Helium discovery a 'game-changer'

[nitpicker]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36651048

Helium discovery a 'game-changer'

17 minutes ago

From the section Science & Environment

Scientists say they have found a large helium gas field in Tanzania. With world supplies running out, the discovery is a "game-changer", say geologists at Durham and Oxford universities.

Helium is used in hospitals in MRI scanners as well as in spacecrafts and radiation monitors. Until now, the precious gas has been discovered only in small quantities during oil and gas drilling.

Using a new exploration approach, researchers found large quantities of helium within the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley. They say resources in just one part of the Rift valley are enough to fill more than a million medical MRI scanners.
(snip)

[JonathanRackham]

1. I've done tech support for research PhDs

They use lots of cryogenic helium for superconductive research and NMR magnets. They've been shut down in the past waiting for helium. Gonna be some happy researchers.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. Also widely used as a carrier gas in Gas Chromatography. nt

[liberal N proud]

2. Does that mean more of this...

[fasttense]

3. So, is that the same helium I see in balloons?

Just bought a small tank for $20.00. It can't be the samething can it?

[paleotn]

4. Yes, it is. n/t

[wallyworld2]

20. I was mixing up too

I thought this was a article about Donald trump.

But I was mixing up Hot Air with Helium.



I kill myself

[Orrex]

5. No. Helium is invisible, so you don't see it in balloons or otherwise.

[rurallib]

8. amazing isn't it. We have known about helium shortages for a long time

yet we still see helium being used for what seems to be frivolous things.

[fasttense]

12. Exactly what I was thinking

Why can I buy it for a kids birthday party? It should be carefully rationed for important things.

[Surya Gayatri]

14. Sadly, foresight and resource husbandry are not widely practiced.

Whatever the market will bear, even if it means running out of crucial elements.

[Hoppy]

19. Just you keep yer fukin hands off my party balloons.

[Surya Gayatri]

25. God forbid the kids should have to make do with party snappers instead...

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Scientists have called for it to be rationed

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/a-ballooning-problem-the-great-helium-shortage-8439108.html

but what politician wants to tell kiddies they can't have their balloons?

[drray23]

29. helium 4 is not that rare.

The one that is rare is the isotope he3.It is found in the earth crust at a greater concentration than in the atmosphere. The article is a bit misleading. There is no lack of helium4. its one of the most common elements in the universe. We have enough on earth for at least another half century and thats not counting deposits we have not found yet. it is used for cryogenics, welding. etc...and filling balloons and such. Helium3 is what isoften used for physics research (its one neutron and 2 proton) to stand in for a neutron target. The other isotopes are unstable. There is a short supply of helium3 and it is therefore very expensive to acquire (about $2000.0 per gram).

As a matter of fact, people have been exploring the feasibility of some day being able to mine it on the moon where it is present in the rocks.

[rurallib]

31. Thank you much

I had read of the shortage many years back and the article simply stated there was a shortage of helium. Glad to know this.

[OKIsItJustMe]

32. I hate to uh… burst your balloon… but…

Helium is in short supply.

https://www.bma.org.uk/connecting-doctors/b/work/posts/mri-scanners-or-balloons-the-helium-debate-takes-off

[font face=Serif][font size=5]MRI scanners or balloons? The helium debate takes off[/font]

[font size=3]When they’ve called for action against tobacco and alcohol misuse, doctors have got used to being called ‘killjoys’ by some sections of the population. When the public health case is so strong, it’s easy to shrug off the label.

But balloons are not the same as cigarettes, and the vote at last week’s BMA annual representative meeting to campaign for a ban on the ‘frivolous’ use of helium conjures up an image of sad children leaving parties empty-handed.

Anaesthetist Tom Dolphin’s impassioned call got off with a bang as he popped an (air-filled) balloon at the ARM podium. But it was his words that really won him attention.

He said: ‘This invaluable, irreplaceable gas is being literally handed to children in balloons so they can be entertained for a few minutes until they get bored and let go.

