Why Recreational Triox ??

[DarkFrog]

Niote that Helium is not an unlimited resource, and the supply is quite constrained. There are some estimates that we could literally "run out" before 2010!

Maybe not... Nuclear Fusion is on it's way and could be a viable source of helium. I believe there's a Japanese company is working on "safer" fission plant that would double as a helium generating plant, but I can't find the article I read on that.

Using helium isn't unfreindly to the environment. It's only unfreindly to the next guy who wants all the helium.

If what I said above actually becomes reality, there may turn out to be much more to the environmentally friendly debate. And just imagine Atomic's ad campaign! wink

 

[Big-t-2538]

I'm opposed to believing that the world's supply of helium is going to be depleted. We just haven't found the big stash that mother nature has somewhere..

 

[cornfed]

I'm opposed to believing that the world's supply of helium is going to be depleted. We just haven't found the big stash that mother nature has somewhere..

Don't worry T, the beer supply and helium supply are NOT linked! wink

 

[Genesis]

I'm opposed to believing that the world's supply of helium is going to be depleted. We just haven't found the big stash that mother nature has somewhere..

Uh huh....

Helium is only "plentiful" because we have these things called STARS in the Universe. Most of the Helium in the universe seems to be there.

This is not really a surprise, since Helium is a very light atom and has this nasty habit of escaping from the usable portion of the atmosphere, making fractional distillation possible but not productive or economically viable.

BTW, fusion has been "on the way" for 30 years. You don't even want to think about the cost of obtaining helium by running a net-energy-loss fusion reaction just for the gas! Reaching breakeven hasn't happened...... despite lots of optimism....

Will we eventually get there? Possibly. Will it happen before supplies get REAL tight? No way to know, but the supply constraints are visible on the horizon, and not that far out either.

 

[Big-t-2538]

Don't worry T, the beer supply and helium supply are NOT linked! wink

That is unfortunate....I enjoy mixing the two at weddings and kids birthday parties.

But seriously....how many years ago did we think we were going to deplete the world's supply of oil? It is just a matter of investing the time to find the hidden gas...I'm certain we don't know exactly how much Helium is there....hell...if we start consuming it faster, maybe mother nature will begin to produce more of it.

I'll worry about it when 2 things happen

1 - I begin to dive helium
2 - When the parades begin talking about using something other than helium in the balloons.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

If He4 gets rare enough on the earth it will also get expensive enough that someone will figure out how to mine it out of the solar wind, from earth orbit or from the surface of the moon -- at which point it will rapidly get cheaper again. This will also have the benefit of providing a supply of He3 which is useful for deuterium-He3 fusion reactions which are 'neutron-clean' and provide almost as much energy as deuterium-tritium fusion.

Helium is the second most common element in the universe. We are unlikely to ever run out of it.

The logic is a little flawed here. Sure we have lots of hydrogen in the universe and it is really common even on earth as it is combined with oxygen to make water. Helium is also extremely common in the universal picture, but the local supplies are very limited.

Mining is an option as the sun is just chock full of it as a leftover from fusing hydrogen but the problems of mining it there are pretty obvious. It could also be mined from some of the outer planets but again that would be expensive and is not realistic given that we can't even get there yet. Same with trying to "mine" it from the solar wind, we lack the technology required and there would still be a huge overhead and cost of production. It's probably more realistic to plan on producing it as a by product of hydrogen fusion for power generation but that is not going to happen in our lifetimes.

The fact is that lighter elements like helium are for the most part blown away during the planetary formation process of the inner planets and that helium is rare on earth. (We only have a lot of hydrogen in the form of water on Earth as it arrived after the planet formed aboard comets) The fact that helium is abundant in the universe is a moot point if we cannot readily access it.

 

[jeffkruse2000]

"The logic is a little flawed here. Sure we have lots of hydrogen in the universe and it is really common even on earth as it is combined with oxygen to make water. Helium is also extremely common in the universal picture, but the local supplies are very limited. "

Hydrogen and Oxygen make water, hence H2O not He2O.

He is renewable. More and more is made in the ground every day by radioactive decay. If the price goes up for He we will find more of it just like oil.

 

[lamont]

But seriously....how many years ago did we think we were going to deplete the world's supply of oil? It is just a matter of investing the time to find the hidden gas...I'm certain we don't know exactly how much Helium is there....hell...if we start consuming it faster, maybe mother nature will begin to produce more of it.

Mother nature produces helium through alpha particle decay of radioactive elements. I hope that she's not going to suddenly start producing more of it, since an increase in radioactive decay would increase the core temperature of the Earth which could lead to the Earth's crust melting. And that would suck. No more diving.

 

[cornfed]

Hydrogen and Oxygen make water, hence H2O not He2O.

DA Aquamaster was addressing lamont's discussion on fusing deuterium (a hydrogen isotope) with a helium isotope (He-3). The fact that water is H20 and not He2O was exactly his point.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Ban party baloons and parade floats.

I have a feeling that the helim that goes into a single float would keep a bunch of us diving for a very long time.