When you think of helium, you probably think of blowing up a bunch of balloons. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg for what it can be used for. In fact, the balloon market only accounts for 10% of the world’s overall use of helium.
New Era Helium CEO Will Gray joins TheStreet to explain how the element is primarily used.
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Transcript:
Conway Gittens: So many people may not know that helium can be used as a form of energy. So what are some of the things that it’s used for?
Will Gray: You know that’s a great question because, again, being from the Permian Basin in West Texas, I’m very well versed in oil and hydrocarbons of that nature. But from a helium perspective, it’s been a very steep learning curve. Understanding what is the end application for this. One of the second-lightest elements on the periodic table. Obviously I think what most people gravitate towards is party balloons for your kids. I mean, that was kind of my number one assumption, which was grossly incorrect, actually. On a side note, the balloon market worldwide is only about 10% of the overall end use for helium. Prior to 2024, it was more the Health Sciences. So really think about MRIs. So if you were going in there to have an MRI, helium was used to cool the liquid magnets. That was the number one end use application. Now what’s a really interesting dynamic that has really overtaken that is the use of semiconductors.
You cannot essentially- so think of AI think of what NVIDIA think of what TSMC is wanting to accomplish in growing their nano-AI chip market. With the new semiconductors, helium is part of that supply chain to essentially create that product. That’s your number one end use application right now is for semiconductors. Aggressively growing right now is the aerospace business.
So looking for rocket launches. So of course, some of the larger users there are going to be Nasa, SpaceX URLL. So those are your top three. Then of course, you start talking about welding pipeline inspection, things of that nature. So there’s quite a broad spectrum of how helium is utilized. And again it’s a scarce commodity. So understanding how it’s being utilized in the most efficient manner is pretty important. So talk to me now about the wider view of the energy market. As you mentioned earlier, helium is part of natural gas.
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