…[/font][/font]

[OKIsItJustMe]

34. Blame congress (No! Really!)

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v485/n7400/full/485573a.html

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Resources: Stop squandering helium[/font]

…

30 May 2012

[font size=4]Establish a global agency to build a sustainable market for this precious commodity, say William J. Nuttall, Richard H. Clarke and Bartek A. Glowacki.[/font]

[font size=3]In recent months, researchers have struggled to obtain supplies of liquid helium for running and cooling their equipment. A UK newspaper reported in March how the shortage had led one scientist to waste £90,000 (US$142,000) because he could not run experiments on his neutron beamline for three days¹. The scientist criticized buyers of party balloons for frittering away the gas. But the blame does not lie there.

Helium is an extraordinary commodity. Its use in advanced technologies — from cryogenics and arc welding to space rockets and silicon-wafer manufacture — means that worldwide demand for this inert gas is growing rapidly. But we are not conserving this resource well. Natural gas remains the richest and most accessible source of helium; extracting it in industrial quantities from the air would be extremely costly. But too often, natural-gas plants treat helium as a valueless gas and vent it to the atmosphere. One large-scale plant producing liquefied natural gas can waste more helium than all the party balloons in the world.

…

The helium that is extracted is in the hands of a few players. This, combined with the fact that there is little spare capacity, leads to intermittent supply shortages. The US government's decisions to stockpile helium in the 1960s and sell it off in the 1990s have constrained prices artificially. Economic incentives for the natural-gas industry to invest in the separation of helium have been insufficient, and although advances in fossil-fuel production methods should be making helium separation easier, this opportunity is not being seized.

As demand for helium grows in Asia and new separation plants come online in other countries, the US domination of the helium market will wane. An international body is now needed to oversee global plans for helium. We must extract and geologically stockpile the helium from gas reserves now, and postpone the use of air-extraction methods for as long as possible.

…[/font][/font]

[heaven05]

6. well here's another

section of our living environment just waiting to be destroyed by a profit greedy corp. Good bye Tanzania, hello envoronmental destruction, probably disaster.

[Atman]

9. My first thought, too.

Bring on the wars for resource exploitation. Big multi-national companies (read: Americans with home offices in foreign tax havens) will get the World Bank to blackmail Tanzania into taking development funds so that we can destroy their environment and enslave the local populations and ship all of the money out of the country.

[heaven05]

10. +1000

[Helen Borg]

7. Man... So, in the long run...

We are toast. We will run out of helium at some point.

[hughee99]

24. Peak helium. Nt

[jimlup]

11. Given my understanding of the element

I'm surprised there is ANY on the Earth at all.

[ret5hd]

15. it is produced in the earth by radioactive decay.

I think.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. it is - an 'alpha particle' is a helium nucleus

so it is produced by various radioactive elements, particularly uranium, thorium and the elements they decay to. It's a matter of what kind of rocks can trap it, and which it can travel through.

[jimlup]

18. Thanks

That makes sense

[JonathanRackham]

27. Lighten up.

Literally.

[dembotoz]

21. well lets replace the helium in kiddy balloons with hydrogen like they used to use in zepplins

what could possibly go wrong?

[Lochloosa]

22. Float them around the birthday cake and we'll find out...

[yourpaljoey]

23. Yeah... that's the ticket!

[CentralMass]

26. ...

[Dustlawyer]

28. The Earth has infinite resources, it's a really big place. If not, technology will come along and

and take care of our problems. If not, the poor don't deserve anything, they should pull on their boot straps.

All excuses saying the same thing, I don't want to sacrifice anything, I don't want change!

[LongtimeAZDem]

30. Good news, but it's not a game changer; it just kicks the can down the road (nt)

[GliderGuider]

33. Just in the nick of time!!! It's also used in

Last edited Tue Jun 28, 2016, 03:50 PM - Edit history (2)

It's also used in "Exit Bags", for suicide by inert gas asphyxiation. Given what is just around the corner, with the helium shortage I was afraid that people would be deprived of the most humane technology, and would have to go back to using razor blades or watching Trump speeches.

There IS hope after all!!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_bag

A suicide bag, also known as an exit bag or hood, is a device consisting of a large plastic bag with a drawcord used to commit suicide through inert gas asphyxiation. It is usually used in conjunction with an inert gas like helium or nitrogen, which prevents the panic, sense of suffocation and struggling during unconsciousness (the hypercapnic alarm response) usually caused by the deprivation of oxygen in the presence of carbon dioxide. This method also makes the direct cause of death difficult to trace if the bag and gas canister are removed before the death is reported.

[glinda]

35. I would be for rationing rather than environmental destruction.