To keep everyone up-to-date on the helium shortage we would like to share this article released by popular mechanics.
In general the helium debacle comes from a government mandate to sell off all government controlled stores of the gas by 2015. The reasons for this being an issue are primarily two-fold. First, since helium is currently only able to be harvested as a bi-product of natural gas mining it is not easily obtained, and even more difficult since most natural gas wells are not helium rich. The other problem is that there has not been a strong development of private sector effort to supplant the government supply. Combined these have led to a shortage in supply and capacity for production.
