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But why are they squeaking about a helium release?

Bottoms NOT up! World’s LONGEST aircraft Airlander 10 – dubbed The Flying Bum – crashes in a field sparking fears of helium gas and fuel leaks

Helium’s entirely inert. Plus, very light indeed, meaning that nanoseconds after a leak it’s dispersed hundreds of metres up into the atmosphere. A helium leak or release, as long as you’re not in an enclosed room, is perhaps the least worrying thing ever.

53 thoughts on “But why are they squeaking about a helium release?”

  1. It’s even in the article. It didn’t crash, it broke free of its mooring where safety systems ensure the canopy tears open so the thing doesn’t float around and pose a hazard to anyone on the ground or in the air. Seems very sensible.

  2. What a waste of helium. The only irreplaceable resource on this planet (okay, we probably can’t wait for oil to be recreated but in theory it can be).

    If we didn’t need the helium for super magnets I wouldn’t mind as much, but it seems such an indulgence to piss it away like this.

    As for the hysteria, they’re probably remembering the Hindenburg disaster and not appreciating the difference in tech being used.

  3. Well, no, actually. Helium is one of the very few stable elements continually being generated on the planet. It’s a breakdown product of U and Th. All of the Earth’s original endowment leaked away into space billions of years ago. Everything we’ve got today comes from that radioactive breakdown. Usefully, it concentrates in natural gas reservoirs. The extraction method is to cool the gas down to a liquid.

    Hmm, what is it we’re doing in this brave new world of natural gas? Ah, that’s it, LNG on a large and planet wide scale. We’ve getting ever more helium available to us, not less.

  4. My understanding (so probably wrong) was that Helium comes from 2 places in the world, one in the US and one in Africa. I presume where the alpha decay of radioactive isotopes enables the helium produced to be trapped in rock so we can extract it.

    Assuming there is not a limitless supply of radioactive isotopes in these locations, and we cannot introduce more, what is the likelihood that other similar circumstances exist elsewhere that can be mined. I would expect most other radioactive decay Helium to escape on decay and leave Earth.

    Probably all wrong, but just because we have plenty for our current uses from the two mines doesn’t, in my view, speak to the long term given the unique nature of the product.

  5. So Much For Subtlety

    Someone probably told the Mail that helium was the by product of a nuclear reaction. You might even call it a fission product. So clearly extremely dangerous.

    Not only is helium renewable if you are willing to wait long enough, but also we can live in hope that fusion will work and one day we will be producing, well, not *tons* of the stuff but some. Another thirty years should do it.

    Helium is trapped with natural gas but very few people bother to catch it because it is not worth it. The US did. I expect everywhere else it is flared off.

  6. This is something I went off and investigated in detail. It’s entirely true that there are two places where the natural gas has a high concentration of helium. But all natural gas contains some of it, it’s just the nature of the beast. There’s U and Th through most pieces of rock in the world, especially volcanic origin stuff. You could, technically, (not economically, no way) collect helium from every basement in Cornwall, along with that radon that seeps up through the ground.

    This source isn’t going to run out for tens of millions of years at very minimum. Probably enough to be getting along with.

  7. Oh! I know this one- helium is a byproduct of LNG extraction. We’ve massively expanded LNG production in the last twenty years, and we’re now finding it in many more places.

  8. I want to see the return of the airship.

    But if the latest incarnation can’t even stay moored under a bit of UK breeze then that is a knock to their claim to operate anywhere on Earth.

    I would tend to blame the blimp concept. A solid frame airship would work better.

    Indeed a disc shaped, one or two mile in diameter airship with a gondola(s) larger than all the Royal Caribbean lines “Whatever of the Brine” fleet rolled into one. Capable of carrying 10000 people in conditions of great luxury and ease .Immune to any terrorist caper short of an atom bomb. With a large and well-armed crew too formidable to be hijacked or taken over. Ergo no more excuses for today’s “Get-used-to Tyranny” poxy security theatre. No more TSA trash.

    Of course the old hat idea of an airport can be dispensed with as well. No way anyway to marshal 10000 of today’s knees-under-chin-breathe-the-bogstink air travel-victims in a commercially viable manner.

    Instead the giant discs never land. They are constructed and maintained in floating cities at the top of the atmosphere (yes -viable. The late Gerard K O’Neil worked out the maths 30+ years ago). And constantly circle the Earth. Passengers go up to them and descend via smaller feeder airships. So you get a smaller local feeder that takes you –possibly to a intermediate size airship that transports you on local trips –say France, if for any reason you were foolish enough to want to go there. Or it takes you up for your giant disc trip to New Zealand. It might take slightly longer than a jet but since you will be staying in a flying luxury hotel/resort who cares?

    Indeed communities could form. Small flying towns whereby you can both be at home and travelling all over the world. Ideal also for flying hospitals or clinics like the Mayo. Want extra good medical treatment? Well a clinic will soon be flying over your area . Catch the feeder up there. Spend a trip around the world being treated and then drop down back home as the ship again passes near to your point of origin. Any earthquake or other disaster then flying hospitals could be overhead in mere hours.

