A dwindling supply of helium worldwide is putting more than the future of party balloons in jeopardy. The nonrenewable gas has important applications related to manufacturing, scientific research and medical care - including cutting-edge research on respiratory illness at an Ontario laboratory.
As the shortage grows, the rising cost has put that research into question.
"It's made it difficult to do the research because it's extremely expensive," said Grace Parraga, a professor and researcher at the Robarts Research Institute at the University of Western Ontario.
Even at a discounted price for scientific research, she said her laboratory pays $795 per litre. That's up from $300 not so long ago.
Parraga said they've been unable to perform a clinical trial because of the cost.
For the research, helium is dispensed into the lungs and tracked on a monitor, allowing researchers to measure the impact of different treatments. They have tested other gases but none work as effectively as helium, which isn't harmful when inhaled.
The rising cost of helium could also spell trouble for MRI scanners, which are cooled in part by liquid helium. It's also used by the space industry to help operate satellite equipment.
"Helium is nonrenewable and it is depleting," said John Beamish, a physics professor at the University of Alberta. Beamish said much of the world's reserves have been derived as a by-product from extraction of natural gas and are stored in a natural underground reservoir near Amarillo, Texas.
It's estimated we still haven't used half of the Earth's helium, Beamish said - but the remainder will be more difficult and pricey to extract. Some experts have argued the sale of helium party balloons should be banned to preserve the resource.
"If you have on the one hand an extremely ill patient for whom you can offer important information about how they're doing, and you have a balloon, I think it's a very easy choice," Parraga said.
