Helium shortage...

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

i read about this in IEEE Spectrum a while back - IIRC, helium-3 is used in three main fields: medical equipment, research, ... something governmental...

Physics Projects Deflate for Lack of Helium-3 - IEEE Spectrum

yep - MRI cooling, super-cooling research, and detection of radioactive materials on our borders. research loses out.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

AEGIS, a project Bremer is working on at CERN that measures the effects of gravity on antimatter, needs He-3, but at today's price he estimates that 12 grams of the very light gas would cost $200 000

**** yo, i'll sell ya a few grams of Helium-3!!!

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

that would be awesome, lets just hope it actually comes to fruition

yep, it's back on track.

Fusion Is Not Free - IEEE Spectrum

it looked bleak for a bit

Does Fusion Have a Future? - IEEE Spectrum

http://www.iter.org/

course, the output of Fusion isn't necessarily Helium-3...

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

another reason why Fusion is key to our future. Besides being an ultra-stable form of nuclear power, the byproduct of nuclear fusion is helium.
FYI - nuclear fusion (in the form currently being usedfor energy production) is the fusing of two Hydrogen atoms (at temperatures ~100x hotter than the sun).

If the sun is a giant fusion reaction, how is any other fusion hotter?

Also considering how little mass of Hydrogen you would need to fuse to power the entire planet (and the state of the heium as it is being created) I doubt that's the simple answer to producing helium by the ton!

Good luck with that whole cold fusion thing IF you did envent it some oil company would either pay you to keep it under wraps or pay to have you silenced.

 

[Dtrom 10+ year member]

This thread= //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wow.gif.23d729408e9177caa2a0ed6a2ba6588e.gif

 

[infamous_e46 5,000+ posts]

there it be

Disposable Helium Tanks for Balloons*-*Party City

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

If the sun is a giant fusion reaction, how is any other fusion hotter?
Also considering how little mass of Hydrogen you would need to fuse to power the entire planet (and the state of the heium as it is being created) I doubt that's the simple answer to producing helium by the ton!

Good luck with that whole cold fusion thing IF you did envent it some oil company would either pay you to keep it under wraps or pay to have you silenced.

we cannot replicate the pressures that the sun can, so we need to be hotter than the sun to sustain the reaction. this is achieved by creating a plasma inside the core, and controlling it with magnetic fields which prevent the plasma from touching the sides of the core (shaped like a toroid). the sun is basically fusion and fission happening constantly, but at very high pressure.

The shortage of Helium-3 is somewhat of a big deal. The main issue (i see) is that the detection systems that use it are poorly designed and we should find another way. Leave it to the DoD to create a problem that could have been easily predicted if it wasn't be ran by fools. Researchers who are upset about no longer being able to get down to 1.8Kelvin - i don't care about. We have bigger issues than that. MRI machines that require Helium-3 for cooling should win out in this battle.

 

[snoopdan 5,000+ posts]

as I said before, Liquid helium is very expensive to produce and takes a long tiime to do it. We had a liquid helium seperator at the lab I used to work at that was the size of 3 school busses and would only create a few ounces per hour of operation.

Also liquid helium is used to cool particle accelerators such as the one at Fermilab and LHC.

 

[OmegaBunny 10+ year member]

i tried to order a tank yesterday, thats how I found out. The local welding place wanted a 6 month contract at $500 a month

 

[OmegaBunny 10+ year member]

And all the local balloon places were out and couldn't get them in anytime soon. Luckily Wal-Mart still stocks everything under and from the sun.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

we cannot replicate the pressures that the sun can, so we need to be hotter than the sun to sustain the reaction. this is achieved by creating a plasma inside the core, and controlling it with magnetic fields which prevent the plasma from touching the sides of the core (shaped like a toroid). the sun is basically fusion and fission happening constantly, but at very high pressure.
The shortage of Helium-3 is somewhat of a big deal. The main issue (i see) is that the detection systems that use it are poorly designed and we should find another way. Leave it to the DoD to create a problem that could have been easily predicted if it wasn't be ran by fools. Researchers who are upset about no longer being able to get down to 1.8Kelvin - i don't care about. We have bigger issues than that. MRI machines that require Helium-3 for cooling should win out in this battle.

Didn't consider pressure. Makes sense.

 

[quackhead 10+ year member]

.....good thing there is plenty of hot air around here to keep things afloat...