[QUOTE][img]http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/balloon2.jpg[/img]
The world is running short on several metals, but perhaps more disconcerting is the impending loss of the noble helium. The stuff of birthday balloons, superconducting magnets and Mickey Mouse voices could get a lot more expensive in the near future, according to a Nobel Prize-winning scientist.
New Scientist has an interview today with Cornell scientist Robert Richardson, who has worked on the superfluid properties of helium. He believes the world will run out of the gas in short order.
The U.S. government has been selling helium disgracefully cheaply, Richardson says; we apparently supply 80 percent of the world's helium, and in 1996, Congress passed an act dictating that we get rid of our stockpile by 2015. He wants the government to get out of the helium business and let the market dictate prices.
"Unfortunately, party balloons will be $100 each rather than $3, but we'll have to live with that," he says.
No other substance has a lower boiling point than helium, which makes it a great cooling source. Liquid helium chills superconducting magnets for MRI scanners, for instance. It's used in fiber optics, liquid crystal displays, neutron detectors, quantum computing and more.
The only way to obtain more helium -- actually a specific isotope used in science experiments and security equipment, called helium-3 -- would be to capture it from the decay of tritium, which is a radioactive hydrogen isotope. But the U.S. stopped making tritium in 1988.
Our current supplies come from radioactive alpha decay in rocks, according to Richardson. If we run out completely, we will have to recover helium from the air, making it cost 10,000 times what it does today.[/QUOTE]
Source: [url]http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-08/future-these-will-cost-100-each[/url]
Brb investing in party balloons.
Accelerate fusion power development
smoke tritium
fuck bitches
get helium
We're running out of helium?
[editline]01:50PM[/editline]
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFf-
Should be fine
I'm going to go stockpile helium, even though I don't use it for anything.
Just put pigs blood in the balloons and we'll be fine.
We'll just use hydrogen, what could go wrong?
[QUOTE=littleicyman;24240743]I'm going to go stockpile helium, even though I don't use it for anything.[/QUOTE]
An upside down stock pile.
[QUOTE=Dippeggs;24240769]We'll just use hydrogen, what could go wrong?[/QUOTE]
[img]http://cache2.allpostersimages.com/LRG/21/2100/8YQ2D00Z.jpg[/img]
Actually, that balloon will probably run out of helium by then. Helium escapes from balloons pretty fast.
[QUOTE=Dippeggs;24240769]We'll just use hydrogen, what could go wrong?[/QUOTE]
Hydrogen has a higher boiling point and is way more reactive, and no one is going to put an explosive gas in a party balloon.
[QUOTE=Nerts;24240978]Hydrogen has a higher boiling point and is way more reactive, and no one is going to put an explosive gas in a party balloon.[/QUOTE]
It'd be alot more exciting.
Helium balloon is $3? Whoa. That's fucking expensive.
[QUOTE=Nerts;24240978]Hydrogen has a higher boiling point and is way more reactive, and no one is going to put an explosive gas in a party balloon.[/QUOTE]
Didn't stop the Hindenburg.
Well, until it blew up anyways
[QUOTE=BaconDioxide;24240699]Accelerate fusion power development
smoke tritium
fuck bitches
get helium[/QUOTE]
I read that in a very high-pitched voice.
[QUOTE=noctune9;24241038]I read that in a very high-pitched voice.[/QUOTE]
Now I'm reading everything in this thread in a munchkin voice
hey guys instead of making more helium for balloons why not just make oxygen heavier
Well, we'll just have to stop having birthdays.
[QUOTE=johan_sm;24241024]Helium balloon is $3? Whoa. That's fucking expensive.[/QUOTE]
That's actually pretty expensive if you think about what you're getting...
[QUOTE=Adbor;24241226]Well, we'll just have to stop having birthdays.[/QUOTE]
No one ever remembers mine anyways... :smith:
So this means Alvin and the Chipmunks have their days numbered?
[B]YES!![/B] :D
[QUOTE=Pretiacruento;24241365]So this means Alvin and the Chipmunks have their days numbered?
[B]YES!![/B] :D[/QUOTE]
Pff, digital age man. No need for helium to have high pitch voice.
[QUOTE=johan_sm;24241432]Pff, digital age man. No need for helium to have high pitch voice.[/QUOTE]
Oh well... thanks for bursting my [del]balloon[/del] bubble :smith:
We'll only be low on helium until we travel to other planets and rape them for resources.
Bieber is done
[QUOTE=Kite_shugo;24241990]Bieber is done[/QUOTE]
Well played.
Well is there really nothing that is like helium and not dangerous like hydrogen?
We should just mine the sun then :downs:
[QUOTE=BrQ;24242164]Well is there really nothing that is like helium and not dangerous like hydrogen?[/QUOTE]
sulphur hexafluoride
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