Apr 9
Helium is Quickly Disappearing from Earth
That's a serious problem… and not just for your next birthday party.
Remember when you were a kid and you used to suck the air out of birthday party balloons so that, when you talked, it would sound cartoonishly high pitched? Remember how fun that was?
Well, guess what friend? The party's over! Now, mom's crying over the punch bowl while dad storms out to go "buy another pack of cigarettes" leaving you with nothing but cake crumbs, shredded wrapping paper, and shattered birthday dreams.
And you deserve it too — you know why? Because you just wasted that helium! It's going to space and it's never coming back. Now scientists can't perform quantum computing, doctors can't do MRIs, and Jeff Bezos will NEVER get another penis-shaped rocketship into space!
Bet you didn't see that coming, did ya?
I don't mean to stress you out (I do, I love it) but helium is an insanely important and rare element that is quickly disappearing from our planet. Unlike nearly every other element on the periodic table, helium is light enough to resist gravity and float off into space, never to be seen again.
This makes helium 100% non-renewable! Ready to freak out as we learn more about this vanishing element that runs crucial parts of our lives? Great, let's dive right in then!
*high-pitched helium crying*
But of course, helium history
1868 Helium is first discovered 93,000,000 miles away from Earth while being radiated out of our good friend, the sun. In honor of this stellar discovery, it's named helium, after the Greek god of the sun, Helios.
1895 Turns out that helium exists on Earth too! This helium-sized leap forward was thanks to Scottish chemist Sir William Ramsay who burned some uranium, collected the gas it emitted, and realized what it was.
1903 A massive helium reserve is discovered in Kansas which is where most of the world gets its helium even today!
1914–1919 Tired of their hydrogen-filled zeppelins exploding after being shot at with incendiary bullets, the US begins experimenting with helium zeppelins instead (helium doesn't ignite). However, the war ends before they can be put into action.
1925 Realizing the strategic importance of helium, the US creates the National Helium Reserve in Amarillo, Texas.
1927 Congress passes the Helium Control Act embargoing the export of helium. This inadvertently leads to the Hindenburg disaster since the German Zeppelin company can't get their hands on helium and instead have to go back to using hydrogen.
1960 Helium becomes an essential tool during the space race, able to cool rocket engines and push the fuel out of the rockets (more on that later). 5 new helium refineries are opened as a result.
1996 Congress decides to sell off all helium reserves by 2013.
2013 Congress realizes how idiotic that 1996 decision was and does a complete 180. Although not before selling off 2/3rds of their helium at stupidly low prices.
By now you're probably saying something along the lines of, "Thanks for the lame history lesson, nerd. But why should I give 2 squeaky farts about dumb helium?"
It's time for a game of Meet Your Helium!
Introducing helium! She's a sexy, simple, and lightweight gal who happens to be the second most abundant element in the entire universe! Better ask her out quick though fellas because, despite that, she only makes up .0005% of all atmospheric gases here on earth!
When she's not floating off into space, helium can be found in the radioactive decay given off by elements like uranium and thorium. If you thought your girlfriend took a while to get ready you're in for quite the wait though boys because helium takes several thousand years before she can be extracted from deep underground.
But just what makes this precious and precocious element impossible to live without? Unlike nearly everything else in the universe, helium doesn't cool into a liquid form until she hits 4.2 degrees Kelvin — barely warmer than the temperature of outer space! This means that helium can be used to cool everything from rocket ships to superconductors!
That's it?
No!
- In medicine, helium is crucial for MRI machines and for laser-eye surgery.
- The military uses it for rocket engine testing, surveillance aircraft, and even air-to-air missile guidance systems — BOOM baby!
- Thermographic cameras and other heat-vision systems require helium as a coolant which is crucial for search and rescue teams.
- Heavy industries use helium in order to detect and prevent dangerous gas leaks. It's also used in the manufacture of air conditioners, tires, refrigerators, and fire extinguishers as a way to test seals.
- NASA, SpaceX, and Bezos' penis rockets use helium to keep hot gases and super-cold liquid fuels away from each other during liftoff. Helium is also injected into fuel canisters to push the fuel out so that spaceships can actually make it off the planet.
- Nuclear reactors use helium as a coolant since it isn't radioactive.
- Silicon, titanium, zirconium, and germanium all require helium to be produced/grown.
- Used by deep divers and in deep-water subs to resist massive pressures and create a safe breathing atmosphere.
And that's just the tip of the helium iceberg!
Let's really quickly run through the rest of the industries that use helium:
- Cryogenics
- Superconductive magnets
- Laster pointers
- Supersonic wind tunnels
- Cardiopulmonary resuscitation pumps
- Blimps
- Arc welding
- X-ray crystallography
- Quantum computing
- and many more complicated systems that I didn't understand one bit!
Most of the items on this list require helium and only helium. We currently have no other substitute for many of these important processes.
What's the bad news?
The bad news is that the global helium market is walking on a tightrope. Most of the world's helium comes from the US, although in 2017 Qatar created one of the world's largest helium units. Russia, Australia, Canada, Algeria, and Poland also have helium plants although their global contribution is extremely negligible.
Basically, most of the world's helium comes from 2 places — the US and Qatar. If anything should happen to these helium plants, well, that wouldn't be great for the world's helium market. The best example was in 2012 when, in preparation to finish selling off all the strategic reserves of helium, there were mass helium shortages and everyone from MRI manufacturers to NASA was sitting on their hands.
On top of that, as was mentioned before, it's a non-renewable resource. What we have now is pretty much what we have. Some scientists estimate that, with the current amount of helium estimated to be on Earth, we may run out between 2040–2050.
Is there good news?
Actually yes.
Other scientists believe that there's a lot more helium on earth than we first thought. Already a new reserve was discovered in the Rocky Mountains (although getting to it might be tricky) and some estimate that helium might also be found under freshwater reserves.
So, does this mean you should stop filling up your birthday balloons with helium? Well, not really. In fact, the only reason most of us even think about helium is because of those bright little balls of helium-filled rubber joy.
Just make sure you create a little video of you and your kids making those hilarious helium-voices right before you get consumed with endless guilt. After all, for all we know, we might be the last generations to enjoy that simple helium-based pleasure.
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