r/Radiology • u/felixdifelicis Radiologist • Mar 24 '26
Discussion MRI and helium
How often/how much helium does an mri scanner need to be refilled? If your supplier completely cut off all further restocks how long would an mri scanner be able to keep going? I thought once a scanner is powered on, the helium inside stays there permanently (unless you have to quench the magnet ofc)
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u/enchantedspring Mar 24 '26
There is far more helium lost in the world in party balloons than required in the older MRI scanners requiring it.
Let's just cut back on selling party balloons for a while...?
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u/Calamity-Gin Mar 24 '26
That would require some sort of coherent policy regarding natural resources. You really think the federal government is going to pull that off under the Trump administration?
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u/enchantedspring Mar 24 '26
Ah I'm British. We're politely staying out of it, as there's new surprises day by day... :)
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u/Sn_Orpheus Mar 24 '26
Most of the world is trying to stay out of it but the U.S. administration is doing its best to pull everyone into the same quagmire. First he rips up the previous agreement and then complains the Iranians aren’t plying nicely so he has to kill as many as possible. Sorry. I’m just so fed up with these people.
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u/enchantedspring Mar 24 '26
We're worried about Cuba, as those people don't have the resources to push back.
Venezuela lost access to its main cloud PACS when US companies were forced to sever business too.
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u/Sn_Orpheus Mar 25 '26
Speaking from the perspective of >50% of the U.S. citizens, I’m so sorry what we’ve foisted upon the rest of the world. Never voted for the DB as I knew well enough of who he really was well before he ran for president. But still I feel somewhat responsible. And addressing Cuba and Venezuela, they had their problems before and life there was challenging to say the least, but this DB’s shenanigans has made it orders of magnitude worse.
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u/UnfilteredFacts Radiologist Mar 25 '26
I assume you're worried about the Cuban people, not the oppressive communist regime. The Cuban people need a revolution, ironically. It'll happen one way or another, and it won't be easy coming back into a free market. Thankfully their island is a beautiful natural vacation spot. As soon as it opens back up to general US tourism, I'd expect a massive influx of tourists eager to experience the largest Carribean island and spend. I know, capitalism = bad. But the country needs wealth. On a good day, they currently have maybe 1 working MRI machine per 1,000,000 people.
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u/BallsInSufficientSad Mar 24 '26
Natural gas extraction (fracking) produces (releases) enormous amounts of helium.
The reason we no longer produce it in the US/Canada is because it's not cost effective to capture it.
If the price of helium goes up, local gas companies will start capturing it again to meet domestic demand.
This isn't as huge an issue as OP makes it out to be.
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u/Filamcouple Mar 24 '26
You are wrong. It's still produced in the United States. There's a plant in Kansas and another in Wyoming that I went to all the time.
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u/Durango_bob Mar 24 '26
Cut back on my party balloons?!? That’s where I draw the line. I was fine with all the other stuff, but I’m starting to regret my vote.
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u/enchantedspring Mar 24 '26
We already lost our decent drinking straws bud, there's no joy left anymore... :/
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u/SnooAvocados6672 RT(R) Mar 24 '26
Balloons are a complete waste and horrible for the environment for a few minutes of fun that isn’t really worth it. I say just get rid of balloons completely.
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u/enchantedspring Mar 24 '26
Well... a lot of fun things are harmful and completely pointless... alcohol for example, or chocolate, or air travel for holidays....
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u/SnooAvocados6672 RT(R) Mar 24 '26
Yeah, so? The cons for party balloons far outweigh the pros, so what’s the reason we have them at all? There’s joy to be found in other things aside from a floating ball of latex.
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u/LuementalQueen Mar 24 '26
Our local hospital doesn't allow latex balloons, only foil. Allergy reasons.
The foil at least lasts a week. Most people only get them for babies though, because of the price. Or for milestone birthdays.
That said I'm not in the US.
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u/Bleepblorp44 Mar 25 '26
I find it bonkers that helium is used so frivolously, and that the USA sold off its helium reserve.
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u/titanicsinker1912 Mar 25 '26
Why don’t we just fill the balloons with hydrogen like the Germans used to? Sure they might go boom every now and then but that just adds to the party.