    Well a touch of Sunday morning dreaming perhaps. But as the Lord of Dream told Lucifer :”What power would Hell have if those trapped there could not dream of Heaven?”.

  9. So Much For Subtlety

    By the way, the Mail is running a nice article on how America becoming vegetarian would destroy the world – as if millennials who identify as male need any more estrogen in their diet.

    So while their science coverage does have problems, it is still greatly enriching the world.

  10. So Much For Subtlety

    If we are going to have giant world-spanning airships that never land I suggest we take a leaf out of the Sixties play book and power them with nuclear reactors. No need for all that dangerous lighter-than-air gas even if it is helium. Just an old fashioned hot air balloon.

    Oddly enough these appeared in Joe Handleman’s The Forever War. It is odd because he is generally a leftist bed wetter.

  11. So Much For Subtlety

    Surreptitious Evil – “Sewage disposal …”

    People often talk about the need to recycle sewage to put on the fields. Think of it as spontaneous fertilization.

  12. So Much For Subtlety

    Surreptitious Evil – “You’re going to have fields on your airship? I think you need to start consulting some engineers.”

    I was thinking more of under the airship actually.

    Airplanes dispose of sewage all the time. A smaller problem. They very rarely kill people. Although they do sometimes, it seems, kill people. Those people must be embarrassed when they turn up wherever dead people go. It is one thing to die because you got blind drunk and failed to make a turn. It is another to be sitting out on your patio when you get hit by some trans-Atlantic toss pot’s sh!t.

  13. Holy Smoke!

    Mr Ecks is quoting classic graphic novels. I would never have put him down as a Gaiman fan…

    … Wait, there’s no mention of a purge… Is somebody’s impersonating his account?

  14. “Airplanes dispose of sewage all the time”

    Only when they’re on the ground. Aeroplanes that can fly above 10,000ft are pressurised. Once the doors are closed there’s no way to get anything in our out of them (except small amounts of gas).

  15. People often talk about the need to recycle sewage to put on the fields. Think of it as spontaneous fertilization.

    It would be a strange society which insists dog owners pick up their pets’ excreta in little blue plastic bags, but which also sprays (presumably human) sewage all over fields.

  16. Aircraft sewage is stored until after landing and is pumped out by the turd hearse. The “blue ice” happens if there is a fault in the system, and the exit valve leaks. It’s a bug, not a feature.

  17. SMFS–“If we are going to have giant world-spanning airships that never land I suggest we take a leaf out of the Sixties play book and power them with nuclear reactors. No need for all that dangerous lighter-than-air gas even if it is helium. Just an old fashioned hot air balloon.”

    No problem with that. Given sufficient power/heat both air and steam become lifting gases.

    RJB–Gaiman has written some reasonable stuff. Nor is he overly preachy leftwise–at least as far as I have read. Also his DC comics tie-in “Books of Magic” is an enjoyable read involving as it does several longtime DC characters such as “Dr Occult” –some say the first comic book superhero and based to some extent on Aleister Crowley–and the Phantom Stranger etc.

  18. I just assumed that The Mail’s (scientifically illiterate) journalists were horrified that the leaked Helium would drift downwind, leaving the residents of the nearest town all sounding like Minnie Mouse – potentially reducing house prices!

  19. The rare stuff that people might be thinking of is Helium-3, which is used for cryogenic superconductor/superfluid stuff. It’s a decay product of Tritium, which is mainly produced by specialised nuclear reactors. The US used to produce a lot of it for the bomb programme, but I heard a lot of the reactors got shut down with disarmament, so we’re living on the stockpiles built up back then. We’re only ‘running out’ in the sense that we’ve chosen not to make it, since current users don’t have as much money to spare as the US government bomb programme.

    helium-4 is a lot more common, and would be what this airship was filled with.

  20. “Given sufficient power/heat both air and steam become lifting gases.”

    Oh, the humidity!

    Thanks, Ecks, I thought I’d never get that one out.

  21. So Much For Subtlety

    Robert – “I thought helium didn’t burn…”

    It doesn’t. I meant in most places they do not even bother to collect the natural gas. It is burnt in big fires that can be seen from space. Even when the natural gas is collected and shipped somewhere, few places seem to think it is worth the expense of removing the helium. So it is burnt with the natural gas and straight up the chimney it goes.

  22. I doubt we’ll see the return of airships. They only really worked because of range and cost of aircraft. Most people would rather take a quick flight. But for freight, especially large things, there’s probably some uses. It’s a massive pain to move huge things – you have to use sea travel and then figure out how to move them on roads, when an airship could just deliver them door to door.

  23. “Helium’s entirely inert.” My first chemistry lecture at university was on The Reactions of the Inert Gases.

    The point was, I think, to say that you’re not bloody schoolchildren any more.

