Mark Holm for The New York Times
A helium enrichment plant above a helium reserve in Amarillo, Tex.
AMARILLO, Tex. — One chain of party supply stores in Texas and Oklahoma was forced to make a cut worthy of Scrooge: no more balloons donated to charity events. A gated community on Lake Erie in Ohio that had handed out balloons to children at a Fourth of July parade for decades did not give out a single balloon this year. And a longtime tradition at University of Nebraska home football games — releasing up to 5,000 red balloons after the Huskers score their first touchdown — was downsized this season to a modest 2,000.
Carlo Allegri/Reuters
Balloons at the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade last month had helium, but a shortage has affected other parades this year.
The problem each time was not the supply of balloons, but the supply of what goes in them: helium.
A global helium shortage has turned the second-most abundant element in the universe (after hydrogen) into a sought-after scarcity, disrupting its use in everything from party balloons and holiday parade floats to M.R.I. machines and scientific research.
In years past, there have been periodic shortages of helium — in 1958, the giant balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade were filled with air instead of helium and hoisted onto trucks — but physicists, industry experts and federal officials said that this year's shortage had been one of the worst, for its duration and scale.
"People are scrambling right now," said Jonathan G. Erwin, vice president and general counsel of Wally's Party Factory, a 32-store chain that had to start turning down donation requests for balloons. "Customers will show up as a walk-in on some day when we may not have enough, and you tell them there's a helium crisis or a shortage, and they haven't heard of it first of all, and second of all, they probably think you're just making something up."
The shortage is the result of a complex interplay between commercial gas companies and the federal government, which maintains an underground helium reserve northwest of downtown Amarillo that produces roughly 30 percent of the world's helium.
Experts say the shortage has many causes. Because helium is a byproduct of natural gas extraction, a drop in natural gas prices has reduced the financial incentives for many overseas companies to produce helium. In addition, suppliers' ability to meet the growing demand for helium has been strained by production problems around the world. Helium plants that are being built or are already operational in Qatar, Algeria, Wyoming and elsewhere have experienced a series of construction delays or maintenance troubles.
"The shortage is due to demand exceeding our ability to produce helium," said Sam Burton, assistant field manager for helium operations for the federal Bureau of Land Management, which operates the reserve in Amarillo. "Typically in the past, there's been enough helium in the distribution system that the end consumer never saw the problem. This has been an extended shortage, and all of the helium that's been in the supply chain has been expended."
Amarillo takes helium seriously, calling itself the helium capital of the world and erecting a Helium Monument in 1968 for the 100th anniversary of helium's discovery. But the reserve itself — a vast natural reservoir amid the coyotes and wide-open plains of the Texas Panhandle — is less than imposing. About 11 billion cubic feet of crude helium is stored thousands of feet underground, and there is little to smell, because helium is odorless, and little to see on the surface aside from a nondescript helium enrichment plant. Adding to its anonymity are the 23 wells throughout the terrain, all of which are hidden below ground in locked bunkers, a cold war-era security precaution.
The federal government's role in helium production began in the early 20th century. The Army and Navy prized the gas as a nonflammable alternative to the explosive hydrogen that was being used in observation balloons and airships. By 1925, Congress had created a helium program to make sure the gas would be available for national defense.
Though the government's role has been scaled back since then, it continues to dominate the market, effectively setting the global price and supplying enriched crude helium for sale to private refineries and plants via a 450-mile pipeline system. In October, the Bureau of Land Management raised the government's price for crude helium to $84 per thousand cubic feet, up from $75.75.
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