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The Outfall of a Helium-3 Crisis

Posted by samzenpus on from the mining-the-moon dept.

astroengine writes "The United States is currently recovering from a helium isotope crisis that last year sent low-temperature physicists scrambling, sky-rocketed the cost of hospital MRI's, and threw national security staff out on a search mission for alternate ways to detect dirty bombs. Now the panic is subsiding, what is being done to conserve, or replace, helium-3?"

2 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Temporary problem. by Mt._Honkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Okay, now I've RTFA, and it is one of the worst science articles I've ever read outside New Scientist or Conservapedia. Let us delve in:

    But the isotope, helium-3, like many rare Earth elements, has been in high demand with only limited supply.

    Helium is not a rare earth element. I have a feeling this line was inserted just to pitch the link below it.

    The gas is part of the leftovers that come from cooking up a hydrogen bomb: you know two parts uranium; one part tritium

    No idea where that ratio came from. It's not true and irrelevant.

    While there are other ways of decaying tritium without needing to build a bomb to do it...

    Is the author fully ignorant of nuclear physics or is she gearing up for some kind of scam where she sells "Tritium Decayers" to the government?

    But if a patient takes a breath of helium-3, the resulting MRI is so bright it looks as though the patient inhaled a light bulb.

    Not as bad, but misses a great opportunity to explain HOW He3 helps lung imaging. He-3 doesn't exist in any significant quantities in the body, so you can tune the MRI to look for that nucleus and bam, you can see the shape of whatever you fill with it.

    Until the FDA approves the recycled helium for humans...

    The FDA needs to approve this? That's odd, I wonder why. Too bad you didn't explain why or tell us what stage of approval its in.

    For a party that suddenly saw the balloons all pop, despite the warnings, everyone jumped.

    wat

    --

    Don't Bogart the fish sticks
  2. Re:Free market by sjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because, naturally, the vagaries of the market are so much more important than human life. We live only to serve the economy, OH WAIT!

    The economy and the market exist ONLY to serve us, never the other way around. Their "goodness" may be judged exclusively by how well they accomplish this.

    I doubt a shortage will be allowed to continue though since DHS needs it to check our Chinese diethylene glycol laden toothpaste for bombs.