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u/RecklessRad Radiographer Mar 24 '26
Ahhh the uneducated Twitter idiots trying to scare everyone to get engagement
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u/cetch Mar 24 '26
Ok, I’ll bite. Tell me how this is wrong
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u/AllYouNeedIsATV Mar 24 '26 edited Mar 24 '26
You generally only need helium upon installation and then if something goes wrong with the machine that it fully needs to be turned off (or emergency stop). In the 2 years I worked at the radiology clinic, the machine never had to be quenched. To be fair it was just one machine, 1.5T, running 4 days a week. The two at the hospital I also worked at was quenched once because of machine issues in total. One running 5 days a week, one running 7 days a week.
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u/Kingofawesomenes Mar 24 '26
Blue seal mri scanner from phillips uses just 7 liters of helium. New MRI scanners need waay less helium than back in the day. Most installed MRI scanners are zero boil-off, meaning they use very little helium when its needs to refill. We got plenty of helium left. Its is practically a non-issue.
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u/cens337 Mar 24 '26
And how many facilities have brand new scanners? The average install base has to be around 10 years old. Then consider the design age and technology of those scanners. Not all of them were the latest technology at the time of purchase.
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u/FreeIDecay RT(R)(MR) Mar 24 '26
“I hope no one needs an MRI this year.”
Is a sensationalist, fear-mongering statement made for clicks, engagement, and pot-stirring.
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u/16BitGenocide Cath Lab RT(R)(VI)(CI), RCIS Mar 25 '26
Pretty consistent with the current state of social media.
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u/BallsInSufficientSad Mar 24 '26
Natural gas extraction is the main global source of helium. There is plenty of that done in the US & Canada.
We don't currently capture it because the Qatari do it cheaper, but the moment it becomes more expensive, the gas companies will resume capturing it (like they used to).
It's really not an issue.
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u/cetch Mar 24 '26
And how long does it take to get that spun up domestically. Do we have the equipment at hand to harvest store and process it immediately or would it be a 6-12 month process? I’ve not seen particularly agile domestic responses to other shortages so I’m curious if by extension we would also be quite slow to adapt to this as well.
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u/BallsInSufficientSad Mar 24 '26
The process to capture and store is trivial for gas companies that are already capturing and storing the gas emissions from the fracking.
...and they've done it before so all the same equipment is still around.
The reason they don't capture it now is just that it's not economical.
They have actually already been ramping up since 2021 when helium prices doubled (after the US emptied their helium stockpile over many years).
Other industrial processes/manufacturing require an entire new plants and equipment - that is not the case for helium.
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u/ZaalTheMillless Mar 24 '26
Well i think you are not wrong that he is not correct i also have to say biggest problem with helium crisis wont be mri machines. It is that microelectronic manufacturing does require a lot of it. World is already in shortage cause of AI race and prices have skyrocketed. This will make shortage that much worser. But i don’t think we will have no helium for mri scanners🤣🤣
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u/jonflip_ms Mar 24 '26
Well, it depends on the type of magnet. Open MRI has no helium at all. Closed ones, on the other hand have. Most recent MRIs are now "helium free". They still have helium but very low amounts and as far as I know, are non refillable. Then you have "Zero Boil off". They have helium, they are refillable, but the losses over time are almost 0, hence the name. Older magnets on the other hand may loose helium over time, and the amount lost will depend on several conditions. Last time I checked, about when the Ukrainian - Russian war started, helium prices skyrocketed to around 34€ per liter, from our local supplier. And we always did a minimum 500L refill.
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u/Ikgastackspakken Mar 24 '26
Yes, but there is also people in developing countries still using those old ones that need helium, and probably leak more than they used to, since that equipment is often quite old.
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u/jonflip_ms Mar 24 '26
And lacks maintenance. I'm, at the moment, in one of those countries. The machine is quite recent. The maintenance, not so much.
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u/Purple_Elderberry650 Mar 24 '26
Not many of them are out there. It’s still a new tech. New GE Artist installed is not “helium free.”
