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Researchers Find Game-Changing Helium Reserve In Tanzania (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via CNN: Helium is an incredibly important element that is used in everything from party balloons to MRI machines -- it's even used for nuclear power. For many years, there have been global shortages of the element. For example, Tokyo Disneyland once had to suspend sales of its helium balloons due to the shortages. The shortages are expected to come to an end now that researchers from Oxford and Durham universities have discovered a "world-class" helium gas field in Tanzania's East African Rift Valley. They estimate that just one part of the reserve in Tanzania could be as large as 54 billion cubic feet (BCf), which is enough to fill more than 1.2 million medical MRI scanners. "To put this discovery into perspective, global consumption of helium is about 8 billion cubic feet (BCf) per year and the United States Federal Helium Reserve, which is the world's largest supplier, has a current reserve of just 24.2 BCf," said University of Oxford's Chris Ballentine, a professor with the Department of Earth Sciences. "Total known reserves in the USA are around 153 BCf. This is a game-changer for the future security of society's helium needs and similar finds in the future may not be far away," Ballentine added.
Mineshaft Gap
Why the f*ck are we still wasting this gas on such stupid things as party balloons. Why wasn't this completely verboten years ago.
Seriously, click bait much? Yes, it is a large find, but at 8 BCF/year it is about 6 or 7 years of supply, that is NOT a game changer for humanity, that is a game changer for the people that will make a fortune rationing it out until we run out of helium.
That's hot air. I can see how you could be confused, though, as they both make balloons fly.
Nice rant about the US and UK pillaging the innocent locals. You seem to have missed the most obvious choice: Local Tanzanian officials will vastly enrich themselves and send their families to the US and UK while leaving nothing for the people.
Up to now helium was found by chance when drilling for something else. This time they worked out a geological model of where to look, and sure enough they found a huge amount the first place they looked based on that model.
That's the "game changer", knowing where to look for helium.
There are generally other workable replacements to be had for most of He's uses. Just ask Zeppelin about that.
We can't just replace He with Pb, idiot.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
He seems to know a great deal more about it than you do. The Germans used hydrogen because the US had a monopoly on helium and wouldn't sell them any, thanks to their using zeppelins in WW1. Verstehen Sie?
> Nobody ever said Government was smart and foreword thinking about what it does. In fact, most thinking people understand that it's quite the opposite, government is usually stupid, slow, costly and inefficient, a set of traist that gets worse as government gets bigger.
I HOPE my government remains slow and inefficient. Holding public hearings, referendums, etc. is slow and inefficient. Giving the minority opinion a chance to speak their mind is slow and inefficient. It's much more faster and more efficient for a dictator to just declare government policy. Publishing proposed laws before for several days before they are voted on slows things down.
It took from 1993 to 2010, seventeen years, to pass HillaryCare. I like that way much better than the alternative, which can be seen in North Korea, Cuba, and Syria. They don't bother with transparency laws, public bidding on government contracts, etc. That stuff is inefficient.