Brown: Minnesota helium wells could deflate costs for regional businesses

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In an emotional scene in the Apple TV show “Stick,” the manager of a party supply store explains to a skeptical friend why she’s investing her recent windfall into helium stock.

“It’s more than party balloons,” spits an angry Elena, portrayed by Mariana Treviño. “The price of helium has skyrocketed in the last 10 months. ... There are national defense applications. It’s used in aerospace. It’s used as a super coolant for MRIs and surgical lasers. And after a potential regime change in Tanzania the main source of helium production is going to be limited to two mines. Two!”

I had to chuckle at this scene. I’ve stood on the spruce-lined site of a new helium deposit in a remote section of Lake County, Minnesota, where I’ve heard this kind of talk before.

Thomas Abraham-James, CEO of Pulsar Helium, saw the show, too. His company just announced $4 million in new investor funding and test results that merit drilling up to 10 new wells at the site east of Babbitt, Minn., starting later this month.

“It’s nice that we’re starting to break out from party balloons into the mainstream,” said Abraham-James. He said helium received a shoutout on The Big Bang Theory, too.

The U.S. is the world’s biggest consumer of helium, and until recently was also the largest producer. However, the nation’s biggest wells in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas have been giving out in recent decades, and we’re now in a helium deficit. With global supply coming from countries with what Abraham-James calls “geopolitical risk,” most notably Russia, a new supply of North American helium could be a big deal.

Just ask the companies that buy helium.

I spoke with CJ Bonifas, general manager at SkyWater Technologies in Bloomington. His company makes semiconductors. They consume 300 cylinders of helium (about 80,000 cubic feet) each year as a coolant in the manufacturing process.

To understand how it works, I first had to learn how to make a semiconductor. We think of computer chips as tiny little brains that make our gadgets work, and that’s true. But they’re not made individually like I thought. They’re built layer by layer on a spinning sheet, called a wafer, and cut out later. The material involved, and its embedded code, are all very sensitive to temperature. Helium is a natural coolant that doesn’t react with any of the components.

So if you don’t have helium, you don’t have semiconductors. And though helium supply has been getting tighter, Bonifas said that’s not the biggest problem.

He said lower priced helium creates opportunities for the U.S.-based tech manufacturer.

“Having additional suppliers in the market helps us from a cost competition standpoint,” said Bonifas. “We benefit from more people in business. There’s a business risk mitigation. We don’t control everything going on in economics and politics overseas or in the U.S. This lets us maintain quality and standards.”

SkyWater is one of those American-made tech companies that reshore jobs and build a more resilient and secure economy. And they’re not the only ones who could benefit from lower-cost helium.

Helium is also used to cool medical devices like MRI machines and as a welding agent for advanced metal fabrication. As state hospitals reel from budget cuts, such cost savings would be welcome. Abraham-James pointed out the Mayo Clinic as one of the largest helium buyers in the region.

And yes, I wrote earlier this year on the possibility of helium airships becoming a serious player in commercial aviation.

“It’s not something that has a huge footprint,” said Abraham-James. “When you think about gas you think about these megaprojects, small cities, but for little old helium it’s not the case. They’re really glorified gas stations.”

Though there will be relatively few jobs in helium extraction, the availability of helium is a larger economic opportunity.