Mar 24, 2022
Helium shortages can derail
research and threaten expensive instruments that depend on the gas
to operate safely. In late 2020, analysts predicted—and we
reported—that pressures on the global helium market were likely to
ease as new production capacity came online. Today, helium users
are again facing price spikes and limited supplies, driven by a
variety of factors including political instability in Europe and
technical malfunctions at key suppliers. In this bonus episode
of Stereo
Chemistry, C&EN
industrial gas reporter Craig Bettenhausen explains how we ended up
here again and how the outlook for the global helium market has
evolved.
A transcript of this episode is available at
bit.ly/3tBSGzF.
For more background about where
helium comes from, why it's so important to science, and what
happens when you can't get enough of it, check out our October 2020
podcast episode,
How helium shortages have changed
science.
Image credit: Boris Steinberg, Johns Hopkins Chemistry
Music credit: “How Did I Get Here” by Sean Solo
Contact Stereo Chemistry by emailing
cenfeedback@acs.org.