March 27, 2026· 51 min

Now There's a Helium Shortage and It Affects More Than Balloons

Orality

Model

84%

Oral Indicators

Agonistic35%

clearly, certainly, very

Engagement61%

you'll, you, your

Memory Aids100%

see, right, now

Repetition100%

helium (186x), know (101x), like (85x)

Parallelism100%

But by embedding AI across HR,..., And I'm Tracy Alloway...., And then and that that's proba...

Sound Patterns57%

60 question(s), alliteration: "tend to", alliteration: "trying to"

Formulaic Phrases6%

you know what, i mean, if you will

Literate Indicators

Hedging8%

could, may, probably

Passive Voice8%

is designed, being deployed, been trapped

Abstract Nouns17%

business, information, payment

Subordination8%

since, because, although

Sentence Length42%

Avg: 15.4 words/sentence

Word Complexity48%

business, overly, complicated

Academic Markers3%

according to

Impersonal Style39%

644 personal pronouns found

Descriptive Style81%

overly, automatically, actually

Description

Ripple effects from the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continue to widen. There's yet another brewing shortage, this time in helium. While most people associate helium with balloons and funny voices, the element is used in a surprisingly wide variety of industrial settings, including semiconductor production, where its role in advanced lithography has been growing rapidly. But helium mining and exploration in North America has been practically non-existent for a variety of reasons. And while the US used to have a strategic helium reserve, the government started selling that down in the late 1990s. On this episode, we speak with Nicholas Snyder, the founder and CEO of North American Helium, which does helium mining in Canada. We discuss the properties of helium that make it so useful, as well as the difficulties of expanding global production and distribution. Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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