this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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because helium is f'ing expensive an valuable. Once used, it's basically gone. There's a reason that countries have strategic helium reserves.
Also on the topic, modern day companies that try to resurrect airships exist. Just every single one of them goes bust, as it's just not really a viable solution for modern transport
On the optimistic side, helium is a product of nuclear fusion, so we will eventually be able to produce it.
I'm too lazy to work through the numbers but I think helium production would be very small
which is another way of saying fusion (as envisioned for energy use) produces a huge amount of energy.
That's the kind of claim that'll age like "640k ought to be enough for anyone."
Googling around, you get about 1e11 kJ/gram of He produced (source.
Wikipedia says Hindenburg volume is 200,000 m cubed . Multiply by density of He at stp and you get north of 1e7 grams.
Multiply and you get 1e21 J. Estimate for worldwide energy consumption in 2010, from Wolfram Alpha, is half of that.
So, if all energy were from local fusion, it would take about two years of production to fill a single Hindenburg-sized Zeppelin. That is a huge amount of energy.
I don't think it's equivalent to compare energy with RAM like this. Energy is the realm of thermodynamics; things like boiling water don't care about technology, they just need a certain amount of energy. Unless we're talking about fundamentally new uses of energy, like floating cities or something whacky, I think the amount of energy here is really, really big.
If it's so "expensive and valuable" then why have we been using it for decades to fill balloons here in the US? It costs like a few bucks to buy a bunch of balloons and get them filled. I just looked it up and Dollar Tree (a dollar store) will fill them for free as long as the balloons are purchased there.
You can buy a 14.9 cubic foot tank from Amazon for $80 (unfilled of course), which is enough to fill 50 balloons.
good question! lots of people actually lobby to wither ban this (unlikely that it will happen) or at least make it more expensive.
Helium is increadibly important in the medical and science field. Having it "wasted" in party balloons is honestly, well, wasteful (if fun).
Helium is already getting more expensive, and it will only rise in the future
The reason it was so cheap in the last couple decades is, that the US basically sold off most, if not almost all of its stockpile, dumping the price on the market.
And now with very few sources for helium worldwide, the price will go up massively in the next couple years
I thought I read that the helium used in party balloons was a grade that wasn't useful for medical devices. For example, this link. They of course are a company that is selling party balloon helium, so... This link might be more reliable.
Where do I buy this helium thing
You know whats basically free, lighter than helium and not dangerous: Vacuum! /s
Quick, someone give me Elons private number, i know how to revolutionize air travel!!1!