The US Department of Energy has designated helium as a critical material. Energy Secretary Chris Wright signed the determination under the Energy Act of 2020. Helium becomes the twentieth material on the DOE’s list. The most recent addition came in 2025 and covered metallurgical coal used in steelmaking.
The DOE justifies the decision by pointing to the gas’s role in semiconductor manufacturing, where in many applications no substitutes exist. Helium is also used in wind, solar and nuclear power production, space exploration, medical imaging and research. In the nuclear sector it is a routine gas, used in the cooling systems of some advanced reactors and in laboratories.
To make the list, a non-fuel substance must serve an essential function in one or more energy technologies and face a high risk of supply chain disruption. Helium first appeared in 2018 on the US Geological Survey’s critical minerals list. Later versions excluded it because domestic supply was considered secure. The only other gas on the DOE’s list is fluorine.
Assistant Secretary for Energy Audrey Robertson explained that helium’s properties make it irreplaceable. In an interview she described the gas as a component that could become a single point of failure, a scenario to be avoided. Her interest, she added, is not in birthday party balloons but in American competitiveness and energy security, which the administration treats as national security.
Reserves are not the problem. Helium-rich natural gas deposits are found in Wyoming, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Utah. The constraint lies in processing: according to the DOE, extraction plants are operating at full capacity, and permitting and building new ones takes years. In 2023, the highest-producing plants were located in Kansas, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma.
Wright tied the designation to the revival of American manufacturing and to reducing dependence on foreign sources. Critical material status opens the door to federal support measures for the supply chain. For nuclear, from high-temperature gas-cooled reactors to fusion research centers, a stable domestic helium supply is one link in the industrial chain. If new extraction plants come online, growing demand from semiconductors and clean energy will have a domestic base to rely on.
