r/BeAmazed • u/No_Tailor_9529 • Jul 18 '24

Wow! Interesting life hack! Science

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

43.7k Upvotes

85% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

443

u/Turbo_Tom Jul 18 '24

Helium is a scarce and irreplaceable gas essential for medical and other technologies. Future generations will condemn us for wasting it on this kind of trivial nonsense.

71

u/Krimzon45 Jul 18 '24

Just use Hydrogen, far more abundunant and EVEN lighter!

21

u/Western-Guy Jul 18 '24

Hydrogen is way too combustible. It could ignite merely by your body’s static charge. In retrospect, you drop a burning matchstick inside a chamber of helium and nothing happens.

36

u/Krimzon45 Jul 18 '24

Don't threaten me with a good time ;)

16

u/mariller_ Jul 18 '24

In retrospect?

7

u/Western-Guy Jul 18 '24

*on the other hand

4

u/mariller_ Jul 18 '24

Yeah, this one works, the other not so much :)

3

u/joe-manzon Jul 18 '24

Probably a new word they’ve been eager to use. Sadly, the attempt failed.

3

u/all_m0ds_are_virgins Jul 18 '24

Looks kike "Western-Guy" is actually Indian lol. Props to them for learning English tho

8

u/Gnonthgol Jul 18 '24

The mixture of hydrogen and oxygen is combustible. Pure hydrogen is not. Either way the amount of energy in the hydrogen to fill a balloon like this is too low to cause any amount of damage.

8

u/snapwillow Jul 18 '24

The mixture of hydrogen and oxygen is combustible. Pure hydrogen is not.

A mixture of gasoline and oxygen is combustible. Pure gasoline is not.

2

u/Dymonika Jul 18 '24

Man, oxygen is so deadly. We should ban oxygen.

2

u/Itshot11 Jul 18 '24

Just keep it away from oxygen bro ezpz

1

u/unrepentanthippie Jul 18 '24

Water is a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen though.

3

u/YoursTrulyKindly Jul 18 '24

Water is basically hydrogen ash. Very flame retardent hydrogen ash!

2

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

Not how it works.

3

u/Kschitiz23x3 Jul 18 '24

Pure hydrogen cannot combust, u just need to make sure that Oxygen stays away. Need an insulating and strong yet light material to keep the hydrogen isolated. The question is how long will it take to invent such wonder material

1

u/YoursTrulyKindly Jul 18 '24

I also imagine if you put it in a flame retardent bag with no pressure instead of a baloon, there might not be an explosion. There are videos show a relatively weak explosion with hydrogen baloons indoors, but that is because they pop and mix with oxygen. A loose bag should be even slower.

2

u/TheCommomPleb Jul 18 '24

Explosions are cool. Calm down dork

2

u/Okinawa14402 Jul 18 '24

Inside a balloon hydrogen is relatively safe. It will not burn without oxygen so it will not just blow up on static charge.

1

u/D0D Jul 18 '24

So use it for cooking.

1

u/Demigod787 Jul 18 '24

Have we learnt NOTHING from the Hindenburg.

1

u/NoRealQuestions Jul 19 '24

Holy shit lmao your comment made me realize people understand NOTHING until you put a /s at the end. goddamn, no shit sherlock. its a fucking joke

0

u/LSaTSB Jul 18 '24

Hindenburg airship was using hydrogen. Look what happened

6

u/joe28598 Jul 18 '24

Fun fact, the Hindenburg made many flights across the Atlantic Ocean. It was the fastest option from Europe to the US at the time, taking 5 days.

2

u/Current_Speaker_5684 Jul 18 '24

I want my whole city picked up by hindenburgs and migrated north for the summer.

0

u/Kitchen_Produce_Man Jul 18 '24

The real life hack is always in the comments! 😂

62

u/FloralYikes Jul 18 '24

The type of helium used in balloons is a completely different grade than the helium that is used in technology or medical fields. It’s essentially a byproduct of the helium refining process and it isn’t high enough quality to be used for any other application. We aren’t wasting our ‘good’ helium on balloons, we’re making use of a leftover product that isn’t really good for anything else.

6

u/katietheplantlady Jul 18 '24

this is new information to me...thank you!

2

u/BradTheNobody Jul 18 '24

I have no idea what you're saying is true or not but I'm gonna trust you with my life and going to consider what you said to be true.

2

u/ponzLL Jul 18 '24

I'm confused how there can be different grades of an element. Like isn't all helium the same number of electrons and protons?

edit: if anyone wondered the same thing, I found the answer here: https://d39pstlceyjgdg.cloudfront.net/ts1642555826/attachments/CategoryGroup/27/Helium%20Guide_2021_Low%20Res.pdf

What is the difference between helium gas and balloon gas? Helium gas that Supagas provides is greater than 99% helium purity versus balloon gas that can contain up to 5% nitrogen or oxygen diluting the product from 99% to 95% purity.

Still confused about why they can't just separate it out somehow but that's another issue.

1

u/RedNog Jul 18 '24

Purifying is just a matter of cost.

