Calls to ban Helium balloons

Dr Peter Wothers, a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a University of Cambridge chemist, will use this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures to argue that there will be “serious problems” in 30 to 50 years’ time if the lighter-than-air gas continues to be wasted in party balloons.

Helium is a non-renewable gas that is used to cool magnets in MRI scanners in hospitals. It is also mixed with oxygen to make breathing easier for ill patients and can help save new-born babies’ lives.
However, there is currently a global shortage of the gas, which cannot be synthesized. The gas has to be extracted from beneath the earth’s crust and 75 per cent of the world’s helium comes from the US.

Dr Wothers will warn: “The scarcity of helium is a really serious issue. I can imagine that in 50 years time our children will be saying ‘I can’t believe they used such a precious material to fill balloons’.”

telegraph

We don't have a way of making Helium artificially, it's rare and is created as a result of radioactive decay. Helium that's released in to the atmosphere escapes in to space never to be seen again, that's inevitably what will happen to Helium used to fill balloons. It's being wasted and needs to be saved for suture uses (not balloons).

It's sad to think that in 50 years time I will not be able to make the grandchildren that I hope to have laugh by singing a song in a funny voice. So next time you're inhaling that balloon, think about our future.

You know I was worried about peak oil and water shortages, but if we can't have party balloons what's the point?


No twinkies, no party balloons, bring on the apocalypse

Originally posted by Hawking
You know I was worried about peak oil and water shortages, but if we can't have party balloons what's the point?


No twinkies, no party balloons, bring on the apocalypse

I've never had a twinkie, but no balloons is enough to tip me over the edge. Yes, bring on the apocalypse.

I heard about this years ago, there's tons of it throughout the universe but not here on earth so in the future we might be able to mine it, Jupiter has lots I think...

But as usual people don't care until its nearly run out just like the oil, when will we learn...

It seems like if it 'can't be synthesized' and it's 'non-renewable' that substitutes may be looked for and found when the need arises. For something so potentially valuable, it's still awful cheap.

And am I the only one who ever wonders if helium balloons have ever caused an airplane accident? Has one ever been reported to have been sucked into the air intake of a jet engine? Birds are bad enough...

Is someone seriously suggesting a world wide unsolvable shortage of precious balloon helium exists? Err... Okay... Do people actually get paid to look into stuff like this? I really gotta ask..cause it just strikes me as wayyy too much free time here. Like....WAYYYY too much free time.

if im correct helium is lethal lol. yeas i know about funny balloon voice u do it non stop ur brain will fry. my aunts cousin died from hellium on a dare she died seizuring. but mixed with oxygen i dunno?

reply to post by blownaway

For what it's worth... Helium is part of the breathing mixture for deep sea diving.

Deep Helium

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
Is someone seriously suggesting a world wide unsolvable shortage of precious balloon helium exists? Err... Okay... Do people actually get paid to look into stuff like this? I really gotta ask..cause it just strikes me as wayyy too much free time here. Like....WAYYYY too much free time.

No, a shortage of helium exists. Helium has many uses, and will have many more uses outside of parties. It's being wasted on stuff like balloons.

The obvious answer is to start using hydrogen in party balloons....Aaaand to create fire retardant "party suits."

Okay kids it's... PARTY TIME

Originally posted by blownaway
if im correct helium is lethal lol. yeas i know about funny balloon voice u do it non stop ur brain will fry. my aunts cousin died from hellium on a dare she died seizuring. but mixed with oxygen i dunno?

No it's not. People can die from excessively breathing it in, but that's due to lack of oxygen rather than the Helium itself. If you're just breathing in Helium then you have no carbon-dioxide building up to tell your body that you need to breath. Even if it was lethal it doesn't matter, it has uses.

reply to post by SpearMint


If it's just funny voices at parties people are worried about (with the helium supply in decline) they will just have to switch from sounding like a chipmunk, to sounding like Andre the Giant:

(Novelty preserved)



Although SF6 doesn't do much for floating the balloons, it's great for not floating...

