inhale it.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

You're starting to impress me.

[Maddie Sofia]

Y. It's a noble gas, which probably means it thinks it's better than the other gases.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

It certainly does.

[Maddie Sofia]

And that's what I know.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

That's a great primer on helium. But to understand it all, we need to go back to the very origin story of this element, which actually happened a year before the periodic table was rolled out. It was 1868. And the French astronomer Jules Jassin travels to India to observe an eclipse. He's studying the light coming from the corona around the sun, and he. He sees the signature of what he thinks might be a new element. Now, the British physicist Norman Lockyer follows up with his own observation and confirms it.

[David Aubin]

And he called it helium in reference to the name of Helios, the sun God.

[Maddie Sofia]

I didn't even think about that.

[David Aubin]

So that's. Yeah, that's how it started.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

That, by the way, is helium historian David Aubin.

[David Aubin]

I'm a professor for the history of science at Sorbonne University in Paris.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

But here's the thing. Although it's crystal clear there's tons of helium up in the sun, physicists can only find teeny, tiny trace amounts on Earth. And do you know why?

[Maddie Sofia]

Because it was hiding. Because it rises.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

Yes. It literally just leaves the Earth. It just floats up and it escapes the atmosphere. It's light enough. It goes off into space. And so any helium that's in our atmosphere will eventually work its way out of the atmosphere and into space.

[Maddie Sofia]

So it's out of here. It's like, no, I'm done with Earth.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly assistant or co-host)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

It's not interested.

[Maddie Sofia]

Can relate.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly assistant or co-host)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

If the Earth had a stronger gravitational pull, it could hold on to our helium like the sun does, because the sun is enormous and it sucks all that helium in anyway. For a couple of decades, no one can find helium down here on the ground. But this changes in 1903, in a little town in Kansas called Dexter Prospectors. Drill this well, and gas just comes shooting out. 9 million cubic feet each day. And the townspeople, yeah, that's a lot of gas. The townspeople think they've hit natural gas, and they're all going to be rich and so they get together and they decide to have this big celebration with music and speeches.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly assistant or co-host)]

And the climax of the whole thing is they're going to light that gusher.

[Maddie Sofia]

Like, they're gonna light the gas on fire.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly assistant or co-host)]

Hey, man, Kansas, 1903.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

Sounds like a good time to me.

[Maddie Sofia]

Yeah.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly assistant or co-host)]

Anyway, so they go through the whole rigmarole, and they set this bale of hay on fire that they start prodding towards the gas pump, the gas hole. I told you. The story of helium's fantastic. Anyway, so they go through the entire celebration, and they just really wish I'd been there.

[Maddie Sofia]

I know. You would have definitely been like, no, no, it's a good idea.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly assistant or co-host)]

I would have been pushing the b. Yeah. So they go through this whole celebration, and, you know, the climax comes.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

They set this bale of hay on fire. They start prodding it towards the well. They push it over the hole, and it goes out.

[Maddie Sofia]

So at this point, are like. Are they like, oh, no, it must not have been natural gas. Are they like, do another bale. What happens?

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly assistant or co-host)]

You know, the historical record does not provide an answer to that very interesting question, Matti.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

But what does this did prove was that there was more than natural gas in that well, and in fact, it was full of helium.

[Maddie Sofia]

Yes. That's where it's been hiding.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

Correct.

[Maddie Sofia]

So, okay, what is helium doing underground?

[Jeff Brumfiel]

Well, this is the really interesting thing. Helium on Earth is created by the natural radioactive decay of heavier elements like uranium and thorium. Actually inside the Earth. When one of these atoms splits apart, out comes an atom of helium. And as it accumulates inside the Earth, it kind of filters up because it likes to float. And then it gets trapped in these pockets in the crust.

[Maddie Sofia]

Helium pocket.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly assistant or co-host)]

So, anyway, Dexter's discovery.

[Maddie Sofia]

Did you get it? It was like, hot pocket.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly assistant or co-host)]

Yeah, now I get it.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

Okay, I missed it the first time, but that was fantastic.

[Maddie Sofia]

That's how you know it's a good joke.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

So, anyway, Dexter's discovery is a bust at first, but soon it becomes clear that this helium's actually pretty valuable because there is a great war brewing. World War I breaks out in Europe. Now there are airplanes, but the Germans also have a secret weapon.

[Helium Historian or Narrator]

The use of the airship as a weapon caught the Allies unprepared.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

The Zeppelin.

[Helium Historian or Narrator]

For the first time in history, it was possible to carry a large cargo of bombs hundreds of miles by air to enemy territory.

[Maddie Sofia]

So we were talking attack blimps.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

Jeff, we've reached the attack blimps stage of the story. That's correct. These zeppelins were actually used to bomb London During World War I, the Zeppelin

[Helium Historian or Narrator]

hidden in the clouds was reasonably safe from attack and discovery.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

But they had kind of a big weakness. They were filled with highly flammable hydrogen.

[Maddie Sofia]

That'll getcha.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

So that kind of put an end to the raids. But helium is not flammable. Helium dirigibles could help the US Win the war. So the US Government takes control of the helium supply and went to work readying its own attack blimps.