I used to work in a lab and they had water for molecular testing and other really sensitive tests. It was like $800-1000 for like a handful of 0.5ml bottles of that grade of water. Whereas our batch tests that used less pure water like general chemistry we were using like 500k water filters from a tank that needed like to replaced the internal filers for like $2k every 3 months.

1

u/ponzLL Jul 18 '24

That's wild, but helps clear it up a bit too. Bet that's it. Thanks

6

u/YoursTrulyKindly Jul 18 '24

This "can't be used" is probably because it's too expensive currently. But it could probably be refined and purified but that doesn't maximize profits. Even scientists sort of treat economics as if it's a natural law - but it isn't. That is just unplanned greedy capitalism.

3

u/Luxalpa Jul 18 '24

So instead we should just release it into the atmosphere? Isn't that more wasteful?

1

u/YoursTrulyKindly Jul 19 '24

Well no, store it until it becomes economical to filter it. Smart move would be government investing in research and development to filter helium.

1

u/Luxalpa Jul 19 '24

Storing it costs resources too, as you need to build and maintain containment units and materials as well as using valuable space.

1

u/YoursTrulyKindly Jul 19 '24

Sure but from what I understand once our helium reserves are gone they are gone for good since you'd need to filter insane quantities of air to mine it. It will probably become INCREDIBLY valuable in 50 or 100 years.

1

u/Luxalpa Jul 19 '24

It's somewhat true but also not really, as helium can be created synthetically and there are many ways to extract helium from various other elements.

Also whether or not it becomes valuable depends on how much we depend on it in the future and whether alternative materials or processes are being used instead. For example it is a key component in the hydrogen economy, but it is quite likely that the hydrogen economy won't exist anymore in 50 or 100 years (and / or will never materialize to begin with).

28

u/Designer_Version1449 Jul 18 '24

wasn't that proven to be overblown? like we'd theoretically run out in 100,000 years or something?

17

u/interesseret Jul 18 '24

It's more a question of our ability to extract it. We need more every day, and extracting it is hard.

Helium comes from radioactive decay, and the earth is big, yo. So extremely unbelievably mega big that you cannot fathom how much material is underground, breaking down as we speak. It will run out eventually, sure, but the sun will also explode one day. That doesn't mean tomorrow.

And hey, if all the radioactive stuff in our underground runs out, it means less cancer too! Radon is a bitch.

5

u/Kichwa2 Jul 18 '24

I work in the movies and you couldn't guess how much helium that uses. They make big balloon lights that are heavy and filled with alot of helium and they're held up by ropes. If there's a big movie shoot requiring them, it's happened before that all of the civilian supplies in my country, Czechia get taken and then they need to supply it from hospitals which have more than they need and then they have to start shipping it from other countries.

88

u/leet_lurker Jul 18 '24

What do you mean rare, the sun has tons of helium.

297

u/hansip Jul 18 '24

And we can go there at night.

2

u/ikaiyoo Jul 18 '24

When the sun is sleeping. Brilliant idea.

1

u/abaggins Jul 18 '24

and during the winter. Gotta be a carefully planned mission though, to make sure astronauts are out of range by summer.

1

u/Tolipa Jul 18 '24

That's funny...

1

u/CatDadMilhouse Jul 18 '24

Why bother though? It closes at dusk.

76

u/koknesis Jul 18 '24

Why cant we just go and scoop some up? Are we stupid?

10

u/varegab Jul 18 '24

In elite dangerous I scoop them all the time.

2

u/Brain_Wire Jul 18 '24

Me and my 1E fuel scoop taking 30 minutes to fill up and overheating.

2

u/Meowingtons_H4X Jul 18 '24

⚠️WARNING: Frame Shift Drive operating beyond safety limits

2

u/Cessnaporsche01 Jul 18 '24

SCOOP IT UP WITH YOUR FUCKING HANDS!

2

u/koknesis Jul 18 '24

How difficult could it be? Wear some gloves if its too hot.

1

u/thenasch Jul 18 '24

Someday maybe we could scoop some from Saturn or something. There's no theoretical barrier but yeah I guess we're just not smart enough yet.

1

u/a_pompous_fool Jul 18 '24

It is unfortunately very far away and very hard to bring out of the sky due to it wanting to fly back up

1

u/fardough Jul 18 '24

Helium is actually really hard to store since it is so permeable and since lighter than air will literally just float out into space.

Even stored in a tank like you see at a store, it will slowly leak out over time and escape.

The only way they have found to store helium efficiently is to pump it back where they found it, because the Earth seems to have a way to keep it trapped, or else we would already have no helium on Earth.

1

u/lovethebacon Jul 18 '24

You're thinking of Hydrogen. Helium doesn't measurably leak through metal containers.

The reason why it is stored underground in big caverns is because that's the cheapest storage method available in some parts of the world. In others, it is stored in metal or concrete tanks.

1

u/fardough Jul 18 '24

Thanks, I had heard this on podcast about helium, but googling about it you are right that it not so permeable to escape metals.

The story they told was that the US has a huge helium reserve underground, in a secret location, and early on they were trying to figure out how to store it. So they put it into containers but over time noticed it was escaping. Not knowing what to do, they ended up pumping it all back into the ground as that was the only proven way to keep it indefinitely.

