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 numerous take for given. Regrettably, most people only know that it’s 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. The birthday balloons might fall to earth in our lifetime.
A shortage of helium can cause much more difficulties more than most recognize
Thanks to a 1996 law passed by the United States of America Congress entitled the Helium Privatization Act, helium’s price was ground to the dirt while the nation’s supply of birthday balloons headed for the stratosphere. Helium became a cheaper by the dozen resources, which has dipped severely into supply. The United States of America National Helium Reserve near Amarillo, Texas, could be required to sell off any remaining helium by 2015, even if they have to do it for pennies on the dollar. Similar circumstances exist worldwide for helium, making it seem as though humanity wants to cut off its nose to spite its face.
Why running out of helium isn’t good simply because?
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. Nuclear reactors and wind tunnels also utilize helium, the former in helium-3 isotope form. NASA uses it to clean potentially explosive rocket fuel from fuel tanks. All of this, plus festive birthday balloons, could be gone in 25 to 30 years, according to experts surveyed by The Independent.
”Once helium is released into the atmosphere within the form of party balloons or boiling helium, it is lost to the Earth forever,” said Cornell physics Professor Robert Richardson, a Nobel laureate.
From where does helium originate?
The Sun’s nuclear fusion creates helium as a by-product. Not only that, but the radioactive decay of various rocks produces helium on Earth. Earth’s supply comes from the latter method, of course. It cannot be created in any artificial fashion. Considering that it has taken the Earth approximately 4.7 billion years to produce the world’s helium reserves, waiting for it to come back can be a marathon at best.
The $ 100 birthday balloon
To slow the depletion of the world’s helium supply, Professor Richardson suggests that the price for helium be raised considerably. If helium becomes 20 to 50 times more expensive than the current rate (15 cubic feet of helium cost about $40 in 2009), motivation to recycle the gas would greatly increase. Thus, in Richardson’s estimation, a helium-filled party balloon should currently cost about $100.
Further reading
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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