[David Aubin]

They had cylinders filled of helium on the docks in New Orleans ready to be shipped to Europe in November 1918. So it would have been used very soon.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

The war actually ended before the US Ever used its helium. Interestingly, though, helium found a new life after World War II with a new technology. T minus 60 seconds and counting in the space race. It turns out rockets need a gas to help push the fuel out through the engines. And you need something that's first of all lightweight.

[Maddie Sofia]

Yes.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

Highly compressible, chemically inert, because you don't want it reacting with all those volatile chemicals that are in the fuel and stuff. Right.

[Maddie Sofia]

So it's helium.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly assistant or co-host)]

It's helium.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

Helium was actually used in every stage of the Apollo program from the giant Saturn V rocket to the lunar lander. When it took off, it used helium to make its engine run.

[Maddie Sofia]

Thanks, helium.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

So, yeah, helium is still used in rockets today. But helium's uses don't stop there, Maddy. In fact, we're in a new age of helium. It's because of another remarkable property. It can be cooled down to very low temperatures. It becomes liquid at 4.2 kelvin, which

[Maddie Sofia]

is real, real cold.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly assistant or co-host)]

Yeah.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

To put it in perspective, I spoke to a chemist named Sophia Hayes.

[Sophia Hayes]

Sometimes my astrophysics colleagues tell me that the temperature of outer space is 3 Kelvin. So it's just one degree different from the temperature of outer space.

[Maddie Sofia]

Oh, my goodness.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

That's particularly useful for Sofia because her lab at Washington University in St. Louis uses a very special type of material called a superconductor. And basically, these are materials where, when they get cold enough, electricity can flow through them with no resistance at all.

[Sophia Hayes]

And that creates very, very, very large magnetic fields. And so that superconducting state is only reached at low temperatures like that provide by liquid helium.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

So she uses liquid helium in magnets, and she uses these magnets for something called nuclear magnetic resonance. She uses it to study materials, but it's basically the same technology as something you may have heard of, magnetic resonance imaging.

[Maddie Sofia]

Like we're talking MRIs that we use on people.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

Exactly. And MRIs are actually a part of the reason that helium is in such short supply now, because MRI machines all over the world use helium and they use liquid helium, which is much denser than the stuff in these balloons. So, you know, they need a lot of it. But there are only really three places in the world that produce most of the world's Algeria, Qatar, and the U.S. so say there's a crisis in the

[Sophia Hayes]

Gulf, every researcher in these associations will sometimes be watching those news stories and think, oh, there's going to be a cutback in our supply.

[Maddie Sofia]

I mean, I know a lot of scientists that are worried like that work with lasers and that kind of stuff are worried about helium in general.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

That's right. And it's really an issue of volatility because the prices can go up and down so much that Sofia actually had to shut down some of her magnets.

[Sophia Hayes]

Those are very high capital cost pieces of equipment. And for want of a chemical to sustain it, the liquid helium, we are taking those offline, making smaller the number of experiments that one can do or maybe even shrinking the size of the research groups.

[Maddie Sofia]

Wow.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

And I mean, the problem is going to grow for the scientific community. Maybe you've heard about this new Google quantum computer that supposedly has beaten out classical computers at certain calculations. Well, it uses helium to cool the chip.

[Maddie Sofia]

Okay, so MRIs, quantum computers, scientific research. Is this all kind of coming to a head? Like, are we running out of helium? Jeff?

[Jeff Brumfiel]

You know, when I spoke to Sophia, Sophia Hayes, I was worried about that. It turns out there are other natural gas fields in other parts of the world that do produce helium, and they're not being harnessed right now. Some of them are planning to step up production. So that should help in the short term. But eventually we are probably going to run out, because once it gets out into the atmosphere, it's flown off into space, it's not coming back.

[Maddie Sofia]

But what about it being, like, naturally made during the radioactive decay stuff you talked about?

[Jeff Brumfiel]

That's true, but that all happens one atom at a time, and it takes a long time to accumulate even enough helium to fill a balloon. So nobody knows, of course, exactly how much uranium is in the earth and where it all is. But if we had to guess, we would guess that the accumulated helium is going to run out at some point.

[Maddie Sofia]

Well, now I feel like garbage because we've got these three helium balloons just sitting in here doing nothing.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

Well, I asked Sophia how she felt about helium balloons.

[Sophia Hayes]

Okay, that's a tough one. And there's a lot of debate in my community of researchers who really value the helium every puff, if you will. I will say I am not a balloon denier, in part because I think the helium that's used for party balloons gets every person almost to care about this resource. Whereas if I say, how do you feel about argonne? You may not have an opinion about argon, which is another inert gas.

[Maddie Sofia]

I do have thoughts about argon, Jeff. She's incorrect, but that will be a later episode.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

Well, I'd be happy to come back and do this again, Maddie.

[Maddie Sofia]

All right, Jeff, knock open one of those helium balloons. Let's do this.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly assistant or co-host)]

You got it.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

Do we have scissors?

[Maddie Sofia]

I mean, you have nature scissors, which are your teeth.

[Sophia Hayes]

Okay.

[Maddie Sofia]

Jeff Brumfiel, thank you for coming by.

[Jeff Brumfiel]

It's been an absolute pleasure, Maddie.

[Maddie Sofia]

I'm Maddie Sofia, and this is Short Wave from npr. Nail that.

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