Originally posted by blownaway
if im correct helium is lethal lol. yeas i know about funny balloon voice u do it non stop ur brain will fry. my aunts cousin died from hellium on a dare she died seizuring. but mixed with oxygen i dunno?

It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas

You will probably die, however, from a lack of oxygen if you continually breath things other than air.

I also think the topic is more about the loss of a noble gas, and not so much the loss of party balloons.

Mind you, given some things of late around here, the only way some people would notice there is no Helium left on earth would be because there are no more floaty balloons... that's sad.

Originally posted by boncho
reply to post by SpearMint

 

If it's just funny voices at parties people are worried about (with the helium supply in decline) they will just have to switch from sounding like a chipmunk, to sounding like Andre the Giant:

(Novelty preserved)

Although SF6 doesn't do much for floating the balloons, it's great for not floating...

I'm ok with this. If people want floating balloons we could just fill the room with Sulphur Hexafluoride, and fill the balloons with regular air. Everybody wins!

If I'm reading the article correctly, he's talking about a shortage possibly being a problem in 30-50 years, correct? 'm kinda hoping the world still has need for advanced cooling in 10 years the way things are going. If we make it 30..I'm thinking they'll have invented things we haven't even imagined yet. Think of what people thought was high tech in 1983. Err.....Miami Vice days with mobile phones roughly the size and near the weight of a garden brick when they weren't wired to the car permanently.

It just seems like everything that brings a smile to anyone's face is under attack by someone on some seemingly good pretense or another. I'll take the possible crisis in 3 decades for the smiles it puts on little kids faces today. Heck..the world is a bad enough place. The balloons seem a safe enough indulgence for a few more years.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
If I'm reading the article correctly, he's talking about a shortage possibly being a problem in 30-50 years, correct? 'm kinda hoping the world still has need for advanced cooling in 10 years the way things are going. If we make it 30..I'm thinking they'll have invented things we haven't even imagined yet. Think of what people thought was high tech in 1983. Err.....Miami Vice days with mobile phones roughly the size and near the weight of a garden brick when they weren't wired to the car permanently.

It just seems like everything that brings a smile to anyone's face is under attack by someone on some seemingly good pretense or another. I'll take the possible crisis in 3 decades for the smiles it puts on little kids faces today. Heck..the world is a bad enough place. The balloons seem a safe enough indulgence for a few more years.

Who's to say we won't have other uses for it in the future? We don't just use it for cooling now. People that think like you are the reason we're facing this problem in the first place.

reply to post by SpearMint


Wow, you're not kidding (whether there's an actual shortage, I don't know, but the price for a tank from Amazon has sure gone up). We got one of those "flying" sharks for the dogs & I'm pretty sure the tank was about 40 bucks. It is $60 now.
Thanks for the heads up (before it gets any worse/ goes away).

Originally posted by DogsDogsDogs
reply to post by SpearMint

 

Wow, you're not kidding (whether there's an actual shortage, I don't know, but the price for a tank from Amazon has sure gone up). We got one of those "flying" sharks for the dogs & I'm pretty sure the tank was about 40 bucks. It is $60 now.
Thanks for the heads up (before it gets any worse/ goes away).

I suppose "shortage" is subjective, but there's definitely a limited supply that's getting smaller and smaller.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

It just seems like everything that brings a smile to anyone's face is under attack by someone on some seemingly good pretense or another. I'll take the possible crisis in 3 decades for the smiles it puts on little kids faces today. Heck..the world is a bad enough place. The balloons seem a safe enough indulgence for a few more years.

What about the kid in 30-50 years that has a cancerous tumour but they won't operate on it because they haven't been able to image it in their NMR because of a helium shortage?

So, that's what the Mayans meant. Party balloons will be banned on December 21st, 2012. The end of the world as we know it.