Helium is released from alpha decay (hence unlikely to run out in the near future) and is also obtainable from natural gas. That being said it is still non-renewable (in the sense that once the radioactive decays happen no more helium is released) and has quite volatile prices for some reason.
For those who don't know, the helium we use for party balloons is mostly the accumulation of Alpha particles in petroleum reserves. When that helium is released it floats into the upper atmosphere and boils off into space. All other methods of helium acquisition are extremely costly and inefficient.
This means that in the next couple hundred years more or less, humanity will run out of helium cheap enough to use for piddly things like MRIs and particle accelerators. It will essentially become the most valuable resource on the planet mostly extracted from volcanic gasses.
Helium might be expensive, but there is some orher lifting gas that is not. Water vapor. It has about half the buoyancy of helium. It is a bit more complex to use it, because you need to a way to collect the condensation and boil it and send the vapor back. So helium can be used to kickstart the airship production, and once we are reasonably good at it, we can switch to water.
Retrofuturism isn't what it used to be. -- https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroFuturism/ -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrofuturism -- https://goodreads.com/book/show/1117714.The_Way_the_Future_W...
Is this a good use of helium? Is it non renewable? Because a certain amount is being lost during operation I would imagine.
Helium is released from alpha decay (hence unlikely to run out in the near future) and is also obtainable from natural gas. That being said it is still non-renewable (in the sense that once the radioactive decays happen no more helium is released) and has quite volatile prices for some reason.
For those who don't know, the helium we use for party balloons is mostly the accumulation of Alpha particles in petroleum reserves. When that helium is released it floats into the upper atmosphere and boils off into space. All other methods of helium acquisition are extremely costly and inefficient.
This means that in the next couple hundred years more or less, humanity will run out of helium cheap enough to use for piddly things like MRIs and particle accelerators. It will essentially become the most valuable resource on the planet mostly extracted from volcanic gasses.
We’ll be mining the Jovian planets at that point.
Why? That would be like taking a flight to China to buy a gallon of milk.
Wouldn't it be more like going to China to buy herds of cattle?
Helium might be expensive, but there is some orher lifting gas that is not. Water vapor. It has about half the buoyancy of helium. It is a bit more complex to use it, because you need to a way to collect the condensation and boil it and send the vapor back. So helium can be used to kickstart the airship production, and once we are reasonably good at it, we can switch to water.
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i just cant resist drawing a parallel here :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicate_(series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicate_(2012_video_game)
great work guys
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