Posted on 11/07/2007 1:08:05 AM PST by a_chronic_whiner
Helium is the talk of the party balloon industry these days, and it is not a discussion being carried out in high-pitched giggles.
The second most plentiful element in the universe is suddenly in short supply on this planet, and that means soaring prices for a lot of things, balloons included.
"Some customers have told me they're just not going to sell balloons anymore because they can't get helium," said Chicago party wholesaler Lee Kaufman. "Everybody's scrambling."
As raw materials crises go, the helium shortage clearly takes a back seat to the global oil crunch. But the repercussions go well beyond the cost of decorating for birthdays or bar mitzvahs, while also shining a light on an obscure federal helium program that has proved critical to feeding the world's growing appetite.
To most of us, helium is just a novelty gas that floats blimps, bobs huge latex whales over car dealers and when inhaled makes your voice sound like Daffy Duck's. (That, by the way, is a really bad idea that could lead to a collapsed lung, experts say.)
But demand for the gas has taken off in industry and scientific research in recent years, and the helium squeeze is being felt everywhere from university physics labs to plants in India, China, Taiwan and Korea that make today's hottest consumer products. Japanese helium suppliers recently warned customers in the electronics industry to prepare for supply cuts of up to 30 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
It appears the sky isn’t falling, but the balloons are.
No blood for helium!!
The German’s used hydrogen in their dirigibles (zeppelins) because we weren’t selling helium to them. Thus the Hindenberg.
The government had a 10-year-supply of the stuff, and a mandate to dump it on the market.
So it’s no wonder that “private suppliers” have been slow to come online. How would they compete for the market against a seller that didn’t have to make money and was required to hold market share by law?
Of course, now that there is a shortage, they WISH they had figured out the future for the market and started finding new supplies, but that’s a lot of risk to take before the market exists.
Can we manufacture helium? Are we creating it in our muclear reactors?
We’ve gone “muclear”, oh my!!!
Is there really enough volume in an average balloon to be a fire hazard if hydrogen were used instead? How many balloons come in range of open flame, anyway?
A test tube of hydrogen, exposed to a spark, will burn instantly with a loud "whumph." Trust me, fire codes and commercial insurance policies will never allow the manufacture or sale of hydrogen ballons for entertainment purposes.
Thanks, I wasn’t sure about that. I guess the party balloon is a thing of the past, unless someone comes up with a way to dampen hydrogen’s burnability safely, cheaply, and effectively.
“Is there really enough volume in an average balloon to be a fire hazard if hydrogen were used instead? How many balloons come in range of open flame, anyway?
“
They are fun to shoot at with bottle rockets!
To be fair, there are 8 helium-producing fields in the world and none in Texas itself; Alaska, Kansas, Corolado, Utah are available to the U.S., I believe.
Recycling plants are springing up all over and one major operation is in Kansas.
It is assumed to be finite because it comes from those fields where fossil fuels are gleaned and we all know that we’re about to deplete all those sources soon.
No fossil-fuel methane and no helium.
Two years of science in high school and four more in college and this little fact was either not mentioned or escaped me. Perhaps the uses of helium then was exclusively trivial and the supply was of no concern.
Maybe it's time for that to change.
"It is used as an inert shield for arc welding, to pressurize the fuel tanks of liquid fueled rockets and in supersonic windtunnels. Helium is combined with oxygen to create a nitrogen free atmosphere for deep sea divers so that they will not suffer from a condition known as nitrogen narcosis. Liquid helium is an important cryogenic material and is used to study superconductivity and to create superconductive magnets. The Department of Energy's Jefferson Lab uses large amounts of liquid helium to operate its superconductive electron accelerator."
Maybe in the defense industry or NASA. The rest of us use argon.
We don’t seem to have any trouble getting helium around here. Used for helium leak testing of super secret military systems.
I see. You can simply refine more from the natural gas if needed. I have a question, what happens to the helium from other natural gas fields? is it put back for later extraction or simply lost to the refining process? what happens to the helium in natural gas is my question.
It’s lost when the gas is allowed to escape unless the proper equipment is used to separate and store it.
No, we don’t manufacture helium (aside from hydrogen bombs). It is a noble gas, so it doesn’t chemically combine with other elements. If I remember correctly, helium is found in underground deposits. Of course, astronomical helium is found almost everywhere (40% of the universe or so).
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