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Earth's helium reserves will run out within


Still Waters

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It is more commonly known as the gas that fills cheap party balloons and makes your voice squeak if you inhale it.

But helium is actually a precious resource that is being squandered with Earth's reserves of it due to run out within 25 to 30 years, experts have warned.

Earth’s resources of helium are being depleted at an astonishing rate, an effect which will spell disaster for hospitals which use it to cool MRI scanners.

The world's biggest store of helium - the most commonly used inert gas - lies in a disused airfield in Amarillo, Texas, and is being sold off far too cheaply.

But in 1996, the US government passed a law which states that the facility - the US National Helium Reserve - must be completely sold off by 2015 to recoup the price of installing it.

This means that the helium, a non-renewable gas, is being quickly sold off at increasingly cheap prices, making it uneconomical to recycle.

Nasa uses the gas to clean its rockets of fuel while liquid helium is used to cool nuclear reactors and space telescopes.

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All the more reason to push the 'space programs'

I hope this becomes a United Effort with the best talents / resources of the world combining all their talents .. that the nations keeping their egos at bay.. and becoming Earth Proud.. rather than Nation Proud.

It is time for the world to grow up and realize the only way to properly colonize other worlds and make this great leap , is to do it as a United effort... then there would be no added problems of sobotage...rushing into things before all is ready just to beat the others.. and other childish games

.. we need to view all nations on earth as family.. ones we can rely on to help out whenever.. where ever.. how ever...

who all want each other to do well.

Have these space missions as Earth missions...

NASA plans to have a permanent moon base by 2024, but America is not the only nation with plans for a moon base. China, India, the European Space Agency, and at least one Russian corporation, Energia, have visions of building manned lunar bases post-2020.

Mining the moon for helium-3 has been discussed widely in space circles and international space conferences. Both China and Russia have stated their nations' interest in helium-3.

"We will provide the most reliable report on helium-3 to mankind," Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist of China's lunar program, told a Chinese newspaper. "Whoever first conquers the moon will benefit first."

Read More http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2006/12/72276#ixzz0xT2b5kUI

Russia is planning to mine a rare fuel on the moon by 2020 with a permanent base and a heavy-cargo transport link, a Russian space official said Wednesday.

"We are planning to build a permanent base on the moon by 2015 and by 2020 we can begin the industrial-scale delivery... of the rare isotope Helium-3," Nikolai Sevastyanov, head of the Energia space corporation, was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying at an academic conference.

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Edited by crystal sage
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oh, dear were running out of helium, what are the Bee Gees going to do.

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I've know this for years. If you're going to buy stock, buy it in a helium company. We can produce helium, however it is very costly and invovles splitting atoms...sound familiar? :P

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Now this sucks. Out of all the depressing things that have come out lately this is the worst. I mean ****, no more floating balloons, no more getting drunk sucking up as much helium as possible and singing staying alive at the top of your lungs? Crap!

Mike

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oh, dear were running out of helium, what are the Bee Gees going to do.

damn dood I about spit my tea all over the keyboard. LOL

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I thought Crude Oil was meant to run out in the late 90's as well?

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How exactly is it being used up? Unless it is escaping into space, it is still here. It does not react into other substances. Eventually it will be cost effective to recycle or capture it from the atmosphere. Supply and demand will set what it costs, but the supply will not run out anytime soon.

It is not like petroleum that needs to be checmically altered and burned to use.

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How exactly is it being used up? Unless it is escaping into space, it is still here. It does not react into other substances. Eventually it will be cost effective to recycle or capture it from the atmosphere. Supply and demand will set what it costs, but the supply will not run out anytime soon.

It is not like petroleum that needs to be checmically altered and burned to use.

Um, yeah, it does escape into space. It is one of the properties of Helium since it is one of the lightest elements in the periodic table. I'm sure at some point we will be able to harness some being emitted from the sun. Maybe in the next millenia or two.

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Well, someone must have miscalculated badly, because according to teh Wikilypedia, Next to hydrogen, it is the second most abundant element in the universe, and accounts for 24% of the elemental mass of our galaxy.

So if humanity really can't work out how to obtain the stuff in quanitity, I really think they ought to start working out a way, don't you.

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this isanother lie to frighten ppl into submission

I don't exactly see how anyone would be cowed by a lack of helium...maybe those who desperately crave high, squeaky voices? I guess the government would have them over a barrel.

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An obvious question needs to be asked -

Where the hell did they get the initial supply from, and why can't they get more?

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An obvious question needs to be asked -

Where the hell did they get the initial supply from, and why can't they get more?

From the gas and dust cloud of which the earth condensed. To do it again we would have to start a new Big Bang.

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To be more precise, they got the supply from tritium decay. No more nuclear weapons, means no more tritium, means no more helium.

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To be more precise, they got the supply from tritium decay. No more nuclear weapons, means no more tritium, means no more helium.

The few pounds you get out of nuclear weapons really does not make any difference in the big picture. Balloon fliers use more every year.

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From the gas and dust cloud of which the earth condensed. To do it again we would have to start a new Big Bang.

Surely everything has its origins then. And if the figure quoted by Wiky Pedia is right, there'd seem to be more than enough to go round. One suspects that this is just another attempt by American big business to monopolise the world's supply of something.

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Surely everything has its origins then. And if the figure quoted by Wiky Pedia is right, there'd seem to be more than enough to go round. One suspects that this is just another attempt by American big business to monopolise the world's supply of something.

Yes, but it is a matter of economics as well. Is it cost efficient to exctract it? We have been using the best and most cost efficient sources and when that is gone, the price will go up as it will become harder to obtain.

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From what I read about Helium on Wikipedia, it is mostly produced by seperating it from natural gas, where it is created by natural radioactive decay. About 7% by mass is what it says. So as long as we have natural gas, we have helium. And from what I have read the natural gas supplies are expected to last 100 more years with the supply we know of now, at least in the USA.

Edited by DieChecker
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All of you scientific minded people, fill a balloon with helium and what does it do? People are getting more obese now, right? Why? Do you think that if they were taller they would be less obese or not at all? Start pumping helium into the atmosphere.

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