Re:Are we really running out of helium?
by MichaelGG on Tuesday February 24, 2015 @03:39PM
(#9103347)
So is this a good investment? Just go buy a bunch of helium tanks and keep them in my basement as a gift to my kids 25 years later?
Are speculators already doing this, driving up the price?
My hunch is that you'll lose a lot of your investment over 25 years, without spending more on the storage strategy.
Re:Are we really running out of helium?
by tomswartz07 on Wednesday February 25, 2015 @07:48AM
(#9106449)
I suppose?
Most of the standard cylinders are fairly secure.
A lot of the time I spent during my job there was preparing cylinders for testing, to assure that they were pressure-secure and airtight. Neat stuff, and a TON of practical physics went into everyday things there. :)
100lb of helium is a LOT more helium, no?
by what measure? 100lb of helium is exactly the same by weight as a 100lb of propane. By volume, in a cylinder, it is approximately the same (I believe).
By number of atoms, it is much more (a factor of 10 or so).
Weight is the same, but because the number of atoms is so much higher isn't the pressure a lot higher? PV=nRT and all that?
I presume the leakage loss in storage also raises the price of Helium. People buy propane just-in-case knowing they can store it forever while helium is a "buy it before you use it" kind of thing.
One of my first jobs was working in a welding supply shop, and I was astonished to find out that a '100lb' cylinder (they're filled by weight/pressure) of helium was nearly $200. As a comparison, a '100lb'of propane was only about $40.