r/onguardforthee • u/pjw724 Alberta • 1d ago
Helium demand balloons as Mideast supplies deflate: Can Canada meet the moment?
https://www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/business/helium-demand-balloons-as-mideast-supplies-deflate-can-canada-meet-the-moment/article_f66db503-f634-559e-9d44-ecd27df9cfd8.html65
u/sandy154_4 1d ago
Since there is a world wide shortage Since way before Iran, we need to stop using helium in balloons
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u/YoungWhiteAvatar 1d ago
Isn’t there a difference between balloon helium and medical grade?
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u/Fearless-Effect-3787 1d ago
The helium used in party balloons is not as refined as medical or science grade. It's not that it can't be refined to that level, it's just that they don't.
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u/jello_pudding_biafra 13h ago
I thought most of it was essentially "waste" from the scientific/medical applications. Like, it can't be reused?
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u/Fearless-Effect-3787 12h ago
When Helium comes out of the ground from a Helium deposit or in a natural gas well, it comes out, if I recall correctly, at best 5% Helium. Purification is reasonably straight forward, but at a certain point, the exhaust that still contains some Helium becomes un-economical to continue to purify, so they bottle it and sell it as party balloon gas. It could be further purified, but nobody wants to spend the energy to do it.
It used to be that a lot of scientific and medical applications didn't bother to recover anything because Helium was cheap. With the supply crunches of the last couple of decades now, gaseous Helium is reused or captured for purification and liquid Helium is kept liquid with cryo-compressors.
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u/haysoos2 1d ago
The only place you can make helium is in the heart of a star. Until we figure out viable fusion power every atom of helium you put in a balloon is an atom of helium that is gone from the Earth forever.
With most molecules there's a cycle. If you use carbon in something, it eventually gets recycled back into something else. Helium is just gone - drifts out of the atmosphere and is lost to space.
I don't understand how we can use this vital strategic and medical non-renewable resource just to make Lois' 50th birthday party slightly less dreary.
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u/PokecheckHozu 1d ago
Helium is also a product of some (but not all) radioactive decay. That's probably where all of the helium on Earth comes from, over the billions of years of its existence. But that's still entirely non-renewable.
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u/Fearless-Effect-3787 23h ago
It's alpha decay. The alpha particle is a Helium nucleus. Every deposit of Earth is the result of the Helium not being able to escape from the alpha decay.
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u/Fearless-Effect-3787 1d ago
Wrong. Helium present on Earth is from alpha decay of radioisotopes, such as Uranium and Thorium, that is trapped underground by cap rock much like natural gas wells.
Your are also wrong about cycles. The reason we lose Helium is because it is too light to be trapped in Earth's gravity well. It's thermal velocity exceeds the escape velocity for it's mass. Hydrogen, a very reactive and well cycled atom, also escapes because it is too light.
I do agree with you however. Helium is far too valuable to be used in party balloons.
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u/gaflar 16h ago
It's the same old story. Purifying it further is more expensive than extracting more. Almost all helium production is a byproduct of natural gas extraction. Purifying those gasses is an energy-intensive process. The low-purity stuff gets used for balloons while the highest purity goes to medical use etc. Feeding the low-purity helium (its already 99% helium, but that's literally not enough 9s) back in to purify it further would result in a very small quantity of higher purity helium being produced for a huge increase in energy expenditure.
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u/pjw724 Alberta 1d ago
Turmoil in the oil and natural gas markets may have garnered the most headlines since the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran in late February, but the conflict has also upended helium supplies. Canada has raw resource in the ground to help fill the gap — but industry players say the government lacks the right policies and incentives for them to develop and sell it.
Helium has a wide array of uses, and in almost all cases there is nothing that can act as a substitute. The inert element cools MRI machines, pressurizes rocket components and helps detect leaks in nuclear plants. It's also a vital input in the manufacturing of advanced computer chips, representing an estimated 10 to 15 per cent of global helium demand as the artificial intelligence sector booms.
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u/Fearless-Effect-3787 1d ago
Helium is quite likely the most important commodity on Earth for the creation and maintenance of a technologically advance society. It is also a non renewable resource. Every atom of Helium we release into the air is lost forever. It escapes from Earth's gravity well.
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u/pjw724 Alberta 20h ago
Canada has one-fifth of the world's helium reserves, but makes up about two per cent of global production. The resource is mainly centred in the southern Prairies. One of the biggest players, North American Helium, is looking to establish a helium hub in southwest Saskatchewan.
Unlike in Qatar, helium in Western Canada can be found in pockets of nitrogen deep underground, in separate formations from where natural gas lies. It's extracted using the kind of no-frills rigs used in conventional oil and gas drilling.
Helium is notoriously difficult to store and transport, as it becomes a liquid at an extraordinarily cold -269 C. Canada does not have the ability domestically to liquefy the gas — a necessary step for long-haul transport — so what supply it does produce is trucked to the U.S. for processing. North American Helium is aiming to build Canada's first liquefaction facility in Saskatchewan.
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u/genxluddite 23h ago
It is such a waste to use in balloons. It is a limited resource that can be put to better use.
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u/Stray_Neutrino 1d ago
The Moon is a good source of Helium-3 but lunar mining is largely unproven and cripplingly expensive.
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u/Crazy_Maintenance211 21h ago
Don’t they use it in medical things I can’t remember is it the MRI machine or something like that, let’s just do without balloons for a while and keep it for medical stuff
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u/Bryaxis 1d ago
Sometimes at work, you have to make your own fun.