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So, this helium market then

Another episode in that idea that we’re running out of stuff and no one may have party balloons any more.

11 thoughts on “So, this helium market then”

  1. O/T

    UK Gov’t to follow Sturgeon and incite non-compliance

    “Census could ask ‘do you menstruate?’ instead of ‘are you female?’ to be inclusive of trans people”

    A Government-funded project has assessed how legal sex would be abolished in England and Wales and replaced with a single ‘gender’ category
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/06/04/census-could-ask-do-menstruate-instead-female-taxpayer-funded/

    Expensive, offensive, divisive change to pander to 0.3% of population. Result: even more will refuse to participate

  2. Of course little Timmy can have his party balloon. Just fill it with hydrogen, nothing can go wrong.
    oighftr
    Encouraging signs of intelligent life beneath the tube, thanks.
    Of course before we started digging for that disgusting carbon there never was any Helium, it all having escaped to outer space.
    One thing I don’t understand. Why is Helium such a good thermal conductor? Anyone?

  3. I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that helium could be used for a fusion reactor. But I think it’s He3 not He4.

    So the gas producers needn’t worry about cutting their own throats by producing the stuff. Unlike what that wicked coal does.

  4. “One thing I don’t understand. Why is Helium such a good thermal conductor? Anyone?”

    Because it’s chemically and electrically ( is that an engerlish word?) inert, it behaves the closest to an ideal gas (as in: the pingpongball model).
    This means it’s very good at directly passing kinetic energy along, even as a liquid or solid, hence the thermal condictivity.

    Or, for that matter, the reason for the Squeeky Voice…

    Mind… because of its actual weight and the fact that you’ll really only encounter it as a gas, it may be a good heat conductor in theory, but not so much in practice.
    It’s great at spreading heat between itself, but imagine the speed you need to fire a marble at a brick at to accelerate it appreciably…
    The He-[anything] interface is not so effective, so any theoretical efficiency gets rapidly defeated by Real Life™ because the atom is so damned small and light, and can’t even cheat with electron jumps and other shenanigans.

  5. Can’t we start a meme going that says oxygen is short supply and that anyone who’s truly green must stop talking so as not to worsen the situation?

  6. My man on the He truck says the present shortage is because Russian helium is shipping via China but the Chinese plant is broken.

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