We should go back to filling them with hydrogen.
End nuclear fusion!
Submitted 7 months ago by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/118e2115-efc4-4f25-9869-1a7dd2080ede.png
Comments
cRazi_man@lemm.ee 7 months ago
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 7 months ago
shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Would make for more exciting birthday parties.
Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
The alternative is to use extremely limited quantities of gas crucial for MRIs, chip making, metallurgy, and a few other high tech applications. But hey, pretty balloons.
Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de 7 months ago
Oh the huge manatee!
JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Am I missing a joke? Airships used hydrogen gas
rain_worl@lemmy.world 6 months ago
wasn’t that just the flammable lining?
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
When I was in school decades ago, my science teacher brought in a big balloon filled with hydrogen and lit the string on fire without telling us that it was filled with hydrogen.
I could feel the explosion in my bones. It was neat.
I’m not sure you could do that in schools today.
julysfire@lemmy.world 7 months ago
There will absolutely still be a customer that takes a balloon from behind the sign and asks for it to be filled up in the store.
Beldarofremulak@lemmy.world 7 months ago
They will demand it or else poor Kayla’lin 'da Leeigh Lynn Lee’s princess party will be ruined.
Hideakikarate@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
I think you just summoned an Elder God.
PenisDuckCuck9001@lemmynsfw.com 7 months ago
Fuck! How am I going to refuel this fusion reactor I brought back from the future? You can’t have shit these days.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 7 months ago
May I suggest food waste from someone’s garbage can? I hear that works.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Just use hot air. Lots of that to go around.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I’m afraid it’s already in use by politicians.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I could have sworn they were hot air generators
Cagi@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
Mylar balloons should be outlawed. They get sent free and land on power lines WAY too often. Over a thousand mylar balloons caused power outages are recorded in just Southern California alone in a typical year. The cost of repairing the damage might even exceed the revenue of mylar balloon sales.
Abnorc@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I want a balloon full of uranium hexafluoride.
Etterra@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Meh, Argon is fine. Although what you said would be kind of funny.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 7 months ago
why don’t we just bring a shitload back from saturn or something
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 7 months ago
I really wonder what power plants will do with the helium once they get fusion working. Maybe a balloon business on the side isn’t such a bad idea.
subtext@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I mean too much Helium isn’t a problem. It’s one of the few (only?) elements that will just disappear if you don’t do anything with it.
It’s light enough that it rises to the very tip top of the earth’s atmosphere and is then stripped away by solar radiation. That’s why is a depleting natural resource, not because it’s burned or used or anything, but because it just escapes.
subtext@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Edit: seems I was wrong about the escape mechanism for helium, it seems the primary mechanism is polar wind escape.
Also, hydrogen can also apparently escape from the Earth.
saigot@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
In a perfect world stick it in a secondary reactor and make lithium. But that’s obviously even further off than hydrogen fusion.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 7 months ago
An MRI scanner in every home!
GladiusB@lemmy.world 7 months ago
It takes a lot to get those working and stay running. I am one of the guys that supplies it. Well over 100 liters to even start it.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 7 months ago
The amount of helium produced is truly miniscule, in the order of a few cubic centimeters. They’ll just pump it into the ground somewhere, assuming we ever get fusion working
roguetrick@lemmy.world 7 months ago
You don’t have to pump it anywhere. Capturing helium is actually the hard part. It’s very adept at sneaking through small cracks and flying off into space. Earth’s gravity cannot contain it and pretty much all of it comes from primordial uranium decaying and getting caught in geological features by chance.
sirico@feddit.uk 7 months ago
Brought to you by big hydrogen.
CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Good thing I finally finished voice training and no longer need Helium to pass 👍
roguetrick@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Don’t you mean “outlaw α-decay” instead?
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I just work here, sir. I’m not a scientician.
clickyello@lemmy.world 7 months ago
nice keming on that one
awwwyissss@lemm.ee 7 months ago
We also need to end road work while were at it. Enough is enough!!
yournamehere@lemm.ee 7 months ago
not only are these plastic bags shit and the people finding joy in in imbeciles, but helium doesnt grow on plants. it is limited.
Wilzax@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Counterargument: everything is limited, and all joyful people are imbeciles to some extent
yournamehere@lemm.ee 7 months ago
fair
roguetrick@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Well, the half lives of the stuff that produces helium are generally above 500 million years so we’ll still be making more of it for a very long time, but the reserves we’ve found trapped in geologic formations certainly are limited.
AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 7 months ago
Given its scarcity, helium should be more expensive, to the point where filling party balloons with it is decadent profligacy.
el_abuelo@programming.dev 7 months ago
I mean it is expensive, it’s just the amount required for a balloon is insignificant and thus seems cheap.
As a diver who uses helium I can tell you it is, compared to air, so much more expensive they actually charge me for it (rather than just rolled into the cost of a dive) - to the sum of about $300 a dive - depending on depth.
FeatherConstrictor@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
What is helium used for when diving?
exothermic@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Good news everyone! Our national helium reserves have been privatized! Expect rising helium prices soon.
blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Privatization seems like a really bad idea to me. Helium is non-renewable resource. Privatization is about being ‘efficient’ at maximising profits. Do you think the people / companies that own the helium reserves are going to be interested in keeping helium available for centuries in the future? I’d say probably not.
For a profit based company, the only motivation to preserve the helium for future use is that maybe it will be worth a lot more money in the future. But there are two big problems with that. Firstly, the timescale is likely to be too long for the profit to be of interest. And secondly, the main reason the price would go up is scarcity; and that scarcity will come sooner if the helium is wasted in the short term. (Unless one company actually has a monopoly on helium, in which case they can create artificial scarcity by just not selling it. But that would obviously be bad for other reasons.)