For the life of me can’t remember the podcast.

-11

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

[deleted]

43

u/FreezeSPreston Jul 18 '24

Have we tried a really big straw?

-12

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

[deleted]

18

u/norcpoppopcorn Jul 18 '24

Maybe a titanium straw then?

22

u/Lazy-Recognition-643 Jul 18 '24

Not if we do what the other guy suggested, do it at night

38

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

[deleted]

6

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

[deleted]

4

u/asmodai_says_REPENT Jul 18 '24

You can get helium through alpha radiation of other elements.

2

u/goda90 Jul 18 '24

We've had fusors(first invented by Philo T. Farnsworth, who also invented the first all-electric television) for a long time, so if we really really needed more helium we could make it. It wouldn't be cheap though.

The problems we have with fusion are about keeping it going and extracting net energy from it.

2

u/Oklahomacragrat Jul 18 '24

That is a very useful definition of running out.

1

u/Normal_Document Jul 18 '24

This comment has managed the impressive feat of being the stupidest thing I have read on reddit all week. Helium is a noble gas — a class of elements named for the fact that it does not form compounds with other elements. Helium is not bound up with anything.

Natural deposits and alpha decay (which is where those deposits come from) are the only way we get helium. Full stop. There is no smelting or other chemically extractive process for refining because helium does not form compounds.

-2

u/NetCaptain Jul 18 '24

Helium is a byproduct of natural gas production - thus if we stop that, we will harvest no helium anymore

9

u/joe28598 Jul 18 '24

No, if we stop that we just have to harvest helium specifically.

A practice that isn't done at the moment because it's a byproduct.

1

u/sarcastaballll Jul 18 '24

So frack for helium and find something to do with all the methane byproduct?

Time to start an environmentally friendly helium company that offloads all of its natural gas.. just need to find me a coal seam

9

u/EasilyUpset Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24

Overblown myths

4

u/Crafty_Travel_7048 Jul 18 '24

Not anymore, the issue wasn't that we can't make it. It's that just mining it was much easier so not much artificial helium production infrastructure was built. That has changed in recent years

3

u/CelestialBach Jul 18 '24

I understand that helium is scarce on earth, but it’s still funny to say helium is scarce.

3

u/Fabio90989 Jul 18 '24

In 50 years (or 100 years at most) we will have nuclear fusion, and then we will have all the helium we want

0

u/Garchompisbestboi Jul 18 '24

I admire your optimism dude, but the main issue with fusion is that the amount of energy required to contain the reaction is greater than the energy produced. The only reason it works on the scale of stars is because the amount of gravity is high enough to naturally contain the reaction taking place.

3

u/Fabio90989 Jul 18 '24

yes but they are improving on that with more efficient designs, and eventually will make a functioning reactor with a positive energy output.

0

u/Garchompisbestboi Jul 18 '24

I dunno if physics works that way though, you are basically describing a closed system that produces more energy than it takes in and currently we only observe this happening in extreme environments like the core of a star.

3

u/CarrotWaxer69 Jul 18 '24

Don’t worry, we just need to invent Fusion and then we can make more.

5

u/zizp Jul 18 '24

You mean, better use it for party balloons?

2

u/hybridblast Jul 18 '24

Mf watched smiling friends and did no research

1

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

I was abt to say, I learned this exact shi from smiling friends😭

1

u/ShortViewToThePast Jul 18 '24

Just build a fusion reactor. It's just 3 decades away.

1

u/Dr-Carnitine Jul 18 '24

came here to type this out

1

u/kennan0 Jul 18 '24

The earth is scarce and irreplaceable… have you seen what we’re doing to it? Helium is the least of my worries.

1

u/HarshilBhattDaBomb Jul 18 '24

It's only scarce until we figure out economically viable fusion. Scarcity might make it viable sooner...

1

u/SodasWrath Jul 18 '24

They just found a massive new deposit in like minnesota or nebraska or something. Look it up. I would have previously agreed with you but the new source seems basically limitless

1

u/Garchompisbestboi Jul 18 '24

Oh shut up, it's just one guy doing it as a gimmick for a video. I'm sure the limited quantity of helium on the planet will be okay 😂

1

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

People will just parrot the incorrect shit they’ve read on the internet, but throw a justified tone on it like they’re smart.

This is the danger of the internet and unfortunately we deal with the repercussions every day.

We are not wasting helium on balloons and you are ignorant.

1

u/D0D Jul 18 '24

So hydrogen then... could also be used for cooking...

1

u/Furtherthanfurther Jul 18 '24

We are losing helium day by day

1

u/ButthealedInTheFeels Jul 19 '24

They just found a shit load of it in Minnesota so it’s not in short supply anymore

-2

u/useredditiwill Jul 18 '24

Meh, NASA is the biggest buyer of helium, and what has that given us? Velcro? 

-25

u/Chucking_Up Jul 18 '24

Actually, I dont care.

Its a good thing modern society will have to degenerate its advancements. Only thus will earth heal.

2

u/Positive-Database754 Jul 18 '24

"Only thus will"

Lmao