The Energy Department made helium a critical material, citing chipmaking with no substitute

The Energy Department added helium to its list of critical materials on Oct. 23, saying the gas is essential to semiconductor manufacturing and has no ready replacement in several key energy functions. Secretary Chris Wright announced the designation, which rests on authority Congress gave the department in the Energy Act of 2020.

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The decision is narrow in legal terms and broad in what it names. It is a finding that one gas meets a statutory test, and the department chose chipmaking as the lead example of why the test is met.

The decision, in the department’s own terms

The announcement came from the department’s own news page, which says Wright designated helium as a critical material under the Energy Act of 2020. The department’s announcement quotes Wright as saying helium is essential to producing the semiconductors and advanced technologies that power the American economy, and it describes the move as a step to strengthen domestic manufacturing and supply chain security. The formal vehicle is a notice titled “Critical Material List; Addition of Helium.” According to the notice posted on the department’s site, it was signed on Oct. 21 by Audrey Robertson, the Assistant Secretary for Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation, and posted on Oct. 23. Robertson separately said the department is taking decisive action to ensure American manufacturers have reliable access to helium.

The statute behind it is short. Section 7002 of the Energy Act of 2020, codified at 30 U.S.C. 1606, defines a critical material as any non-fuel mineral, element, substance or material that the Secretary of Energy determines has a high risk of supply chain disruption and serves an essential function in one or more energy technologies.

Chipmaking and the no-substitute finding

The notice calls helium “non-substitutable for multiple critical energy functions.” Semiconductor manufacturing is the first function it names, followed by leak testing of natural gas infrastructure and quantum computing, with medical and scientific applications also mentioned. The notice ties rising demand to advanced chip production and to the build-out of artificial intelligence and data center supply chains, and it says the action supports two executive orders on those subjects.

The department’s announcement makes the same point in plainer language: helium has properties that make it hard to replace in semiconductor production, and it has no viable substitutes in many critical applications. That wording is narrower than a short summary suggests. The department says “many” applications and “multiple” functions, and it does not claim that every use of helium lacks an alternative.

The department’s own explainer on what counts as a critical material describes how the call is made. Its assessment scores supply risk on factors such as basic availability, competing demand, political and regulatory conditions, and producer diversity, and scores importance to energy technologies on energy demand and substitutability. Helium’s designation rests on the second score as much as the first.

The supply constraints the department cites

The announcement lists the reasons helium qualifies: its role in American manufacturing, growing exposure to supply chain risk, and a market in which global demand is growing faster than production. It adds that limited refining capacity and lengthy permitting timelines continue to constrain production in the United States, even though the country has significant deposits of helium-rich natural gas. The page gives no production figures and no prices.

An Associated Press report, carried by a local station, supplied more context than the department did. It described helium as mainly a byproduct of natural gas processing and reported that the United States produced about 81 million cubic meters in 2025, roughly 43 percent of global supply, with 38 million cubic meters exported. The same report said helium is the 20th material on the department’s list and that fluorine is the only other gas on it.

The wire report also tied supply risk to events abroad, saying Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz had sharply curtailed helium exports from Qatar and that Russia imposed temporary export controls in April. Those points come from the news report rather than from the department’s announcement or notice, and the department’s documents do not attach a price or shortage forecast to the designation.

The limits of a critical-material listing

Neither department document spells out new programs, funding amounts or deadlines. The Associated Press reported that the designation makes more federal financing available to helium producers and brings closer government monitoring of the sector, but the department’s page says nothing of the kind, and no follow-up steps are described there. The notice instead points to an assessment posted on the department’s website as its justification.

Industry voices were quoted in the wire report. David Isaacs of the Semiconductor Industry Association said the group looks forward to continuing to work with government and industry leaders, and Chris Bakker, chief executive of Avanti Helium, said the United States has the potential to remain self-sufficient in helium. Robertson was quoted calling helium one of those components that could be a single point of failure. What remains open is how the label will be used. A designation alone changes a list; the practical effect depends on what financing, monitoring or procurement decisions follow, and none had been announced in the department materials reviewed on Oct. 26.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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