  24. I already mentioned that unless they were worry about nuclear fusion reaction, helium is inert. But even then, you’ll need a whole lot of specific isotope He3 plus a whole lot of heat and pressure.

  25. Bloke in Costa Rica

    “nanoseconds after a leak it’s dispersed hundreds of metres up into the atmosphere”

    Not unless it’s travelling at several multiples of the speed of light it ain’t. Rule of thumb, for people who like those sorts of things: speed of light = one foot per nanosecond. RMS velocities for gas molecules are of the order of hundreds of meters per second. I’d work it out exactly for He at standard temperature if I had time but that’s ballpark. Diffusion is a random walk so after n steps you expect to be √n away fom your start point. Mean free path in air is ~70 nm. Diffusion time is left as an exercise for the reader.

    OK, pendantry mode deactivated.

  26. “nanoseconds after a leak it’s dispersed hundreds of metres up into the atmosphere”

    Not unless it’s travelling at several multiples of the speed of light it ain’t.

    OGH didn’t specify how many nanoseconds. He could have meant millions…

    </pendantry>

  27. >disc shaped, one or two mile in diameter airship

    If you’ve ever felt a dinghy with a tiny sail heel over under a light breeze, you’ll know that a disk that big ain’t going nowhere the prevailing wind doesn’t want it to go, whatever engines you have. The most you could do,if you’re lucky enough to have the option, is to climb or descend into a different wind stratum, But a disk is exactly the wrong shape to force up or down.

    “Ladies and gentlemen: We’re cruising at 40,000 feet, and arrival over New York….wait a minute….Cairo is expected in ten hours”

  28. @Tim

    I was told (someone at Hoegh LNG) that Helium is something they trade and store as it’s a ‘byproduct’ of their LNG movement.

    In the context, I understood that when they accepted LNG helium was contained within in the manner. It’s separated, it seems, and then moved separately.

    I (obviously) bow to your wisdom, but that was as I understood it

  29. Yep, exactly, He is extracted from natural gas by cooling it to liquid as the first stage. LNG is gas cooled to a liquid. Thus more He can be economically extracted (or, perhaps, sources with lower concentrations can have the He economically extracted) given that we’ve already got the L part paid for in the general process underway.

  30. @TimW

    Cheers: I was worried I’d got the wrong end of the stick, and was clawing my brains for instances where I’d cocked up at work.

    As an aside- this is the kind of thing one of your books covers- ‘The No breakfast fallacy’- isn’t it?


  31. I was told (someone at Hoegh LNG) that Helium is something they trade and store as it’s a ‘byproduct’ of their LNG movement.

    I was actually teasing you on your terminology that LNG was “extracted”. 😉

    If helium is produced as part of the LNG process, I’ve never heard about it. Certainly, the Sakhalin trains didn’t have any helium production, storage, and offloading capability.

  32. Bloke in North Dorset

    Rob,

    “People often talk about the need to recycle sewage to put on the fields. Think of it as spontaneous fertilization.

    It would be a strange society which insists dog owners pick up their pets’ excreta in little blue plastic bags, but which also sprays (presumably human) sewage all over fields.”

    It was banned in 2005, by EU no less, but slurry is still sprayed on fields, or mostly on fields as I found out to my cost when I was out cycling one day.

    If you’re really bored: https://www.wte-ltd.co.uk/emptying_tanks.html

  33. I think you’ll find the price of helium is a factor of the demand for it. Which isn’t a lot. The amount used in cooling supermagnets etc is trivial. It’s major consumption is a welding gas, maybe the pipeline testing TimN refers to. Some gets used so kids can drag balloons around Disneyworld. I’ve an idea some industrial processes may utilise its inertness.
    Like a lot of things we don’t need a lot of the scale benefits in production aren’t there. If a use was found for millions of tons of the stuff prices would plummet.
    That the US used to have a “strategic reserve” probably confuses people into thinking it’s a rare element. Haven’t the vaguest idea why they had one. He’s a large component of the natural gas produced from some US gas fields. Maybe it was the bomb program. Maybe it was just a legacy from when they were using blimps for maritime reconnaissance..

  34. @TimN

    “I was actually teasing you on your terminology that LNG was “extracted”.
    If helium is produced as part of the LNG process, I’ve never heard about it. Certainly, the Sakhalin trains didn’t have any helium production, storage, and offloading capability.”

    Hah! That’s what I get for hanging out with Tanker operators: a nasty tendency to use inappropriate terminology.

    I was quite tired when I wrote it, and you are correct to call it out. (And for reassurance, I know that it doesn’t come out the ground in liquid form).

    As for your experience in Sakhalin: I don’t know, but it might be that any helium was taken out further downstream (or maybe it wasn’t present in significant amounts?).

    I know (because I’ve just checked) that gas chromatography onboard FRSU’s and LNGC’s does report on-not just detect- the helium fraction detected in cargoes as part of boil-off gas (when used for fuel onboard). Clearly those guys expect it to be present, and monitor it’s levels accordingly.

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