Helium is fun for voice changing at parties, but it has numerous more uses that are exceedingly important. From solar telescopes to rockets and MRI cryogenics to deep-sea diving, helium is a vital, non-renewable resource that many take for of course. Regrettably, most people only know that it is great for filling birthday balloons, so long as it is cheap. However it might not be cheap for long, reports The Independent – helium supplies are fading fast. Helium pricing will fly high as the supply floats out of Earthly existence. Post resource – The world is almost out of helium – be very afraid by Personal Money Store.
Running out of helium may have significant repercussions
In 1996, Congress voted in favor of the Helium Privatization Act – and America’s supply has dwindled at a high rate of speed ever since. Because it is so cheap to get helium, supplies have depleted at an alarming rate. The 1996 law also calls for that all the helium in the United States National Helium Reserve near Amarillo, Texas, be sold by 2015, regardless of market price. The deck is stacked against helium for the rest of the world, too.
The reason why so serious, helium?
Cooling MRI machines with liquid helium have been customary in hospitals for some time. Anti-terrorism forces use helium for their radiation monitors and infrared detectors. If that’s not serious enough, nuclear facilities need helium-3 isotopes for safe operation. Wind tunnels require garden variety helium. Helium is good for safely cleaning rocket fuel tanks, which NASA loves. It could all be gone in 25 to 30 years, as outlined by experts in the know about helium.
According to Nobel laureate and Cornell University physics professor Robert Richardson, “Once helium is released to the atmosphere in the form of party balloons or boiling helium, it is lost to the Earth forever”.
Where do we get helium?
Nuclear fusion from the Sun and the slow radioactive decay of terrestrial rock are the two means by which helium is made. We get helium from the rocks. It can’t be created in any artificial fashion. Since it is taken 4.7 billion years for natural decay to produce the Earth’s current helium supply, waiting around for the planet to make more is not an option.
A rare special for only $ 100 a balloon
Raising the price of helium considerably is Prof. Richardson’s solution. If helium becomes 20 to 50 times more costly than the current rate (15 cubic feet of helium cost about $40 in 2009), motivation to recycle the gas would greatly increase. Thus, expect that a helium-filled Mylar balloon could cost as much as $ 100. There is no other way.
Helium Privatization Act
helium.com/items/874929-understanding-the-helium-privitization-act-of-1996
The Independent
independent.co.uk/news/science/why-the-world-is-running-out-of-helium-2059357.html
University of Denver study on helium
mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/phys/helium.htm
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