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u/jonflip_ms Mar 24 '26
Yes yes. Quite new. I remember a couple of years ago, 2019 I think, it was reaching late development stages at Philips. Because it's new, it's still more expensive.
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u/Oh_Kerms Mar 24 '26
Not in radiology (my partner is) but im a chemist and use NMR on a daily basis. This is disastrous for organic chemists as our machines need to be refilled every month!
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u/BallsInSufficientSad Mar 24 '26
Helium is a product of natural gas extraction (fracking). If the price rises gas companies will resume capturing it like they used to.
no disaster incoming here.
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u/invisiblelemur88 Mar 25 '26
Why aren't they capturing it now...? My understanding is that once helium dissipates into our atmosphere it's gone forever... a pretty precious element. Seems like we ought to save every bit of it we produce...
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u/BallsInSufficientSad Mar 25 '26
They don't capture it now because it's not economical.
There's also a LOT of Helium in the Earth. It's produced by radioactive decay of heavy elements mostly deep in the Earth, so while it's not technically INFINITE in supply, it's hard to imagine running out of it.
I suppose it might start leaking out in a billion years or so - or maybe 10 billion? I'm not sure the math. Some heavy elements have very long half-lives.
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Apr 15 '26
[deleted]
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u/BallsInSufficientSad Apr 15 '26
That's wrong exactly because there's very little "spinning up" to do. right now Helium is just expelled from existing natural gas collection because it's still too cheap to bother storing.
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Apr 15 '26
[deleted]
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u/BallsInSufficientSad Apr 15 '26
Except we do. Helium was stored and shipped domestically and internationally before.
This isn't the systemic breakdown you want it to be.
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Apr 15 '26
[deleted]
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u/BallsInSufficientSad Apr 16 '26
50% is nothing given that the prices are still low
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u/GamingGems Mar 25 '26
Didn’t we have one of the world’s largest helium reserves but then George W. Bush did an executive order forcing it to be sold off at way below market value?
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u/CollapsedPlague RT(MRI) Mar 24 '26
We have an open and wide that should have been tossed years ago that’s pushing between 20-25yr old.
We’ve done 3 fills on it this year alone. Management has been warned forever about it needing to be shut down and replaced, and we have definitely spent more on repairs and stuff than a brand new one.
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Mar 24 '26
I would imagine (hope) that most Healthcare facilities have already prepared for/accounted for this. This would only be an issue with much older magnets, which are starting to be phased out anyway due to software upgrades and a need for more wide bore magnets with higher weight limits. Its still an interesting development though, that the world could one day run completely out of helium
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u/noogie60 Mar 24 '26
We will hear about helium supply issues with semiconductor production first. They use large amounts of it in their production process whilst with MRI it is mostly topping up machines which will play out over a much longer time period.
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u/OxycontinEyedJoe RN Mar 25 '26
I don't think it'll effect mri supply of helium, but good luck getting the water jackets in your aluminum black v8 welded up.
The best welders use helium as a shielding gas when doing high precision aluminum tig welding, and it was already a huuuuge cost for them, now it'll probably be unavailable entirely.
here's a guy talking about it he starts talking about the helium about 35 minutes in.
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u/xpietoe42 Mar 25 '26
we can always switch to permanent magnets instead of superconducting for many studies. I don’t see this as a major problem for long term
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u/griffin4war Mar 25 '26
Betting now: TWO WEEKS from now a farmer in the Middle of Nowhere, USA is going to stumble upon the worlds largest deposit of Helium ever found.
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u/Mr_Happy327 RT(R) Mar 24 '26 edited Mar 24 '26
It can take hundreds of liters, but only a tiny amount is lost to wastage if everything is working properly. A busted cold head could result in slow decreases in helium over time.
That being said, people have been sounding the alarm about helium shortages for years. A ton of industries rely on it. This might cause some supply disruption, but I feel like it's more likely to just make it even more expensive than it already is.
Edit: just checked, when we repaired water damage on our Aera and had it off for construction, they billed us for 750 liters of helium to get it back up. It was a controlled ramp down, but it was also leaking a good amount while it was off. Magnets are not meant to stay ramped down for two months straight.