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Scientists Speak Out Against Wasting Helium In Balloons
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that Tom Welton, a professor of sustainable chemistry at Imperial College, London, believes that a global shortage of helium means it should be used more carefully — and since helium cools the large magnets inside MRI scanners it is wrong to use it for balloons used at children's parties. 'We're not going to run out of helium tomorrow — but on the 30 to 50 year timescale we will have serious problems of having to shut things down if we don't do something in the meantime,' says Welton. 'When you see that we're literally just letting it float into the air, and then out into space inside those helium balloons, it's just hugely frustrating. It is absolutely the wrong use of helium.' Two years ago, the shortage of helium prompted American Nobel Prize winner Robert Richardson to speak out about the huge amounts of helium wasted every day because the gas is kept artificially cheap by the U.S. government and to call for a dramatic increase in helium's price. But John Lee, chairman of the UK's Balloon Association, insists that the helium its members put into balloons is not depriving the medical profession of the gas. 'The helium we use is not pure,' says Lee. 'It's recycled from the gas which is used in the medical industry, and mixed with air. We call it balloon gas rather than helium for that reason.'"
There is a lot of Helium in the Sun, so go to the Sun and get some and bring it back. Dear Laura: Wowza, you look great!
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There may be a free-market solution. Let's float a trial balloon and see how everyone reacts.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Using hydrogen for childrens' party balloons would solve the problem and make things potentially much more exciting!
Hurry up and get those fusion plants up and running!
So you're telling me that Helium prices are... inflated?
Balloons are every kid's enjoyment for birthdays, special event or talking like an oompa-loompa, fun-hater Tom Welton. Good luck explaining that Hellium is essential to MRI equipment because it's low boiling point and keep magnets cool to kids who just want a Mylar balloon that says "Happy Birthday".
I think we need to reevaluate what's wrong and focus research towards re-engineering MRI machines or use different mediums to cool these differently. I've seen this in the news for almost the last decade and if it's such a dilemma. What's that famous Albert Einsetin quote? "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
Once again we see it demonstrated that the most apt definition of a "scientist" is "political activist that also wants to take credit for advances actually developed by engineers, entrepreneurs and lay inventors".
My argument (second account, /. limits my comments on the first account)
Please take the hint.
If comes from upsidasium mines in Frostbite Falls.
...market forces are unstoppable, they are forces of nature...
Gravity, strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic... nope no market in there... citation required.
Andy Warhol got it right / Everybody gets the limelight
Andy Warhol got it wrong / Fifteen minutes is too long.
in a ridiculous helium voice saying "is this an inappropriate use of helium?"
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
ORLY? Scientist cannot produce helium (he can produce hot gas, but not of that type), while a commercial operation that extracts natural gas can produce (extract) Helium from their gas and sell it in the market.
For decades gov't has been overpaying for Helium using tax payer dollars to build up this 'strategic reserve' for war, what else? So the market produces a good and gov't steals it from the market by stealing money from tax payers and overpaying for that good, thus denying the market that produced that good from access to that very good.
A humanitarian would not say: do more of that, take more of tax payer money to buy up the product that people apparently want for some uses at inflated prices, thus denying those very people access to that very product.
If the gov't simply sets a floor price on Helium without buying it from the natural gas producers, then they will simply be dumping the gas into the space, because they are not going to store something they can't sell, and they won't be able to sell almost any of it at prices that this Richardson 'academic' wants. (he wants the prices to be 20 times what they are today at least).
A humanitarian? A humanitarian is not somebody who denies people access to things they want by using threat of government violence (that is what all laws are based upon).
A humanitarian? The same type of humanitarian that says that health care should be only provided by government, because it's "not a market good"? Well, let's put it this way, before market provided people with Helium, nobody provided people with Helium. Before market provided people with health care, nobody did. Then various governments came and took away those goods from people by using tax payer money to create artificial demand and raise the prices. This is as true for Helium as it is for health care, people used to be able to buy health care out of pocket and it was cheap. Once government got involved, it became almost impossible to buy for most people out of pocket. Same with insurance.
Actually same with the houses right now, same with credit right now, same with anything that government gets into.
A true humanitarian would be speaking up for free markets with all his passion, he wouldn't be trying to dictate to people.
I mean how Orwellian is it, that the markets, that provided the actual goods to the people in the first place, are called 'immoral' and 'evil', while governments, that actually stole the goods from the people are considered 'moral' somehow? Stealing from the people, to buy up a resource so that people cannot afford to buy it on their own (both, because their money is taken away from them in taxes and because gov't can pay much more for a resource and thus it buys up the entire supply). This is moral? This is schizophrenia, people who believe such things need help.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Childrens party ballons are filled with MEDICAL WASTE?