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No more helium-parties - hellium could be gone in less than three decades
    #12833037 -

What do MRI machines, rockets, fiber optics, LCDs, food production and welding have in common? They all require the inert, or noble, gas helium for their use or at some stage of their production. And that helium essentially could be gone in less than three decades, Robert C. Richardson, winner, along with Douglas Osheroff and David Lee, of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics, said at the 60th annual Nobel Laureate Lectures at Lindau today. “Once it is released into the atmosphere, say, in the form of party balloons, it is lost to the Earth forever,” he added.

Helium molecules, produced by the sun’s energy, naturally make up only about five parts per million of the Earth’s atmosphere. The rest of the gas—the second lightest element in the universe after hydrogen—escaped our planet 4.7 billion years ago.

The U.S. holds vast majority of the world helium stocks, managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management; the gas sits underground in natural salt domes atop granite in the Great Plains. Congress passed a law in 1996 dictating the sale of all U.S. stocks by 2015 to compensate the government for its investment in the helium and its storage. A 2000 study conducted by the National Research Council concluded that a helium surplus would exist for the foreseeable future.

Soon after that report, however, helium usage skyrocketed, as the gas yielded many benefits for industry and medicine. In a January 2010 report for the National Research Council, “Selling the Nation’s Helium Reserve,” Richardson and committee cochair Charles G. “Chip” Groat, a University of Texas at Austin geologist, described the pitfalls of the current U.S. strategy.

Many industrial processes rely on helium. In 2007, the most recent year for which figures are available, said Richardson, 28 percent of helium use went to cryogenics for MRI and nuclear magnetic resonance machines—nearly all of it for clinical purposes (scientific cryogenic uses are only 3 percent of that total). Some 26 percent of helium is used in pressurizing and purging of rockets; another 20 percent for welding; and 13 provides inert atmospheres in the production of fiberoptics, LCDs and food.

Richardson recommends several steps to ensure helium availability in the future. First, prices should be raised by a factor of 20. “The world price of the gas is ridiculously cheap,” said Richardson, as a result of the U.S. policy. Second, substitutes can replace helium for certain areas—argon can be used in welding, for instance. Last, cryogenic helium users should recycle the gas in closed systems; already, MRI machines use such systems for their powerful superconducting magnets.

“That which God has taken 4.7 billion years to create will be dissipated in a little more than 100 years,” noted Richardson. “One generation doesn’t have the right to determine availability forever.”

source
http://www.scientificamerican.com

http://www.grabi.co.cc/index.php/novosti/znanost/28304-helium


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Re: No more helium-parties - hellium could be gone in less than three decades [Re: LobsterSauce]
    #12833046 -

Well that sucks, they need to find a cheap/efficient way to create tons of it synthetically.


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Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. --  Bob Dylan
fireworks_god said:
It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.

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Re: No more helium-parties - hellium could be gone in less than three decades [Re: Poid]
    #12833047 -

Poid said:
Well that sucks, they need to find a cheap/efficient way to create tons of it synthetically.


Pshh, that's easy, just create a fusion reactor and fuse some hydrogen molecules together.

I love how the threw that quote that included God at the end, that was a nice touch :rolleyes:

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Re: No more helium-parties - hellium could be gone in less than three decades [Re: Poid]
    #12833050 -

Yeah that last quote is completely off base. There is no way that availability will never be possible at the rate that we are advancing in science.

At some point we will create fusion reactors most likely and harvest helium off of that in some manner.

Or maybe find asteroids containing helium or some extra terrestrial source to harvest it from.


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Aaa...E I O Uuu...A E I O Uuu..A E I O uh Uuu..
*Cough* *Cough*
Ooo...U E I O Aaa...U E I Aaa..A E I O Uuuuu...
At first sight, The Perfection of Wisdom is bewildering, full of paradox and apparent irrationality.

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Re: No more helium-parties - hellium could be gone in less than three decades [Re: Acaterpillar]
    #12833053 -

Rabidbaboon said:
Or maybe find asteroids containing helium or some extra terrestrial source to harvest it from.


The sun has tons of it. Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe.

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Re: No more helium-parties - hellium could be gone in less than three decades [Re: Gumby]
    #12833056 -

I don't think we'll ever be able to harvest it from the sun, though--I've read that one of the gas giant's moons contains a lot of liquid helium, we could potentially harvest it from there.


--------------------
Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. --  Bob Dylan
fireworks_god said:
It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.

Edited by Poid (07/01/10 04:52 AM)

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Re: No more helium-parties - hellium could be gone in less than three decades [Re: Poid] * 1
    #12833061 -

Nah dude, lets drill for helium on the surface of the sun. It's a great idea. Closer too.

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Re: No more helium-parties - hellium could be gone in less than three decades [Re: Gumby]
    #12833064 -

Totally wouldn't fuck with the sun at all either.

I bet we could take ALL the helium and make MAD bank :borat:



:facepalm3:


--------------------
Aaa...E I O Uuu...A E I O Uuu..A E I O uh Uuu..
*Cough* *Cough*
Ooo...U E I O Aaa...U E I Aaa..A E I O Uuuuu...
At first sight, The Perfection of Wisdom is bewildering, full of paradox and apparent irrationality.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: No more helium-parties - hellium could be gone in less than three decades [Re: Gumby]
    #12833065 -

Gumby said:
...drill for helium on the surface of the sun.

:lol:


--------------------
Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. --  Bob Dylan
fireworks_god said:
It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: No more helium-parties - hellium could be gone in less than three decades [Re: Poid]
    #12833070 -

2012 comes along and many a circus clown will die.. :hehehe:


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