Oh, the stupid, it burns.
Helium shortage threatens time-honored Nebraska tradition | Dr. Saturday – Yahoo! Sports http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/helium-shortage-threatens-time-honored-nebraska-tradition-152527242–ncaaf.html
Face palm! Unfortunately, there’s this nagging little detail about the noble gas, Helium, one of the most stable and chemically inert elements there is.
Helium is a result of radioactive decay. I don’t think global warming is powerful enough to overcome the forces in the nucleus of an atom yet.
On Earth it is thus relatively rare—0.00052% by volume in the atmosphere. Most terrestrial helium present today is created by the natural radioactive decay of heavy radioactive elements (thorium and uranium), as the alpha particles emitted by such decays consist of helium-4 nuclei. This radiogenic helium is trapped with natural gas in concentrations up to 7% by volume, from which it is extracted commercially by a low-temperature separation process called fractional distillation.
How hard could this have been to look up?
BTW Methane CH4 (Natural gas) is lighter than air, maybe they’ll switch to that and endure the caterwauling for releasing a GHG about 20 times more potent than CO2.
h/t to Marc Morano
UPDATE: Maybe the National Helium Reserve will be brought to bear in this crisis. Who knew?
The National Helium Reserve, also known as the Federal Helium Reserve, is a strategic reserve of the United States holding over a billion cubic meters (1E9 m3) of helium gas. The helium is stored at the Cliffside Storage Facility about 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Amarillo, Texas, in a natural geologic gas storage formation, the Bush Dome reservoir. The reserve was established in 1925 as a strategic supply of gas for airships, and in the 1950s became an important source of coolant during the Space Race and Cold War.
h/t to Chris Horner
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It might not have been sarcasm, afterall the “N” on the Nebraska helmets stands for “Knowledge.”
“I think we can all blame global warming ON this unfortunate turn of events.”
The helium shortage CAUSED global warming.
Way to go for the full stupid, “Dr. Saturday.”
If only stupid did burn. Imagine the immolation, auto-da-fe, of the gullible.
Helium shortage may be caused by the closing in 2013 of the U.S. government program that sells helium to commercial entities from the underground government reserve facility in Texas. If this closing will happen, it will be a result of the failure on the part of the U.S. Congress to renew the program. In this case, price of “crude” (unrefined) helium may spike for a while, until the free market picks up the slack. It has nothing to do whatever with any “global warming” fantasies.
Or of course they could try hydrogen – even less of a shortage of that, I hope. A short, lit fuse on each balloon would give ’em a celebration to remember!
I noticed the source, unnamed, of “Most terrestrial helium present today is created by the natural radioactive decay…” Is there another source for He?
He is beyond a mere novelty. The technology to replace its capabilities in high-tech will be unimaginably expensive, particularly as the climate warms.
REPLY: The source is Wikipedia, with the link in “look up” – Anthony
John-X : Absolutely correct.
Helium, being lighter than air, carries excess heat up into space. As the amount of Helium dwindles, the heat stays near the ground causing warming.
🙂
@Doug Huffman,
Are you trying to insinuate in your last sentence that global temperatures have anything to do with helium?
Helium’s special property is that we can use it to cool things down to 4-6 kelvin, and its non reactive. This is important for superconductivity and other extremely low temperature phenomenon. Helium is lost to space (it cannot be sequestered in large molecules like hydrogen is), which is why it’s so rare on our planet, and we can only get more of it through radioactive decay.
Temperatures of his planet have nothing to do with it or helium’s applications.
The comment about global warming doesn’t appear in Randy York’s article about helium at Huskers.com.
It doesn’t appear in the original article at the Lincoln Journal Star, either. Nor in 16 comments underneath the LJS article.
It’s a fairly safe guess that “Dr. Saturday” (Graham Watson) was being sarcastic, blaming the He shortage on global warming. After all, everything else is blamed on global warming. Why not the helium shortage?
sunshinehours1 says:
August 16, 2012 at 11:53 am
John-X : Absolutely correct.
Helium, being lighter than air, carries excess heat up into space.
Not so much that it’s lighter than air, it actually has thermal velocities in excess of escape velocity, (Jeans escape), the loss to space is about 50 grams/sec.
Yes, thank you. It leaves open the possibility of another source of 2He4 other than mining it. I don’t recall an 2He4 synthesis reaction that might replace lost mining stocks.
Pretty sure that’s a joke, given the tone of the article, the complete lack of any supporting evidence, and the fact that it’s a sports blog.
Can someone explain to me how you can run out of an element? Unless we’ve been building Helium fusion reactors or bombs, there shouldn’t be any decrease in the amount of Helium on Earth.
I suppose that it getting diffused into the atmosphere makes it less easy to get? I suppose so, since I have just learned we apparently get it from underground!
BTW, if the stuff is found in natural gas deposits, how can we be having a gas boom without also getting tons of Helium?
I never understood the logic. What am I missing? It just seems like a totally disconnected remark. In that sense, it’s kind of humorous. Blame global warming for anything and everything, including things that are obviously of no relation whatsoever. It’s better than just making stuff up, which also seems to be happening.
Is it official before it is posted to John Brignell’s list?
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
“…in a natural geologic gas storage formation, the Bush Dome reservoir.”
See it is Bush’s fault.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/why-the-world-is-running-out-of-helium-2059357.html
And there’s,more:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/med-tech/why-is-there-a-helium-shortage-10031229
OT…Jonova seems to be down…again. She needs a refund.
High squeaky voices may be a thing of the past, children in the future simply won’t understand….sarc, of course.
Probably sarcasm. Many years ago, a writer wrote that Roger Clemens record would be ~25-0 if he could get some run support. This prompted a scathing column from Rob Neyer who ran all the stats about what great run support Clemens has been getting. He never noticed the writer was joking.
I blame global warming for my divorce, as well. Also: bed bugs! When will “scientists” make the connection between the explosive growth in the bedbug population and global warming?
“The technology to replace its capabilities in high-tech will be unimaginably expensive, particularly as the climate warms.”
There is not going to be any technology to replace He…as the price continues to climb the private sector will take over the production as the government is mandated to end control, prices will stabilize. Last I checked, outdoor temperatures are not a consideration for producing He. The lesson is that anything that the US government controls is a mess, costing you more and will go broke. Social Security is an example.
Filling balloons with CH4 + O2 is a lot more exciting…fuse included.
More on Helium: http://www.leif.org/research/Helium.pdf
All the primordial Helium on Earth is long lost. What we have now is the decay product of radioactivity in the rocks and takes billions of years to replace.
Or maybe the army’s new spy blimps are sucking up all the supply.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Rise-of-the-Blimps-The-US-Armys-LEMV-06438/