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Speak with the Qatarians:

"Air Liquide recently started up the world’s largest helium purification and liquefaction unit, a turnkey project at Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar. The new unit’s production capacity is approximately 38 million cubic meters of helium per year."

http://www.airliquide.com/en/q...

Do I get half the shares in your business?

"These cryostats comprise an internal casing for storing liquid helium between 1.6 K and 4 K, multi-layer vacuum insulation (MLI) and an external casing subject to the external environment. Heat screens can be added to increase cryostat performance thereby ensuring that the Helium is kept at low temperature for several years in orbit."

OK, it's for space use, but this doesn't sound like it would cost $4 to $10 per liter?

No, adsorption is different - although molecular sieves are quite common, not for natural gas yet. There are several membrane technologies, here is an interesting one Membranes have been in use for a long time and have increased in performance over the years. It's pretty neat that a physical membrane can be made that sorts molecules based on their size. Sort of like the screens archeologists use.

The Fermilab Tevatron is currently the largest (6.28 Km in circumference) and highest-energy (about 1/7th of the LHC) running accelerator on earth. It will be second when LHC will get up to speed. Size wise LEP (which used to sit where the LHC is being built) detains the record as the largest accelerator with a 26.6 Km circumference (the same that the LHC will have). Oh another interesting fact: these devices often need to keep their magnets pretty cold (colder than outer space!) and use the la largest refrigerators on earth!

The lower explosive limit (LEL) for hydrogen gas is 18%. (For comparison, the LEL for methane (natural gas) is 5.7%, and the LEL for propane is 2.1%.) I would like to know where you get your data. The two MSDS I found show a LEL of 4% http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/HY/hydrogen.html or http://encyclopedia.airliquide.com/encyclopedia.as p?GasID=36#GeneralData and for Wikpedia fans we have http://encyclopedia.airliquide.com/encyclopedia.as p?GasID=36#GeneralData. If your LEL data is off by more than 300%, why should I believe anything you say?

The lower explosive limit (LEL) for hydrogen gas is 18%. (For comparison, the LEL for methane (natural gas) is 5.7%, and the LEL for propane is 2.1%.) I would like to know where you get your data. The two MSDS I found show a LEL of 4% http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/HY/hydrogen.html or http://encyclopedia.airliquide.com/encyclopedia.as p?GasID=36#GeneralData and for Wikpedia fans we have http://encyclopedia.airliquide.com/encyclopedia.as p?GasID=36#GeneralData. If your LEL data is off by more than 300%, why should I believe anything you say?

Just a brief correction:

Octafluoropropane is not 'toxic', in the strict sense of the word. The word toxic generally refers to something that causes injury to living organisms "as a result of physicochemical interaction", which Octafluoropropane doesn't. It's possible to suffocate while breathing Octafluoropropane, as it is with any gas mixture that doesn't contain enough Oxygen, but it isn't toxic.

http://www.airliquide.com/en/business/products/gas es/gasdata/index.asp?GasID=47

According to this the density of liquid CH4 at 1 atmosphere and boiling point ( -161.6C ) is 422.62 kg/m^3. Yeah the atmospheric pressure on Titan is supposed to be 3 or 4 times that but I don't think it will change the density of CH4 liquid or ice much. So water ice will sink like the rock it is on Titan. Ethane is slightly denser at 546.49 kg/m^3. But still water ice will sink.

So if those pebbles / rocks in the landing photo are water ice then they probably were eroded by wave and / or wind action (yeah its just a guess).

I find speculating on this stuff just endlessly entertaining.

And actually, natural gas is a liquid that vaporizes at -162 Celcius.

To be completely accurate you need to specify temperature and pressure, but most of the time we know that people are talking about room temp and atmospheric pressure.

Assuming there is such a thing as a limitless resource, it is NOT ethical to impose a limit on it to make a buck. This would explain why I am allowed to breath without charge.

I assume, then, that you feel that selling compressed oxygen to sick people is unethical? After all, there's an unlimited supply.

One might argue that atmospheric oxygen and bottled oxygen are actually different products, and can be priced differently on that basis. One could make the same argument for free software and proprietary software as well.

Sean