Government Allocation of Helium?

[MichigandiverJon]

. What kind of SPF would you need?

LOL!!! Only you man! Only you!

 

[Akimbo]

Attached is a table showing Helium usage by sector from the USGS.

minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/helium-use.xls‎

 

[drbill]

I heard from a reputable source that Richard Branson is investing in a helium mine on the sun, could be good news for us!

Ha, I was going to suggest some enterprising entrepreneur develop such a business, but you beat me to it. Of course start-up costs would be rather "astronomical"

 

[MichigandiverJon]

Attached is a table showing Helium usage by sector from the USGS.

minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/helium-use.xls‎

So the helium itself isn't really getting scarcer it's our consumption of it that has skyrocketed. That makes more sense to me.

 

[Akimbo]

So the helium itself isn't really getting scarcer it's our consumption of it that has skyrocketed. That makes more sense to me.

I think it is a little of both. The natural gas wells in the US that have high concentrations of Helium are declining, which are less expensive to separate. It will be interesting if to see if the drilling and fracking activity finds more.

 

[KD8NPB]

There's always hydrogen.

 

[Wookie]

There's always hydrogen.

For anyone who remembers Dr. Fife (the elder, father of Dr. Carolyn Fife), the stories told around College Station was that Texas A&M kept moving his lab farther out in the woods because he was experimenting with breathing hydrogen under hyparbaric conditions, and he kept blowing up the lab. It may all be urban legend for all I know, but fun storytelling anyway.

 

[WeekendDiver]

Extracting He from NG is by far the most common way of extracting it...
National Helium Reserve - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[ajduplessis]

I will not dive hydrogen again, got bent last time. My instructor blames the altitude air tables I used, but I am sure it was the hydrogen.

 

[Wookie]

I will not dive hydrogen again, got bent last time. My instructor blames the altitude air tables I used, but I am sure it was the hydrogen.

Were you using helium tables or nitrogen tables? The hydrogen is a much faster gas than nitrogen, so you really have to watch your ascent rates.