Helium is the second-lightest element. Although it is rare on Earth, you likely have encountered it in helium-filled balloons. It's the most widely-used of the inert gases, used in arc welding, diving, growing silicon crystals, and as a coolant in MRI scanners.In addition to being rare, helium is a non-renewable resource. The helium that we have was produced by the radioactive decay of rock, long ago. Once the gases is leaked into the atmosphere, it's light enough to escape the Earth's gravitational field so it bleeds off into space, never to return. We may run out of helium within 25-30 years because it's being consumed so freely.
Why would such a valuable resource be squandered? Basically it's because the price of helium does not reflect its value. Most of the world's supply of helium is held by the US National Helium Reserve, which was mandated to sell off all of its stockpile by 2015, regardless of price. This is based on a 1966 law, the Helium Privatisation Act, which was intended to help the government recoup the cost of building up the reserve. Though the uses of helium have multiplied, the law has not been revisited, so by 2015 much of the planet's stockpile of helium will have been sold at an extremely low price. Unless the price of the helium increases, there will be no perceived reason to conserve or recycle the gas so it will be used and lost. Will we run out? What do you think?
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Kinda funny thinking about helium just disappearing..:(
Wow, I never realized it would escape the Earth’s gravitational field! What ramifications would this have? (Besides the obvious “we’ll lose something rare and non-renewable” issue.)
What will happen to the Hadron Collider and all the other particle accelerators that use liquid helium to create super magnets??
Where did we get this Helium? If it just floats on off, never to return, why didn’t it? Something about this doesn’t sound right. If this is true, we need to make noise, because it is ridiculous.
Most of helium is encapsuled in petroleum, when there is a well drill, bubbles are released, trapped and stored.
one of the worst consequence will be for fine chemicals. No more helium means no more helium liquid (-269°C) that is used to cold the NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance apparels)
= the best analysis method would end up maybe.
= it will be hard and harder to analyze products that chemist made.
Unbelievable fact / TRUTH… THNKS FOR THE KIND INFO..
Michael, I imagine the LHC with have to use high temperature superconductors cooled by liquid nitrogen in their magnets, same with MRI machines. They tend to be trickier to work with that conventional superconductors though.
Liquid nitrogen cannot be used as a stand alone coolant in MRI scans or NMR analysis. Liquid helium is used because it is capable of staying liquid at the extreme cool temperatures required (liquid nitrogen is at -195oC and liquid helium is -269oC) to run the tests. Liquid nitrogen can only be used in the outer parts of the machines to help keep helium cool and from evaporating away. And even in this case, every week or multiple times a week depending on the size and usage of the machines, both of these coolants need to be refilled to keep the machine operating. Very literally, once helium is gone from Earth there will be nothing available (as of now) to complete these scans and analysis that are vital to health and wellness and research and development of so many things.
If this helium is disappearing, they should really just limit the amount of balloons we buy, or try to think of a way to produce more helium. I can’t imagine this world without balloons.
I can’t imagine a world with no helium…
I read another article saying the shortage is from congress mismanagement & random production shortages. It also said there is a 300 year supply and saying we are running out is untrue. This is something there should be facts on not opinions!
It makes me sad that my kids might not get birthday balloons.
this is not true. helium is produced from raduoactive decay and still will be. we are using it faster than it is being renewed but it is a renewable resource. helium balloons are also not pure helium… our kids will onow what it is and it will still be used in the future
We have a 500 MHz Bruker NMR in my lab. I have to fill the liquid nitrogen about 2X a week ideally but we can get away with once a week or once every other week sometimes. The tradeoff is that the less often you fill the nitrogen which is cheap, the more often you fill the Helium which is expensive. The liquid helium with nitrogen on a 2X weekly schedule lasts about 5 or 6 weeks before it gets low. There’s also giant air conditioners in the room blowing on the liquid nitrogen tank and the NMR dewar to help slow the evaporation of nitrogen and helium.
Chloe, who gives a flying s*** about having balloons when this is an actual problem? Goddamn, some people.
What if scientist are using it for there own experiments for space ships or ufo’s u did say it can easily go thou our gravitational pull just a theory
uh, it passes through our gravity because of how light it is, not magic
unless you can make yourself light as helium you’re not going to escape the atmosphere with it
i work for a company that makes cylinders that have trademark name ballon time,,if we run out of helium its going to cost alot of jobs possibly for alot of friends that have family to support.im sure we are not the only ones that relie on this resource but its kinda scary.
Heliumis created by hydrogen fusion. This is how all the helium in the universe was made. Once we have nuclear fusion going on, which we will any time now and certainly by 300 years or whenever helium will actualy run out, if it ever does, we can use all that helium for balloons, telescopes, MRIs, partical-colliders-that-are-going-to-make-a-black-hole-that-will-suck-up-the-whole-entire-world, and whatever else (I dunno, I bet I could come up with some ways to use it to troll my friends). So, I say we don’t make any stupid @$$ regulations, or fail agencies to eat up tax-payer and balloon-buyer dollars, amd just waste all the helium we want. Also to those people who say that we’ll fuse the created helium too, not only is my point untouched (whatever we do with that helium we still had it at some point, and didn’t have to fuse it), we won’t be able to fuse helium any time soon (not until a long time after hydrogen fusion becomes commonplace), as the required temperature is too great to reach by hydrogen fusion, and is only reached in old stars by gravitational pressure.
Does anyone actually REALLY know what will happen when the Earth runs out of helium? Not being a butthole, but does anyone actually know or everyone is just guessing? Please post on Wikipedia, we are interested
Some of these comments are dumb. People worried about balloons and balloon company jobs. Helium has the lowest boiling point of any other substance, which makes it is the ultimate coolant of the human race. It is used in MRI, superconducters, rockets, diving, nuclear reactors. Without it, the human race loses a vast swathe of it’s technological capability, our survival prospects on this hostile little planet drops.